With the listing complete and salary determined, post to your company jobs site. If you lack one, consider posting the listing in trade publications, specialized media or online job sites. If sites such as Craigslist.org and Monster.com seem too general interest, don't worry. In the era of spider-search sites such as Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, if candidates are searching, and your listing anywhere gets crawled by search engines, they'll have ample opportunity to find your post.
Dig Deeper: Recruiting and Hiring Tips
Hiring an Executive Assistant: Interviewing Applicants
If interviewing seems intimidating, just remember your key objectives are to find out: Can this applicant truly do the job and will they fit into our work culture?
Adam M. Kleinbaum, a professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, suggests that a well-handled firstinterview can be the key to making the right hire. "An interviewer can ask what kind of organizations the applicant has enjoyed working for or hasn't, what ways they've gone about work has gone well for them, what hasn't," he says. "This is obviously easier to do in organizations that are clear about their own values."
Sounds simple? Crafting questions that elicit responses that easily display the answers to these questions might not be as easy as it seems. Asking a candidate whether they function well under pressure is likely to elicit simply a "yes." Asking him or her a question that directly applies pressure, such as "what makes you think you are better for this job than all the other candidates?" or "which co-worker at your last job did you not get along with well and how did you handle that situation" is more effective, and will likely yield an answer that's deeply telling. Hypotheticals about their future employment at your company can be even more revealing.
Any staffers who work directly with the CEO should be directly involved in the interview and selection process.
Dig Deeper: Behavioral Interviewing, the New Science of Hiring
Hiring an Executive Assistant: Checking References
This is the most overlooked part of the hiring practice, but experts say it is absolutely essential. Many employers also ask that applicants agree to credit-history checks and pre-employment drug screenings, but those are optional, and often depend on vocation.
Of three references, have a phone conversation with at least two, and pay attention to the tone of their recommendation, not just its content. It's not necessarily legal to hamper future employment for a past employee, so savvy references won't say anything negative. As an out, they'll say very little at all. Some human resources experts recommend checking a reference that's not recommended: hunt down a person at the applicant's most recent workplace who knew them well, and ask their opinion as well.
Dig Deeper: A Pre-Hiring Reference Check
Hiring an Executive Assistant: Other Best Practices
• Great candidates should naturally follow-up on an interview with a call or e-mail, making it easy for you to invite them back for a second meeting. Do so, and allow other managers to meet with potential candidates on their second interview before offering a position. A second or third opinion is valuable.
• Set up a program that rewards current employees for referring apt job candidates. People within the organization can recognize others who would fit in well, and are unlikely to choose someone who wouldn't pull their weight.
• In both job listing and interview, pose only legal obligations and ask only legal questions. As an employer, you are not permitted to ask questions about a person's age, race, creed, sexual orientation or marital status.
• Despite that gut feeling, never hire on the spot. Take time to review all candidates interviewed.
• Once you find an ideal candidate whom you have interviewed and reference-checked, make a prompt offer and bring that person on board as soon as possible. Don't forget that they've been actively seeking an ideal position, and could recieve multiple offers in rapid succession. This is especially important when you're seeking managerial candidates.
Dig Deeper: Avoid Hiring Mistakes
Hiring an Executive Assistant: On-Boarding the New Hire
The HR buzz-word right now is "on-boarding"—that is, making sure a new employee gets up-to-speed and becomes productive as quickly as possible. "When you work in these small companies, you are always understaffed, you never have time," Rudnick says. "But it's really important to take the time you don't have to get a new employee up to speed."
One thing that helps is to have company policy, including employee guidelines and procedures in place. Even if you don't have an HR department, having human-resources policies in place is essential from day one, experts say. It will not only ease the transition into the new job for employees, who will know what's expected (it's never fun to have to ask a new boss "What's the vacation policy?" on the first day), but also protect your company from potential future legal trouble. Consider including expected work hours, presence in the office, and acceptable personal use of company electronics and space. Binding it in a guidebook, or having an online employee guide that's always available to staff is your best bet.
Managers should make it a priority to schedule face-time with a new employee within the first day or two – and ask pointed questions about how they're feeling and what they feel would help them out in their job that hasn't been provided.
Looking ahead, a company intent on keeping its new employees should schedule regular check-ins. Matuson suggests a manager checking in with a hire after 30, 60 and 90 days, just to ask what changes they might suggest and allow them to ask any lingering questions in a low-pressure manner.
Dig Deeper: Get the Most out of Training Employees
