One of the most critical parts of scaling up your company is hiring new employees.
They are the lifeblood of your journal and will handle HR-related matters, payroll, speaking with authors, and more. Because there are so many different tasks and challenges every day for your journal, it’s important to make sure that you have the right staff to handle all the different jobs. But hiring isn’t always easy, and the interview process doesn’t always come naturally to everyone (this includes the people hiring and not just those who want to be hired). Knowing the best approaches to hiring new employees can help to make the process a bit smoother and less intimidating.
Scaling your business by hiring employees
There are many ways to scale your journal. Importantly, you should have a clear plan of what you’re going to do (and when) when it comes to growing your business. For example, ensuring that you are using scalable tools that can grow with your business is a good way to make sure you’re ready for the future.
Other than your tools, you need staff. Having a plan of when you will be hiring staff can help you to make sure you don’t wind up falling behind. It can be very frustrating to start to hiring process when you’re already behind. This might lead to staff being hired out of necessity and not because they’re the best candidates. It could also lead to a lack of candidates being available, making it impossible to hire someone.
Scaling your journal is crucial, but making sure you know how is important.
Making a plan for hiring employees
Hiring employees isn’t as simple as putting up an advert and calling it a day. First of all, you need to understand what it is you need done. As you can imagine, there’s a world of difference between an HR manager and an English editor.
What is the job you need done and what is the description? Do you have specific requirements? Do employees need a specific kind of certification? These are all important questions that you should know the answer to before you start hiring. After you have a list, start figuring out which ones are flexible. In many cases, you can train employees and get them certified, but sometimes there are things that are non-negotiable. Knowing what you can be flexible with can help you to select excellent candidates that might be missing a particular item on your list.
Remember, don’t throw out the car because you think that you want different tires.
Outsourcing the process
There are ways in which you can avoid the process by hiring (or outsourcing the process) through an agency or with another tool. There are many companies that are devoted to helping people connect with employers/employees, but these often come at a cost. Spending money on these resources might feel frivolous, but they tend to be able to save you and your company a great deal of time.
There are a range of services, some free, some not, that can help with this.
Using a service can help you to reliably find staff, but it may be slightly less effective because you will be handing off large amounts of the screening and hiring processes to a third party. Many companies have seen success using this method. Others have not.
Remember to do your research before you use one.
Questions to ask when hiring employees
Broadly, there are two things you need to consider when doing interviews: work expectations and company culture.
Work expectations
Your work expectations are critical for candidates to know what the job is, what you expect, and what they can expect. Are you offering lucrative salaries? Do you have excellent benefits packages? Do you have a work from home option? There are many things that you should be able to identify and explain to your candidate. And they, in turn, should know why they would want to work for you.
Remember to make sure that you are, at a minimum, in line with industry averages. You don’t want to try hiring staff at half the going rate. This sort of thing can leak out and negatively impact your hiring options in the future.
Company culture
Not everyone will be a match for your company. This might be due to any number of factors. Employees who have “hard lines” in their expectations that you might not be willing to meet. Equally, you might have expectations that are non-negotiable. Not everyone will be the best for any job at any company. Make sure that you keep in mind what does and doesn’t work in terms of company culture.
Classic questions to ask potential employees
There have been many questions throughout the years that show up in interviews. Some of them are great questions, while others are a bit more old-fashioned.
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in five/ten years? These are all questions that are commonly asked in some form or another. These questions are considered “go to questions”, but might not actually yield useful answers. Remember that when you are considering classic interview questions, they’re questions that have been around for decades, and might not really reflect the realities of the current state of business.
Focusing on motivating questions might be one way to ensure a positive relationship with candidates. Asking them what they are passionate about, what motivates them, and what accomplishments they are proud of can help you to understand what they are like.
Remember, choosing the right candidate is important.
Good luck!