• Intro
• Part 1 – Do You Need to Hire At All?
• Part 2 – Writing a Job Post That Works
• Part 3 – Reviewing and Filtering Applications
• Part 4 – Testing and Interviewing Candidates
• Part 5 – Review: Choosing the One

Throughout this guide, I’m going to explain the key things you should think about before you hire a new addition to your team.

As you follow the steps of this guide, you’ll learn the most effective ways to hire and different options for each of the key stages. This way, you’ll be able to find the right approach for you.

You’ll be fully informed and prepared to hire your next role and crucially, you’ll know how much time you need to set aside to get the result you want.

Finally, you’ll also understand how to get help for some, or all of the hiring process, depending on your available time and energy!

Need more help?

Wherever you are in the hiring process, if you have questions or want to have a chat about getting started or getting help to hire your next role, then get in touch and I’ll help. You can book a call with me using this link or if you’d like to send an email then click here.

Now, let’s start.

You might be surprised that much of what we’re going to cover is well before you actually start to hire. This is intentional.

Only by knowing what you need can you hope to make a good job of hiring someone.

So, let’s start with the first step of the hiring process: Do you really need to hire?.

• Intro
• Part 1 – Do You Need to Hire At All?
• Part 2 – Writing a Job Post That Works
• Part 3 – Reviewing and Filtering Applications
• Part 4 – Testing and Interviewing Candidates
• Part 5 – Review: Choosing the One

A little odd for a guide on hiring, but the first thing to check when thinking about hiring is whether you need to hire at all. 

There are a variety of solutions available to get work done in your business and you should consider which of these is right for you right now.

What are your goals for your business?

Take a moment to think about the goals you have for your business. 

What’s holding you back from achieving them?

What would make the biggest difference in achieving/exceeding your goals?

Having your goals clearly in mind helps to keep you focused in the right direction.

What do you want to be done?

Do you already have an idea of what role you want? Or perhaps you’re not sure what role your needs fall into?

You might have an idea of the tasks you want to be done. Perhaps they are the ones that you dislike doing the most yourself or those on the never-ending to-do list, never getting done.

As you think about this, be aware that the role you ‘want’, or the tasks you want to be done, may not be what your business ‘needs’ the most right now.

You may think you want a Virtual Assistant when what you really need the most is a marketing person.

This is where taking a moment to think about your vision and goals for your business can help you focus on the right things.

List out what the most important tasks are that need to be done to achieve your goals.

Think of this in terms of what the new person’s output would be.

What would they produce?

How would you measure their success? 

Common examples of key roles include:

Assistants/Support Roles

• Social media posts written
• Emails responded to
• Support tickets handled
• Meetings scheduled
• Research completed
• Travel plans arranged

Sales/Marketing/Content/Advertising

• Conversions from ads to sales 
• Return on ad spend (ROAS) 
• Emails sent
• Calls booked
• Orders won

Development/Design

• Designs created 
• Features developed
• Bugs fixed

What are the tasks that if they were taken off your plate (assuming you’re doing them now) would make the biggest difference to the business?

Here are some questions to ask yourself to guide you towards making the right decision on the role you need to hire:

• How are you really spending your time currently? Do you know? If not, take a look at your calendar or look at using a time-tracking tool like Toggl for a few weeks. 
• What’s the value of your time?
• Are there people or services you’re already paying for that could do more?
• What roles are you performing right now?
• What roles are you not performing but should be?

Vision

Imagine yourself once you’ve hired.

What would be different? What would you be doing? What would they be doing? What would you not be doing anymore?

Not sure about the answers to these questions? 

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Getting even a minute to think about your vision for the future can be tough when faced with everything else on your plate, so let me help. 

I’ve helped hundreds of business owners come up with a simple vision for their team and their business needs. 

In a short call, we can talk through it and get you the clarity you need to move forward. Click here to book. 

What’s the priority of hiring for this role?

How important is it to hire for this work to be done? Is it really going to make a difference? When you think about what things will be like once this person has started, if things aren’t that different then do you have the right role or work in mind? 

If not, then spend some more time thinking this through until you get to the work that’s going to make the biggest difference.

It’s easy to say you want to hire someone to help you in your business. It’s hard to commit the time, effort and money to actually hiring the right person for you. 

I highly recommend making sure that hiring the role you want is going to deliver you the benefits you want before you jump in. 

By doing this, you increase the chance of getting a successful hire as you’ll be clear on the benefits they’re going to bring. You’ll also understand what they’ll need to offer you to deliver those benefits.

Hiring for the first time? Two Key Options to consider

The two options that follow are most commonly considered when hiring for the first time. However, the principle applies every time you hire. 

Your options:

1 – Hire someone to lighten your load so you can do more of the really hard/high-value tasks

If the business owner is doing most tasks themselves, they’ll often hire a lower-level role like a Virtual Assistant, Executive Assistant, Customer Support person, Project/Client coordinator or Marketing Assistant to take on tasks that they’re currently doing themselves.

By having these tasks taken care of, they free up time to focus on the big things like Sales, Marketing and improving the business.

2 – Hire a top-level person to lead and drive a particular function forwards

This approach can often move the business forward faster, but it requires more money upfront to be able to pay a higher-level person. Plus, they often won’t alleviate time or pressure from the business owner.

Often they’ll work on bigger things that will really drive towards the business goals. They will likely increase revenue, however, often we find that business owners aren’t ready financially or emotionally to jump straight into hiring this level of a role as one of their first hires. 

It can often help to draw out a simple organization, (or accountability) chart with the common roles found in most businesses and put your name in all of the boxes where you’re currently doing those roles.

It’s likely you’ll be putting your name in many, or maybe even all of the boxes, but that’s ok. The first step is to recognize this is the case. 

The second step is to do something about it – both for the success of your business and for your own sanity.

Think About Your Structure

By having the key roles/accountabilities within your business in a simple chart, you can visualize the change that would happen as a result of having someone else take on the role or key accountabilities. This helps you make the right decisions when it comes to choose the next role you want to hire for.

