Recruiting Staff – Getting the Job Right from the Start

Staff recruitment can be the most exciting time of your business. To make sure you set it out right, this article covers helping you workout exactly what you want from a new member of staff, which will make it so much easier to recognize someone who can deliver that when you see them!

Job description It helps to create a job description before you work out what you want to pay a new member of staff and what sort of person you are looking for. A job description does not have to be all-encompassing to start off with, instead, jot down the key tasks you want your new recruit to undertake (and there’s no ‘fetching me coffee/burgers or screening my calls and waiting on me hand and foot’ allowed here please!).

Items in a job description might cover things like:

• Take and respond to sales calls.
• Generate leads (after all, you’re going to have to pay for your new bod somehow).
• Provide telephone support to customers
• Provide database support to customers
• Build and repair computers to specification
• Deal with customers and customer queries relating to hardware and software
• Code development (for example for any applications you support or wish to develop)
• Report generation using XYZ reporting tool
• Data analysis (if you provide this function to customers for example)
• Problem solving
• First line face to face hardware or software support
• Customer training in XYZ products
• Web development (if you offer this service)
• Take part in training
• Etc

Once you know what you want your new employee to do, the next step is to list the sort of person you’re looking for, and what qualities, skills and attributes they have. All of these things should be down on your list when you’re looking at what sort of person you want, as they’ll affect the person, the salary and the final outcome of your recruitment.

You may be looking for a really strong player, able to step into the breach when you aren’t available, or maybe you want to take more of a backseat now your freelance business is doing a little better. It may be that you’re just looking for an administrator or secretarial support (PA). It’s possible that you want someone else at the helm while you do other work. Use a Person Specification linked to the Job Description to help you detail the type of employee you want, using the list as a starting point:

Person specification

Qualities or attributes

• Self starter
• Motivated
• Can work on own initiative
• Can work as part of a team
• Proactive
• Target driven

Skills

• Driver (do you want to send them on call-outs to clients?)
• IT skills – do you want a generalist or a specialist?
• Customer service skills – you want this person to carry on your brand and convey your business message well
• Sales skills – another mouth to feed and all that

Qualifications

• Are you looking for an engineer, Microsoft, CISCO, etc qualified?
• Do you need someone to have English and Maths as a good sound basis?
• Are you looking for a graduate or non graduate?
• What training can you offer – this might change what you’re looking for.
• How quickly do they need to be a fully paid up part of the team? This will also make a big difference.

Once you have worked out exactly what you are looking for, you can then decide what you can pay for the expertise you are trying to buy in to your business. The more experience and qualifications you ask for, the more you will have to pay in the end, however, be prepared to start low as you can always consider alternative offers if appropriate, such as other rewards – good holidays, performance related pay and profit sharing can all be a valuable part of any package for a potential employee and will offset a lower salary to a degree.