We're Hiring

Preface: sometimes we write about topics in digital marketing and other times we talk about the trials and tribulations of owning a small business. This post is the latter.

I've been trying to write this post for over a week now. We've been overwhelmed with work lately and are still behind on projects. In the midst of trying to do sales and development and creative and finance and administrative we learned a valuable lesson as work continues to pile on (what a great problem to have!).

We can't do everything on our own.

It's something that you hear over and over, but it only dawns on you when you're staring at the wall and realize you've barely made a dent in your work. So about two weeks ago we decided to start looking for help. I don't envy hiring managers.

Here's some things that I learned from our hiring search:

Define what you need:

It's hard to define exactly what you need when you're used to doing everything. We decided to hire a website developer because our biggest margins are from website development. Seems like a no-brainer when I type it out now... but we also wanted someone that could be flexible and had an eye for good design.

Tell everyone that you're hiring:

Post it, share it, and tell everyone that you're hiring. You want to cast a wide net because you never know what you'll find. Have key qualifications that you're looking for, but don't limit yourself to some preconceived notion of the perfect candidate. The right person is probably the one that you don't expect.

Create a project:

The best hiring advice that I received was to give the final candidates a small project for them to complete. This could be a part of a project you're already working on, or something created specifically for them to solve. It can be directly applicable to their role, or it could be more abstract, but it needs to have a deadline. This is important because you see how interested the candidates are in your company how they work on a time limit and you can test their competency. This will tell you exactly who to hire.

Maybe these are obvious, but when you're a small business owner it's easy to skip steps and just focus on the work that needs to get done. There's always more that can get done... but if you don't take the time to lay good foundations and establish clear systems the work will only get harder. We're excited to see where this next step takes us and what we learn next.

What have you found when hiring new employees? Is there something your company does to find the best candidates?

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