5 Tips for Building a Stellar Squad
Hiring the right employee can pay you back a thousand times over but hiring the wrong one, well, that can cost you a lot more than money! Positive moral, planning, and accomplishing challenging goals are all positive effects of adding the right people to your team.
Here are 5 things to look for when hiring that'll ensure you're adding the right people to your ship:
Look for commitment & longevity. Check out the amount of time they have spent at the companies they’ve been with. Are they hopping around without making a real commitment to any of them or does it seem like they’ve invested time and energy in the companies they’ve listed? This is a good opportunity to call their past employers and find out what they have to say regarding how committed they were to that organization.
Put their skills to the test! Give them a small project to work on to test their skills and their ability to work under pressure. Some people may shy away from this immediately because they feel, “why should I put in work for a company that hasn’t even hired or paid me yet!?” This will help you weed out the people who are not willing to invest in your company. It may also signify those are not up for a challenge or feeling the discomfort of out-of-the-ordinary pressure. Or, maybe they are just not as confident about their skills as their first impression implied. This is a perfect way to see what you’ll get before you hire.
Do they fit? Do you think they'll get along with the team? Will their personality mesh with the company culture? When you’re interviewing them, does it cross your mind that the other employees would enjoy this person’s company or the opposite - this person might rub so and so the wrong way? If that’s the case, you might want to do an interview with the whole team to get a better read or you might want to move on to the next candidate. It is not worth disrupting existing rapport to try out a new employee who your instincts are telling you won’t work out. This will cause your current employees to lose trust in you.
Are they honest? Do they give credit to others they worked with or do they hoard all the glory? We are looking for team players here, not a captain, not a boss. We are looking for someone who can be relied on and trusted by their fellow teammates. Someone who tries to steal the credit and isn’t humble enough to share the wins will only dissolve the moral of the rest of the team. Not worth the risk.
Ambitious and confident? Are they someone you would trust to take on the job without micromanaging them? Do they have the ambition and confidence in themselves to take on new challenges? You want to hire someone that can see the vision you have for this company and who wants to ride the ship into it. In order for that to be the case they must be ambitious enough to see what roles will be available in the future and confident enough to think they can fill those roles. Or are they someone who just wants to fade into the background, clock in and clock out?
If these helped get you ready for your next interview, leave us a comment below and share this with your business owner buddies!
