"If you have employees, you look at your star performers, and look at what they have in common," she says. "In a start-up, the ideal employee is someone who can multi-task, who has high-energy, and can switch their game instantly. A person who will work well at a law firm is very different."
In an office manager, admirable behavioral traits could include detail-orientation, self-motivation, a positive attitude, winning people skills and stress management. Lines in the resulting listing might read: "Ideal candidate will be able to work well in a fast-paced, energetic environment with a positive attitude and impeccable time-management skills."
Next, include at least a paragraph detailing minimum qualifications, including preferred educational and experiential background. Being detailed will help narrow the applicant pool.
Preferred educational and experiential background can also incorporate behavioral characteristics. Instead of a bullet point saying "10+ years experience required," consider something along the lines of "Team player with strong leadership skills and 10 or more years of demonstrated ability to manage effectively."
If a flood of applicants is your fear, listing a salary could narrow the pool. Otherwise, experts suggest it is not necessary. While your listing should be thorough, don't do a data dump. Keep it succinct and digestable.
With the listing complete, post to your company jobs site, if you have one. Supplement that with listings in targeted trade publications and specialized media and postings on 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, your listing will be crawled by search engines, and qualified candidates will have the opportunity to find your post.
Once applications start coming in, it's up to you to sort through them, and to find out who fits your qualifications and with whom you'd like to talk. Even the experts say this process is always subjective.
Dig Deeper: Recruiting and Hiring Tips
Hiring an Office Manager: 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 my company's work culture? Of course, these are just the basics. To this, add discovering whether the applicant possesses the desired behavioral traits you've already laid out.
"In an interview, you want to go over job responsibilities and skills, and then the other component is behavior," says Jamie Resker, president and founder of Employee Performance Solutions. "Especially at a start up, the entrepreneur typically wants someone who is like moldable clay, not someone who has the personality of a steel rod. Will they go with the flow? Because a small business works a lot different than a big company."
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 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 a telling answer. Hypotheticals about a candidate's future employment at your company can be even more revealing.
As you ask these behavioral, open-ended questions, listen not only to the content of a candidate's response, but also to the voice and manner behind it.
Matuson says: "Are they pretty lethargic? Are they being honest with you? Did they do the right thing? Did they ask for help when they needed it? After a while it becomes really obvious this person is a go-getter, or they work hard, or they make good decisions."
