Category: Marketing blog

Every employer wants reliable and skilled employees to work with. A poorly planned out hiring process could lead you to taking on the wrong kind of employees. Here are some tips to help improve your hiring process and get the best people working for you.

Allocate yourself enough free time

You can never hope to find good employees if you’re rushing the hiring process. Vacancies may need to be filled fast, but it’s better to take you time and find an employee who you’re not going to be replacing again in a few weeks’ time. Spare yourself some free time for job marketing, reading applications and conducting interviews. This will allow you to advertise in a greater number of places, read a greater number of applications and interview a greater number of people. Besides, if applicants think that they’re being rushed, they’re more likely to look elsewhere.  

Let applicants know what you can offer them

Your job ad shouldn’t just be a list of demands that your ideal candidate must meet. Many of the best candidates want to know what’s in it for them. For this reason, it’s worth listing some incentives on your job ad – why do people want to work for your company? This could be the opportunity to earn bonuses, the opportunity to have a company car or some other kind of perk that gets people interested.

Advertise beyond online job listing sites

Online job listings aren’t the only places people look for jobs. Consider posting flyers on job boards, contacting your local newspaper or taking part in a job fair. You can even hire a recruitment company to help scout talent. If you’re looking for specialist talent, look for a specialist recruitment company such as a credit recruitment agency for a job in credit. You can even hire a headhunter to help find you someone suitable for the role.

Make use of social media

Social media can have lots of uses in the hiring process. You can advertise vacancies by posting job ads on Facebook. You can then screen applicants by checking their profiles. The likes of LinkedIn are particularly worth using – this site was built for professional networking and can be great for finding and screening applicants.  

Do background checks

Background checks can stop you taking on a dodgy employee. This could include checking someone’s criminal record or even doing a credit check. It’s also worth following up on references – there are more and more cases of lies on CVs nowadays. Contact previous employers and schools to check you’re taking on who they claim to be.

Introduce applicants to your team

It’s worth introducing applicants to your team. It’s important that your current employees get on well with candidates. This could be a case of letting a senior employee sit in on an interview with you or it could be a case of letting a candidate do a trial shift and then asking what your team think of the candidate.

Get contracts in place

A legal contract will help you in the long run if you do hire a bad egg. Make employees sign this before handing them any jobs to do. A good contract should protect you from an employee suing you unnecessarily, but it should also help to make your employee feel protected by mentioning perks that they’re still legally entitled to.

January tends to be the month when most businesses start taking on new members of staff. Many of us start the new year with a mindset of “new year, new start” and business owners also tend to have resolutions revolving around expansion and improvement. Taking on new staff can help them to start their year out on a new page and can also help with business productivity. So, if you’re taking on new staff. It’s time to start advertising the positions you have available and see what applications come through. Now, there are certain checks that you should always carry out before offering up any contracts. Here are a few to bear in mind.

Criminal History

It’s always best to be aware of your staff member’s criminal history. For many job roles, it’s not necessary for workers to declare anything. For others, where individuals may be interacting with vulnerable members of society (such as children, the elderly, and the disabled) a check may be a legal necessity. Either way, you are always in your right to request a DBS or CRB check. This gives you access to their basic criminal history record and will contain details of any unspent convictions. If this sounds like something that you’d be interested in, use uCheck’s personnel checks website. You can expect checks to be completed within 3 – 10 working days.

Interviews

One of the most commonly carried out checks in the business owner’s toolbox is an interview. While someone may seem perfect on paper, they could prove to be less than desirable once you meet them in person. Why? Well, because character and attitude can make all the difference when it comes to deciding whether someone will bring the right mindset to their work and whether they will fit in well with both your brand’s ethics and any existing members of staff that you may have. So, gather up any resumes that catch your eye and offer the potential candidates interviews. Getting to know them on a more personal basis will help to make the final decision more simple. Just make sure to have plenty of suitable and relevant questions!

References

It’s not always necessary for people to include references on their resume. But it’s always a good idea to request them. Why? Well, it means that you can get a previous employer’s honest opinion of the person who is looking to join your company. You will only really check these towards the end of the hiring process. Generally, you will get the thumbs up. This is essentially a green light to go ahead with offering the individual the position. But every now and then you will hear reports of lateness, unexplained absences, lack of productivity, bad customer service or even antisocial behaviour. In cases such as these, you’ll know that this person may be worth avoiding as a potential employee. Sure, sometimes people’s behaviour can change, and people may deserve a second chance. But at the end of the day, you’re going to be paying them to fulfil a particular role within your company, and you want to be as certain as possible that you’re going to get your money’s worth.

Following these checks will help you to find the best employees for the role that you’re offering!

When you’re starting out in business, it’s an all-too common instinct to try and do everything by yourself. Your business is, after all, your baby and nobody knows it as well as you. You keep an eagle eye on its daily operations and prefer to keep all operations “in-house”. Even if you do choose to outsource you apply laser focus and unmatched scrutiny to the companies to whom you entrust your business’ future. You ensure that their work ethic and ethos matches your own. This is commendable, and applying this level of scrutiny means that even outsourced aspects of your business feel organic and homogenous. While this logic is applied to any outsourced company that facilitates your business operations it also needs to be applies to an oft-overlooked facet of business… Your accounts.

Why You Probably Shouldn’t Do Your Own Accounts

The resourcefulness and determination that enables entrepreneurs to take the reigns and build their own companies can also be a rod for the dogged entrepreneur’s back. They tend to assume that with a little research and a whole lot of willpower they can turn their attention to virtually any facet of business but this mindset can be hugely counter productive. Not only will it draw your attention away from the important daily operations of your business, your lack of familiarity (and inevitable time constraints) can leave you open to irregularities and errors in your accounting that could create a serious hindrance come tax season. Attempting to cut costs by doing your own taxes is likely also wrong headed as a good small business accountant will likely save you more than they cost. With so many accountants out there, however, it can be hard to choose the right one for your business.

They should be chartered or registered

Believe it or not, anyone can legally call themselves an accountant without any formal training, qualification or experience. In the fast paced and ultra competitive world of today’s business landscape you need to cling to whatever dependability you can get and a chartership is a mark of quality in accounting. It means that their practice meets certain professional standards and that the accountant will have had at least 3 years’ training and have passed a series of stringent exams. Your business deserves the best and that means choosing chartered!

They should be affordable but not cheap

It’s understandable that entrepreneurs should want to control their overheads but high quality and low cost rarely go hand in hand. If someone is advertising themselves as the cheapest on the market, they’re unlikely to have the expertise your business needs.

They should be busy

If you’re courting an accountant who seems a little too keen to get your business this may be a red flag. A good accountant worth their salt will have a healthy cohort of clients. Ask them about their existing clients and whether they have any clients with comparable businesses to yours. This will show that they have an interest in and understanding of their clients’ operations.  

They “get” your business and share your enthusiasm

As with any outsourced asset, an accountant needs to share in your passion and vision for your business. Your dream accountant should be on board with your business strategy and will be able to tailor their services to suit your business’ individual needs.