Most owners approach hiring with a mix of dread and hope — they wait too long (as we've discussed), then rush to fill the gap, interview on gut feel, and hope it works out. It often doesn't. And a bad hire is brutally expensive: the wasted salary, the lost time, the disruption, the eventual painful exit. The good news is that hiring well is a learnable skill, not a roll of the dice.
Most hiring mistakes are made before the interview even happens — by not being clear on what the role actually needs. Vague about the job, vague about the must-have skills and the values that matter, you end up assessing candidates on charisma and gut feel rather than fit. Getting clear first — what does this role really need to achieve, and what kind of person succeeds at it — does more for hiring quality than any interview technique.
Then it's about looking past the polished interview performance: structured questions, real examples of past behaviour, references actually checked, and where possible, seeing how someone works rather than just how they talk. Slow down enough to hire well, because you'll be living with the decision for a long time.
Hire in haste, manage in misery. A little rigour up front saves enormous pain later.
Building a hiring approach that actually works is part of the Grow course.
New here? The free Business Stage Assessment shows where to focus.
Annie
More from Nexus Business Management at nexusbusinessmanagement.au →