Over the course of many years, we learned some valuable lessons when it comes to hiring. My favorite is “Test Before You Invest.”

You wouldn’t buy a new car without driving it first, would you? So why are your hiring people before testing them out?

Test First

When you’re getting ready to bring on the new person or make a new full-time hire, here’s a new idea. Don’t make a new hire. Instead, bring on a contractor, and give them a small job to start. Check to see if they are:

  • Doing a good job
  • Thorough
  • Responsive
  • And of course, if you like the person

If so, give them another project, then another one, and then another one. Pretty soon, if this is a really, really good fit, they’re gonna go from having one or two little jobs to a whole bunch of jobs that fill up their time. Pretty soon they’re going to be working full-time for you anyway.

When you get up to this point, then offer them a full-time job.

Now Invest

This way, at any given point during that whole process, you can just cut them off. If you don’t like them, if they have a problem, if there’s some issue, you can just be done with them.

Test before you invest, because once you make that investment in a full-time person it’s a lot harder to let them go. You’ve added them to your systems, you’ve integrated them into your team, and you have a cost of letting them go. With this method, you don’t have to do that.

I hope that you bring on great people and this is helpful for you!