4 Critical Hiring Mistakes

Picking Just The Right Fit For Your Company Can Be Hard!

Hiring employees is quite possibly the single most important activity for any entrepreneur. Despite this fact, most business owners don't have a strategy in place to guide their hiring practices. They typically wait too long to begin the hiring process, approach it haphazardly, and then hire too quickly, often selecting the wrong person. To top it all off, many small business owners skip a training program that would save even the worst hiring strategy from failure.

1. Waiting Too Long to Start
Most entrepreneurs wait until the last minute to start the hiring process. This is based on a number of factors, including the fact that entrepreneurs tend to be "just-in-time" personality types, not wanting to spend too much time planning; preferring to dive in opportunistically at just the right time. While this can work in your favor in many cases, when it comes to hiring, you have to consider that the hiring process can take time, and is best approached thoughtfully.

If you foresee a hole in your production line two months down the line, then now is the time to start! Even better are the entrepreneurs who can see several months ahead and have a constant recruiting process ongoing.

2. Haphazard Approach
There are a number of critical elements involved in the hiring process, many of which are easy to skip but can result in serious hiring mistakes. First, clearly define the role you are trying to fill. Talk to your other employees as you work on this - what do they think you need? Sure - they could be wrong, but it's still worth asking them to get their opinion from the "front line." Check online resources to find out what title you should assign and how to define the role. Think through what sort of background and training you want your new employee to have and include that in the job description.

Once you post the job opening and begin receiving applications, have a process in place for sorting resumes and evaluating candidates. You can utilize technology to support your hiring process. For example, set up a form on Google Docs to gather information from your candidates. For more detailed candidate quizzes and tests, try ProProfs' quiz-making tool.

When you get to the interview stage, try to have a standard set of questions to ask all candidates so that you can try to control for the many variables that cause us to make bad hires. You can find a lot of advice about interviewing online, since it's a surprisingly difficult task.

3. Hiring Too Quickly
Whether you waited too long to start or followed the rules and started early, you still might fall into the trap of getting tired of the hiring process and hiring too quickly. The fact is that hiring people is time-intensive, exhausting, and just plain boring at times. It can start to feel as if you will never find the right person, and you might start to doubt the market, or your own judgement. 

Hang in there and have patience! Remember that in a small or emerging business, every single individual counts towards your potential for success and growth. One employee can either improve or ruin your chances for business success.

When you jump the gun, you tend to hire for the wrong reasons. Take your time and ensure you are picking the best person for the job.

4. Failing to Train
No matter how careful you have been in the hiring process, you can't ignore this critical step. Don't just think that hiring the right person means you can throw them into your business and expect them to do great things. Each employee is an investment in your company. Set up a training program so that your employees know what is expected of them. Build out a brief but comprehensive training program in which the expectations you laid out in the hiring process are reinforced. Then make sure you check in with new employees: daily for the first week; weekly for the two months following that; monthly for the following four months; and quarterly from then on.