EntreLeaders' Best Hiring Practices

For many small-business owners, the hiring process is complicated, stressful and exhausting. It’s something they generally just want to avoid. They’re desperate for help and hire the first warm body that walks through the door. But before 90 days are up, the new team member is history, and the small-business owner is right back where they started.

It doesn’t have to be that way. As Dave teaches in EntreLeadership Master Series, if you take your time and wait for the perfect fit, you’re on the way to creating a rock-star team—a group of people who are passionate about their jobs and can take your business further than you ever imagined. Our many EntreLeadership Masters Series Facebook community members and our Twitter followers agree. They have taken these principles and applied them to their own businesses. And now, they are sharing their best advice.

• Ask about their hobbies during the interview process. If they overlap with the position requirements, they love what they do. –Quentin Krengel
• Find a way to make them cry … in a good way, via deep questions. In all honesty, though, don't be cheap. Invest the money to assess them according to their wiring and talents. –@andrew_acker
• When hiring primarily teens, find those who have volunteered at church or school in their community. –@edchristo
• Patience! –@rlawrenceir
• Be up front about not only what they are required to do, but also what they will occasionally be asked to do. Make sure they understand! –@Tdubb
• Hire people with good soft skills and train for technical skills. –@tinadmeier
• I have asked a couple of the candidates to write some ads and create some thank-you letters. Misspellings, wrong logos and not doing homework on what we do and sell are telltale signs of what we could have hired. –Larry Parsons
• Your profit with new employees is made at the buy. Don't rush through the hiring process. –@LauraKMcNally
• Interview and then interview again! The more upfront time you put in BEFORE a hire, the better. –@ClivetheClubGuy
• Integrity is what I look for. Almost everything else can be taught. –@NDLaFollette
• Evaluate the person by creating a fixable emergency common in the job they would be taking and see how they handle it. –@Joseph_Speciale
• For me, this all comes down to intuition. I trust my gut feeling in these instances so much. –Mark Chambers
• Get to know what their "big why" is. Hire those who have a life in alignment with your company's core values. –@HeidiBellaCasa
• Look for good interns, support them with great mentors, expect big results. –@cravelight

The basics of hiring hold true no matter if you are just about to hire your first team member or have a really large staff. Taking your time and holding out for the perfect fit is well worth the effort. As Dave says, “When you work with fired-up, talented people who love what they do, you have more fun than trying to gather a bunch of turkeys together and whip some work out of them … Make sure you get the rock stars and keep the turkeys out.”

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