As some of you know, I used to have a company where we had 100+ employees.
I had to learn a LOT – and QUICKLY – about how to get the BEST workers in a FAST way.
I realized one thing that was extremely important was the initial job posting.
As you may or may not know, advertisements here are the basic building blocks for effective marketing campaigns.
An inadequate job advertisement can have a snow-ball effect, doing damage to your whole business. Here are some of my top tips to make sure you hire people the right way the FIRST time.
Point 1: Explain exactly what you need to have done.
Let people know EXACTLY what you want done. The more detailed your advertisements are, the better bids you will get. High caliber job applicants don’t want to say they can do a task if they aren’t sure that they can do what you’re asking for.
Be VERY specific. The best response I ever got to a job posting was with a 14-page ad that explained EVERYTHING I wanted. People who applied for that position were fantastic.
Point 2: Ask for a sample.
Samples help with 2 things:
a) You know who the most capable people are right away
b) You’ll know who can follow instructions.
Point 3: Test people.
This point is optional, but you may find that it is a good idea.
There are two ways that you can go about testing people.
First, you can give them a specific task to do that is related to what the actual job assignment entails so as to gauge their level of competency.
You could also create a test on Google Docs asking candidates a few questions about the type of job you want to get done. If a candidate passes the test, then you know that he or she understands what you are looking for.
Point 4: Include a qualifier.
I highly recommend this strategy as it’ll weed out 70% of people from the very beginning. Simply include a line in your advertisement saying something like “Respond with the words purple cow at the top of your cover letter”.
(It doesn’t matter what phrase you use, it can be anything.)
The point of including a qualifier is to ensure that candidates are reading your advertisements in their entirety, that they can follow instructions., and that they’re not spam-bidding on every job post they find.
Point 5: Tell people you’re going to pay per TASK, not on an hourly basis.
This will weed out people who want to take their time with your jobs. It usually also means that you’ll get much FASTER response (people want to get paid quicker).Point 6: What’s in it for me?
Aside from money, make sure that you tell people what’s in it for them. For example, if there is a possibility for extra work, let people know upfront. If you’ll give them great feedback if they do a good job, let them know. If you can describe the job as a FUN one (for example backlink generation can be ‘a fun scavenger hunt’), you’ll get much higher quality candidates.
Of course, if you don’t want to do any of this stuff, you could also use a service that does everything FOR you – like BYTDL or MyWebSupportTeam.
And if you’re interested in hearing MORE about outsourcing (including things like how to pay people, where to find best-of-the-best workers, ‘ninja’ strategies I use to find U.S. based workers at $3/hour and much more…), then please feel free to head over to my new ‘baby’ – HappyOutsourcing. Readers of this blog get a special discount, of course!
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