The process of hiring is one fraught with both optimism, excitement . . . and peril too.  Whether it is our first employee, that base cornerstone emblematic of what our shall be; or our thousandth, and so a further building block designed to strengthen and ensure our organization’s growth; that hire needs to be well considered and carefully made.

The first consideration is need – what role and value do we anticipate that new hire will provide to our organization?

Next we must determine whether the acquisition of that human “asset” is fiscally prudent at this time, given the active marketplace for hiring someone to perform that role and our organization’s financial constraints.

Once we have moved beyond these considerations, we next must decide whether that is a task that can be performed efficiently and well in house, or whether an outside entity should be engaged to conduct some, or all of that process of recruitment and hire (and I confess to not being a fan of outside companies “employing” my organization’s employees for reasons related to my foundational principal of employee’s sense of “ownership”).

The process of formulating a strategy for recruitment includes finding sources to recruit applicants, that can still be in certain “publications” but more often today is by on-line search.  We then must review applicants base credentials and search for a general fit of aptitude, skills, and experience to our position’s needs.  Once we have winnowed our pool of applicants, we bring in those for interview; a process requiring a recognition, which is often overlooked, that a personality fitting into to our organization’s “culture” – that is, does the applicant actually “buy-in” to what we are trying to do – is crucial to success.  As we get closer to that hiring decision, the applicant must be vetted, checking out references, etc., and then we take the plunge and make our offer of hire.