Running your own small business isn’t an easy experience. Not only do you have to worry constantly about things like budgeting and marketing, but you also have to ensure that you have a product or service that’s truly worth your customer’s time. With so much competition across the world of business today, it can be particularly tough to become, and stay successful.

While the pains of running a small business range from invoicing, to finances, to technical support, one of the primary concerns you’ll need to think about is your staff. After all, without the right staff – nothing would get done! So how can you make sure that you’re finding and recruiting the right talent for your business?

The Importance of Staff


Hiring the right employees is a challenging process at the best of times. Not only is hiring the wrong staff member expensive and detrimental to your working environment, but hiring the right employee can pay you back in several different ways – from employee productivity to positive work environment development.

Hiring the right staff members enhances your work culture and pays you back thousands of times over in positive forward-thinking, employee morale and the accomplishment of challenging goals. As such, we’re going to look at some of the main steps you should take when hiring the best staff for your small business.

  1. Use a Checklist


First things first, you need to know exactly what you’re looking for in terms of professional assistance. Creating a checklist for skills, talents, and certifications will give you a foundation for supporting your staffing search. Whether it’s one or many employees that you’re looking to hire, a good idea of what you need to achieve will be sure to keep you on track.

  1. Carefully Review Information


The work involved with reviewing cover letters, resumes, job applications and more, will all start with a comprehensive job description. Once you’ve let your applicants know precisely what you’re looking for, you should at least be able to limit your chances of receiving too many inappropriate resumes.

Once you’ve received a few applications to sort through, make sure that you make notes and review each piece of information carefully – as this will help you narrow down your selection.

  1. Use an Umbrella Company


If you don’t have time to sift through a million resumes yourself, then why not look for assistance elsewhere when it comes to recruiting? An umbrella company like Atlantic Umbrella can help you by acting as an employer to agency contractors who work under fixed-term contracts. This takes a lot of the hard work associated with staffing out of your hands. It places it onto the shoulders of experienced individuals who can allow you to make the most out of your time, and focus your efforts on running your business.

  1. Pre-Screen Candidates


Perhaps the best reason to start pre-screening candidates when you’re hiring an employee is to save time on selection and interviewing. While candidates often look good on paper, that doesn’t mean they’re going to fit into your existing employee culture. What’s more, when you pre-screen, you can determine things like salary matches, and whether the individuals you’re interested in might require additional training to get them up to scratch for the job.