The Art of Hiring for Your Small Business- 5 Tips
Hiring is more than just skills, these five tips will aid in making better hiring choices
Breathing is something we do unconsciously.
We just breathe. And it happens automatically. But I have recently discovered the magic of conscious breathing and how important it is when we are making critical decisions, such as hiring for our company.
There is no doubt that the hiring process can be stressful and even show up for us as an anxiety-ridden phenomenon. That’s because so much is on the line when we bring new talent into the fold of our business.
We have invested financial resources, time and energy into creating our business and when we hire we are making yet another investment that, when done incorrectly, can wreck havoc in our lives as a business owner.
Over the years
Over the years, as someone who makes a living from helping companies hire key talent, I have witnessed that making the correct and informed hiring choices is key to the long-term success of a business.
Each and every employee that we onboard has the potential to help us grow our business or to help us see [the hard way] that we have yet to master what it means to be a leader, what it takes to be a successful business owner. So let’s get it right from the start!
The science of hiring
The science of hiring is about identifying the skills and professional or technical capabilities of an individual and matching them to the specifications of a job that needs to get done. This determination is pretty simple.
Either your candidate has the experience and ability to do that job, or they don’t. Education and other credentials on paper alone can help you see this distinction.
The science of hiring helps you identify through a quantitative process whether or not the candidate will be able to execute on the job. The problem with this approach is that you might end up with someone that can do the job but could potentially lie to your customers in order to avoid facing responsibility for a human error.
This can undermine your business and place you at risk, even for a lawsuit in an extreme case.
The art of hiring
The art of hiring supports you in understanding if the candidate matches the values that you have worked so hard to create for your business – values such as integrity and accountability.
This speaks to the culture you are creating in your business. In the long run, approaching your hiring process from the standpoint of value systems is much more powerful than hiring for skills.
In my 20 years of helping companies to hire, including hiring for my own companies, I have learned that successful hiring decisions weigh more heavily on cultural matches than on hard skills, a proportion of about 60/40 and even 90/10 in some cases.
Companies that are clear about their value systems and hire to meet those characteristics invest more wisely in their hiring process and grow accordingly.
Understanding the core values of your would-be candidate is an art for sure.
It requires a heightened sense of intuition and trust, both of which are more easily accessible to you if you develop awareness and an expansion of your consciousness. Values are not so easily seen in a resume.
You have to train yourself to read underneath the words, to see what is behind the information provided. Accomplishments are a clue to what your candidate is expressing about who they are as a human being.
Pay attention to this!
Here are five tips to make your hiring decisions smooth, effective and profitable:
1. Be clear about the culture you are creating:
Don’t compromise about these values, no matter how desperately you need to fill a position. Fear is a very low frequency vibration that will never result in you or your company being empowered. Don’t hire from a place of fear.
2. As you review a resume:
Take some deep purposeful breaths into your heart, generate trust from within, surrender to your process and anchor your value system as a background.
Then, determine from there if the candidate matches into your culture. If your intuition tells you there is some potential, invite that person for a face-to-face.
3. During your interview:
Ask open-ended questions designed to give you an indication of the predictable behaviors the candidate will exhibit given certain scenarios that are common in your business. Delve into who they are as a human being, not so much a machine that can get the job done.
4. When you make the decision to pull the trigger with someone:
Make sure to establish clear expectations of what you envision is the “art of the job.” Get their agreement. Make sure you both see eye-to-eye on the components that are critical to you as a business owner. And that are important to maintaining the identity of your brand.
5. If you find you have made a mistake in hiring someone
Cut them loose as soon as you become aware. Don’t sell out on your company and on your other employees. That is never going to work out for you!
Final thoughts:
To expand your awareness and elevate your intuition, practice conscious breathing.
How we breathe is a reflection of how we live our lives. Either we are living unconsciously or we are living with awareness and purpose. Conscious breathing helps us integrate negative patterns by replacing them with high frequency life force.
When we consciously breathe in life force, or prana as it is called in Hinduism, our bodies and minds relax, we de-stress, reduce anxiety, clear our minds and ultimately make better decisions.
Related articles:
Hiring Better Fitting Employees
3 Considerations Before Hiring a New Employee
