Finding and hiring the very best employees is crucial if you want to be successful, whatever industry you are in. It is almost impossible to run a successful business without a great team behind you, no matter how good an entrepreneur you are. One of the most important things that you can do as a boss is to motivate your team and work with them to develop their skills and use them to their maximum potential – and that means hiring the right people for the job in the first place. In this article, we look at some of the biggest mistakes employers make when it comes to hiring.
Hiring without a good reason
You need a reason for hiring someone. If you do not have a purpose, you probably do not need them. In most cases, there is a self-explanatory reason for taking on someone new – perhaps, for example, an existing employee is leaving, and you need to hire their replacement. However, if you are expanding your team, it is important that you are doing it for the right reasons. If you can’t clearly define what a new member of staff will bring to your team, you probably don’t need to hire them.
Not having a clear recruitment process in place.
Whatever scale your business works on, having a transparent process for the recruitment and hiring of new employees is vital, to make it fair. You need to decide whether they will fill in an application form or hand in a resume and cover letter, whether you are going to interview them on the telephone, in person or whether you will use hiring software, and how many people you are going to invite for an interview. Having a clear process in place makes the whole process a lot smoother, and it is much easier for you to keep track of all of the candidates and compare them against equal metrics when it comes to choosing the right one for your business.
Not Conducting Thorough Background Checks
One of the most important parts of the recruitment process is checking a candidate’s background. Most of the time, it is fine, but there is always the chance that someone who is not legally allowed to work in the country or who has a criminal record applies for a job with your business, which could get you into trouble. You also need to get references from their previous employer to find out why they left, and whether there were any issues. If there are any gaps in their employment history, or there have been lots of jobs in a short space of time, you may want to find out why.
If you are making any of these recruitment and hiring mistakes, your team simply will not be as effective as it could be, which would have a negative effect on your business in the long term. Hire properly, and hire once!