Here we go with another segment or I guess I should say my version of Business Tips for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs, not that I would suggest that you listen to or follow any of my advice but I figure hey you guys and girls ask for it so I might as well post it.
Just yesterday I posted 10 Reasons You Suck as an Employee as my contribution to help those confused employees of the world recognize just 10 of the simple things that they do that make them suck, which is of course costly and crappy for any small business owner or CEO. It’s funny sometimes how we move forward to do something new and still think of great things that could have been added to a post, the 10 reasons you suck as an employee post is one of those for me, I can easily jump in there right now and add 10 more things.
In business you can’t move forward if your dragging the past or the bottom feeders behind you, so let’s move forward and get to hiring people that will fit in the job roles you expect them to. There are easily another 30 business tips that small business owners can add to this list, leave a comment with an y additional hiring best practices that you might want to add.
10 Tips for Hiring Employees that Don’t Suck
1. Ensure that the application is filled out completley
if it’s too difficult to fill out an application the right way imagine how hard it’s going to be for that employee to do their job in the event they are hired.
2. Setup a specific interview date and time
having a specific time gives you a birds eye view into a potential employee’s time and attendance practices, late to an interview = late to work
3. Be prepared for the interview
have specific questions that pertain to the job description, and take notes of the answers to those questions
4. Minimize talking
you are the interviewer not the interviewee, the person being interviews should do 90% of the talking
5. Read body language
during the interview read body language, look for questions that are uncomfortable for the interviewee to answer
6. Ask for Weaknesses
find out what areas the interviewee feels that they need to grow in, you would be amazed at some of the answers. Look for red flags.
7. Supply a Job Description
supplying a job description to the interviewee gives them a detailed snap shot of what expectations they would be expected to reach.
8. Hours of Availability
have the potential new hire fill out an hours of availability sheet, this stops all of the silly excuses about not being able to work scheduled shifts.
9. Call references
all though this isn’t hardly as useful as it was before human resources guru’s took away the right of business’s to share useful hiring information it can still offer a good insight into ho0w legit those references are. if you don’t call on them, you won’t even know if they are real references.
10. Refrain from Hiring
refrain from hiring the potential employee until they have a follow-up interview, preferably with another manager. Compare notes between the two interviews, than decide on hiring the applicant.
One last reminder that these are just some basic practices to follow when your goal is to hire long term associates that will benefit your business, there are so many more than can be added with ease, please consider leaving a comment with your additional tips. If you like business tips and information or you just happen to like the Extreme John blog please consider following me on Twitter @extremejohn or subscribe to my rss feed.
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{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
When I first started interviewing, I broke just about all of those rules. However, when I was last working as a retail manager and had my best staff, I’d say I was almost exactly following all of those rules. Were you reading my Finish Line handbook?
Mike from Daily Shot Of Coffee´s last blog ..Bodum C-Mill Grinder Review
@Mike from Daily Shot Of Coffee, I wrote your Finish Line handbook
The follow up interview is very important, both because lies are harder to maintain under extended pressure, and because having another manager’s point of view can really clear up inconsistancies
Hard Rocking South African@Music Judge´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
@Hard Rocking South African@Music Judge, so very true and it removes some of that “fake shine”.
I can add one more to that. Give em some arithmetic to see if they can add and subtract. I don’t want them handling money or doing calculations if that can’t add up.
Sire´s last blog ..Wassup With Halloween And Making Money
@Sire, what a great addition Sire you would be surprised how many people can’t do the most simple math problems. Sad.
@Extreme John, And when you consider that any mistakes can hurt your bottom line, you want to be sure they are able to get it right.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..Wassup With Halloween And Making Money
Lately we hired two different guys as “temp to perm,” with the idea that if they didn’t work out, we could just let them go back to their natural environment very easily. And in both cases that is what happened.
Christie @ miscbytes´s last blog ..Study: Your confidence in your own thoughts is affected by your posture!
@Christie @ miscbytes, yeah we hire everyone under a trial basis and reserve the open door policy as an option for either party to exit stage left.
Math Sire, good one. As many people who can’t add and subtract are the same people who can’t spell I’m betting. I am AMAZED at how many people can’t spell ‘definitely’ along with some other VERY easy words we learned in first grade. I suppose that’s the ‘hard’ one because I can’t count how many times I’ve seen someone write “veary” and we don’t even want to get started on all the people who can’t use your/you’re, their/they’re/ there correctly. Some may think none of this matters but in a professional setting you need to know how to add/subtract and spell. I come from law (paralegal for 7 years) and I cannot begin to count how many time a group of us have stood around the fax machine and talked about how stupid the doctor was for something he misspelled on his fax to us.
