The Young Entrepreneur Council identified Ten startup hiring challenges with different entrepreneurs suggesting solutions.

The funny part is that when you read through them you’ll see that most are a function of poor candidate fit.

Successful hiring has a lot in common with good cooking, i.e., most of the work is in the prep and paying attention to details.

Poor candidate fit is generally the result a lack of preparation addressing three specific actions that should precede all interviews,

• creating a comprehensive position description;
• competent interviewing skills; and
• skilled reference checking.

It all starts with whether you have a req or a wreck (which is a wish-list of skills and experience).

One of the great benefits of a well thought-out req is that it also protects you from the number one hiring error (charm).

To help you along I’ve added a link in the right-hand column to the complete 12 Ingredients of a Fillable Req.

Take the time to think through each step in the order listed (as opposed to the typical order it’s done) and you’ll eliminate better than half of your hiring errors.

For help interviewing I’ve already posted both the InterviewER and InterviewEE CheatSheets; study the former and send the latter to your candidates.

We’ll talk more about reference checking next Thursday.

One more thing; if you don’t believe you have time to do the prep, don’t complain when your hires don’t work out.

Flickr image credit: anoldent

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2012 at 1:15 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs, Hiring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: how to hire, preparation, req
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