Sample organization/accountability chart above that I drafted for JobRack – this follows the Accountability chart approach as detailed by Gino Wickman in his book Traction. 

Alternatives to hiring

I mentioned above that before you hire you should consider alternatives. (This must be the most unusual guide to hiring ever where I encourage you to think about not hiring!)

Alternatives to hiring include:

Getting people/services you already pay to do more

A common example is whether your accountant offers bookkeeping services. For a small amount of extra cost each month, they could take this off your plate, and categorize your spending and your receipts without you having to think about doing it yourself or hiring a bookkeeper.

Consultants often have people that can do the work too. 

For instance, when I was working with a Sales Funnel consultant, he also had a small team that could implement the changes we came up with, designing landing pages, configuring automation, and all small tasks that landed on my plate until I asked if he knew anyone that could help. It was a lot more cost-effective than I expected it to be, and it got them done a lot faster than if they’d landed on my to-do list.

Find new services to contract to do regular work for you

For instance, if you have a few blog articles you want to be written each month, then perhaps consider a content writing service instead of hiring your own content writer.

Use Freelancers

Hiring a freelancer is very similar to hiring a full-time or part-time team member albeit with much less commitment so the implication of making a ‘wrong’ hire is less.

Just remember that this lower commitment works both ways. There’s often no commitment for them to be available to you, and they may take on other work that affects their delivery to you.

All of these are good options for you to be aware of and think about. However, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can avoid hiring if you do really need a team member for your business. 

Long-term, committed team members are almost always at the root of a successful business.

After considering all these options, if you’ve realized that yes, you definitely do need to hire, then let’s move on and take you through the steps of getting the high-quality hire that you need. 

If you’re not sure where to begin or you want some help with your hiring questions and challenges then click here to book a free call with me and I’ll help you out.

Now that you know you do really want to hire a new team member, it’s time to think about them properly. 

It’s best to have a pen and paper with you for this bit, or a document where you can make notes and start building your new hire profile. 

What will they be doing?

• What tasks do you want the person to do?
• What are their outputs/what will they produce each day, week or month?
• What skills/experience will they need?
• How will you measure their success?
• What is the role typically called?
• Is there anything fundamentally different about this role within your specific business?

Note: Measuring success is crucial. You may not actually do this, but you do need to know how you will determine if they’re doing a good job or not.

These notes don’t need to be perfect, you’re just looking to get the outline of the role you’re looking to fill and the person that might fill it. If more than 80% of your needs fit into a ‘conventional role’ then great, that’s going to make it easier. If not, don’t worry. We’ll build it up as we go.

You can always have additional requirements, tasks or skills you need, just be aware that if you want 10% of 10 completely different roles, then finding this person will be like looking for a Unicorn.

Want some inspiration on the blend of skills within roles? 

Check out jobrack.eu and browse some of the jobs other business owners are hiring for right now.

What tools or systems should they be familiar with?

What tools do you use, or want to use, in your business?

Many collaboration and communication tools are common across remote businesses, and easy to pick up even if someone hasn’t used them before. 

However, you may have more specific systems that you need your new hire to be familiar with.

This is especially true with Developers but can also be the case with many other roles so take some time to think about particular tools you need to include.

Tip: Experience with one collaboration tool like Monday.com, Asana, Trello etc. will make onboarding of any hire much easier. Also, if you’re focused on automation and improvement then any experience with process automation with tools like Zapier is a big plus.

What personality traits are you looking for?

This aspect is crucial. If you can figure out what you need upfront, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and pain. 

Think about what type of person you get along with and what characteristics they need to have in order to get along with your team whilst also being able to deliver on the job you need. 

For instance, do you want someone who is outgoing, energetic, always coming up with new ideas and wants to make lots of improvements?

Or do you want someone really focused on the detail, making sure the right things happen at the right time, often a little more quiet and unassuming?

Or do you want a combination of the two? 

Being aware of what you like about people and what frustrates you can help you attract and hire people you’ll enjoy working with. Just don’t be too prescriptive. 

After all, life’s about variety, and working with people different from ourselves is a great way to learn and grow.

Location 

Do you need them to be in a particular geographical area or timezone? Do you need them to have access to particular resources that are in some way limited? Or do you just need them to have a computer and an internet connection?

Language 

Do you have any particular language skills they must have? Do you serve customers or suppliers in non-English speaking markets that you’d like your new team member to be able to communicate with?

Hours you need 

How many hours do you want them to work? Do you have specific requirements? For example, you may need them to work between certain hours or to have sufficient overlap with your own time zone or that of your team or your customers.

Tip: Be careful when it comes to working hours. Almost no one likes working night shifts or unsociable hours long term. Very few people like to spend their Friday and Saturday nights working. So unless it’s crucial, do everything possible to align your desired working hours with the normal working day of the location you’re hiring from and you’ll get a greater range of quality applicants to choose from. 

When hiring remotely, know that you can achieve a huge amount with just 2-4 hours of crossover with your team. You may also get the benefit of waking up and them having already done a large chunk of work giving you a great head start on the day.

Does this person exist?

Take a look through the notes you’ve just made as you’ve answered these questions.

Are you asking too much? Does this person exist?

If you are being unrealistic then you’ll normally have a feeling about this. Just remember there are some pretty amazing people with incredible skills out there if you look in the right places. 

As an example, if you’re looking to hire an assistant, then here’s a list of common tasks that you could get them to do for you:

• Setting up an efficient email flow and answering emails
• Helping optimise and organise your workflows
• Helping sift through applicants for new positions
• Reminding you to buy end-of-year gifts for employees
• Come up with ideas for gifts, take care of buying & sending them
• Administrative tasks like Invoicing
• Managing all aspects of your online calendar
• Scheduling and posting content on social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
• Scheduling calls with clients and prospects
• Helping you stay organized with all kinds of daily tasks
• Creating SOPs
• Communicating with other VAs regarding different tasks and projects
• Processing emails
• Scheduling calls
• Tracking results
• Creating documentation
• Working with spreadsheets
• Managing your LinkedIn account
• Creating reports
• Writing short content articles, FAQ answers, posts on forums, groups and Q&A’s on places like Reddit and Quora
• Using creative skills to create and improve all kinds of assets including Facebook ads, LinkedIn posts, Youtube videos, resources and templates for guides, client presentations and more 

If you’re not sure then get some advice. I’m always happy to chat through and help you out so click here to book a call.

