1. Define the role
Before you even start accepting applications or conducting interviews, it’s important you understand EXACTLY what you’re hiring for.
The whole purpose of hiring is to offload some of your daily responsibilities to someone you can trust to do a good job…
So ask yourself these questions:
– What exactly will this hire be doing on a daily basis?
– How much can I afford to pay them based on current and desired profit margins?
– Am I paying them hourly, or per project? Per result like calls booked?
Once you have an answer to each of these, you’ll have a great feel for the type of candidate you’re looking to hire based on their skills and pay grade.
This is the exact process we used to hire each of the inbox managers on my team!
2. Source talent
Now that you’ve defined the role, it’s time to start sourcing potential hires.
If you have a large following on Twitter, send a Tweet out explaining the opportunity and where to apply.
The same goes for your email list, groups you’re in, or connections you have.
The beauty of Twitter is it’s filled with ambitious, likeminded people that will be great fits for your job opening.
We’ve found tons of talent from my network, and you definitely can too…
Another option is to search for skillsets on Fiverr or Upwork and reach out to people that way.
We have a project manager at my agency who builds prospect lists and launches campaigns for all of our clients…
And the relationship started on Fiverr!
3. Set up an interview
Once you start posting the opportunity on Twitter and in groups, you’re inevitably going to start getting a lot of interest.
Rather than hopping on interviews with each and every person, here’s a tactic we use to pre-vet people before they can interview:
We’ll tell anyone interested in an interview to email us at a random time on a random day… (Thursday at 7 PM for example)
Just to see if they can follow simple instructions and to gauge if they’re serious about the opportunity to work under us.
If they do follow the instructions and email us at the time we laid out for them, we’ll coordinate an interview from there.
4. The interview
For the actual interview, we always prefer Zoom because it helps us get a read on the person’s body language and energy.
We typically start off with the typical “Why are you interested in the role?” type questions, then ask some scenario-based questions.
Since the roles we hire for are for a lead gen agency, we’ll ask questions related to client management, lead gen, managing cold email replies, and so on.
Keep in mind our interviews are super laid back, we mainly look to see if the person will be a good culture fit at the agency.
Quick tip: Record your interviews so you can watch them back and take notes when you’re deciding who to hire…
This will also help you get really refined on your interview questions.
5. Make an offer
This is more of an instinct thing for us…
If their energy is good, they seem teachable, and will find working with the agency a valuable experience, we’ll make them an offer to join the team.
If not, we always let them know so we’re not wasting their time!
6. Onboarding new hires
Once they accept the offer, we’ll send over a contract to sign, an onboarding form giving us personal details for things like payroll, and links to join our Slack workspace to get them introduced to the rest of the team!
A great way to start off on the right foot with anyone you hire is to get on a kickoff call with them.
We use these calls to show them all the training materials, what to expect with the role, and to show them we’re here to help make their experience as beneficial as possible.
This is my entire process for defining new roles to outsource, finding and vetting talent, and onboarding new hires.
Our process is very laid back (we ask if Lebron or MJ is the 🐐 on our application), and we’ve found it to work extremely well for finding good fits for the agency.
Feel free to use some of this process for inspiration with your hiring process, and put your own spin on it too!
The end goal is to have a process that will help you find people that fit well with the rest of your team and will do a great job in their role without your constant input.
