I believe recruiting in a small business is a little different to the corporate world. The main difference is that in most cases the employee will be reporting directly to the business owner which is quite different to another employee. You see, the new employee may well report to the person with whom the buck ultimately stops with. I suggest the most important thing to be aware of is to match the right personality to the business owner’s personality. I see it time and again, especially when employing a person in a sales role, that whilst an outgoing personality is really good attribute to have, if it is also a more “task oriented” and aggressive person, then, in cases where the business owner is more reserved, it is a recipe for disaster. The employee sees that as an opportunity to control the relationship and of course that won’t work. It normally doesn’t last long, but, if it does, it is with great stress to the business owner because they don’t know how to encourage them to look elsewhere.
Other points to note aren’t that much different to larger organisations. Look out for:
- Personality profiles suitable for the job
- Interpersonal relationships
- Length of time in each position
- Whether someone is currently out of work
- Constant travel habits
- The way they speak about previous jobs and employers and employees
- Preparation for the interview including research on your company
- Being early for their interview
- Being happy (you don’t want a miserable person bringing everyone else down)
- Being consistent in their story
- Proper resumes, cross-checked with getting them to write some things during the interview to see whether they actually prepared their own resume.
If you need assistance with any of that, my business coaching includes a full recruitment process with templates for everything you would need, including the above and more. Shout out if you want to build a super team.
