Hiring a Team Member Without Losing Your Mind
MAKE SURE YOU ARE READY
One of the main reasons that entrepreneurs hire staff is to achieve growth and scalability; this can’t happen on a high level without team members. But at the same time, we can’t hire team members until we have the income to support THEM! I’ve mentioned before that Profit First can really help with making sure that you are in the right place financially to bring on a team member. It won’t solve all of your problems (you have to have the business in the first place, after all) but at least you’ll be able to determine if you are ready or not. Remember: too many team members and you just ate up your profit. Too few and you’ll never have the chance to scale in the first place, meaning your profit is always limited. Don’t fall into the trap of hiring too late or too early.
DON’T HIRE IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS
We all know what it’s like to have an endless to-do list, right? You can’t reduce your burden and be your best self in the workplace until you hire some staff to take care of all of the small tasks that are preventing you from attacking the big ones! But at the same time (and this is really important to recognize): you can’t hire anyone until you have the time to devote to finding the right fit and training them. Yes, I am putting that in both bold and italics. Stop and read that again. You can’t hire anyone until you have the time to devote to finding the right fit and training them.
You might get lucky once in a while (I have a team member I hired in this type of circumstance and she has actually been AMAZING and I have been so fortunate). But every other person I hired this way has fizzled out very quickly. And it’s frustrating as heck because the moment in your year when you have the least amount of extra time to train a team member is usually the exact same moment when you realize you REALLY need extra help YESTERDAY! Unfortunately, it’s just not going to work. 99% of the time, you’ll hire the wrong people, you’ll train them ineffectively, and you’ll be in an even worse situation than you were at the outset. The only way to avoid this is to try to anticipate your needs and hire before things become crazy. That approach will give you the time to train the person before you are short on time again.
If you are truly desperate and considering breaking this rule, at the very least, hire a temp. If you have documented all of your processes, you can toss the person a manual and let them have at it. If they don’t work out, you can cut ties with no harm done.
Post in the Right Places
I have had great luck looking on LinkedIn Talent Solutions - both with applicants to the jobs I post and also the profiles that LinkedIn suggested as “recommended matches.” Those profiles can be key, so don’t forget to look through them. I got one of my favorite essay coaches that way. Just reach out and send a message to anyone who seems like they have experience that’s attractive to you. This has probably been my single most effective hiring source, including head hunters that I have paid thousands of dollars (I would probably not use a head hunter again - I couldn’t believe the extremely poor quality of the resumes sent to me).
I also recommend posting your job on your company website and sharing it widely in your own network on social media, community Facebook groups, and job boards for professional organizations. Recently a friend who is a recruiter recommended that I post on Handshake for an administrative position targeting recent grads, and that was very good advice - I would never have thought of that before it but has been very useful so far.
For virtual contract work, I’ve had INCREDIBLE success with Upwork. I can’t recommend it enough. I have this awesome VA in Arizona who has been an incredible help to me on an ongoing basis, a guy in India who helps me with web stuff, graphic designers, human resources consultants: literally, you can find anyone to do anything!
Bury a Secret Instruction in the Job Description
I picked up the BEST tip from one of my favorite podcasts, Stacking Your Team. I also love their sister podcast, Biz Chix Women Entrepreneurs. I am constantly listening to these ladies because they have so much amazing advice!
The tip involved inserting some kind of very detailed hidden instruction within the job listing just to see the candidate is paying attention and has an eye for detail. Brilliant, right? In my most recent job posting, I tried this out and instructed candidates to put in a very strange subject title and send their resume to me directly (using the weird subject) instead of applying via LinkedIn, Indeed, or wherever else I was advertising. This was buried well into a very detailed job description.
Would you believe I got hundreds of applicants who did not follow these directions? I want to say that maybe 3% of applicants followed the directions. I kept seeing these amazing resumes, even detailed cover letters that probably took a while to write; all of them just showed that the person either didn’t follow directions or more likely, didn’t have enough attention to detail to read the post in its entirety. In retrospect, this was fantastic because anyone who wouldn’t catch this wouldn’t be a good fit, and I was able to weed ALL of those people out! I probably saved twenty hours of my time by putting this instruction in the posting. Maybe more.
Maintain High Standards
In the short term, I started getting a little frustrated that so few applicants were following my directions! Every time I read a “good resume” I was so tempted to break my rule and contact the candidate anyway - it was so easy to begin second-guessing myself.
But I know from past experience that relaxing your standards does not work out in the long run. It’s easy to make excuses for people, but every single time I’ve hired someone that I had concerns about, those concerns ended up to be real problems down the line. In each of those instances, I would have saved myself so much time and hassle by going with my gut from the beginning. As much as it stinks to toss aside a solid resume, it is much worse to have to sever ties down the line.
Pre-Screen Early and Often
Once you have a pile of acceptable resumes in hand, think carefully about who you’d like to meet in person. I used to bring in anyone I thought was good, but soon realized that it was a huge time suck. This is not a strategy I would recommend; it will take up an incredible amount of time and you will burn out easily.
Now I have my assistant pre-screen everyone for me with phone interviews to try to determine whether or not the person would be a good fit. I also usually have the person complete a sample task before bringing them in to meet with me - to further determine whether or not the person can actually do what they say they can do. This is very telling.
After that, I often ask candidates to take some kind of personality assessment so that I can gain a general idea of whether we would be a good fit. I am really big on the Kolbe Index right now. I recently blogged about it for my clients here, and you can get the general idea of how this could be a very helpful tool in the hiring process. Essentially, I do not bring anybody in the door unless I feel 100% confident that the person could very well be an excellent addition to my team. Otherwise, I am wasting my time. And theirs too!
Call it Quits Early, but Keep an eye out for rockstars in the wrong role
Sometimes, you’ll do everything right and you’ll end up with a team member who is just plain wrong for your company. Go with your gut! If you recognize this during training, and it’s clear that it is not a coachable issue, say something right away! Do not be afraid to cut ties when it’s clear that for whatever reason, things are not working out. The more time you invest in this person, the more difficult it will be to walk away.
On the other hand, rockstars are hard to find. If you find a team member that has some amazing characteristics that are valuable to you in some way, think about whether you could put the person in a different role to maximize their strengths. Just like the college search, sometimes it’s an issue of fit.
Don’t forget the Background Check
SUPER important, guys. In my geographic area, we have had three separate scandals in three months alone relating to teachers/supplemental educational providers who were really child predators. You can’t have anyone work for you that’s not background checked.
After dealing with very slow and inefficient systems through my state and county for years, I decided to start using GoodHire for all background checks and never looked back. It’s actually not that expensive and it’s so much easier. This will save you a lot of time! Pro Tip: I purchase the least expensive package and buy the additional checks I want as add-ons. This will save you money, and you’ll end up with the searches you actually need.
Contracts
Whether you hire your team members as independent contractors or employees (I have both, depending on the position), you need to have signed contracts in place before training begins. Make absolutely sure that you have an attorney review these documents- this could end up being an expensive mistake otherwise! Remember, if you don’t have contracts of your own, mine are attorney-approved and here for your use: