Personnel management is one of the most important elements of a successful value-added business.  And a critical step in personnel management is hiring the right people.  By hiring the right people, the rest of personnel management (training, rewarding, monitoring, etc.) becomes much easier.

The hiring process starts with defining the specific duties of each position being created.  These duties come directly from an assessment of what needs to be done to successfully run the business.  This listing of duties is transformed into a job description.  The employment notification needs to be widely disbursed to attract a large pool of qualified candidates.  Several are picked for personal interviews and the same interview format and questions should be used for each candidate to facilitate comparisons among candidates.  All of this needs to be conducted within the proper legal framework.

To delve deeper into the task of hiring employees, read Hiring Good Employees and Hiring the Right People.  If you have not had much experience hiring people, read Improving your Interviewing Skills.

More information on hiring employees is available in the box at the right.