Hire someone

# Offer to first month

Retention is decided much earlier than most employers think. A new starter forms a view in the first week and it is hard to shift afterwards, in either direction.

## Between offer and start

The gap is where counter offers and second thoughts happen, and in a tight market it is where a meaningful share of accepted offers quietly evaporate.

- **Confirm anything conditional before they resign.** Someone resigning on the strength of an offer that then fails a check is a serious harm, and you caused it
- **Send the paperwork within a day.** A delay here reads as disorganisation, and it is the first evidence they have
- **Message once a week.** Not a task, just contact. Send the team a heads up and copy them in
- **Send something useful early.** The handbook, the first week plan, who they will meet. It makes the job feel real
- **Ask what would make day one easier.** Parking, tools, whether they have boots, what size

## Before day one

Everything ready, the day before, not on the morning.

- [ ] Somebody is expecting them and knows what time
- [ ] Desk, or vehicle, and keys
- [ ] Phone, laptop, tools, PPE, uniform, in the right sizes
- [ ] Accounts and access created and tested
- [ ] Payroll set up. Their first pay being wrong is a memorable start
- [ ] Buddy assigned and briefed
- [ ] First week plan written
- [ ] The team told who is arriving, when, and what they will do
- [ ] Something real to do in week one, identified

**Arriving to find nobody knew you were coming is a story people tell for years**, usually to other people in your industry. It is entirely avoidable and it is common.

## Day one

Not a day of paperwork.

| | |
|---|---|
| Morning | Welcome, tour, meet the team by name, the practical things: parking, facilities, hours, who to call if you are sick |
| Middle | Sit with the buddy. Watch some real work |
| Afternoon | The paperwork, the systems, the safety induction |
| End of day | Fifteen minutes with the manager. How was it, what is unclear, what happens tomorrow |

**Tell them what good looks like at three months, in writing, on day one.** Most new starters spend weeks trying to work out what is expected, and a page that says it is the cheapest anxiety reduction available.

**Name the things nobody writes down.** When people actually start, whether the 7am start means 7 or 6:50, what the dress standard really is, how to say you are running late, who to interrupt and who not to. Every workplace has them and every new person is guessing.

## Week one

- **A buddy, not the manager.** Someone to ask the small questions without feeling assessed. Ask the buddy explicitly to check in twice a day for the first week
- **Something real, small and finishable.** The feeling of having contributed is what turns a new starter into a member of the team, and it is worth engineering deliberately
- **Do not leave them watching for five days.** It is the most common first week and it is demoralising
- **Do not throw them straight in alone either.** The middle is the point
- **End of week check in.** Booked in advance, not a corridor conversation

Three questions at the end of week one:

1. What has surprised you
2. What is still unclear
3. Is there anything you expected that has not happened

Question 1 is the useful one. A new person can see things everyone else has stopped noticing, and that perception has a shelf life of about a month.

## Weeks two to four

- **Widen the work gradually.** Something new each week
- **Give feedback early and small.** Correct the small thing in week two rather than saving it for a review. A correction at week two is information, the same correction at week ten is a complaint
- **Week four check in.** Booked, sitting down, both directions
- **Introduce them to customers deliberately**, rather than letting them appear unannounced

## Probation

Rules on probation, notice and termination are jurisdictional and strict. Confirm what applies where you operate before relying on any of it.

What is good practice regardless:

- **Say what the probation period is and what happens at the end**, in writing, at the start
- **No surprises.** If the probation conversation contains something they are hearing for the first time, the fault is with the management, not the employee
- **Have the conversation on time.** Probation periods that are allowed to lapse quietly remove a decision point that existed for a reason
- **If it is not working, act.** The most expensive version of this is the manager who knows at week three and does nothing until month seven. It is worse for the employee than for the business

## What to measure

| | Why |
|---|---|
| Offer acceptance rate | Low means pay, process, or reputation |
| Days from offer to start | The gap where offers evaporate |
| Leavers within 90 days | The clearest signal of a broken hire or a broken first month |
| First week check in completed | The step that gets skipped when busy |
| Where good hires came from | Tells you where to spend next time. Usually referrals |

**Leavers within 90 days is the number that matters.** Someone leaving that fast means either the role was sold as something it is not, or the first month left them alone. Both are yours to fix, and both are cheap to fix once you know which it was.

Ask them. An exit conversation with a 90 day leaver is uncomfortable and it is the most useful feedback the hiring process will ever get.

# Interviewing

Unstructured interviews are poor predictors of job performance. They also feel highly informative, which is the trap: the confidence they produce is not matched by the accuracy.

