Part 1: Determining Who You Need on Your Team
It's a momentous moment when you decide to make your first hire as a small business owner. You may have been a solo operator for months or years, grinding away to grow your company to this point. Or perhaps your business model required building a team from day one. Either way, making that first hire is a major milestone - and there's more to it than you might expect.
Determining the roles you need to fill, attracting qualified candidates, onboarding new hires, and setting them up for success is no simple task. This guide covers everything you need to know about hiring your first employee, from scoping the required roles to complying with laws and regulations to crafting an effective onboarding plan.
We'll start with the most crucial step: figuring out exactly who you need on your team and what roles they will fill.
What Does Your Business Do?
Start by listing out every distinct task required to keep your business operating effectively. If you're currently a team of one, this should be straightforward - just document all the activities you handle over a typical week or month. Depending on your business, this could be a relatively short list or quite extensive.
Next, group those tasks into broader categories like marketing, sales, operations, finance, etc. For example, closing your books at month-end and reconciling inventory levels would likely fall under "finance" or "accounting." Review each category and estimate how much time is needed to properly cover those responsibilities.
What Are You Good At (And What Do You Want to Do)?
Nobody starts a business to spend all their time on tasks they dislike. Identify the areas you most enjoy working in and the activities you're best at. While you may not yet have the luxury of focusing solely on your strengths, it's wise to keep them in mind.
Determine which responsibilities, if possible, you'd prefer to delegate to someone else. Perhaps you dread managing the company's books, while you love being the public face of the business. Or maybe you're highly skilled at product development but loathe the marketing and promotion required to get those products in customers' hands.
What Can You Afford?
Review your profit and loss statement to understand how much cash your business is generating each month. After accounting for the taxes, benefits, and other costs associated with hiring an employee, will you have enough to consistently pay their wages? You'll want to avoid scenarios where you hire someone only to let them go soon after because you can't afford them.
The salary range for a given role can vary significantly based on your location. A marketing coordinator in New York City will likely command a much higher salary than someone in that position in rural upstate New York.
Who Can You Recruit?
At this stage, you should have a clear picture of:
- The responsibilities you want to delegate to a new hire
- Your approximate hiring budget based on current cash flow
- The ideal experience level for this role
Would you prefer someone very experienced who could theoretically hit the ground running? Or are you open to an eager, nascent professional willing to learn on the job? The required expertise level will depend on the role. A chef at a high-end restaurant had better have significant experience, while a line cook at a diner may not need the same pedigree.
Also consider whether you need to recruit locally or can look farther afield, and what types of candidates your business is likely to appeal to based on factors like your size, growth trajectory, and industry.
Crafting the Job Description
With a clear idea of who you want to hire, you can start drafting the job description. This will typically include:
- A brief introduction about your company's mission and culture
- An overview of the role's key responsibilities and requirements
- The preferred skills, experience level, and background for candidates
- Details on salary range, benefits, and any unique perks
Don't be afraid to get creative with your job descriptions. You could incorporate multimedia elements like video introductions from the founder or current team. Or fashion the description as a creative writing exercise or series of thought-provoking questions. Standing out from conventional job posts can help attract more engaged and intriguing candidates.
For example, a social media marketing role could be framed as: "Mic Check: Seeking Digital Ringleader to Amplify Our Brand's Voice." With the description continuing in a similar vein: "Our scrappy team needs a skilled emcee to run point on conversations across all our online channels. Someone who can set the tone, start important dialogues, rally our followers, and keep the show running smoothly..."
