You’re ready to grow and scale, which means you need to be ready to hire. It’s a big, scary step but it’s a necessary one if you’re planning to achieve your mission.
You know how I feel about personality assessments, Kolbe specifically, but aside from that there are a number of things you can do to ensure you bring the right person on your team the first time. (Because few things are more frustrating than hiring the wrong person and needing to rehire. It wastes everyone’s time and your energy–and money.)
Because Kolbe is a great last line of defense at the end of the hiring process, there’s a lot of work you need to do leading up to that step. Here are three tips to help you avoid wasting time hiring.
1. Take Your Time
First, go slow. As much as you might be ready for a new hire…yesterday…take your time. Create a job description, vet candidates thoroughly (without relying solely on a biz bestie’s recommendation) and do your due diligence when interviewing.
There’s no rushing perfection, and the more you take your time the more you’ll be happy with your hire.
2. Identify the Right Role
To hire the right person, you first need to make sure you’re hiring to fill the right role for your business. There are so many different roles to fill as your business grows, but you need to know what it is that you need right now.
There are two main areas that you’ll want to hire for, and you most likely need to hire for operations: customer service, human resources, project management, marketing, you get the picture. Ask yourself this:
- Which of these roles are not your specialty?
- Which roles are you equipped to do, but you’d rather not do? Think about this from a time ROI perspective. Are you spending more time than you should on administrative work? Is technology taking up too much time?
- What is it that I can and want to keep on my plate?
From there, you’ll see where the gaps are. This is where you identify the role you want to fill in your business.
3. Identify the Right Person
Now it’s time to find the right person to fill that role. Let’s assume that you’ve built and posted your job description and you’re ready to screen applicants. You should always screen for two things: skills and character.
In general, skills can be taught. But you can’t teach someone to have the character that fits in with your business.
When you screen for character, you need to make sure that you energetically mesh with the other person. If upbeat people give you more energy, then you need to look for someone upbeat. If they’ve communicated that they’re detail-oriented, then they should show up that way in your interview.
When screening for skills, ask questions to help you determine whether they’re a good fit or not. If you’re hiring for project management, ask the scope of the largest project they’ve worked on. If hiring for business manager, ask about a challenging situation they’ve encountered when managing others.
But know that just because they haven’t led a team the size of yours or managed a project similar to yours doesn’t mean they can’t do it. They may have the skills and the comfort level but not the experience yet. They just might be a good fit if they have the right character too.
Once you’ve narrowed it down to a few select candidates, only then is it time to bring out the Kolbe Assessment. You know you’ve got the cream of the crop ready to join your team; it’s just a matter of finding the one.
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