Effective hiring is not only a question of who you hire, but how. The process and hiring decisions set the business standard, determines company potential from the moment it begins, and helps create future successes and failures. Before the employee is hired, the moment you make first contact during the hiring process, you set the expectations, or lack thereof, for that employee, their role, and their conduct. The process is tedious and various hiring standards should be determined outright to sustain quality. Malpractice, whether intentional or not, is negligent and will harm the business and employees. Consider the following guidelines when hiring, in order to make your first impression the right one.
Local, state, and federal laws and guidelines should be considered first and foremost as the bare minimum, and you should consider whether your job descriptions will be suggestions you can compromise on or will be a requirement – often employers don’t find exactly who they envision and make concessions, but will that concession cause complications or do you simply need the warmest body available with an ability to grow into your vision? If you need that bare minimum, will you be able to wait for the right person? This is an important consideration as it will affect productivity.
Take care in hiring to comply with anti-discrimination laws – disqualifying a candidate based on race, gender, sexuality, or disability is prohibited on a federal level, and state and local guidelines may be tighter. There are roles in which your instinct may be to give preference based on these qualifiers, so the role should be restructured to be appropriate. Wrongful hiring is also a concern – an unqualified friend or family member hired over a well-qualified stranger will harm your business. The potential legal and financial ramifications aren’t worth the risks and may bring a bad reputation to the company.
Standard procedures minimize these risks, with procedures including screenings of all candidates, paper trails with signatures, and following rights laws. Avoid promises and commitments you can’t meet from the onset, and don’t set job descriptions that will differ from what is actually needed.