4 Ways to Hire More High Achieving Employees
It’s often said that you’re only as strong as your
weakest link. This couldn’t be any truer in the business world because the
higher the quality of your employees, the higher the quality of your work
product.
The problem with this is that many business owners and
hiring managers feel that it’s extremely difficult to find high achieving
employees, people who are capable of taking their companies to the next level.
They feel like no qualified, hard-working applicants even exist, which makes it
tempting to give up the fight and just accept someone who is going to be “good
enough.”
However, taking this type of approach can really
damage a business, possibly even to the point of forcing you to close your
doors. Fortunately, you don’t have to put your company at risk of this tragic
end as there are four things you can do today to hire more employees who are
likely to become your top achievers.
1. Post a Stellar Job Description
If you’ve ever been a part of the hiring process, then
you already know that many people apply for jobs that aren’t a good fit based
on their background, education, and experience. One way to help keep this from
happening, or to at least reduce its rate of occurrence, is to post the best
job description you can. Elements of a top notch job post include: listing the
opening with a job title that will attract the right applicant, sharing a
summary of what types of tasks the person will be responsible for doing, and
only listing necessary requirements so high achieving applicants don’t “weed
themselves out” based on criteria that you’d like them to have, but is not an
absolute.
2. Let Technology Give You a Hand
Though most of the employee selection process requires
human input, daily technological advances can help you find the best employees
for the job. For instance, there is employee recruitment software that actually
matches prospective applicants with the attributes needed for that particular
position and ranks them based on suitability. Talk about hiring made easy!
3. Develop Your EVP
Gallup polls have found that businesses that focus on
“ employee value proposition ,” or EVP, can increase their productivity by 10
percent, sales by 20 percent, and profitability by 30 percent. What is EVP?
It’s basically creating a system whereby you reward employees work product with
certain benefits. A few ways to develop your EVP are to learn more about your
current top performers, focus on hiring people with similar traits, offer
competitive benefits so the best applicants come to you and not your
competitors, and telling prospective employees about your company culture in
order to ensure that the person you hire is going to be a good fit.
4. Ask Around
Referrals are one of the best ways to get employees,
especially if they’re coming from someone you trust to be a good judge of
character. That’s why it helps to ask someone you know if they know anybody who
would be perfect for the job. This helps prevent situations where you hire
someone only to have a colleague say, “Oh man, I know a person who would have
been just right for that position!”
Selecting high achieving employees can be difficult,
but it’s not impossible if you focus on these four things. If you post a
stellar job description, let technology give you a hand, develop your EVP, and
ask around, you’ll be well on your way to creating a staff of the hardest
working, highest quality people possible.
9 Hacks for Finding Explosive Talent
IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO BUILD AN EXPLOSIVE startup, one
that grows by nature and in ways that sometimes surprise you, then you need to
start looking at hiring as a growth hack.
When you hire the right people, they’ll go above and
beyond on every project, because that’s just what they do. These people allow
you to get more done as well because you can trust that they’ll be doing great
work whether you’re around or not.
When you get a functioning team of people like this
together, the whole of your company becomes more than the sum of its parts.
Great things happen that no one could have anticipated.
Everyone wants a company like this, but finding
employees of this caliber is always hard, and we’re in especially difficult
times now. The US currently has more unfilled job openings than ever, and time
to hire has been hovering around a record high, between 27 and 29 days.
A lot of entrepreneurs are just hoping to get their
positions filled with someone adequate. Can you hold out for the perfect,
A-level employee?
I believe it’s possible, and I’ve got a few tips to
help you do it.
9 Tips for Finding All-Star Start-Up Employees
1.
Keep an eye on competitors.
What if you
could somehow know when your competitors were having trouble, and when it might
be an opportune time to reach out to headhunting prospects?
You can. Keep
an eye on what’s being said on Glass-door about companies that employ the types of people
you need to hire. If you notice a drop in their ratings, and a rash of
complaints, it’s time to test the waters.
2.
Build a stable of potential employees.
Don’t throw out resumes of people who applied
but didn’t make the cut. They’re people who have shown an interest in your
company, and down the road, as they develop their skills, they may be star
candidates. Be sure to communicate well when you’ve declined a candidate, and
set up a drip email to stay in touch.
3.
Advanced LinkedIn research
Here’s a cool recruiting trick. Talk to the
very best hires you’ve made, and learn when and where they worked previously.
Go to LinkedIn
advanced search, and search for people who worked at the same company at the
same time. There’s a good chance this was the company’s peak, and you may find
some rock-star employees to contact.
4.
Sell your positions.
When you write a job ad, don’t make it a
bullet-pointed list of qualities a dream candidate would have. The most
in-demand employees want to see what you offer them, not a long list of the
demands the employer has. Write ads that highlight why they should work at your
company, and limit your requirements to just the essentials
5.
Switch posting locations.
If you do the above and still aren’t getting
results, try changing posting locations. For example, if you’ve been posting to
job seekers in a big city, try the suburbs or smaller cities nearby.
6.
Try Facebook ads.
