Recruiting a new member of staff – some advice

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Jim Collins in the book ‘Good to Great’ says that people are not your greatest asset in your business but the right people are.

The decision to recruit a new employee is a big commitment for any SME and one which will not have been made lightly. There are many reasons why the decision will have been reached and the following are but a few :-

A key employee has left or retired;

Analysis of the capabilities within the management team shows a serious gap which needs to be filled by a specialist role;

Business is expanding and is currently under resourced in key areas;

A manager/ employee is performing a number of important functions but not performing effectively in some because too busy and/or inadequately trained.

Once you decide to recruit, the following questions need to be asked :

How will this role add value to the business ?

If the role existed previously, how should it be done differently ?

Can we recruit internally ?

Will this be a part time or full time position ?

At what level should we recruit, i.e supervisor, manager, director ?

Once the above are answered, the job description, defining the actual type of work and list of duties, should be documented.

The person specification, defining the skills and qualifications required to do the job, should be determined also.

The above are the first steps in the all important recruitment process which will get you off on the right start.

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