How to Hire People Who Will Take Your Company to the Next Level

Three tips for improving your recruiting

You have some pretty significant ambitions; it’s why you’re pushing to be a leader in business rather than another player in the game. There will be times when your goals aren’t fruitful, but these are all learning experiences you can use to forge your own definition of success. It’s time to level-up your company, and push toward the next phase of your masterplan.

As your business grows, the caliber of people you bring in to join you is vital. You cannot supervise all your company’s activities — at least, not without spiraling into madness. Instead, seek out the people whose values reflect your own; they’ll help your business on the road to success. 

In order to ensure your company’s growth is successful and sustainable, you’ll need to hire the most talented contributors in your industry.  You want people who share your ambitious nature and will commit to the company’s vision. But what is the best approach to hunting down the ideal employees to help your business achieve its goals?

Hiring Strategy

As a committed entrepreneur, you’ll know how important it is to plan before you commit to any course of action. To encourage healthy, sustainable growth, you must be able to make strategies and execute them. This extends to your approach to hiring new members of staff — you can’t rush into it and hope you’ll find the right people. 

You have to know exactly what your company goals are, and from there confirm which roles will help you achieve them. It may be the case that your company is not at a stage to be able to pay for all the staff you need, so you may need to set hiring priorities accordingly. This is strategic HR planning at its most basic — dealing with your immediate operational needs. 

Your employees are essential to your success, so it’s important to commit to an in-depth HR strategy. When effective, this includes a forecast for future hiring needs, a plan for learning and development (L&D) programs, and an approach for employee retention. It may be worth considering hiring a professional for this role if you aren’t confident in your own ability to create this blueprint.

Attracting the Right Candidates

You’ve clarified your goals, you’ve created a strategy, and you’re now armed with your HR priorities — this is all fantastic. That said, to hire the kind of quality candidate that will help your company to level-up, you need to do more than post a vacancy online. Your approach to soliciting applications needs to reflect the pragmatism with which you’ve built your brand. 

There is a necessary intricacy to attracting the right caliber of candidate; by taking an intelligent hiring approach, you can avoid the significantly damaging effects the wrong employee can have on your business. But in order to get to the point at which you can assess whether a candidate might be the right fit for your company, you must first be discerning about who should be able to apply. If you advertise a narrower range of required qualifications, you can attract fewer candidates, but they will be of higher quality. This also helps to provide possible candidates with fair, realistic expectations about the role. 

It’s useful to also remember that hiring the right people for your business can start at “home.” You already have talented employees in your business, and they understand your company values. They also have an incentive to ensure that their workplace thrives. Hiring from within and also inviting referrals can be helpful and cost-effective ways to narrow down your search. Employees are also unlikely to recommend people who aren’t a good fit in the place they have to work every day. 

Reviewing Resumes

Building a fantastic resume is an artform in itself; reviewing them can be just as much of a valuable skill. You know you want an employee who can help your company push boundaries, but how can you tell that from a resume? Does a list of qualifications provide you with any insight into whether a candidate can help make your business more productive?

The key is to look at the skills the candidate has collated during their educational and workplace experiences. The technical activities are easy ways to confirm whether they have the hard skills to get the work done. The real gold lies in whether these technical skills are complemented by an assortment of valuable soft skills. 

Look for hints that the candidate has sought opportunities to develop their leadership skills. Does their experience suggest that they enjoy engaging in a wide variety of problem-solving exercises? Does their resume suggest they approach communication with ease and clarity? Hunting out potential clues to a healthy range of soft skills can help you narrow down your list of suitable candidates. From there, you can learn more about them — and whether they’re a good fit for your company — in an interview scenario.

Your ambition, and your clarity of vision are positive factors in your company’s trajectory toward success. Similarly, your employees aren’t just along for the ride with you, they are the ultimate key to your success. With a combination of strategy, marketing, and an emphasis on soft skills, you have a greater chance of attracting the right people.

Written by: Indiana Lee, BOSS Contributor