For small business owners or those in charge of recruitment, finding the right person to fit into your business as well as have the skills to do a job well is no mean feat.
In small businesses, you need to have many hats. One day you might be paying wages, the next, trying to employ a marketing manager, and especially so with a small company, finding the right person for a job means not only finding someone with the right skills, but also the right personality.
Your staff are one of your business’s most valuable assets and recruiting for a position in a small business can be challenging, but it is important that you do it right. Hiring can be an expensive and time-consuming process, and it is far better to find the right person, who will stay with you, than need to keep recruiting as you employ the wrong people.
When you are looking to recruit for your small business there are many things that you need to consider, and here are just some of them.
Getting the Right People
Even the most expert of recruiters can struggle to assess whether someone will fit into a job perfectly just from their CV and a brief interview. Of course, certain things can be checked on CVs – qualifications, education, or experience, for example, but really getting an understanding of how someone might fit in or work within your organisation might be more challenging.
A good option to help you to find the right person is to use psychometric testing. Arctic Shores – expert psychometric assessors define that psychometric tests “are designed to measure certain aspects of how a candidate’s brain functions and responds to various scenarios and stimuli. Depending on the type of test, they can grant employers rich data on an individual’s cognitive ability (or, intelligence), personality, behaviour and motivations.”
Using psychometric assessment, you can help to get a clearer understanding of the person who is behind the information supplied on a CV.
The Interview
The likelihood is that you will want to meet the person that you are looking to employ before you do so (and if you don’t, you probably should). This will usually involve holding interviews but, depending on your business, there are several ways that this can be done, including:
• Face-to-face ‘conventional’ job interview – this helps you to get a good understanding of who the person is, whether you get on and think that you can work together. Interviews are usually relatively formal but can put undue pressure on people and potentially only allow you to see how they perform in a high-pressure situation.
• Telephone interviews – are normally a little less formal and are usually less time-consuming than meeting candidates. A telephone interview might be a good initial screening process which could then lead to a face-to-face interview and psychometric testing. They are a good way to gage telephone manner and verbal communication skills. Conducting a telephone interview can also reduce the risk of discrimination.
• Video call interviews – are similar to a telephone interview except that they are done over a video call, meaning that you can see the person. Skype or Zoom interviews mean that people don’t need to travel to get to you and can be carried out with as many people as you wish. These will also give you a good idea about the candidate’s communication skills.
• Group interviews – for those who are looking to recruit into roles where there is a lot of competition, creative, or roles that require a lot of teamwork, group interviews could be a good first option. This way you will see how the candidates interact with each other and work in a group setting.
Social Media
Despite what you might think, the reality is that most potential employers will now check the social media of potential employees – some even use it for their recruitment process. Platforms like LinkedIn can offer useful information about a candidate’s career so far, and other social media can also provide information about who they are as a person.
It is important, however, that if you are checking a candidate’s social media, that you take measures to avoid discrimination. You could, for example, ask a colleague to check a candidate’s social media and report back to you on certain aspects, and you must ensure that you have reasoning behind every decision that you make.
There are many aspects to look at when it comes to recruiting for a small business. Every business is different, and, especially in small businesses, every role is usually slightly different, so it is important that you find the best person to fit your job.
Being clear about who you are looking for is an important first step in recruiting the right person. Once that you have this defined several tools and methods can be useful in helping you to find that perfect person, who will help you to take your business to the success that you deserve.
Sources
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Arctic Shores, What is a Psychometric Test?
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Proformablog.com, How to Conduct a Proper Face to Face Interview
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Eztalks, What is Video Conferencing Interview and How it Works
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Agency Central, How are recruitment agencies using social media and what are the benefits?
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usiness Insider, What is LinkedIn?
Ruby Clarkson
