The Real Requirements Businesses Should Hire For

Hiring new talent can be exciting as well as stressful, especially for small businesses. While big enterprises have the luxury of trial-and-error (i.e. hiring somebody then firing them if they don’t fit after all), small businesses have to get it right the first time.

Why? Because you don’t have the time nor the resources to train and retrain new people every couple of months.

But the hiring process has many pitfalls, starting with criteria. Small businesses often make the mistake of following the example of others (most often, enterprises) when it comes to defining what you’re looking for in a candidate.

Here are the 5 most common mistakes small business owners commit when selecting hiring criteria.

College Degree

For many employers, a college degree seems to be the basis of selection criteria. For example, requiring a BA for an entry level insurance clerk job has doubled since 2014.

Does that mean that over the last four years, the job of insurance clerks has gotten that much harder? Or is it just a box big enterprises want to tick when bragging about their employees in various statistical databases?

While we’re not saying that college degrees are useless, there are indeed many jobs that don’t necessarily require the specific knowledge and skills only college graduates have had the means to acquire.

What to Look for Instead

Competency-based assessment (CBA) has been steadily gaining popularity in various European and Asian countries. While this method is certainly more time-consuming than simply checking the candidate’s CV, it gives you the added benefit of actually learning something useful about the person applying for the position.

CBAs give you the chance to check each candidate’s ability to perform the specific tasks required at your small business. This way, you’ll be certain about your new talent’s skills and can avoid an unpleasant surprise later on.

Experience

Every job applicant’s nightmare is the line “we’re looking for a fresh graduate with at least two years experience.” It’s a total Catch-22: how could you possibly gain the experience when nobody will hire you because you don’t have the experience?

On the other hand, nobody wants a pig in a poke. Most business owners feel like it’s a waste of time to start from scratch and teach absolutely everything to a total newbie.

Unfortunately if you follow this line of thinking, you can miss out on a lot of potential talent.

None of us are born with two years experience. We all had to start somewhere. Even people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos applied for their very first jobs without any experience at all. Don’t be afraid to be the first person who gives a young applicant a chance.

What to Look for Instead

Similarly to the previous point, we suggest using the CBA method. You’ll find out a lot more about the skills and abilities of your applicants than from a single line on their CV, advertising their experience at a company you’ve never heard of.

Also, take volunteer experience more seriously. Sure your applicant hasn’t been paid for the job, and maybe their mom made them do it. But, it’s valuable work experience in a (probably) relevant field. Why not take it into account?

Connections

Today’s world belongs to the extroverts. People who go out often and make friends easily have more chance at succeeding in a job hunt than others who merely restrict themselves to sending out their CVs.

But this doesn’t mean they’re any less able to do their jobs.

What to Look for Instead

Don’t ignore the stack of CVs from people you haven’t met at a networking event. Even if a person isn’t as outgoing as many others, they may be perfect for the job. Especially if it involves long hours of solitary work in your office.

Shiny Qualifications

No matter what the job, you’ll always receive a few exceptionally shiny CVs from applicants. People who have more qualifications, more experience and more skills than the job description originally requires.

Sometimes, hiring them can be a big mistake.

A person who’s overqualified to do a certain job is more likely to get bored and unmotivated than another person who has to strive to meet the requirements.

Give a chance to less shiny CVs and let those applicants prove their worth to you.

Sticking to Your Comfort Zone

You’re used to 9-to-5 office based employees, so you’re looking for the same thing when hiring new talent. But this could prevent you from accessing a wider pool of candidates.

Think hard about the position you’re hiring for. Could it be done in flexible hours, or even remotely?

What to Look for Instead

If the answer is yes, you could try hiring from a wider range of job seekers, or even outsource the task to an international freelancer. Doing this can help you save money, offers you the flexibility to expand and shrink your workforce according to your actual needs, and allows you to strategically enter global markets.

Don’t worry about technicalities like accounting and payments; you can do them easily with the help of modern technology.

All in all, make sure you have the specific requirements for your small business in mind when hiring new talent. Not what you think the norm is, and certainly not what other companies usually do.

Do only what’s best for your small business.