The likelihood that you can single-handedly run your business without limiting its scope for growth is slim. There is a limit to what you can do personally and indeed what you know. Pooling together a great team is one of the most powerful strategies for delivering outstanding results in your business. While outsourcing may present an alternative window for using the skills and effort of other people, having an in-house team may just be unavoidable.

One Bad Apple
Each member of your team is critical to the overall success of the group. A bad employee can cause a lot of havoc to your business in many ways. One, the cost of retaining such staff is obviously a complete drain on your pocket. Disengaging the staff may also potentially harm the business or at least cost you substantially if the process proves contentious. Beyond these, the negative impact of this clog-in-the-wheel on other staff could seriously set back the business. If integrity issues are involved, a bad staff could cost a lot of money in fraud and thefts before you find out. All said, selecting your team could be the real determining factor for the success of your business. Many businesses have collapsed because they ended up in the hands of unfaithful servants or ill-equipped hands.

Getting It Right
Getting the right team, it can be seen, is a make or mar activity for your business. The difficult part is in getting it done. Selecting a winning team will obviously not be left to chance if we are in business for serious results. While there may be no perfect system that will guarantee zero-error team selection, it is possible to minimise the possibility of being far off the mark, by sticking to tested recruitment strategies. Here are 8 critical steps to ensuring you get a team that will deliver on your business objectives.

1. Plan It
Planning is critical in every business process and more so for the important business of staff selection. Staff cost to keep, so the need for new staff must be properly assessed. A re-alignment of existing manpower or some new technology might meet your need. If you must recruit, then define clearly what the responsibilities of the new employee will be. This requires that you develop a job description.

2. Develop The Candidate Profile
Based on the defined job role, you need a clear profile of the target candidate, setting out, on a prioritized basis, the attributes you won't compromise. This may include education, skills, experience, character traits, even physical attributes, if important to the job. The salary range that matches this position should also be determined. When you design an ad campaign for this position, these factors, in addition to the job description, will form the substance.

3. Define The Recruitment Process
Identifying and hiring great staff is so important to your business that it justifies a carefully planned process. Define your interview process , specifying the stages involved: example phone screening, testing, 1st interview, 2nd interview, etc. Responsibility for the various stages should also be spelt out. Decide if you are conducting the processes in-house or going to contract it out to a recruitment agency? If it is to be done in-house, assign roles specifically. Even the timing for each phase of the process needs to be set out. Planning should also go as far as selecting a range of questions that should cover the key criteria you want to test for. If you have a panel, it may be appropriate to assign questions that test for specific attributes to specific interviewers.

4. Select A Suitable Publication Medium
The appropriate medium here is the one that is likely to attract the highest response of the most qualified prospects. You may likely need more than a medium and may also be concerned about the cost outlay. Today, the internet has become a popular medium, either on your own website or other relevant site. A newspaper or other publication that serves your target group is another option. When you seek to head-hunt, business groups, professional associations, industry contacts, etc, may be viable avenues for identifying potential candidates. When you choose a medium, develop the message and get it out in accordance with your timetable.

5. Screen Applications For Potentially Qualified Candidates
For the effective recruitment you want to carry out, you want to scale down to the very best. If you've received a fairly large number of qualifying applications, review the cover letters and resumes to screen out weak applications. If the number is still sizeable, phone-screening can be used to further sieve the list. This process should be based on a list of targeted questions that help you identify candidates that show a satisfactory level of strategic fit.

6. Organise The Job Interview
The process will be in the stages you've predetermined. Candidates will be made to fill formal job application forms. If there is a written test, the questions, actual conduct, assessment and collation should be in strict adherence to set standards and procedures. Other interview stages should also be on proper arrangements and procedures. Evaluation should be based on a standard format, with evaluation reports completed by interviewers. Screen out unsatisfactory candidates at each stage, narrowing towards the candidate(s) of choice. The interview process must evaluate candidates for the various priority criteria determined for the role. Generally, factors like technical skills, cultural fit, motivation, leadership qualities, communication skills, decision-making capacity, team spirit, etc are important. Candidates' responses are judged both on correctness and their behavioural content, including the attendant body language.

7. Use Background Checks To Validate
While the interview process remains the standard selection process, its imperfections are known. Candidates that could become problematic do scale through the process. That's why background check and work-history references on the candidates you're narrowing down on are an important part of the process. Many employers fail to run checks on people they employ and often miss out on readily available information on flaws or indications of potential problems. Actual track record information is more factual than all the judgment you want to make from interview performance.

8. Select And Make An Offer
Based on the interview evaluation and background check conducted, you should know by now if you have the candidate(s) you want. It's better to hire for available strengths than to hope to build them. If you haven't seen the ideal candidate, why not repeat the process rather than water down the standard?

If you follow the above recruitment process, chances are high that the choice of candidates it will throw up will be those that have what it takes to help you build a company that will endure and meet its objectives. Team selection is however only one part of building a great team. Other complementary processes must also be put in place. The remuneration, for instance, must be reasonable and competitive. The work environment must also be healthy and stimulating. If you get that mix right, you can be sure of a team that delivers.

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