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Recruiting and Hiring
Hiring an employee is truly making an investment in your business. When you hire someone to work for you, you will invest time, money, training, and trust. If you do it right, your business can move forward much faster than ever before; if you do it wrong, not only can you lose your investment, but you can be subject to lawsuits that can cause you to lose much more.
When most people think of hiring an employee, they tend to think only of help wanted listings and interviews. But there's much more to successful hiring than that. It's an important process with serious implications for the future of your business, and you should put in the time to examine your needs and to hire and recruit in a systematic, legal way.
Some topics for consideration as you determine whom, if anyone, to hire are:
- Should you hire someone? Before you go about finding someone to work for you in any capacity, be certain that you'll need the extra help for the foreseeable future. You may be able to meet your needs without going to the time and expense of hiring an employee or other worker by working with independent contractors, temporary help, leased employees, or family members.
- What legal responsibilities will you be exposed to? Hiring the first employee is a big step — at a minimum you'll have to do payroll, withhold taxes, and supervise the person. In many cases you'll become subject to additional laws as you hire more people; for example, you may become subject to certain employment-related laws when you add a second, a fourth, or a fifteenth employee.
- What do you need done? Once you've figured out which staffing solution works best for you, take a look at exactly what tasks you want done. Using job descriptions can help here.
- How do you let people know that you have a job opening? Once you've determined what you need done and what type of worker you want, it's time to let the world know. Find out how to advertise and write job ads, and learn other ways of attracting applicants here.
- How do you gather information from applicants? After you've publicized the opening, you should have some applicants expressing interest. Will you require that applicants complete applications, or will you accept resumes? Here, we'll help you figure out how to handle the responses and begin testing them, if necessary.
- How do you interview candidates? You've collected all the information, so now what? We'll tell you what to ask, what not to ask, and how to plan for your interview.
- How do you check out an applicant's background? In order to avoid negligent hiring claims and to protect your business, make sure that you thoroughly check references, credentials, and maybe even run a credit check.
- How do you make the job offer? After you've made your decision and chosen someone to hire, we'll tell you the best way to make a job offer.
- What do you do after you've hired someone? Once someone has accepted your offer, check out our pointers on how to get all the necessary paperwork done quickly. We'll also give you some tips on how to make the employee feel comfortable through orientation so that he or she can become a productive employee as soon as possible.