Now, you’ve got a good outline of your new person. It’s time to consider where to find them.

Where to find your new hire?

There are hundreds of options when it comes to where to find your new hire.

Where you should look for them also depends on your particular needs and requirements.

For example, if you need them to speak a specific language or have very specific skills, then you need to focus on the location that will give you access to people with those skills.

Or, you might have a particular region in mind, either because you have team members there already, or because you’ve heard good things about hiring from that region. 

There are hiring sites for almost every niche you can imagine. It all comes down to choosing what’s most important for you and choosing a site or service that you can trust to help you get the quality new team member you need.

How much will they cost?

This isn’t just about their salary. Although that will normally be the biggest single item, don’t ignore other costs.

These may include:

• Software or tools you need them to have access to
• Training courses needed either for the role or as part of their development
• Your time – you’ll need to manage them, and spend time with them (and this has a cost!)
• The hiring process itself, whether you do it yourself or get help with the process, hiring someone costs both time and money.

Often, business owners looking to hire will set a budget, and then look to find someone willing to work for that amount.

The problem with this approach is that you’ve set a budget without clarifying whether the skill level you want is available for that budget.

If you’ve already progressed to advertise your role with a salary that isn’t right, then you’ll see this through either poor-quality applicants or even no applicants at all.

You’re then faced with the decision of whether to continue and increase your budget or, more commonly, business owners compromise on the quality of the person hoping it will work out. It almost certainly won’t!

Failed hiring costs a lot of time and money so it’s important to avoid mistakes that lead to wasting your time, effort and money.

Becoming informed on the right way to hire is the best route to avoiding mistakes like these, so by reading this guide you’re already one step ahead.

Before you start hiring for your role you need to find out how much these roles are being paid in the areas you’re considering. 

Whether it’s full-time or part-time, senior or junior, you need an idea of what salary similar roles are offering and think about how that matches up with your budget. 

If you’re not sure how much to pay then this is definitely an area to get some advice. 

Ways to check your salary/budget

1. Check out other similar jobs
2. Look for salary guides/surveys for the areas/skills you’re looking to recruit
3. Ask other business owners
4. Ask for advice from the site you’re considering posting your job with
5. Get help from someone providing a hiring service

Note that salary can vary hugely depending on the exact skills, experience level, and location of the person, so this is where speaking to someone with lots of experience in the roles and locations you’re considering will really add value.

If you want some personalized salary advice for your role, then feel free to get in touch and I’ll help guide you for your particular requirements.

Once you’ve found out what salary the role you want requires, then hopefully this will align with your budget. If not, you may need to either compromise or find a way of hiring the skill level you need at a lower cost. 

You may also need to increase your budget!

Hint: There are areas in the world where you can get incredibly high skill levels at less than half the cost of hiring in the USA or Canada or similar high-cost countries. Eastern Europe is where businesses hire the best remote talent anywhere in the world. Oh, and did I mention? Here at JobRack we specialize in the very best of Eastern European remote talent.

When hiring, make sure you consider how much help you want and need throughout the hiring process.

• Is there someone you can speak to and ask questions?
• Do they offer guidance on how much to pay for specific roles?
• Can you get guidance on how to hire and tips for getting the best results?
• Do they offer services to save your time and effort, or do they expect you to do all the work?
• Do they guarantee results?

Hiring is hard, so you’ll want to get every possible advantage. Take a moment to think about these questions before starting the process.

Now, just before we get into the specifics of exactly how to hire, you need to ask yourself how much of this you have the skills and the time to do yourself. 

As you’ll learn, hiring successfully takes time and a lot of effort.

Do you have that time?

Do you have the skills and experience to do this yourself?

Hiring typically takes a minimum of 40-60 hours of time and effort to complete, often more. 

This is broken up between the upfront effort of crafting a really great job post, creating application forms and filtering criteria, advertising and sourcing the quality applicants you need. That's all before you’ve even started to review candidates - and that’s when the hard work starts!

This is the moment to ask yourself whether you want to focus on running your business and get some expert help from people that specialize in hiring to guarantee a good result for you in hiring for this role.

That's something to bear in mind as you read through the next steps of this guide.

Typically there are three options, I often liken it to climbing a mountain.

1 – Do It Yourself

You manage the process yourself –  writing the job post, attracting the right candidates, reviewing and filtering, testing and interviewing. All of the control… And… All of the work!

2 – Done With You

Have someone guide you through the entire process including taking on the heavy lifting during the early stages of the hiring process. 

Work with them to agree on what you want and let them craft a great job post, promote your role and source the candidates making sure you get great applicants. Have them do all the filtering and reviewing so you only get to see the good candidates. 

Then have guidance from hiring experts as they help you through effectively testing and interviewing candidates to make sure you choose the right one for you. 

3 – Done For You

The helicopter to the top of the mountain option – you just want results. You want someone else to do all the heavy lifting and present you with just two to three fully vetted, awesome candidates ready for your final interview and selection. 

Want to talk more and understand these options? Feel free to book a free call to discuss what’s right for you.

The plan – your hiring funnel

Now it’s time to get serious and take you through the specific steps of how to get your new hire.

When hiring, you need to have a clear picture of the process you’re going to follow to lead to a successful hire. 

Think of it as a sales funnel.

You want to get a good number of people in at the top of your funnel, and then filter and reduce them down through each stage to end up with the one new hire you’re looking for.

You’ve already figured out roughly what you want your new person to do, the skills and experience they might need and the type of role you’re looking to hire. 

Before we jump in with crafting the perfect job post – one that gets attention and attracts the right candidates – take a brief moment to plan out your hiring process. We’ll go through each of these steps in more detail as you work through this guide.