Structure is what fixes it. Same questions, same order, scored independently, against criteria set before anyone was met.

## Set the criteria first

Four to six things you are assessing, from the role brief, defined before the first interview.

```
1. Technical competence      can they do the work to standard, unsupervised
2. Diagnostic thinking       how they approach a problem they have not seen
3. Customer manner           they are in someone's business, often alone
4. Reliability               turning up, finishing, saying when something is wrong
5. Teachability              this job changes, and they will be corrected
```

Write what a 1 and a 5 look like for each, before interviewing. Otherwise "good communicator" means whatever you decide afterwards, which is how a preference formed in the first two minutes becomes a justified decision.

## Ask about what they have done

Past behaviour is the best available predictor. Hypotheticals measure how well someone imagines, which is a different skill and is not the one you are buying.

| Instead of | Ask |
|---|---|
| How would you handle a difficult customer | Tell me about a customer who was angry with you. What happened |
| Are you good at working alone | Walk me through a job you ran on your own end to end |
| How do you handle pressure | Tell me about the worst week you have had at work |
| Do you pay attention to detail | Tell me about a mistake you made that mattered. What happened after |

**Then follow up until you reach specifics.** Most people answer generally first. The real answer comes on the second or third follow up:

```
What exactly did you do?
What did you say?
What happened then?
What did they say?
What would you do differently?
```

A candidate who cannot get specific about something they claim to have done usually did not do it, or did not do it in the way they are describing. This is the single most useful technique in interviewing and it takes nothing but patience.

## Give them a real problem

The closest thing to a work sample you can do in a room, and the strongest signal available.

Take an actual problem from last month and talk through it. Not a puzzle, not a trick, a real one:

```
A customer calls: half the office has no power, the board is not
tripped, and it started after their fit out crew left on Friday.
You are 40 minutes away and you have two other jobs booked. Talk me
through what you do.
```

You are listening for how they think, what they ask, what they check first, whether they consider the customer and the schedule as well as the fault, and whether they say "I do not know" when they should.

**Say "I do not know" is a positive signal**, and interviews systematically punish it. Someone who invents an answer in an interview invents one on a live board.

## Score independently, then discuss

Each interviewer scores alone, immediately, before any conversation.

Discussing first converges everybody on the first or loudest opinion, and the discussion then feels like agreement rather than what it is, which is one person's view adopted by the room.

Scale of 1 to 5, with a note for each. The note matters more than the number, because in a week the number will mean nothing without it.

```
Criterion              Score   Note
Technical competence     4     Talked through a fault trace clearly, named
                               instruments, correct sequence. No commercial
                               switchboard work in the last 2 years
Diagnostic thinking      5     Asked what changed before offering causes.
                               First candidate to ask about the fit out crew
Customer manner          3     Fine, but every example was about the fault,
                               none about the person
```

## Two interviewers, minimum

A single interviewer hires people like themselves. It is not a character flaw, it is what happens by default, and a second person with different criteria catches it.

Better if the second person will actually work with them.

## Do not ask

Beyond being unlawful in most jurisdictions, none of these predict performance:

- Age, date of birth, or when they finished school
- Marital or relationship status
- Children, childcare, or plans to have children
- Health, disability or medical history, except the ability to do the actual job with reasonable adjustment
- Religion, ethnicity, national origin beyond the right to work
- Sexual orientation or gender identity
- Political views, union membership
- Criminal history, except where a check is genuinely required for the role and is lawful where you are

**The specific rules are jurisdictional.** Have the question list reviewed by someone qualified locally, once. It is a small cost and the exposure is not small.

## Let them ask questions

Reserve ten minutes, genuinely.

What someone asks tells you what they care about. Questions about the work, the team, how decisions get made and what happened to the last person in the role are good signs. No questions at all is worth noting.

Answer honestly, including about the difficult parts. A candidate who takes a job on a rosy picture leaves when they find the real one, and you pay the cost twice.

## References

Worth doing properly, and usually done as a formality.

- **Speak to a direct manager,** not a friend or a colleague
- **Verify the basics:** dates, role, reason for leaving
- **Then ask the question that works:** "Would you hire them again?"
- **Wait through the pause.** The hesitation before "yes, absolutely" carries more information than the answer
- **Ask what they would need support with.** A referee who will not say anything negative will often answer this one honestly
- **Ask about something specific the candidate claimed**

Two useful references beat five perfunctory ones.

