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Hiring the right employees is essential to success in any industry. You can’t run a successful business on your own and without a great team behind you, no matter how good an entrepreneur you are. As a boss, it is crucial that you are able to motivate your team and work with them to develop their skills so that you can use them to their maximum potential.
While it is important that you know how to develop your employees and get the very best out of them, it is just as important to hire the right people in the first place. Here, we look at some of the biggest mistakes employers make when it comes to hiring.
Hiring without a good reason
Whenever you hire someone new, you need a reason for doing so. If you don’t have a purpose, there’s probably little point. In some cases, there is a very clear reason for hiring somebody. For example, if an existing employee leaves, you will need to hire a replacement. However, if you’re expanding your team, it’s important that you are doing it for the right reasons. If you can’t clearly state what a new member of staff will bring to your business, you probably don’t need to hire them.
Not having a transparent recruitment process in place
Whatever scale your business works on, having a clear process for the recruitment and hiring of new employees is essential. You need to decide whether they will fill in an application form or hand in a resume and cover letter, whether you are going to interview them on the telephone, in person or whether you will use hiring software, and how many people you are going to invite for an interview. Having a clear process in place makes the whole process a lot smoother, and it’s much easier for you to keep track of all of the candidates and you can compare them against equal metrics when it comes to choosing the right one for your business.
Not Conducting Thorough Background Checks
One of the most important parts of the recruitment process is checking a candidate’s background, something that many new or smaller business owners don’t do. Most of the time, it is fine, but there is always the chance that someone who is not legally allowed to work in the country or who has a criminal record applies for a job with your business, which could land you in hot water. You also need to obtain references from their previous employer to find out why they left, and whether there were any issues. If there are any gaps in their employment history, or there have been lots of jobs in a short space of time, you may want to find out why.
If you are making any of these common recruitment and hiring mistakes, your team simply won’t be as effective as they could be, which would have a negative effect on your business in the long term.