• How are you going to attract the right people to apply?
• How do you want them to apply? (a message, an email or an application form – more on this shortly)
• What information do you want them to include?
• How will you review and filter the applications?
• How will you manage communications with the applicants?
• When will you want to speak to them?
• How will you test them?
• What will the interview consist of?
• How will you offer and contract your new hire?
• How long will this process take from start to finish?

By having your thoughts in place for each of this upfront, you can be sure that you’re covering all the key stages that lead to a successful new hire. 

You can then craft the job post to include details of these steps, and you can also consider the time and effort you need to put into the hiring process and schedule time into your diary for the coming weeks. 

The next step is the second part of our hiring guide – and that’s Writing a Job Post That Works.

• Intro
• Part 1 – Do You Need to Hire At All?
• Part 2 – Writing a Job Post That Works
• Part 3 – Reviewing and Filtering Applications
• Part 4 – Testing and Interviewing Candidates
• Part 5 – Review: Choosing the One

A job post is like a sales page. It needs to attract the attention of the right people. Then, it needs to build interest and trust, and finally, it needs to convince them to apply.

One key thing to remember when writing a job post is that even though you might not enjoy the tasks that this role is going to be doing, someone out there will – probably lots of people. That’s why you have to put yourself in the mind of a job seeker and include what would be important for them to know when considering whether to apply. 

From our years of experience and thousands of successful job postings, here are the key headings you should include in your job post:

Start by introducing yourself, your company and your team. 

Whether they’re permanent staff, full-time, part-time or freelancers, talk about who’s on the team, how often you get together (virtually or physically), and how you keep in touch throughout the day and the week.

What’s your culture like? How do you have fun?

What are the opportunities for training and progression? No one wants to be stuck doing the same thing forever with no chance to learn and develop their skills.

What would you want to know if you were reading a job post and considering whether to apply?

Whether it’s the culture, the training opportunities, the size of the company or the opportunities for progression, make sure you include things that would appeal to you in the job post.

If you really want to stand out, we suggest including a short video where you will explain what you’re looking for and the difference this role will make to you and your business. This really helps to build trust and capture interest from potential applicants. Just a short 60-second video introducing yourself and the role works great. 

You can end your video with something like this:

If this sounds like a fit for you then I look forward to reviewing your application!

This is the section where you talk about the role itself, why are you hiring for it, and what are the objectives. Try to explain what kind of difference this role will make to your business and give the candidates the opportunity to envision their career path if they become a part of your company.

Of course, the most important part of this section are the responsibilities and tasks your new hire will be in charge of.

One effective way to outline the responsibilities is with a sentence like:

If you’d been working for us over the past month, some of the tasks and projects you’d have worked on would include:

...and then you can include a bullet list of tasks that they’d have worked on.

It's also good to outline whether this is a full-time or a part-time role, whether the candidates are required to work during the working hours of a particular timezone, and if there is any flexibility when it comes to the schedule. 

Typically called "About You", this is the section where you explain in detail what kind of candidates you're looking for.

• What skills do you need them to have?
• What experience is essential for them to be successful in the role?
• What tools or software do they need to be experienced in and to what level?
• What kind of personality would fit in with the rest of your team?
• What kind of attitude or interests will help them be successful? 

For instance, if you’re a photography business hiring for a Customer Support person, then an interest in photography is naturally going to help them relate to your customers and ultimately succeed in the role.

In this section, you can also include brownie points for any skills that are not strictly required but would be beneficial for this role.

You may think that benefits are only reserved for in-office teams, but that's not true. In fact, benefits will help you win over many quality candidates and build a very loyal team.

Some benefits offered to remote workers can include:

• Performance bonuses for exceeding KPIs
• Annual salary increases based on performance
• Stipend for private health insurance
• Office equipment stipend 
• Training budget (books, courses, certifications, etc.) 
• Yearly team retreats with the company

Outline what the hiring process is going to be like, what stages there are and when they should expect to hear back from you. This helps to set clear expectations upfront.

Often missed, make sure you add instructions on how you want the candidates to apply to your job post. This can also be a great initial test to see which of the candidates follow your instructions.

Before you move on to the next stage, read through your job post. 

Does it sound interesting? 

Does it give a good flavour of the company and what it would be like to work for you?

Does it sound open and friendly like how you’d talk to someone about the job?

Also, have you been respectful and inclusive with what you’ve written and asked for?

While there are many great candidates available and looking for work, they’re not all hanging out just waiting for your job post to appear. 

You have to sell the opportunity and really highlight why they should want to work for you. 

Always keep in mind that they may be giving up another job to come and work for you and your business. Their next rent or mortgage payment will depend on you paying them, so trust is vital.

In order to complete the How to apply section of your job post, you’ll need to have a clear idea of how you want them to apply. 

You may have covered this when you planned out your hiring process. If not, it’s time to figure this out in the next part of this How to Hire Guide – Reviewing and Filtering Applications.

• Intro
• Part 1 – Do You Need to Hire At All?
• Part 2 – Writing a Job Post That Works
• Part 3 – Reviewing and Filtering Applications
• Part 4 – Testing and Interviewing Candidates
• Part 5 – Review: Choosing the One

You’ve got three primary options when it comes to how applicants can apply for your role:

• Email
• Messages within the hiring platform you choose
• Application form

So which should you use? 

Option 1 – Applications via email 

This is only for those who are really, really efficient with email. You’ve set up automated filters and rules that will efficiently strip out candidates that don’t follow your instructions. The candidates will also get an auto-reply with the next stage of the process.

The group above is the only group of people this option is right for.

If you’re not hyper-efficient with your emails, and you don’t want more emails in your inbox clogging it up, then keep reading. 

Option 2 – Messages within the hiring platform you choose

This can be a really good option that I frequently recommend, as long as you give the applicants a specific instruction or question to follow, i.e. message me with a link to your CV and tell me how you would  {insert specific task} if you were successful in getting the role.

This lets you easily filter out applicants before moving them on to the next stage.

Ideally, your hiring platform would have a simple way of messaging applicants as well as an easy-to-use system to move the applicants between stages based on whether you’re taking them forwards or not. 

Option 3 – Application form

Using an application form will save you lots of time.

