The online era arms small-business owners with myriad tools and information for finding and hiring employees. It can be tempting to scope out a potential employee’s social profiles, too. Yet using social media to dig up dirt on an applicant can lead to hiring mistakes and even legal trouble.

I know I’m starting to sound like the boy who cried wolf, but I swear that I’m getting closer to actually hiring someone to help run the business. While hiring someone has always scared me, I’m starting to see that the real pain point is payroll.

When you’re a big fish in a small pond, recruiting the right people to fill senior-level positions can be a problem. After all, the smaller the town, the smaller the talent pool is to draw from.

You’d like to hire an employee to help take your business to the next level, but you’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of employment websites out there. Which ones are reliable? Which are most popular? Which have a solid track record?

Barbara Wein Allen implicitly trusted her employees — until she found out that one of them had stolen some $250,000 from her firm, Multi-Point Communications of Birmingham, Ala.

You’re looking for that key staff member who can take your business to the next level. You’ve tried the mega job boards, but the candidates who’ve applied aren’t remotely qualified for the position — and you’re tired of weeding through your inbox. Should you turn to an employment agency? Maybe. Consider these factors before you do.

• Industry-specific recruiters know where to find qualified candidates. Experienced headhunters working within a particular industry generally understand its key players and where to promote open positions. Often, they contact employees of competing firms to see whether they’re interested in a job, which is probably not a tactic you’d dare to try on your own.
• Anyone can call himself a recruiter. Unlike for lawyers and real estate agents, there are no licensing requirements for recruiters. When considering using a headhunter, pay close attention to his prior experience and clients. Ask for referrals to make sure that he’s made good matches in the past.
• Recruiters are motivated to find employees fast. Because a recruiter isn’t paid until she matches a job seeker with a job, she’s eager to find you a candidate quickly. This can be a good for you if she’s careful to vet the candidate’s qualifications; however, if she rushes to fill the job for the sake of getting paid, you may not end up with the ideal person.
• Recruiters may rule out candidates you’d like to hire. When you give recruiters a set of criteria, they tend to make sure that all potential candidates fulfill everything on your wish list. That means they’re likely to rule out any candidate that’s even slightly lacking, but whom you may have liked despite the fact that they weren’t the whole package. Make sure to clarify details such as whether you will accept relevant experience in related industries or might allow telecommuting for the right candidate.
• Recruiter fees can drive down employee salaries, shrinking your pool of potentialemployees. Although you don’t pay anything out of pocket to use an employment agency, you’ll need to budget its fee (typically, around 20 percent of the candidate’s salary) into the amount you’re paying for the hiring package. That means that if your dream hire asks for an extra $10,000 in salary, you may not have room to negotiate — and could end up losing the candidate as a result.
• Recruiters can save you time. By outsourcing the application review and interviewing process, you’ll free up your time to focus on more profitable business ventures. Although you’ll have the final say in hiring a candidate, all of the time-consuming work that goes into making that decision will be handled by someone else.

By: Kathryn Hawkins

You’re working to fill a high-level position and have narrowed the field of job applicants to three promising candidates.?It’s time to bring them in for interviews. Your goal is to move beyond their glowing resumes and get a peek at their professional souls. But you’re unsure what types of questions will help you accomplish this. The Intuit Small Business Blog recently talked with a few hiring managers and small-business owners about the key questions they like to ask when interviewing potential employees. Here’s what they said.

When did you begin to work and why??This question can tell you a lot about your candidate’s work ethic. “The best responses are those where the candidate began doing a job such as cutting grass, shoveling snow, or working retail in high school or before,” says Bill Humbert, owner of the recruitment website?RecruiterGuy.com. Research shows that an individual’s?work ethic is typically developed during childhood, so early jobs are a good indicator that the candidate will be a dedicated worker. If the interviewee didn’t do paid work, ask what he or she did instead. If he spent 20 hours a week at football practice or caring for four younger siblings while his mother worked, he’ll likely have the drive you’re looking for. If he tells you he watched?I Love Lucymarathons every afternoon, he’s probably not the one you want.

 

What is the biggest mistake you’ve? ever made on the job??Anyone can brag about past successes, but an employee who learns from her mistakes is a valuable asset. Thus, it’s important to be able to discuss failures openly and honestly. Ask the candidate for details about what she did wrong, and encourage her to reflect on what she’d do differently next time around. If a candidate can’t come up with a response, “they are either lying or they have never taken chances — and thus are unlikely to? help grow the business,” says Guy Smith, principal and chief consultant for?Silicon Strategies Marketing.


What do you ?find most and least attractive about this position??To best fill that open position, you want a candidate who isn’t looking for?a?job — he’s looking for?this?specific job. This question will help you determine how well the candidate understands your company, what’s required in the role, and his attitude toward it. “If the ?least attractive thing is one of the job’s main functions, it probably won’t?be a good fit down the road,” says Crissy Gershey, vice president of sales and marketing for?Parties That Cook, a company that stages team-building cooking parties for Fortune 500 companies.

How many windows are there in New York City??Sara Schoonover, vice president of the legal service?TicketKick, asks this question to potential employees, knowing that they can’t answer it on the spot. However, their responses provide valuable insight into how they approach difficult questions. “It gives ?the interviewer a way to see how the candidate deals with [solving] problems,” she says. “Did they? attempt to figure it out at all, or did they immediately give up?” These types of questions are legendary in Silicon Valley for helping to measure how well candidates think on their feet.

 

by?Kathryn Hawkins