Small Business Hiring Guide

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For thorough small business hiring, it’s a smart idea to create an interview guide. The guide is just an outline-type document which will let you prepare for the types of questions to ask, how to conduct the interview, and identify what you should be digging to find out.

It’s more formal than just winging it with each person’s resume and will keep you focused, efficient, and ensure that you get to all the topics with each person.

Also, you can reuse a simple 1-2 page interview guide again and again when you are hiring. Just make slight alterations as required for each new position.

The suggested small business hiring format follows but if the candidate does not look promising, skip and or summarize steps and get them out of your office:

1. Greetings - I like to also ask if it was difficult to get here. This is a nice way to find out how the commute will be for the person. Be forewarned: Candidates are always confident that they will have no trouble making a commute but the longer their commute the more risk you have that they will shortly resign for an opportunity closer to home.

2. Overview of the company- At this point in the interview, don’t get into details about the position for which you are hiring. In my opinion, this is important because you want to see if the candidate is prepared and interested enough to talk about their qualifications on their own rather than later regurgitating the things that you said were important to you.

3. Why were they interested in the job? This is a good question to find out how interested they are and also to see if they are eager enough to have done any research to prove that they know what they are getting into.

4. Education questions – Did they display good decision making in school and in choosing a career path? Don’t get too hung up here as some good people today tend to meander. But they should have some reasons for changing their minds that sound rational to you.

5. Work experience questions – In my experience with technical oriented professional service jobs, I found it critical that there is a strong reason the job is a good, natural, and valuable step for the person interviewing. If this job is a logical step for the candidate it helps to ensure that your interests are aligned. Warning: Don’t take the applicant’s word for it as today they are programmed to get all the job offers they can and then leave when a better opportunity comes along.

6. Evaluate the candidate - If they do not fit what you are looking for, give them a brief overview of the job and tell them that you will keep them in mind. If you picked up on this any earlier in the job hiring process you should move to this sooner. If they are a good candidate then you have to begin to sell them on the company. This is especially true for small business hiring as the candidate will not know anything about the company, its viability, growth prospects, etc.

7. Tell them about the job - Hopefully the person has told you things that make them a natural candidate for the job. Again, you tell them the specifics of the job last so that they don’t just tell you what you want to hear so that they get the job. Telling the candidates more about the job later in the small business hiring process, is an important aspect to finding the best candidates. Let them then sell themselves and better position themselves to you.

8. Sell them on the job - If they are a good candidate you will sell them on the appeal of the job. Important: Be sure to stress the things you are offering that are most important to the candidate. Many times, it’s not just about money; other things are more important such as the great experience that they will get, the easy commute, the opportunity to break into a good field, etc.

   In my first company, we used to get a lot of recent college graduates who wanted to break into an analytical field before and/or apply to business school in three years. We had great success placing candidates into the top business schools including the local MBA schools like Stanford and Berkeley. This was a major sales point for our job hiring and we got candidates for much less money as a result. Don’t underestimate these non monetary benefits to the candidates and sell the good ones like you would sell your product or service.

9. What do you like to do on your personal time? I like to ask this question last in a small business hiring interview. The person is relaxed because the interview is over and it’s a good way to get candid info from them. Also, the information they provide can help you understand if you would like working with the person. It’s good to see what types of activities people do in their free time because often it can indicate how it will impact their job.

   I like people who lead relatively boring lives because I can count on them to be there day in and day out. If someone says they love to go clubbing every night, I might worry that lifestyle would impact their (and therefore MY) work schedule. I actually hired someone like this once because she seemed sharp and was fun but had to let her go in a couple of months because she came in tired and probably hung over.

10. Expect a Thank You Note. If a candidate does not send a thank you note after the job interview, I feel it is a very poor example of their interest, thoroughness, and attention to detail. I really do not need to be thanked for the interview and I do understand that the candidate’s time is valuable just like mine. But as George Costanza from Seinfeld once said, "You know, we are living in a society!" This is just how it’s done and people who really want a job and intend to perform at it will do things right and cover all the bases.

    Final Note

    I think, for small business hiring, it’s a good idea for you, the owner, to meet and approve each person hired if you have under 20 employees. This will ensure that the right people are brought in and no one makes any rookie mistakes in the hiring processes. I've seen this as a big problem in small companies because some of the staff members are junior and really don’t know what they are doing beyond their particular technical specialty.

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