You can set it up in less than an hour using a tool like Google Forms or Typeform, yet it will save you hours of time when you review applications. It will also reduce the number of emails in your inbox.

Extra tip: You can also consider using an Applicant Tracking System. These are software tools designed to track and manage hiring for roles, acting as a supercharged application form and review tool. These can be expensive but often they will have a free level that will allow you to use it for just one role at a time.

A simple Google Form gives you 99% of the benefits of an ATS tool when you’re hiring your first few roles and is quick to get going, but if you have access to an ATS or want to try one out then this is a good option too. 

ATS tools will normally allow you to create a form and provide you with a URL you can add to your job post or hiring platform when you post your ad.

My Recommendation – Use an application form!

An application form is the most efficient way to capture information and make your life easier. You can use an application form to include mini test questions that will allow you to score the applicants, helping you review and filter them. 

Most application forms will update a spreadsheet with completed applications, Google forms does this in real time, so you can make amendments to the sheet, and add columns and notes all whilst applications continue to feed in. 

Introduction 

Make it clear that this application form is going to require some time and effort. If they're not willing to put in a little effort, then they're probably not super interested and this job isn’t right for them!  

This possibly sounds a little harsh but it’s all about setting clear expectations upfront. 

I then split my application forms into four key areas.

Section 1 – The Basics

• Contact details
• Link to their CV/LinkedIn Profile
• Ability to work the hours you want
• Location and timezone
• Computer specs
• Internet speed test

Section 2 – Work experience

• Current role
• Reason for leaving current / last role
• Best thing about their previous role
• Worst thing about their previous role
• Biggest difference they made in their previous role
• How many years of experience do they have with the particular skills or role you’re hiring for
• What they’re looking for in a new role
• Salary expectations in USD (or whatever currency you prefer)

Section 3 – Mini competency tests

In this section, I ask questions that will allow me to get a view of their skills and abilities. 

For virtual assistants, I might ask them about how they manage an email inbox, or what does inbox zero mean to them.

For someone where social media is part of their role, I might ask them to write a post that they might post to our Facebook audience on a Monday morning. (they get extra bonus points if they create an image as well!)

For developers, I might ask something like: “How would you write a React hook that runs only on the first render?”

Or for PostgreSQL: “Write a SQL query that returns all unique first name and last name pairs with the number of times they occur, sorted by most occurrences to least.”

Think about the role and some simple questions that will take them no more than 5-10 minutes, but that will give you a clear idea of their abilities.

Section 4 – One more thing

For the last question on the application form, I’ll often ask them to do one more thing to show me they really want the job. 

This gives candidates an opportunity to go the extra mile and sometimes you get some really good effort shown here.

I will often ask applicants to record a short video to introduce themselves and tell me why they think they’d be good for the job as part of the application process.

Many candidates are reluctant to record videos of themselves despite being very happy to jump on video calls, so we rarely rule people out if they haven’t done this (unless appearing on video is part of the job!). 

If they do include this, then it can be a great way to get a feel for how they come across. However, nothing replaces jumping on a call with them and really interacting with them.

Check out the resources section for links to a sample application form you can use yourself.

I highly recommend using an application form for any role you hire. It requires a little effort for the applicant to complete which shows you they’re really interested in your role. It also allows you to capture a lot of information efficiently and makes it easy for you to review and filter the applications you receive. More on that in the next section.

If you want to really optimize your hiring funnel, then you can also combine Option 2 (applying via a message in your hiring portal) with Option 3 (using an application form). 

Get applicants to send an initial message answering a simple question, and then send those that do that successfully the link to the application form to complete more details. 

I find this works really well as it makes them feel good about progressing to the next stage of the application form, without putting up too much of a barrier to their initial contact with you.

The key here is getting the maximum number of quality applications without losing too many good ones by asking them to do too much too soon i.e. fill out a lengthy application form at the first stage.

Now that you’ve finished your job post and your application form, you’re ready to post your job to your chosen platform(s) and wait for the applications to come in. 

As I described earlier in the guide, hiring is just like sales. You use a funnel to bring in a group of people that you then reduce down through the stages until you get to the one for you. 

The biggest benefit of using an application form is what happens after your applicants start applying and completing the form. 

This is the point where you can use what they’ve written as their answers in the form to review, score and filter efficiently to get to your Yes, No or Maybe list of candidates.

If you’re using a Google Form, and I highly recommend that you do, then it will automatically create a Google Sheet for you that will constantly be updated as more applicants apply.

In the meantime, you can add more columns to the right of the answer fields that you can use to score and filter the applicants.

Assuming you’ve got your form created, you’ve put through a test submission, and you’ve clicked the button in Google Forms on the responses tab to link it to a Google Sheet, you’re ready to go.

When I’m hiring, I add the following columns to the far right-hand side of the sheet to help me review and filter:

• English Skills – Great, Good Enough, Not Good Enough
• Test Questions – Great, Good Enough, Not Good Enough
• Effort made – Great, Good Enough, Not Good Enough
• Feeling from reviewing their application – Yes, No, Maybe
• Proceed to the next stage? – Yes/No

You’re now ready to review your applicants. 

You can review applications either every day or two as they come in, or you can wait and do them all as a batch when you’ve got a good amount. A five-day and a ten-day review is normally a good approach, depending on the specialised nature of your role and the volume of applications.

Depending on where you’ve advertised your role, you may have anything from 5 to 500 applicants! 

Keep in mind that more is NOT better.

At JobRack, we focus on ensuring you get high-quality applicants sufficient to make a great choice whilst not being overwhelmed by the number of applications.

You MUST take time over this review stage.

In my experience, business owners that rush this part often make poor decisions over who to continue with and this frequently results in hiring someone who isn’t right for them and their business. 

For each applicant, review the answers to the questions you asked in the application form.

Review the first section of their answers. If you followed the approach outlined above and in our sample application form, this will include The Basics questions (things like can they work the hours you want, do they have a good enough computer etc). 

Mark them as a ‘No’ if their answers in this section don’t match what you need.

Then move on to review their answers to the questions specific to your role. These will normally be longer-form answers and will include details about their current position, why they’re looking for a new role, as well as the ‘test’ questions you included to get a little insight into their skills and experience.

