Hiring Your First Employee: Everything You Need to Know

Looking to recruit your first employee? Good on you! It can be scary, but we've got everything you need to know right here in this blog post. Enjoy!

June 20, 2023

HAll successful business owners have to start somewhere, whether it’s in their bedroom at home or just freelancing on the side.

But what happens when business starts to boom and you’re looking to expand your empire?

Here’s a complete guide to hiring your first employee, including top recruitment tips and things to consider before starting the process.

How to tell if you’re ready to employee someone

If you’re not 100% sure whether you need to hire a candidate or not, it might be worth taking a step back and thinking about your requirements.

Obvious signs that you need assistance include:

- turning down work as you’re too busy to do it yourself

- falling behind on your paperwork and tax return

- being unable to do any marketing or sales work to push revenue past a certain threshold

- struggling to find enough time in your day to get things done/working overtime

- not knowing about a certain area of expertise which is essential to your business.

If one of the above applies to you, and you have the funds available, it’s time to recruit!

First steps to finding your first employee

Establish the role

Before you can post a job ad, you need to establish what kind of tasks you want the new employee to complete.

This will then give you a firmer grasp on the types of skills they need to have and the level of experience which is required.

Think about the procedure

The next stage is considering your recruitment procedure.

For instance, what job boards are you going to use?

What date do you need your employee to start?

When will interviews take place?

What stages will you have – i.e. a telephone interview and two rounds of interviews?

As well as this, you’ll need to make sure that you’ve got all of the necessary paperwork inline – including starter guides, pensions, payroll and so on.

Check your budget

Advertising for a new recruit can get very costly if you don’t find the right person quickly.

And that’s not even including the cost of their salary.

Before making any sudden moves, run through your finances and free up some more cash if possible.

To get an idea of salary cost, you can always use Total Jobs’ salary calculator to see what the going rate is for the job you’re recruiting for.

Advertise, shortlist and interview

Now for the juicy part!

As I mentioned earlier, you need to think about job boards and other ways of advertising.

If your budget is relatively low, it might be worth looking at free job boards, advertising on social media channels or posting in the local newspaper.

Once your job ad is live, it’s time to think about shortlisting effectively and quickly – especially when you’re trying to run a thriving start-up.

To help you achieve this, you might find our previous blog useful: ‘5 Shortcuts to Finding a Brilliant CV in Seconds’.

The interview stage is a whole different kettle of fish.

First, you need to think about the kinds of interview questions you’re going to ask.

Do you want to challenge a candidate with a series of hard questions?

Or would you rather have a more conversational chat so you can get to know them a bit better?

And then there’s the body language and signs you must look out for.

Do they look nervous? Are they too full of themselves? Are they lying about their skills?

For this, I recommend you take a look through our blogs in the ‘Assessing Applicants’ category.

Just remember, before hiring your first employee, try considering the facts:

- You’ll be spending up to 40 hours a week with this person, so you need to make sure that you’re going to get along with them.

- You need your business to carry on setting a high standard, so pick someone who loves what they do and is actually good at it!

- Hiring a candidate who has different skills to yours can help you learn and the business flourish.

- Experience is important, but don’t forget their work ethic. You want hard workers who care about what you do.

- Job hoppers might not be right for your business as you don’t want to be left in the lurch a few months down the line.

Offering the job

The final stage is all about preparing the contract and offering the chosen candidate the job.

Drawing up a professional and legal contract is a daunting prospect, but it doesn’t have to be.

To help you with this, smallbusiness.co.uk have a top guide on how to successfully do this.

Final thoughts

So there you have it.

The most important thing to remember is to enjoy the process.

Taking on your first employee is an exciting time and a sign you’re heading in the right direction.

If you still feel like you’d like an extra hand or you simply don’t have the time to do everything yourself, it might be worth looking into getting a recruitment agency to help you out.

Our team here at Coburg Banks know everything about helping start-ups and SMEs in the IT, health & social, marketing, sales and technical industries.

Our processes are thorough and bespoke, so we can work with you as much or as little as you’d like.

For more information, get in touch with us and we’ll guide you through every stage.

Coburg Banks - Multi-Sector Recruitment Agency
We help great people get brilliant jobs in top companies.

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