Jordasche Bledsoe´s last blog ..Me and Orson Welles Movie Trailer
@Jordasche Bledsoe, ok you just called me out on just about everything you could. MEAN. Fact is I really can’t spell worth a shit, I work at it but turn me over and I am all about the numbers ;)
@Jordasche Bledsoe, The thing with spelling a lot of the time mistakes occur because of laziness, and I admit there are occasions when I’ve been in such a rush to submit a comment that it’s not until later that I realized that I made a blunder. Thankfully some blogs allow you the edit function.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..Is Your Blogging Identity At Risk Of Being Stolen?
11th: Try to avoid too much MOODY people or people who seem to be critisizing their previous employer.
Too Moody people often ruin the working environment. I know of people who will keep complaining all the while and eventually discourage other staffs too.
And the one who is so happy and open critisizing his ex employer can also be criticizing or talking too much about you as an EX-employer in some months or years.
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Maoist Naxal Rebel Attack in India – 17 Cops Killed
@Kurt Avish, that is an excellent tip. We were just discussing someone that applied yesterday and had a nice attitude and everything seemed great until the previous employer came up.
The story that followed was epic.
Very nice tips John. I don’t usually do the hiring but I’m going to pass them on.
I agree with Kurt, and I think his tip should definitely (I spelled that right!) be in the top 10. Get your applicant to talk about his previous employers. If he has a negative view on the way that his last job ended, then that probably means he is the type to always blame others for his problems. Like me, I was fired from my last job, and it was MOSTLY because I was a scapegoat, but in my interview for my current job, I told my interviewer that the situation was a misunderstanding and a learning experience for me. Not a lie, but I understood that badmouthing your former employer is a HUGE red flag.
Otherwise, this is a good list. Thing is, this should be common knowledge amongst people who do interviews. However, so often, the people who do the interviews don’t care and are often looking to fill a position as quickly and effortlessly as possible.
Trey – Swollen Thumb Entertainment´s last blog ..Horrorcore Music
Uh oh, sorry John, wasn’t talking about you, but it is something that happens so much in the workplace it stands out in my head. I am in complete agreement with those talking about the potential employee talking bad about the ex-employer thinking they will do the same to new employer – of course they will. I could have done that several times and would have had a great time, but the fact of the matter is that is SO unprofessional and should simply not be done. If I were the interviewer and someone started that crap instead of saying ‘sadly it didnt work out’ or something to that effect it would be the end of the interview. I also forgot to say great list
Great tips and additions too everyone. Thanks for sharing John.
Jordasche Bledsoe´s last blog ..Me and Orson Welles Movie Trailer
@Jordasche Bledsoe, Patterns do tend to repeat themselves, don’t they?
I know someone who can’t seem to get along with their co-workers. He will probably have the same problem at his next job. You would think that, sooner or later, he would come to realize that it may not be the other person who has the problem. At least not all the time.
That’s almost like someone marrying someone they’ve had an extramarital affair with. Duh? What do they expect to happen anyway?
Keith@Norman Rockwell Art´s last blog ..Oct 10, Where Norman Rockwell Art Collectors Begin
@Sire. Hi, I completely understand that. I was talking about in the workplace though as far as the place I have seen people write like that.
Jordasche Bledsoe´s last blog ..Me and Orson Welles Movie Trailer
@Jordasche Bledsoe, No worries, I was just giving myself an out for those occasions when I stuff up.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..A Poem For Halloween The Night Of Frights
All very good tips, testing a prospective employees skillset, if they claim to be a java programmer, have a programmer in your organization test them by asking how to write something or what a function does. Numerous times we have interviewed people who falsified their resumes and they buckled under interviews. One tactic my company has that is brutal to prospective employees is group interviews, where a team of technical experts cross examine the hopeful to see if they can dig out his real experience.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..Twitter Outages and Delays
nice tips john.. i am thinking about hire two employees to deal with my blog
EarningStep´s last blog ..Shows your real time statistics about your blog with statpress reloaded – best wordpress plugin
@Sire Leaving yourself an out, I like that
Jordasche Bledsoe´s last blog ..Me and Orson Welles Movie Trailer 
@Jordasche Bledsoe, Chalk it up to being an experienced married male
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..A Poem For Halloween The Night Of Frights
Thanks for this tips i can now share to my friends who is not yet employed. Thanks for this post.
