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5 Tips for Hiring Smart That Every Business Owner Needs to Hear

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The hiring process can be exhausting, of course, but people don’t talk about how complex it really is.

It isn’t just a matter of posting about an opening on the major job boards, queuing up the most qualified candidates, and selecting your top choice. 

The candidate search can go in thousands of directions, and there are just as many tips, strategies, and modifiers that you can incorporate to optimize the process. We’ve rounded up the five best strategies for recruiters and hiring committees to employ to take their candidate searches to the next level.

1. Hire a Professional Background Check Company

Generally, employers reach out to background check providers when they’re hiring a big batch of employees all at once, and they need extra sets of hands to comb through each candidate’s professional background. 

Or when they’re hiring for executive-level positions and a clean background is vital for the healthy functioning of the business.

But if you ask any successful business operator, they’ll tell you background checks are always a good idea — even for the lowest level support staff. That’s why hiring a professional background verification company is the next logical step.

Decide what offenses (failed drug test and lying on their resume are two big red flags) are totally disqualifying, communicate that to the background check provider, and sit back while they cull the herd, leaving you with the best final group.

2. Encourage Employee Referrals 

Leaning on employee referrals is a great way to cut back on the time and money that the candidate search eats up. If a trusted employee trusts another of their peers in the industry, chances are, you’ll quickly realize you can trust them too.

According to Dr. John Sullivan, 88% of employers prefer employee referrals over all other sources for new hires. Those speak to a universal truth: hiring who you know is a safe bet.

3. Focus on Offboarding as Much as Onboarding

If you really want to hire great employees, you have to focus first on the employees you’re letting go. Not on who, but on how. 

A great offboarding process will pay back dividends to your company: building goodwill among current and ex-employees and boosting your company’s word of mouth profile. 

Not only are past employees all now company ambassadors — whether positive or negative ones — there’s always a chance a good employee will come back after spending a while away and bring new skills along with them.

4. Fine Tune Your Employee Value Proposition

An Employee Value Proposition, or EVP, is sort of like a mix between your company’s reputation and its mission statement. An EVP measures the rewards (in pay, bonuses, and workplace perks) that the average employee will receive in exchange for their work. 

You’ll want to fine-tune your EVP so that it can be seamlessly threaded into your company’s marketing campaigns and job posts. Just like candidates need to be able to elevator pitch their value as a hire, you need to be able to say succinctly how the benefits of working for your company outweigh the costs.

5. Open Your Mind to Remote Work Opportunities

Now more than ever, being flexible to allowing remote work arrangements is not only attractive, it’s becoming a must. As more and more people leave the office, fewer and fewer express a desire to go back.

But remote work isn’t just a lucrative prospect for your employees — it’s a budget-cutting plan for you. Use less electricity, pay less for office upkeep, revoke your lease on your office altogether, and embrace the workforce trend of the 2020s.

Bottom Line

Hiring managers all have the same goal — to recruit and hire the best candidate for the position. 

Make your job easier and consider the above tips when searching for your next candidate. You won’t be sorry. 

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