If you’ve laid out your tracking sheet as I described earlier on, then you’ll be looking to score on a couple of key areas:

• English Skills
• Test Questions
• Effort made in applying 
• Feeling from reviewing their application

When you score, remember, simple is best.

Good, Good enough or Not good enough, is a good way to decide on who to take forward to the next stage.

You can then filter the columns and then do a more detailed review of those you flag as Yes or Maybe. 

Finally, I always add Yes or No to my column marked as ‘Progress to Next Stage’. 

This clearly shows me which applicants I’m considering taking forwards, and also highlights the ones I need to contact to let them know I’m not proceeding further with their application.

CVs can be very time-consuming to review. However, they also can have information that can grab your attention and be super useful when choosing who to hire. 

When reviewing applicants, I’ll review and filter their form answers first. Then once I’ve filtered to the Yes and Maybe columns, I’ll review them in more detail including their CVs, portfolios and any other links they may have included.

I always recommend reading through their CV and/or LinkedIn profile. Often you’ll spot something that can make them stand out – perhaps they have extra skills or experience that would be useful, or perhaps they’ve changed jobs very regularly which is something you’d want to dig a little deeper into when you speak to them. 

When completing your detailed review, keep in mind what’s most important to you and the role you need them to fill. 

These might include:

• Specific skills or experience you need them to have
• Specific level of English skills – normally easily visible by reading their longer answers to your questions
• Enthusiasm and effort in their application

Your aim here is to get to a shortlist of 6-10 candidates to proceed to the next stage.

This in-depth review allows you to add your comments and review the ‘scores’ you gave each applicant during your initial review.

I recommend you add your notes and specific thoughts on each candidate into the comments column you created so you can easily refer back to them when you come to speak to the candidate.

You now have a list of applicants flagged as Yes, No, Maybe. 

For the No’s, it’s time to thank them and let them know you won’t be continuing with their application. If you’re able to give them individual feedback then that’s always hugely welcomed. If not, then perhaps give them all some information about what it was you were looking for. 

For instance:

Thank you very much for taking the time to apply for my role. At this time I’m not going to progress with your application. I’m afraid I can’t provide individual feedback, however, the key things I was looking for as part of this stage of the review were relevant experience and answers to the test questions within the application form. 

Good luck in your search for a new job.

You can send this via a bulk email (using the bcc field) to their email addresses, or you can use your hiring platform to simply organise your candidates into a ‘Rejected’ list and send them a bulk message. 

If you’re hiring through JobRack you can do that simply by selecting the “Bulk Message” option on our View Applicants Screen.

Be careful not to disregard the maybes too quickly. 

Really great hires are often to be found in the Maybe list. It’s just a case of figuring out what could turn them from a Maybe to a Yes. 

I really like to see a short video from a candidate when they apply. However, it can be nerve-wracking for people to do this, especially if English isn’t their first language. 

Whilst very happy to jump on calls and interviews, recording a video can be very intimidating for many people so I’ll typically only get 50% of candidates providing the video.

If someone hasn’t recorded a video when I’ve asked for one, I’ll normally mark them as a ‘Maybe’. However, there may be very good reasons why they haven’t done the video so I’ll take extra care to review the rest of their application and see if I get a good feeling about them and then look to include them in the next stage. 

If the rest of their application is good then I will normally contact them to enquire about the lack of video and see how they respond. Often it may just not have been a convenient time to do the video when they were completing your application form.

Depending on the hiring process you mapped out, the next step might be an initial meet-and-greet video call or it might be straight into a test task.

Many people like to move straight into the test task but you need to keep in mind the importance of building trust and interest with your potential new hire. Choosing a new job is a significant decision for anyone, especially if they’re leaving a ‘conventional’ job to work remotely for you, so help them to be excited about the opportunity to work with you.

I always like to have an initial call with candidates before assigning test tasks. Typically I do this through a short 5-10 minute video call where I get them to tell me just a little about themselves and I give them the chance to ask any questions. 

If I’m immediately happy with them, then I’ll talk about the test task on that initial call.

If I’m not immediately happy on the call, then I’ll let them know I’ll get back to them over the next few days. I’ll note down any concerns in my tracking sheet and once I’ve confirmed that they’re a No, I’ll then send them a nice message to say I’m not going to take them forward to the next stage. 

I’ll always try to give some specific feedback on why this is the case so they can learn from it, get better and potentially succeed in applying for a future role with me.

If you’re short on time and you’d like to put applicants through test tasks before you’ve spoken to them, then it’s important to still build some trust and have some contact with them before the tests. 

One great way to do this is to record a short video saying how you really liked their application and you’d like to proceed with them to the next round. 

Explain that you’d like them to complete a test task for which they’ll be paid, and then you’ll review and schedule interviews. This will give you a chance to discuss the role and their experience, but also give them the chance to ask questions as well.

You can email a link to this video along with the instructions for your test task. We find this goes a long way to building trust if for any reason you can’t, or don’t want to, take the time to do initial intro calls.

That’s about it when it comes to reviewing and filtering applications. You’re now ready to move on to the next step – and that’s Testing and Interviewing Candidates.

• Intro
• Part 1 – Do You Need to Hire At All?
• Part 2 – Writing a Job Post That Works
• Part 3 – Reviewing and Filtering Applications
• Part 4 – Testing and Interviewing Candidates
• Part 5 – Review: Choosing the One

Testing is a key phase in the hiring process. This is where you get to see how potential candidates handle tasks that are similar to the work they’ll be doing for you if they are successful in getting the role. 

In my opinion, all tests should always be paid. Offering to pay for their time as part of the application process shows a level of intent and commitment

Asking people to do test tasks that may take 2 or more hours to complete without offering payment for their time immediately sets an expectation that you expect them to work for free. Not the expectation you want to be setting. Especially for the sake of a small amount of money for a handful of candidates.

Keep the testing process simple and aim for tests that will take 1-2 hours and offer to pay 2 hours at a good hourly rate. 

