A single bad hire can be the difference between thriving and struggling in your business, especially when it comes to customer service positions. Here are five tips that will help you with how find the perfect staff to take care of your customers and keep them coming back to you time and time again.
1) Write Job Descriptions
Before you can hire new staff, you need to know what their jobs will be. If you don’t already have clear job descriptions for all positions, it’s time to create them. Even if everyone knows what he or she is doing (and many businesses run like that successfully), having job descriptions makes for crystal-clear communication
2) Filter Out Poor Candidates
While it’s important to train employees properly, you should also take your time in filtering out those who won’t work well for your company or who can’t do a satisfactory job. If they don’t seem like a good fit, then they probably aren’t. Making sure you get rid of poor candidates at an early stage will make it easier for you to hire better staff members.
3) Shortlist Two Candidates for Interview
It’s important that you shortlist two potential candidates for interview. This way, you don’t waste time by interviewing anyone who doesn’t make it through, which means your time is spent only on candidates who are right for your company. After all, finding a candidate is easy—it’s finding one that fits in with what you need them to do that matters.
4) Conduct Face-to-Face Interviews
If you’re planning on adding a number of staff, you should conduct face-to-face interviews for each position. Taking candidates out for lunch or coffee gives you a chance to get a feel for who they are, and it also lets them see if their working style fits in with your business culture. If it doesn’t, there’s still time to change direction and pursue someone else.
Asking interview questions can give you valuable insight into how potential employees will fit into your company’s culture and vision. Questions like What is your greatest weakness? or Where do you see yourself in five years? might seem odd at first, but they help reveal what a candidate is really looking for in a career.
Trial days and assessment days also allows you to see candidates in action, crucial for specialist and creative industries where their skill and style will reflect on your business and brand. This will help you find the perfect staff much easier.
5) Give Feedback to Candidates
Take your time and be professional. After you’ve talked with several candidates, be sure to give each one some feedback so they can better tailor their applications in future interviews. Tell them what you liked and didn’t like about their answers, and thank them for their time.
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