When your business is growing fast, you need employees. Unfortunately, when the economy does well, there aren’t many people looking for work. Don’t settle for second best: find exactly the employee you are looking for. Find an employee with these skills:
- Communication skills: Your employee will need to communicate clearly and positively. During the interview process watch for indications that the employee is a positive person. That doesn’t mean they have to be blindly optimistic, but a job candidate who complains about their last job through the interview is not a positive person. Ask specific questions about past situations and see how long it takes them to come up with an answer and what they say and how they say it. If possible, ask an unexpected question. One interviewer asks her candidates to tell her a fairy tale. Their reaction and how they tell the story is a huge indicator of the candidate’s ability to communicate well. And don’t forget that communication goes beyond speaking to the written word and to telephone skills. Consider a telephone interview before an in-person interview to discover the candidate’s telephone skills.
- Computer skills or technical skills: Today, our businesses need people who know computers, perhaps even specific programs. Ask for certifications or levels of experience. If you have serious concerns, ask them to perform some functions for you on the computer using the program in question.
- Management skills: Not to be confused with leadership skills, management skills are things like personal appearance, time management, health, and emotional management- basically, how well they can keep themselves together. Pay attention to details like whether they show up to the interview on time, how they dress in the interview, how they behave while waiting for the interview to start. During the interview, ask them to tell you about how they manage their time (instead of asking them if they manage their time). Ask them to tell you about a time that they were late and what they did about it; if they come up with a story immediately, they may not manage their time as well as someone who has to think about it for a moment.
- Leadership skills: These are arguably the most important skills that your employee should possess. The other skills can be trained and motivated into them, but this set should be apparent from the first day they start working. Do they want to excel at their job? Can they lead others? Will people respect them and follow them? Will they have the guts to give critical employee reviews if necessary? Could they fire someone if necessary? Remember, you’re not hiring an employee, you’re hiring a manager in training! Ask them what their weaknesses are. Ask them about when the last business-purpose confrontation they had and how it was resolved. Ask them to tell you how their friends would describe them.
Once you have decided to hire them, the most important thing you can do is give them the vision you have for your company. Don’t expect them to come in on the first day and be ready to work. They may want to get started serving customers or doing their job but they won’t be nearly as effective unless you share your vision with them.