For Virtual Assistant/Executive Assistant/Social Media/Customer Support type roles, this means up to $30. For Developers, this might be up to $100 in total for the test.

You decide what’s reasonable. Just don’t be cheap at this stage.

The objective of the testing phase is to get evidence of their skills, see how they communicate and get a good feeling about their abilities to do what you need. 

Your tests should be representative of the work you want them to do. 

Here are some examples of test tasks to give you a headstart:

Make sure to write a very clear brief for the test (unless you want to test their ability to ask clarifying questions) and remember not to assume knowledge. 

I recommend including 1-3 tasks to take 1-2 hours in total. 

To make things easy for you to review, ask for submissions in a single Google doc to cover all tasks where possible, or for links to the files created to be sent in a single email if multiple docs are required (i.e. if you have a doc and a spreadsheet task).

Make it clear that the task is paid and include the hourly rate/total you’re willing to pay. 

Set a reasonable timeline to complete the tasks. Bear in mind that they may have a full-time job and commitments already so one week is reasonable.

Make sure to include your contact information and offer for them to contact you if they have any questions.

You’ll find a link to a sample Test Task Briefing Document in the Resources section below.

When candidates complete test tasks, you have the chance to analyse not just the actual work produced, but also how they communicate with you.

• Did they present their submission in an easy-to-consume format?
• Did they communicate clearly giving you all the details you requested?
• Did they set the permissions on shared files correctly? (A very common mistake) 

All of these will give you a better view of their suitability to work with you.

When you’ve created your test task brief and contacted those you’re progressing with, I recommend updating your tracker sheet so you can record your thoughts and the scores from the test task submissions you’ll soon be receiving. 

This helps to ensure you have everything relating to each candidate in the same place. It also makes it much easier for you to review them when you’re deciding whom to interview. 

When I’m hiring I create two more columns in the tracker spreadsheet:

1 – Test Task Score

This can be as simple as Great / Good enough / Not good enough.

2 – Test Task Comments

You can use these columns to record the score and your comments about each test task submission, keeping all the key details about the candidate in one place.

You can also create an extra column to include the link to the documents they’ve submitted to you for ease of reference.

You may find that some candidates will not complete the test task. They may have got another job offer, they may not be that interested, or perhaps they can’t be bothered to do the test.

Either way, don’t worry. You only want the ones that are prepared to make the effort. If they appeared particularly strong from your earlier review, then perhaps follow up by email. Maybe they didn’t receive your brief, maybe it got caught up in Spam, or maybe something happened that meant they couldn’t meet the deadline. 

In my experience, a simple follow-up to check if they received your message can often result in getting a great candidate.

If you still don’t hear back then simply update your spreadsheet to record the outcome and send them feedback that you won’t be progressing with their application further.

Before I start reviewing submissions for the test task I always try to put myself in their shoes.

They don’t know what I know. 

They don’t know much about me or my company. 

They may not have even spoken to me yet.

When reviewing test tasks, I’m looking for enough evidence of a candidate’s ability and attitude together with how they approached the task. 

If it feels lazy and careless, then I won’t progress with them. 

If it feels like they’ve made a good effort and have got most of it right/good enough with what I expected, then this is generally a sign that they have the skills and I can dig a little deeper during an interview. 

If you have an instance where it’s clear they’ve made a significant effort but they did the wrong thing, then consider if maybe they just misunderstood the instructions. 

If that’s the case, then I recommend not dismissing them right away. Anyone can misunderstand something and this gives you a good opportunity to discuss it with them at the interview. 

When you ask how they approached the task, you can get an insight into how they think and also how they receive feedback when you gently communicate what you were expecting them to do that was different. 

Being able to see how a candidate handles receiving feedback is a great indicator of how well you’ll be able to work and communicate with them. 

With test tasks done, it’s time for the final stage – interviews. 

If you’re like many employers, you might worry about conducting interviews. 

Will they realize you’re not an experienced interviewer?

What should you ask?

How can you tell if they have the skills you need?

How can you tell if they’ll stick around long-term?

Will they be a good fit?

All of these worries and fears are entirely normal. The most important thing to remember is that a good interview should be a conversation.

The objective of an interview is to get to know the candidate, get to understand their experience and get an idea of how they use their skills to work in your role and complete the tasks or projects you need them to do.

ALWAYS do interviews over videos. No excuses, no exceptions. If they say their camera is broken, then reschedule. You MUST do this face-to-face.

Planning in advance is the key to successful interviews. 

You have a lot of information about the candidate already. This is where your tracker sheet will really shine, giving you all the information about the candidate in one, easy-to-access place. Review this information ahead of the interview and use it to list out key aspects of their experience or submissions that you want to talk about with them.

I recommend using an interview scoring sheet within your tracker spreadsheet, or extra columns on the main tab to record their responses/your thoughts to the interview questions you ask. You can find an example linked within the resources section.

When doing a few interviews, especially if they’re close together, it’s very easy to forget who said what and to get confused. Making good notes is key to helping your final decision-making. 

Remember, interviews can be nerve-wracking for candidates. It’s your job to put them at ease so you get the best out of them. No one can open up if they’re terrified or feel like they’re being interrogated, so I always make sure I take time at the beginning of the interview to try and help them to relax with some general getting-to-know-them chat. Anything to get them talking and feeling at ease with you before you jump into the interview questions.

I recommend you split the interview into six key sections:

1 – Break the ice 

Get to know them a little bit. Where do they live? What have they been up to recently? What do they like to do in their spare time? This general chit-chat will help you get to know each other.

2 – The test task 

Discuss the test task – how they thought it went and how they went about it. Give them feedback and discuss any questions or concerns you had. 

3 – Scenario questions

This is where you ask them questions that will let you know how they would handle a situation. This should be where you give them realistic situations they’ll face in the role and ask them what they would do. 

This can be anything from unclear requirements, challenging customers, conflicting priorities, key systems, or tools not being available when there’s a deadline to meet. Adapt these to your specific business and the situations they’ll face. 

You can use pretty detailed scenarios in this section. For instance, if you were recruiting for a marketing role you might ask something like:

Your objective is to increase email signups by 50% in six months from 10,000 signups per month to 15,000 signups per month. How would you go about it?

