How Do You Discover the Perfect Employee?
If you own your own business and have a little success, at some point you will be looking for an employee. Employees of small businesses tend to be a little different from employees of large firms. For instance, instead of looking for someone who is the best at one particular thing, you may be looking for someone versatile enough to wear several different hats. You definitely need help for at least 40 hours a week, but sometimes that 40 hours comes from several different places.
Finding the right person can help take your business to the next level. This person could become your right hand, and you could eventually trust them with running the entire business. Finding the wrong person, conversely, is a complete and utter disaster. You have wasted valuable time and resources hiring and training this person, only to find out they aren’t really as capable as you thought. Is there one magic question or task you can require of a prospective employee to uncover their value?
Bobby Flay from the food network hires cooks to work in his restaurant. While their only job is to cook, these employees have to be versatile enough to cook anything and everything on the menu. It is obviously not possible to require the potential employees to cook everything on the menu to ensure they know what they are doing. Watch the video below to learn what he does to find out if they can cook, and as a side benefit, learn a little something about cooking yourself.
What is your measuring stick? I personally don’t have a perfect question to ask, or task to require, of prospective employees. I really just want to to see if any of you have one. Along the way, I’ve heard a few ideas, so I will share those:
- Sell me a this pen (or other arbitrary office item)
- Solve this problem
- Take this test
- Create this ad
- Remember these items
So, what do you use to find out if someone is qualified? Do you have one thing that you ask everyone to do? Is it your final determinate? Leave a comment and share the wealth with the rest of us!
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