## Deciding

- **Score, then discuss, then decide.** In that order
- **Write down why,** while it is fresh. Useful in three months when you are wondering what you saw
- **If you are unsure, that is a no.** The unsure hire is almost never the one that works out. "We will see how they go" costs six months, and everyone on the team knows before you do
- **Do not compare to the last person in the role.** Compare to the role brief
- **Do not let one strong answer carry a weak overall pattern.** It is the most common way a structured process gets abandoned at the final step

# The job ad

The role brief is for you. The ad is for the candidate, and it has two jobs: make the right person want to apply, and help the wrong person self select out. Most ads do neither, because they are the brief with some adjectives added.

## Publish the pay range

The single highest impact change available, and the one most small employers resist.

Ads without pay get fewer applicants and worse ones. The strongest candidates have options and will not spend an evening on an application to discover the range in week three. Meanwhile you spend interviews on people whose expectation was never going to work.

It is also increasingly a legal requirement in a growing number of jurisdictions. Check what applies where you are.

**Publish a real range,** and be prepared to pay the top of it for someone at the top. A range of "$55,000 to $95,000" is not a range, it is an admission that the role has not been defined.

## Structure

```
1. The title                plain, searchable, what it is actually called
2. One line on the business what you do, where, how big
3. What you will do         the work, specifically
4. What we need             3 or 4 genuine must haves
5. What we offer            pay range first, then the rest
6. The honest part          the difficult bits, said plainly
7. How to apply             and what happens next, with timing
```

Note that the company section is one line near the top and the work comes immediately after. Most ads invert this and spend three paragraphs on the company before the candidate learns what the job is.

## The title

What the role is actually called in the industry. Someone searching for "electrician" will not find "Electrical Solutions Delivery Specialist", and inventive titles cost applicants for no benefit.

Add the level if it is meaningful: senior, apprentice, lead. Add the location, because it is one of the two things a candidate filters on.

## What you will do

The section that gets read. Be specific enough that a candidate can picture the day.

**Weak:**

```
- Varied and exciting role
- Work with a great team
- Opportunity to grow
```

**Better:**

```
- 6 to 8 service calls a day, mostly commercial maintenance across the
  northern suburbs
- Switchboard upgrades and testing, roughly a day a week
- One week in four on call, with a callout allowance
- Working from a fully fitted van you take home
```

The second one lets the right person recognise the job and the wrong person stop reading. Both are wins.

## What we need

Three or four genuine must haves. Not a wish list.

Every additional requirement shrinks the pool invisibly. You never see the good people who read it, decided they fell short on item nine, and did not apply. Research consistently finds this affects some groups more than others, so a long list also narrows who applies in ways nobody intends.

**Split it explicitly:**

```
Essential
  Trade licence, current
  Driver licence
  3+ years post qualification on commercial work

Useful, not essential
  Experience with building management systems
  Confined space ticket, or willingness to get one
```

The second heading does real work. It tells someone strong but imperfect to apply anyway.

## What we offer

**Pay range first.** Then the things that are actually different about working here.

Skip anything universal. "Competitive salary" means nothing, "supportive team environment" is claimed by everyone including the bad ones. Say the specific things:

```
$85,000 to $98,000 plus superannuation, depending on experience
Take home van, fuel card, phone
RDO every second Friday
Tools and PPE supplied, boots replaced annually
$2,000 a year for tickets and training, and the time to do them
Team of 11. The owner is on the tools two days a week
```

Specific, checkable, and it describes a real place.

## The honest part

The section almost nobody writes, and the one that reduces early turnover most.

Say the difficult bits. Early starts, on call, travel, the client who is hard work, the busy season, the part of the job people dislike.

```
Being straight with you: the on call week is genuinely disruptive, it
comes round every fourth week, and it pays an allowance because it
should. Most people get two or three callouts in that week.
```

**Someone who finds out in week two leaves in week three.** Someone who reads it in the ad and applies anyway has already decided, and they stay.

It also does something to the tone of the whole ad. An employer willing to say a hard thing is more believable about the good things.

## How to apply, and what happens next

Make it easy. Every extra step loses applicants, and it loses the ones with options first.

- **Ask for what you need to decide, not for a complete file.** A CV and a short note is enough to screen. Certificates and references come later
- **Do not require a cover letter for a practical role.** It screens for writing, not for the work
- **Do not use a twenty minute application form.** It is the most common reason a good candidate abandons an application

Then say what happens next, with timing:

```
We will read every application and reply to everyone by 14 March,
including if it is a no. First conversations are a 15 minute phone
call, then a site visit with Ben.
```

This is a genuine differentiator and it costs nothing. Candidates are comparing employers, and most of the others will not reply at all.