More than 70 percent of potential candidates
are passive – they’re not looking for a job, so they won’t see what you post to
a job board. They are on Facebook, but postings there can get drowned in all
the noise. Boost your post for better visibility, and get the added benefit of
Facebook ad targeting, which lets you choose job titles, location, and much
more.
7.
Go remote.
Studies show
that remote workers are more likely to be retained and be more productive. Great
tools like Skype make working remotely easier. What if the perfect employee
doesn’t live in your city and doesn’t want to move? It may be time to think
about remote workers.
8.
Try freelancers.
Don’t have the money for a full-time employee?
Having trouble finding the right person, and nervous about the cost of bringing
on the wrong employee? It’s never been easier to hire remote freelancers.
Websites like Upwork make it really easy and save you paperwork, too.
9.
Try niche job boards.
There’s a job board for just about any slice
of the job market you can think of. Looking for salespeople for your startup?
There’s a job board for that. It’s a great way to make sure you job posting is
reaching the right people. Also, people that are tuned into their markets tend
to be tuned into the niche board too.
Hiring the Right
People for Your New Startup is Crucial
Initially, starting a new company often requires you
to wear a lot of different hats. However, once a startup starts to grow, making
it successful becomes a team effort.
Hiring the right people for your new startup is just
as essential as having a great product or idea. At the end of the day, it’s
people that make a company successful.
If you are launching a new startup, follow these tips
to ensure that you hire a team of people that will help you build something
spectacular.
Outline Your Company’s Core Values
The core values of a successful company are much more
than a marketing ploy to show customers; they’re a definition of what the
company stands for and what its mission is, and you need to hire people who
reflect these values.
Carefully define what you want your company to be,
what you want the atmosphere at the office to be like, and what the ultimate
mission of your company is. Once you’ve defined these core values, look for
people who reflect them and who will get excited about moving the mission of
your company forward.
Develop Job Specifications
Before you hire a single employee, you need to develop
a list of specific positions that your company needs to fill. Think carefully
about each of these positions and the role that they will play in growing the
company. Determine which positions are most important for your company, and
focus on filling those first with talented candidates.
By developing a list of specific employees that your
company needs to find, you can narrow the focus of your search as well as
better understand the type of employees that you ultimately want to find.
Focus on Behaviour in Your Interview Process
While it’s vitally important that the employees you
hire for your startup have the right skills on-paper, it’s equally important
that their attitude and behaviour is in-line with the mission of your company as
well.
Working at a new startup is not a job for the faint of
heart or those who get frustrated easily. Every position within your new
company is likely going to come with a set of challenges and obstacles that
must be overcome, and you need to hire people who will respond to these
challenges in a positive way.
A few samples of behavioural questions you could ask
the candidates you interview include:
– What is your greatest accomplishment in your career?
– What goals did you set for yourself at your last
place of employment?
– What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced and how
did you respond to it?
– What made you the most angry at your last place of
employment?
– How do you prioritise your day-to-day work?
Asking questions such as these will help you get a
feel for how a candidate is going to behave in the workplace and respond to the
challenges that come along with making a new startup successful. In the end,
these factors are often even more important than the skills an employee brings
to the table.
Consider Freelancers as Well as Employees
Many modern startups make use of hiring freelancers
online just as much as they do traditional employees, and, depending on the
position and its role within the company, there are a lot of benefits to hiring
a talented freelancer.
Many positions within a new startup will not require
enough day-to-day work to justify hiring a full-time employee. For example, if
all you need is a logo designed, a website designed, and occasional help
designing graphics for your ads, it doesn’t make sense for your company to hire
a full-time graphic designer. Instead, you can rely on a freelance graphic
designer to complete projects on an as-needed basis.
Best of all, many freelancers have experience working
with a wide range of large companies and new startups alike, and that
experience can often offer a lot of value to your company.
Don’t Drag Your Feet
Once you’ve found a great candidate that you would
like to extend an offer to, it’s essential that you move quickly. The best
candidates will likely have the interest of several other companies besides
your own; if you don’t move quickly, you risk losing them to the competition.
You should certainly take the time to thoroughly
evaluate your options before you make a hire. However, once you’ve decided that
you would like to extend an offer to a candidate, act fast. When it comes to
hiring great employees, it’s often the early bird that gets the worm.
Find the Right Places to Recruit
Giant career sites aren’t always the best places for
new startups to search for employees. The competition for the best candidates
on sites such as these is often simply too stiff. Instead, narrow your search
to more niche career sites and approach candidates directly using platforms
such as LinkedIn.
If your company has a website that receives a decent amount
of traffic, create a careers page on the site that details the positions you
have open and invites interested candidates to contact you.
Work to expand your connections however you can, and
always be on the lookout for talent. Even if you form a connection with someone
you might not need to hire right away, you should always be watching for
talented individuals you can reach out to in the future when the need for their
services comes up.
Conclusion:
New startups often live and die by the people that
they hire. No matter how great you are at overseeing every role within your
company, there comes a point in every company’s growth where the founders have
to turn over the reigns to talented employees who are able to manage their positions
tasks and responsibilities on their own.
With this being the case, choosing the right people to
hire for your startup is one of the most important decisions that you will make
for your company. Take your time, put in the work, and find a group of talented,
hardworking people who will help you build the company of your dreams.