I need to take on my first staff member but don’t know where to start
Growing your business means you have too much work to take on yourself, so it’s finally time to take on your first staff member.
But where do you start? Let us give you a few tips.
First, you need to document a job description, so you are clear exactly what tasks the role will fulfil. Then, give consideration to the person specification: what experience, qualifications or qualities will make the ideal candidate? Here you’ll need to consider your recruitment process. Are you going to recruit yourself? If so, you’ll need to know how and where you’re going to advertise your vacancy and draft an advert to attract the right people to your business. However, you may be inundated with CVs, and sifting through these can be very time consuming, particularly if you’re not entirely sure what you’re looking for.
A good alternative is to advertise through a recruitment agency; they will post an advert for you and screen applicants before sending you those with the most potential. The drawback here however is that you will have to pay for the services of a recruitment agency, but it will save you a great deal of precious time. Another thing you will need to consider is the package you plan to offer with the role. How much are you going to pay them? How many days’ holiday per year will they get? The best way to gauge this is to browse job sites for similar roles and create benchmarks of what other people are offering for the same job. This gives you an idea of what applicants will be expecting, and it gives you the opportunity to give yourself an edge while competing for applicants with a competitive salary or staff benefits.
Once you have shortlisted your best applicants, you’re going to want to interview them. Consider what your ideal employee looks like in terms of experience, qualifications and training, then construct questions that will extract this information for you.
Finally, at the end of all that hard work, you’ll have your first employee! For more information on recruiting, or to book a Free Review, call on 0844 8797286.
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