Noah Group´s last blog ..Noah Group: Offering Financial Stability for your Future
Don’t think I ever hired anybody before, so I don’t have any real tips on that part. I’ve been sitting in on a bunch of interviews though and felt I sucked a bit at it – though I was only the sidekick.
Tried to fire one, once. The maid. She sucked and got way overpaid, and she had the nerves to ask if I paid her for both the houses she cleaned (on a special occasion) or just one of them – even though I paid her twice as much as she should have. Not the main reason for letting her go though, but she just didn’t have the right “social skills” on how to be a maid (for me, at least) – oh, I guess this could turn into a hiring tip:
Like with the maid, she would walk around talking on her cellphone way too much (every now and then is okay) – not only that, she would talk louder than you normally do on a phone – she acted just like if she was living in the house and didn’t seem to care that the rest of us probably wasn’t interested in being disturbed by her phone call in a language we couldn’t even understand.
For an employee I would expect them to fit within the “social norms” of the company or at least the group they will be working in. It’s not always something people get to decide what kind of person they are, introvert/extrovert-wise.
This article explains it pretty well
Introvert at work! Please don’t interrupt!
Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..How To Waste 150 Minutes With ISP Customer Support
I didnt have any experience from the interviewer part..but many from interviewee.. Once you give many interviews you become very confident about yourself..you can even think more about yourself to tell to the interviewer…
Compute Live´s last blog ..Blackra1n can Jailbreak iPhone 3.1.2
You forgot one:
Take a picture of a big hole in the ground, show it to them and make sure they don’t think it’s their ass. Any good employee should be know the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground.
Keith@Norman Rockwell Art´s last blog ..Oct 10, Where Norman Rockwell Art Collectors Begin
Always make the folks tell you a number of stories surrounding their accomplishments. You can then match the stories up by getting their references to validate them.
Thanks!
MAS
@MAS excellent interview tip thank you so much for taking the time to comment.
The best way I have found to hire employees is based on my gut feeling. I know it’s not very scientific, but it always seems to work. Unfortunately, it sometimes means that I’ve given a job to a less “qualified” person, but I’ve never regretted it (yet!).
PS. What’s up with the pic in the footer… and where can I get one? Hahaa!
@Ken@Paralegal degree online, I must admit, my boss also done same thing. “The gut feeling can not be lie ( most of the time ) “, said my boss.
kerja kosong´s last blog ..Darul Ehsan Medical Centre – DEMC Jobs Vacancies Shah Alam
in addition, “Show you are the Boss!” during my early years of job hunting, i had an interview once, when i am in the interview room, someone just came in, holding some papers, carrying a shoulder bag, wearing white shirt, jeans and a baseball cap, then he just starred at me for a few seconds and just said Hi! and fixed some cables on the laptop, i thought he is just some IT guy but i said good morning in fairness, waited for a few minutes or so… and asked where is the restroom?, when i came back i never thought that he is the IT manager and the one who will conduct the interview… What a drag! Then, i was not hired…
sernan´s last blog ..What type of worst "Boss" are you?
@sernan, too many people fall into the role of NOT showing they are the boss, or forget that the person is actually APPLYING for the job. Applying means you want to work here, it also means show me why you should be able to work here.
Although most businesses have been crying about the economy this year, I would say that personnel issues have been more of a burden to me than anything else. Even with the most intense interview process, it has been difficult to find employees who have the kind of mental attitude and work ethic that most of us (40+ range) were raised to maintain. One would think that with unemployment so high, more people seeking a job would be more motivated to rise above the norm. I would love to find a group of employees who come to work on time, devote themselves to excelling at their job responsibilities, and show an interest in other aspects of the business.
Calling references is a good idea. Even if many don’t provide useful details. I think you need to also learn from your hiring. What mistakes do you make? Then adjust your hiring process. I think many people find the hiring process annoying and so speed through it. This results in mistakes you have to deal with in the workplace. I would much rather take the extra time up front. I posted more of my thoughts http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/10/07/hiring-the-right-workers/
John @ Curious Cat Management Blog´s last blog ..2009 Annual Management Blog Review Part 1
Huge thing is fit. Make sure the employee fits the job, but also that, the job fits the employee! You can screen out the ones that simply need a job, and ones that truly would be a great fit.
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