This article comes from Entrepreneur.

What to Consider When Hiring Employees

One of the most important acts of running a successful business is hiring employees. A bad decision can hurt your customer base, efficiency and profits. Use these considerations to arm yourself with the right employees when hiring.

Consider skills and personality when hiring.

Both skills and personality are important to consider when hiring. Making sure your potential employee has the right skill set for the job is crucial to ensure you are choosing the best candidate to meet your business goals.

Asking good questions during the interview is a sure-fire way to hire employees with the right set of skills and the ability to use those skills successfully. You want someone with the knowledge as well as a successful track record.

Here are some questions to ask candidates:

• How will your skill set help you in this role?
• What are some examples of your previous success in a similar role?
• What is your favorite software for this kind of position?

Common mistakes employers make.

Hiring can be a bit overwhelming for many reasons, sometimes avoidable ones. One of the most common mistakes employers make when hiring is not clearly defining the roles or responsibilities of the job. This creates confusion within the hiring team as well as with the job applicants, thus causing more stress and an inefficient, lengthy hiring process.

Consider taking more time to update the job description with the role that your business needs. This may have changed since the last time you were hiring and the responsibilities needed on your team may have shifted. Taking the time to truly assess your business needs and the type of person you envision in the role is important in making a good hiring decision.

Above all, know what (and who) you’re looking for.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do to successfully hire employees for your business is to be clear about your needs and wants for the position. As stated above, investing extra time in updating and clearly defining your job description will lay the groundwork for a successful hiring process.

This can start with an in-depth look at how you want to grow your business and the type of role you need to meet your growth goals. Ask yourself tough questions about what your business needs in order to successfully meet goals and if those goals are attainable in the time frame you set.

Once you’ve done that and updated your job description, you can start thinking about the type of person you envision in that role — the characteristics and skills that make a candidate ideal for that position.

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