How To Successfully Hire Your First Employee

Is it time to expand your small business?

How do you hire someone for the first time?

These are legitimate questions that many small business owners ask themselves.

Taking the next step and making a new hire can help transform your business. Successfully hiring your first employee shouldn’t be complicated, planning and preparation can help make the process fast, effective, and legal.

Not sure where to begin with HR? My New Venture is here to share our advice and guidance for everything you need to know about hiring your first employee, from creating a job description to negotiating the offer.

Determine What Kind Of Help You Need

Before reviewing CVs and conducting interviews, it’s vital to consider your workload, capacity, and skill set to help determine what kind of help you need. The following signs will also identify gaps that might need to be filled:

Over-extending yourself will not only impact your small business but cause imbalances in your personal life. Avoid burnout and low productivity by hiring your first employee the right way.

What Roles and Responsibilities Would Your Employee Handle?

Hiring people should come after you have carefully analysed and defined what the new position in your small business will be. This will prevent both you and your new employee from becoming stretched thin across different departments and skills.

Starting your hiring process by effectively outlining the roles and responsibilities your employee will handle, not only frees up time for you to focus on other key objectives but allows your recruit to fully excel in their role. Boost your productivity by focusing on what’s important.

Part-Time or Full-Time?

Once you’ve reviewed the skills and expertise you need from your new employee, it’s time to decide on how best to optimise their time to further the success of your small business.

Do you need an employee to ease the workload in a part-time capacity, or to enter the business as a full-time staff member to pursue new revenue streams? This is an important aspect to consider at the beginning of your hiring process.

What Salary Can You Offer?

Before hiring a new employee, do your research. Establish a salary range that’s not only suitable for your small business but is competitive and enticing, always knowing your ceiling offer. Salaries should be representative of the hours required, skill set and position.

Research salaries with the help of these platforms:

1. Indeed
2. Reed
3. LinkedIn
4. Payscale

Office, Remote or Hybrid?

In today’s modern working world, employees have different expectations concerning where they work. Whether it’s in the office, remote or hybrid, it’s crucial to consider which working environment not only works best for your small business but encourages productivity and high-performance levels from your employee. Working environments are constantly changing as flexible working hours continue to grow in popularity for employers and employees alike.

Create The Job Description

A clear, meaningful job description will help make your role stand out from other businesses. When thinking about your ideal candidate, take note of the keywords that arise and include this in your job description.

What should be included in your job description? To maximise the visibility of your vacancy, make sure these details are included:

Advertise The Position And Attract The right Applicants

There are a number of different channels you can use to reach the right employee for you.

Advertising a job vacancy can be as simple as word of mouth from customers or business liaisons, or posting on your social media platforms. This is an excellent way to attract interested candidates who are already engaged and interested in your brand.

Another option is paid or free advertising on job boards. This is dependent on the type of job, the reach you might need, and the duration of your advertisement. You can easily browse potential candidates and actively seek appropriate people that exist in your industry.

Here are our top job boards to speed up your hiring process:

1. LinkedIn
2. Indeed
3. CV-Library
4. Reed
5. Glassdoor

Identify And Screen The Top Set Of Candidates

An influx of applicants will mean it’s time to start narrowing down your choices in accordance with your business needs. When starting the process of identifying which candidates are right for you, remember to consider the role’s job description to ensure you select the right individual.

By filtering out applicants that do not match the key duties and responsibilities you need, you can easily find the candidate with the right motivations and experience for you.

Finding it difficult to make a shortlist of potential employees? Here are our top tips:

Following this guidance can help you pick the right individuals to progress in your hiring process.

Interview The Best Applicants

Interviews are dependent on your industry, how senior the role may be, and your business. Whether it’s a one-hour-long interview or several short interviews over a period, it’s vital to adapt the interview process to suit your needs.

Conducting a successful interview starts with pre-planning strategic questions that help to reveal the individuals’ skills and qualifications.

An interview gives you the chance to observe potential employees off paper, taking into consideration their personality traits, interests, and level of enthusiasm for your small business.

Good practice when carrying out interviews is taking notes during or immediately after each interview. This will help in your decision process, as you can clearly remember the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

Referring to The Equality Act 2010 to ensure you avoid discrimination in the interview process, is essential. This can help you avoid topics such as age, race, or marital status when interviewing candidates.

Undertake A Reference Check

Want to gain additional insights on potential employees?

Spend some time checking references to verify the skills and experiences of an individual you may want to employ.

Honesty is vital when it comes to employer and employee working relationships, undertaking a reference check is a good way to establish whether a candidate is being sincere about their past roles and responsibilities.

Send Your Chosen Candidate An Offer Letter

Great, you’ve finally chosen the right employee for you.

Now it’s time to create and send an offer letter. An offer letter is a formal document that includes basic information concerning the position the candidate will be filling. Think of it as written confirmation to refer to in the future, if necessary.

Every offer letter should include these terms, respective to the role:

This is a great checklist to take into account when drafting and sending your offer letter. You should also consider consulting a legal professional to review and suggest edits before sending it out.

Onboard Your New Employee

What is an onboarding process? In short, onboarding a new employee is a great way to ensure they feel welcomed, well-equipped to succeed, and comfortable asking any questions they may have.

Follow these tips to provide a successful onboarding process for new employees:

Are you onboarding a new employee remotely? Here are our best practices:

Whether your new employee works in-office, remote, or hybrid, presenting yourself as approachable and eager to answer any questions is a great way to ensure success. A weekly digital catch-up call to offer ongoing support will greatly improve your new hire process and will help your new recruit settle in and feel valued.