As a new franchisee, surrounding yourself with the right people can make all the difference to your success. Your greatest resource, as they say, is the people who will be serving customers and clients at your location. Bringing the appropriate people on board through a comprehensive hiring process is the best way to ensure you’re setting your business up for success. Hiring can be a tricky thing, though—one false move could be costly.
Read on for tips and best practices to make your hiring process run as smoothly as possible.
What am I looking for?
Before you place a “help wanted” ad, you need to know the kind of employee you seek. When you’re thinking about what you’re looking for in a potential hire, you’ll need to go beyond the job title. Be clear about who you’re looking for, personality-wise, and the qualities or skills that person will need to possess. Does the position require someone who can be a team player, or will the new hire need to be able to work well independently? Do you want a leader who can motivate and influence other employees? Knowing what personality type is needed can help narrow the field as you go through résumés and applications. You’ll also need to be realistic—if you’re looking for a cashier, finding a candidate with great interpersonal skills is likely going to be more important than looking for someone with an MBA.
What should I put in the job description?
Franchisees in particular have a distinct advantage when it comes to crafting effective job descriptions for available positions. The franchisor will have experience in hiring for these exact positions, and will know exactly what the job entails and what should be in the description.
Job descriptions should outline, in detail, all the technical and skill- and experience-based aspects of the position—the proficiencies that a candidate would include on their résumé. When the prospective employee comes in for an interview, that’s when you can start evaluating personality and culture fit.
Where can I find candidates?
While the internet plays a large role in today’s hiring process, it may be better to diversify your approach to hiring. Posting on the internet will reach a wide range of candidates but can also create an avalanche of applications for you to weed through. Job fairs can be a good source of candidates, if you lay some groundwork beforehand and do some promotion to make sure the people you want to target show up.
If you already have some star employees working with you, ask them for referrals. This is helpful because the person is being recommended by a reliable source that already has a good idea of the type of person that would thrive in the position and in the business.
An important thing is to measure the success of each method you use to find candidates. That way, when you need to start the hiring process again, you won’t waste time and effort on channels that didn’t work well for you the first time around.
How should I structure the interview process?
Once you have received résumés from potential hires and narrowed it down to a short list of candidates, it’s time to interview. Before you sit down with anyone, ensure you have a clear procedure in place for the most important part of the hiring process.
To help remove your own preferences and biases from the process, interviews should be conducted by more than one person. You can then discuss the pros and cons of each candidate together and find a consensus. This will aid in finding new hires that complement, rather than copy, the qualities and skillsets that you already have.
In addition to reducing the opportunity for personal biases to creep in, having other people helping you to interview candidates can reveal even more about the person on the “hot seat.” When one of the other interviewers is asking a question, you’re free to focus on the person’s body language. Are they comfortable? Do they seem less than confident?
Use the interview process to dig deeper into the candidate’s mindset. Steer clear of close-ended questions, get interviewees to give you examples, and ask follow-up questions. Don’t be afraid to ask the “tough” questions, either.
How do I choose which candidate to bring on board?
The two things to keep in mind when evaluating candidates are cultural fit and technical fit. The former involves the person’s personality and motivations. It’s harder to train these things if they’re not a fit from the get-go. References are still one of the most important pieces of the hiring puzzle and can give you even more insight into the intangibles, such as work ethic. It’s important that you go right to the top and speak with former supervisors and managers.
While it’s illegal to ask a reference about certain subjects, such as the candidate’s religion or marital status, there is one question that should always be on your list: “If you had the opportunity to hire this person again, would you?” If the answer to this question is anything other than a resounding ‘yes,’ it may be a red flag.
Once the new hire is on the job, is the process over?
You’ve searched, assessed, and interviewed. You extended a job offer and the candidate accepted. Now that they’re officially your employee, your work is done. Not so fast: you need to be paying attention to how they fit into the role and the business as a whole. While there will be a settling-in period, if it becomes obvious that the new employee is not a good fit, it’s in everyone’s best interest to let them go sooner rather than later.