## Where to post it

Follow where the people you want actually look, not where it is easiest to post. For many trade and service roles the best channels are the ones nobody calls recruitment:

- **Your own team's contacts.** The highest quality channel in a small business by a distance. Pay a referral bonus, and pay it properly
- **Industry specific boards and groups**
- **Local trade suppliers and merchants.** A card on the counter still works
- **Training providers**, for apprentices and recent graduates
- **Your own customers and suppliers**
- **Your website.** A careers page that exists and is current means a referral has somewhere to send someone

## Before you post it

- [ ] Pay range published
- [ ] Somebody outside the business read it and could say what the job is
- [ ] Requirement list is three or four items, genuinely essential
- [ ] Nothing in it that is unlawful to ask or require where you operate
- [ ] The honest part is in there
- [ ] Reply timing stated, and you will actually meet it
- [ ] The application takes under ten minutes

# Interview scorecard

<!-- Same questions, same order, every candidate. Score ALONE and IMMEDIATELY,
     before discussing with anyone. Discussing first converges the room on the
     loudest opinion and then feels like agreement. -->

| | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | |
| Role | |
| Date | |
| Interviewer | |
| Others present | |

## Scores

<Criteria come from the role brief and were written before anyone was met.
1 = well short, 3 = meets the bar, 5 = clearly above it.>

| Criterion | 1 to 5 | Note. The note matters more than the number |
|---|---|---|
| <Technical competence> | | |
| <Diagnostic thinking> | | |
| <Customer manner> | | |
| <Reliability> | | |
| <Teachability> | | |

## The questions

<Ask about what they have DONE, not what they would hypothetically do. Then follow
up until you reach specifics: what exactly did you do, what did you say, what
happened, what would you do differently. Most people answer generally first and
honestly on the third follow up.>

**1. Walk me through your last role. What were you actually responsible for?**

<>

**2. Tell me about a job you ran end to end on your own. Start to finish.**

<>

**3. Tell me about a customer who was unhappy with you or your work. What happened?**

<>

**4. Tell me about a mistake you made that mattered. What happened afterwards?**

<>

**5. Tell me about something you had to learn quickly. How did you go about it?**

<>

**6. The real problem**

<Take an actual problem from the last month. Not a puzzle, a real one. Listen for
how they think, what they ask before answering, what they check first, and whether
they say "I do not know" when they should.>

<A customer calls: half the office has no power, the board is not tripped, and it
started after their fit out crew left on Friday. You are 40 minutes away with two
other jobs booked. Talk me through what you do.>

<>

**7. What are you looking for in your next role, and why are you leaving?**

<>

**8. Their questions**

<Ten minutes, genuinely. What someone asks tells you what they care about.
Questions about the work, the team, how decisions get made, and what happened to
the last person in the role are good signs.>

<>

## Practical checks

| | |
|---|---|
| Right to work | |
| Licences and tickets, sighted | |
| Availability and notice period | |
| Pay expectation | |
| Location and travel | |

<!-- Do NOT ask about: age or date of birth, marital or relationship status,
     children or plans to have them, health or disability beyond the ability to do
     the actual job with reasonable adjustment, religion, ethnicity, national
     origin beyond right to work, sexual orientation or gender identity, political
     views, union membership, or criminal history except where a check is lawful
     and genuinely required for the role. The specific rules are jurisdictional.
     Have the list reviewed locally, once. -->

## Overall

- [ ] **Yes.** Would hire
- [ ] **No**
- [ ] **Unsure** <which is a no. The unsure hire is almost never the one that works out>

**Why, in two or three lines.** <Write it now, while it is fresh. In three months
you will want to know what you saw.>

<>

**If hired, what would they need support with?**

<>

---

## References

<Speak to a direct manager, not a friend or a colleague. Two good references beat
five perfunctory ones.>

| | Referee 1 | Referee 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Name and role | | |
| Relationship | | |
| Dates and role confirmed | | |
| Reason for leaving confirmed | | |
| **Would you hire them again?** | | |
| <The pause before the answer> | | |
| What would they need support with? | | |
| Asked about: <specific claim> | | |

# <Job title> | <Location>

<!-- The title should be what the role is actually called in the industry.
     Someone searching for "electrician" will not find "Electrical Solutions
     Delivery Specialist". -->

**<$X to $Y>** <plus super / benefits> | <Full time> | <Location>

<!-- Pay range at the top. It is the single highest impact change you can make to
     an ad, and it is increasingly a legal requirement. Check what applies where
     you are. -->

<One line on the business. What you do, where, how many people. One line, not
three paragraphs. The candidate is here to find out about the job.>

## What you will do

<The section that gets read. Specific enough that a candidate can picture the day.
"Varied and exciting role" says nothing.>

