I recently read a great blog post by Bill Flaggs of RegOnline about strategies for hiring good employees. Bill laid out his 5-step process and some very useful suggestions for finding and hiring great employees. As an employer, I think his advice is worth remembering and personally employing (pun intended).
In a nutshell, Bill Flaggs’ five employee selection steps are as follows:
1. Write a job ad that is standout and personable.
Flaggs uses Craig’s List for this. The example he offered is “Support SuperStar: looking for people to knock the socks off our clients everyday.”
2. Link the job ad to a strong landing page.
Since the ad is online, link it to an interesting and personable landing page (see a screen capture of the RegOnline landing page) that tells prospective employees why they would want to work there.
3. Show why people like to work at your company.
Use a video, letter from the CEO and other interesting details (RegOnline even linked to their cookbook [pdf]) to show the company’s personality and to get people excited. The point is to let prospective employees get a feel for the work environment before they apply.
4. Make the job application an online survey where you can ask them “some telling questions.”
Be sure to provide places in the survey for them to copy and paste their resume. This automated process also makes it easy for the employer to track and pre-screen applicants.
5. Make job applicants “earn their way into a job” through a challenging process.
Those who get the job will feel proud of having made it through the tough interview process. For this stage Flaggs gives a few assignments and conducts a couple in-person interviews. He also does in-depth reference checking. The detailed interview process is noted and described on the landing page. He finds that the rigorous process seems to actually motivate more people to want the job since it seems challenging and exclusive.
So there are five great tips for finding and hiring great employees. Do you have any other tips to add? Please make your suggestions below.