4 Things To Do To Prep For Your Hiring Needs

Updated November 9, 2021 - It is always exciting, and a little intimidating, to grow your operation. However, with careful assessment, you can put together a plan that will enable your operation to attract candidates who fit your current and future needs. Let’s look at four things you can do now to prepare you for your hiring needs.

1. Determine Your Future Operations

The first step to preparing for hiring needs is to understand the long term vision and goals of your company. Strategic planning exercises can help you and your team identify where you want to the company to go as well as when and how you want to get there. Most strategic plans include annual and other long-term forecasts of a company and industry, as well as clear strategic initiatives set forth by the CEO and senior management team. Once you understand where you’re going and how success will be measured, you can move on to determining how your human resources will support your goals.

2. Map Human Resources Across All Areas of Growth

Taking the time to map out how employees will support strategic objectives will help answer questions like; do I have enough employees now and how many will I need to hire to account for natural churn? Can improvements in processes and/or technology create efficiencies that reduce the need to hire more? Do I have the right people to do the job now and who can grow into the evolving needs of the company in the future?

For example, your company may have a goal to increase its capacity 5% in the next five years in order to boost profits 15%. When you map out the different human resources needed to support this growth however, you may find that you need to increase the number of entry level employees by 7% this year in order to have 4% more managers you need in five years. While more sophisticated process are available, mapping remains a simple and effective exercise.

3. Write a Job Description

Once you’re confident you know your HR needs, you can write a job description. In addition to the functional requirements you’re seeking to fill, it’s important to include key personality traits that will support long term, team-oriented success. Take special care to include the leadership style of the position’s manager as well as the company culture and interview those who already perform the job to identify the personality traits and interests that make them successful (or not) and include that in hiring criteria as well.

4. Get Referrals

There are many ways to find candidates, but most human resource managers will tell you the challenge lies in finding qualified candidates. To help expedite this process, ask your best employees for referrals and consider offering bonuses if their referral leads to a hire. Not only do your current employees know the job, they know the company. For cold applicants, be sure to use resume sorting software thoughtfully, considering that personality and cultural aptitude can’t be taught, but job functions can.

Employees make or break a company, so hiring should not be taken lightly. With a strategic focus, thoughtful planning, and a focus on fitting personality and culture, you will be able to expand your team.