- <6 to 8 service calls a day, mostly commercial maintenance across the northern suburbs>
- <Switchboard upgrades and testing, roughly a day a week>
- <One week in four on call, with a callout allowance>
- <Working from a fully fitted van you take home>

## What we need

**Essential**

- <Three or four. Genuinely essential>
- <>
- <>

**Useful, not essential**

- <>
- <>

<The second heading tells someone strong but imperfect to apply anyway. Without
it, you lose them and never know.>

## What we offer

<Pay first, then the things that are actually different about working here. Skip
anything universal. "Competitive salary" and "supportive team environment" are
claimed by every employer including the bad ones.>

- <$85,000 to $98,000 plus super, depending on experience>
- <Take home van, fuel card, phone>
- <RDO every second Friday>
- <Tools and PPE supplied, boots replaced annually>
- <$2,000 a year for tickets and training, and the time to do them>
- <Team of 11. The owner is on the tools two days a week>

## Being straight with you

<The section almost nobody writes and the one that reduces early turnover most.
Say the hard part plainly. It also makes everything else in the ad more believable.>

<The on call week is genuinely disruptive, it comes round every fourth week, and
it pays an allowance because it should. Most people get two or three callouts in
that week.>

## How to apply

<Send a CV and a few lines about the work you have done. No cover letter needed.>

<Applications close <date>.>

**What happens next:** <We read every application and reply to everyone by <date>,
including if it is a no. First conversations are a 15 minute phone call, then a
site visit with <name>.>

<!-- Saying this, and then doing it, is a genuine differentiator that costs
     nothing. Most employers a candidate applies to will not reply at all. -->

<Contact name, and how to reach them with a question.>

---

<!-- Before posting:
     [ ] Pay range published
     [ ] Somebody outside the business read it and could say what the job is
     [ ] Requirement list is three or four items, genuinely essential
     [ ] Nothing in it unlawful to ask or require where you operate
     [ ] The honest part is in there
     [ ] Reply timing stated, and you will actually meet it
     [ ] The application takes under ten minutes -->

# Role brief

<!-- This is for YOU, not for the candidate. Write it before the job ad.
     Writing the ad first means hiring against a description nobody examined. -->

| | |
|---|---|
| Role | |
| Reports to | |
| Team | |
| Location | |
| Full time / part time / casual | |
| Why this role exists now | <New, replacement, or growth. If replacement, why did the last person leave> |
| Budget range | <Decided BEFORE anyone applies> |

## What they do all day

<Actual activities with rough proportions. If you cannot fill this in, the role is
not defined and the hire will not work.>

| Activity | Roughly |
|---|---|
| <> | <%> |
| <> | <%> |
| <> | <%> |

## Accountable for

<Three to five OUTCOMES, not tasks. What is worse if this person does not exist.>

1. <>
2. <>
3. <>

## What good looks like at six months

<Specific enough to assess. This becomes what you tell them in writing on day one.>

- <>
- <>
- <>

## Must have

<Three or four. Genuinely essential. Every extra item shrinks the pool invisibly,
and you never see the good people who did not apply.>

- <>
- <>
- <>

## Useful, not essential

<This heading does real work. It tells someone strong but imperfect to apply.>

- <>
- <>

## Can be learned here

<Being explicit about this widens the pool and shortens the search.>

- <>
- <>

## Who they work with

| Person | Relationship |
|---|---|
| <> | <Reports to / works with / hands over to> |
| <> | |

## Pay

| | |
|---|---|
| Range | <$ to $> |
| Based on | <What sets the top and the bottom> |
| Comparable internally | <What people already here at this level are paid> |
| Award, agreement or minimum that applies | <Check this. It is jurisdictional> |

<Deciding this before advertising prevents negotiating from whatever the first
candidate says, which is a bad position and produces pay that does not line up
with the team.>

## The honest part

<The difficult bits. Early starts, on call, travel, the hard client, the busy
season, the part of the job people dislike. This goes in the ad. Someone who finds
out in week two leaves in week three.>

- <>

## Assessment criteria

<Four to six, from the sections above. Write what a 1 and a 5 look like BEFORE
interviewing anybody, or "good communicator" will mean whatever you decide
afterwards.>

| Criterion | A 1 looks like | A 5 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| <> | | |
| <> | | |
| <> | | |
| <> | | |

## Process

| Stage | Who | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Applications close | | |
| Phone screen, 10 min | | |
| Interview, structured | <Two interviewers minimum> | |
| Practical task or site visit | | |
| References | | |
| Offer | | |

- [ ] Question list reviewed for anything unlawful to ask where we operate
- [ ] Everyone who applies gets a reply, by <date>