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I hiried 6 bad employees, that nearly wreak my business and almost cost me my house. I ahd to move back to my home shop from a really big shop, but that OK the bigger shop cost to much anyway and the home shop is a lot cheaper to run.
But I will need a good emplyee in the future, so what asking are some sure ways of finding a good employee to help build my business back.
Great question floatdude. I've found it helpful to interview prospective employees on a little deeper level to get more information from them so I can make effective hiring decisions. You might want to start by identifying what you really need in an employee, the 3-5 most important qualities you want. Then design open-ended questions based on what you value such as:
1. Tell me about your experience in A?
2. What can you tell me about B?
3. What's your favorite kind of work?
4. Tell me about your work ethic.
5. Describe how you've dealt with difficult problems in past jobs.
The idea is to get the job candidate to share information with you and describe who they are. Your job is to listen very carefully and determine whether their answers are what you're looking for.
Take care, Guy
FloatDude,
What Guy said above about identifying what you need in an employee is very true. Have you taken the time to document a future state organization chart and developed detailed descriptions of each position? Defining the responsibilities and skills required for each position help you better understand who you need to hire. This information also helps you develop relevant and consistent questions to ask during the interview process (and keeps you out of trouble with the EEOC ;) ).
I disagree about the type of question to ask though. Open ended questions allow an interviewee to ramble and BS their way into a job. Questions should be directly related to the responsibilities and skills and abilities required to do the specific job. They should also be behavioral in nature and required the interviewee to give answers that describe what they have done / experienced, and what they learned from the actions they have taken.
For example, instead of asking "Describe how you have dealt with difficult problems in past jobs" ask:
"Tell me about specific time a manager asked you to work late when you had other plans. What did you do? What was the result?"
or
"Tell me about a specific time a disgruntled customer returned an open package without a receipt. How did you handle it? What was the result?"
or
"Tell me about a time an employee of yours showed up for work late. How did you handle it? What was the result?"
These types of questions make the interview relate an actual experience they have had and then explain how they handled it and what a result was.
Hope this helps, cheers,
David
Take heart in knowing that many entrepreneurs make bad choices for their employees until they learn how to hire, train and manage like a pro.
Try making a list of the breakdowns that occurred in the last few hires then identifying what qualities/skills would be needed to ensure that the next person won't make those same mistakes.
There are quite a few things you can do differently, including:
- having a training roadmap
- hiring for skill AND attitude
- using an interviewing process designed to flush out bad fits
When you are ready, check out some of the resources designed to help entrepreneurs hire the A Players...even on a budget!
Best of luck!
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