Creating an Effective Hiring System

Picture this: you have Big Plans for the upcoming year. You’re ready to hit the ground running, and to do so, you’re going to need to hire a few new team members. After all, you can’t grow if you’re doing everything yourself! But (and this is a BIG but)…you want to do it right. You want to find the right people the first time, engage them at the right times, and move them smoothly into your onboarding process. In order to do this, you’re going to need an effective hiring system.

Easier said than done, right?

Most of the time, yes – but when you start with the right framework and resources, building your hiring systems becomes a lot easier. And yes, we can help you with that!

There is a lot that goes into building an effective hiring system, but the principles behind it are really pretty simple once you boil them down. Let’s dig into the process!

Be Clear on Who You Want and the Personality You Need for the Position

Think about it: the person you’ll want as a Bookkeeper probably isn’t the person you’ll want as a Receptionist or Client Happiness Coordinator. An amazing Marketing Assistant might not be the right person to back you up as an EA.

Each role on your team will have different requirements, and different personalities will shine in each role. When you’re slammed though, it’s easy to fall into the trap of “just get someone in the seat and we’ll figure it out from there.”

I’ve been there. I get it. But there’s a big difference between “get someone in that seat NOW” and “get the right butt in the right seat.”

It often takes a little more time, but ultimately, it’s worth it. When you start out with a strong job ad that clearly targets who you’re looking for and follow it up with an effective process – a hiring system – that allows you to weed out the people who wouldn’t be a great fit for that particular position, suddenly the hiring process becomes a lot easier.

And before you know it, you’ve found the superstar you’re looking for.

Automating the Hiring Process

What is your #1 complaint about hiring?

If slogging through hundreds of resumes to find the three that are actually relevant popped into your mind, you’re not alone.

Thankfully, you can automate that process! With an ATS (Applicant Tracking System), you can program your platform to look for the experience levels, personality traits, and other markers you’re looking for. It can also rate each applicant on a sliding scale so you can immediately tell who you should take a closer look at. From there, it will help you track who continues down the hiring process and who falls out. No more tracking manually, it can all be done digitally and with ease.

These systems alone can save you dozens and dozens of hours each year!

Engaging Your Candidates from the Start

Last week (as of the writing of this article), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that there are currently 9 million job openings in the US. This is down from the all-time high of 12 million in March of 2022, but their stats also showed that there are currently 5.8 million people looking for jobs.

This means that there are more than 3.2 million more jobs than there are job seekers right now. This has created a huge “buyer’s market” when it comes to hiring. In other words, job seekers can quite literally pick and choose the jobs they want to apply for.

Now, this is partly because more and more people are turning to freelancing and entrepreneurship; there are a lot of positions that you can outsource, if you choose to. There are, however, still positions that really need to be in-house, and these are the ones we’re talking about.

If you’re trying to fill an in-house position, you’re up against competition – and one of the best ways to stand out to your potential candidates is to keep them engaged. Let them know that you value them, they’re in the running, and your process and timeline for the next steps.

If they’re not a good fit, let them know that as well. That way, they can move on but still keep a good perception of your company. (Your ATS can take care of both of these tasks!)

Create a Strong Interviewing Process

If you’re hiring for a lower-level position, you probably don’t need to go through 3 rounds of interviews, but you’ll still want to get a good idea of whether the person is a fit for your team (and whether they’re likely to thrive in the role). Putting a well-thought-out interview script and process in place is a good way to handle this.

If you’re hiring for a technical or higher-level role, however, you’ll likely want to have a few different interviews using different methods. Perhaps you’ll want the person to submit a video answering specific questions, or a portfolio, or written answers before moving on to an in-person interview.

Once you have your 2-3 finalists chosen, you can do one final round of face to face interviews (in person or over Zoom) and then check references before choosing who to extend an offer to.

This might seem like a drawn-out process, but it’s designed to help you hire the right person the first time – to get the right butt in the right seat. When you have the process down, the results are worth it for both parties.

If you’d like some help putting the right hiring system in place, let me know – my team and I have developed resources to fit every size business!