How to Hire a Manager for Your Business

A 2015 Gallup poll found that one in two employees had left a job to get away from a manager at some point in their career. You cannot afford to have poor team members as part of your leadership structure. After all, the individuals who represent your leadership team are essentially the face of your company both to your clients and your staff. In other words, they can seriously impact your company’s bottom line. Knowing how to hire a manager is absolutely essential. Before you make a management hire, you must create a strategy that allows you to carefully evaluate your candidates so you know you’ll choose an individual who will lead your team to success. 

Do I Even Need to Hire a Manager?

Not sure whether now is the right time to hire a manager? There are several signs that it may be time to add to your leadership. If, for example, the total number of team members you have on staff is growing, it may be time to add additional leadership to the mix. Moreover, if you or your team as a whole are feeling overwhelmed with many of you putting in far more hours than you once did, it may be time to add a manager to the team. That can be especially true if administrative tasks are taking up a larger chunk of your time than they ever did before. If you notice that mistakes are being made by your team far too often or your employees need more guidance and supervision than they did in the past, that may also be a sign that you need to consider added leadership. 

Understand What You Want

Not every company needs the same kind of manager, so the ability to be cognizant of what your company wants and to express that in the descriptions of the position is essential. It’s best to create a list of requirements for the job. 
As you make your list, think about what the job itself requires as well as what soft skills you want the ideal candidate to have. Keep in mind that a big part of what you want will be ingrained in your company’s culture. If you have a professional environment, you’ll want a leader who can keep that culture intact. If instead, you have a fairly casual, fun space, you’ll want a manager who employs a more casual management style. Remember that a manager can do many things. They can actively look for ways to manage costs. They can work directly with teams of employees. They may also be able to better divide the work. 

Listing the Job

Once you know what you want, it’s time to perfect the job description. This shouldn’t just be a list of duties, though. Instead, it should be an encompassing summary of what’s required in the role as well as the preferred hard and soft skills you want in the right person. Don’t forget to include some notes about your company’s values as well as active verbs that truly convey what the candidate will do on a day-to-day basis. You’ll also want to include hours, benefits, and a salary range. If you have a specific desired number of years of experience in mind, or a particular education level the individual should have, be sure to include that too. 

Don’t forget that you don’t want to overlook potential internal candidates for this job. You may already employ the ideal candidate. It may come with some drawbacks – like ruffled feathers among those who didn’t get the position–but it also comes with some real benefits. Employees tend to feel seen when you hire from within, and the interview process itself can help you better understand exactly who you have working for you. Moreover, it’s far more cost-efficient to use someone you’ve already hired as they require far less training and onboarding. When it comes to looking for how to hire a manager, start with your own backyard.

The Interview Process

When you have a suitable list of candidates as a result of your job listing, it’s best to define the interview process before you actually start bringing people in. During the interview, you’ll want to seek to better understand each candidate’s knowledge and skills. Strong candidates should be able to offer equally strong answers about a variety of different topics. They should understand how to work with team members to achieve the required goals and objectives and be able to use their past experiences to help them blaze a path forward. They should also be adept at employing various cost control measures to help make your business more profitable. The best candidates will be able to give you examples of where they’ve been able to work well in difficult or financially challenging situations. 

Crafting interview questions can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. As you work to make your list, be sure to ask a variety of different kinds of questions. Simple, personal questions can help you build rapport with your candidate, but you’ll also want to learn more about the specific knowledge and technical skills the individual can bring to your team. You’ll also want to ask about how the person would apply past experiences to solve problems that might actually occur in your workplace. Be sure to ask questions that help you learn more about the candidate’s personality too. Think about things like what kinds of outcomes team members have previously produced that made them the proudest or situations where they felt the most frustrated with team members. 

Your interview doesn’t have to take place in a one-on-one conference room setting. Get out and tour the building. Take a potential candidate to dinner. Involve some other staff members, too. Interviews that are more hands-on are going to be far more revealing than those conducted in a more typical setting. 

Making the Hire

When you believe you’ve found the perfect candidate, give them a call and offer them the job. A successful managerial hire is always a fantastic way to move your company forward. If you are trying to grow your business and think you could benefit from a business coach with a proven track record, then reach out to us today!