How to Hire the Right Employee For Your Organization

Don’t let bad employees hurt your business any longer than is absolutely necessary. Learning how to hire an employee is crucial for a successful organization. BUT, you must hire the RIGHT employee the first time.

So, what does it mean to hire slow fire fast?

It means to hire the best people and keep only the best people. When you find an employee who is worth keeping, keep them.

When they are not worth keeping, fire them fast.

Being an entrepreneur, I have had many companies and many employees. Hiring and firing employees is just part of doing business and there is a right way to do it.

In a nutshell, when you hire an employee, you need to hire slow fire fast.

The longer you allow bad employees to hurt your business, the more money you lose.  Make sure you get rid of them as fast as you can.

I learned this business lesson while I owned my previous business “Downtown Express” with my brother.

What to do When Hiring Employees

When you hire a new employee, make sure that you hire the best employee you can find. If you cannot find one, don’t hire the best of what’s left. 

Keep working hard to find the right employee for your company and its culture.

The last thing you want is to hire, train, and employ someone that you will need to fire in a few months because they were the wrong fit.

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It is not just for yourself but think of your employee.

If they are looking for work, you may have taken time that they could have used to find another job that fits them very well instead of working for you.

Think of this part of the process as a means to save you money, time, and energy.

Steps How to Hire A Good Employee

Develop a Detailed Job Description

Developing a job description is crucial for you, your business, and the employees.

As you develop the job description, this is the time for you to put down on paper what your company needs in an employee.

Think about all the aspects of the position that this employee will do.

• Do you want someone who is entrepreneurial and need very little supervision or someone that would give individual tasks to day in and day out?
• Do you need this person to be good at administration or someone who is better at project management?
• Should the person be detail oriented or be a visionary big picture type of employee?
• Will this person be focused on saving you money or making you money?
• How will this new employee make your operation more efficient and function better?

You also need to look at how this person will fit into the organization.

Think through all of the ways the employee will interact with other employees, yourself, vendors, customers, and anyone else who interacts with your business.

I personally higher people I actually like to be around and spend time with.

There’s no point in spending your time, money, and energy on someone who you would rather not be around.

Life is too short to spend one minute of your life with someone who makes your life harder.

Thoroughly Review Each Candidate Independently

More than likely you will be getting resumes and applications to your job before you actually meet the candidate.

I strongly recommend reviewing every applicant before you actually meet face-to-face so you do not waste yours or their time.

You want to find an employee that fits your job description as well as their potential fit in the company.

Keep an eye out for small details that might give you an indication of who they are and how they will be as an employee. Are the resumes sloppy and not put together well?

That can be an indication of what type of work they will do.

Immediately set aside any applicant that does not fit your criteria and job description without hesitation. Put them in a “Rejected” pile and don’t go back to them. You do not want to try to talk yourself into time somebody you don’t want because you ran out of applicants.

Keep all of the good applicants in a “To be interviewed” pile and schedule interviews with them in the future.

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Ask Very Telling Questions when Hiring an Employee

When you begin the interview process, plan out the questions you would like to ask the potential candidate.

I personally like to consider these things when I make a list of questions I am going to ask.

Questions to get answers when hiring employees:

• How well will the employee fit into the positions?
• Will the candidate fit into the criteria you already created for the position?
• Will they be able to complete all the tasks and functions well and in time?
• Are they scatter brained or focused?
• How well will the employee fit into the organization?
• Considering all the other people of your organization, will this person fit into the culture you are trying to create in your business? 
• Will you see this person not only work well with others but actually thrive in the environment? 
• Will the person possibly disrupt your culture?
• How well will the employee fit working underneath you?

You are going to be connected to this person in a working relationship for a while so it would be best to find someone you can stand to be around. 

If their personally do not connect with you, it may be a sign that they would not be a good fit for the position.

Conduct Interviews with All Potential Applicants

Start with one interview with your perspective employees before you hire them?

Get a sense of who they are, potential work ethic, personality characteristics, and general overall sense of the prospective employee.

Place the applications of all of the applicants that you would like to have a follow up interview with.

You do not want to settle on anyone when you hiring employees for your company.

It would be preferred to have two or three interviews with the candidates that stand out above the rest.

As you weed through the applicants, make three piles of all the applicants you interview.

The first pile is the applicants that are a for sure yes to a second interview.

Create a second pile for the applicants that would be considered a “maybe” and set them aside. Put all of the rejected applicants in the third pile and discard immediately.

Do not inform any of the applicants that they were of past up for employment for any reason.

You do not need to let them know unless they ask.

If you haven’t hired someone already, you can say that you are still considering the applicants, and if you have already hired someone, you can let them know that the position has been filled.

There is no reason for you to that any applicant know what you’re thinking at any time.

The applicants that are a for sure yes to a second interview should be interviewed right away. On this third interview you should be able to find the candidate you want to move forward with an offer the job.

Once you have found that employee you desire to higher, then move forward with the hiring process.

Go With Your Gut

When hiring employees, there is no real formula in the process to find an employee. 

In order to find the best, you need to put the work in on the front end so your life will be easier on the back end.

Watch out for anything that may stand out to you as a red flag in your mind. Do not dismiss those red flags. They can save you in the end.

I was about to hire a person for one of my businesses and I had red flags going off but I dismissed them because I needed someone to work ASAP.

I was just about to hire this person when everything went south. I won’t go into the details but I strongly recommend you listen to your gut and those red flags that pop up.

It is more of an art than a science to listening to your guy.

It takes more than just book smarts to learn this. Experience is your best guide for learning this.  Trial and error will be your best friends.  If you hire the wrong person, you must move into the firing process ASAP.

Hopefully now you have successfully found the right employee for your company.

If for some reason you end up hiring employees that are not a good fit, move on to the firing process quickly.

Firing a Bad Employee

Obviously when an employee is not doing the job right, it is best to take corrective actions to help the employee change.

If the employee is unaware of the issues and problems you see, they will not be able to correct them.

By taking corrective actions and do proper evaluations on your employees, they will learn what they need to do to improve their work.

Then if they are not able to correct their actions, it is your job to move to the next step of letting them go onto find another job that will suit them better.

I personally like to give the employees at least one chance to correct their actions in a short time-frame.

Depending on their job, the corrective actions, and your business the time-frame may be longer or shorter to actually see the employee improve, stay the same, or get worse.

If the employee improves, then terrific! Keep working with them so that they can become an even better employee.

If the employee stays the same or gets worse in their job, it’s time to fire them quickly.

When you fire them, it is a good rule of thumb to have all your reasons be actions that your employee has done. 

Never use emotions, attitudes, or anything else that can be argued.  Keep it to the employees actions and you will stay out of employment court.

How do you go about hiring employees for your company?  Let me know!
Leave a comment below.