Pay attention to their thought process as much as the specifics of what they say they would do. 

Things to look out for:

• Do they ask clarifying questions?
• Do they make any assumptions clear?
• Do they take a moment to think through the scenario or do they jump straight into answering?

Much like the test tasks you gave them, they don’t have a lot of information to go on. That’s why it’s important to see how they think through a task and the stages they go through – this is how they’ll likely behave when working for you and facing a situation like this.

4 – Their experience

Dig into the experience they have and verify they truly have what you need to do the role. Don’t be afraid to ask why they did something or push for details when discussing their previous roles or projects.

If for instance, they say they have five years of experience as a Digital Marketing Manager, you might ask questions like:

What were three key achievements you made in that time?

What will you be remembered for?”

What was the hardest part of the job?

Digging deeper into their subsequent answers with clarifying questions can help you really understand how they’ve worked previously and what they’ve really done. 

CVs and interview answers can often be filled with grand-sounding activities, so it can really take some effort and repeated questioning asking why to get down to the detail of what they really did… and why.

This can feel uncomfortable as an interviewer, but as you do it more and you really get down to what’s real and have better information to make your decision on who to hire.

5 – What do THEY want

Whilst the interview is often focused on making sure you’re getting what you want, you also need to make sure that you focus on them and what they want. 

To help with this, I often ask questions like:

• What work do you enjoy doing the most?
• How do you handle working remotely without other people around in person?

Whilst a bit of a cliche question, asking what they want to be doing in a few years in their career still yields great insight. If they want something completely different from what you’re offering, then you need to recognize they might not be with you for the long term. 

This is crucial if you’re to make the right decision for the long term as well as your needs right now. 

You can find out a lot about how much they really like remote work by asking things like how they like to structure their work, where they like to work from, and what their home office/work setup is. These questions will also help you determine if the way they want to work fits in with what your role can offer them.

Ask what’s important to them when considering a new job – things like salary, paid holiday, flexibility on working hours or a variety of other things. Knowing their answer to this will help you when it comes to crafting a great offer for them if they’re The One.

6 – Their questions and next steps

Always give them the chance to ask questions and finish the interview by telling them what the next steps and timescales will be for a decision/feedback. 

I always make a note of the questions they’ve asked me in my tracker sheet as when reviewing candidates I find the questions they’ve asked can be good indicators in themselves of how well they’re considering the role and what it will mean for them.

After you finish with the interviews, you should be ready for the final step of our guide – Final Review & Choosing the Perfect Candidate.

• Intro
• Part 1 – Do You Need to Hire At All?
• Part 2 – Writing a Job Post That Works
• Part 3 – Reviewing and Filtering Applications
• Part 4 – Testing and Interviewing Candidates
• Part 5 – Review: Choosing the One

Well done, you’re at the very final stage. 

It’s time to review all the notes you’ve made in your scoring and tracker sheet and choose the candidate you’re going to offer the role to…. 

So long as there’s someone who’s good enough!

All being well, you’re going to have some great candidates to choose from and the hardest part will be choosing just one to hire.

However, if none of them are truly what you need, then never be afraid to say no to all of them and do another round of review/testing/interviewing. 

As much as you might not want to contemplate taking more time over the hiring process, or to do more interviews, making the wrong decision now will cost you vastly more time and energy, and money, in the long run.

Go back through your notes from the interviews and give scores for each key section.

Note: Check out the resources linked below for an example interview scoring sheet you can use.

Having given all candidates the same core questions, you can have a fair approach to scoring their answers. 

This is particularly useful with scenario-based questions. You can score them either from 1 to 5, with 1 being not great, 3 being ok and 5 being great. Or you can keep to the simple approach of Not Good Enough, Good Enough, and Great that you used when doing the initial scoring of their application. 

Either is fine and will give you a simple numerical score that you can use to compare the candidates and help guide your decision-making.

Total up the scores and identify your top 1-3 candidates based on who scored the most.

How do you feel about the idea of hiring each of the top three?

All being well, you’ll feel good about all three. However, one will usually stick out as the one you want. 

Go through all the notes you’ve made about each one and look for anything that’s particularly good or particularly concerning. Are there any points you had noted to address that you aren’t comfortable with yet?

If there are details missing or you’d like to clarify some things, then I recommend contacting them to ask any questions you’ve got. I’d always prefer to make a fully informed decision rather than make an assumption that may turn out to be incorrect.

If you scored each candidate as you did each interview, then compare the scores and check that you weren’t overly harsh or overly generous with the first or the last interviews. 

When you interview your first candidate you don’t have anything to compare them against. Doing this review after you’ve completed all your interviews helps to ensure you’ve scored them against the same baseline.

To do this, review the answers that candidates gave and see if you still agree with the scores you gave them. If not, then adjust until it feels right.

If the candidate that you feel best about has come out in the top three, that’s great. Have a check of the others to make sure you’re not missing anything and then trust your instinct. 

If they haven’t come out in the top three, ask yourself why that is. What have you missed? Perhaps they were really likeable, but they just didn’t answer the questions as well as the other candidates?

This is where you need to balance how much you liked them with your ability to work with them and their ability to actually do the job you need.

This is a big decision. 

Once I’ve identified the top candidate that I plan to offer to, I’ll normally take at least 24 hours before making an offer. Whilst we all want to move quickly I find that sleeping on something helps me to check if there’s anything else I should be looking into or cements that I’m feeling good about my decision.

Once you’ve chosen the person you want to hire, take a little time to think about the offer that you’re going to make to them.

• What’s important to them?
• What are their salary expectations?
• Did they mention anything that was really important to them? Can you make a tiny bit of effort to make your offer even more compelling and meaningful to them?

Craft an offer that will hopefully appeal to them based on what they’ve said is important to them, whilst making sure it still works for you too. 

Things to include in your offer:

• Salary and frequency of payment
• Paid holidays
• Paid sickness
• Training 
• Benefits / Perks

When considering paid holidays, one key thing to bear in mind is that public holidays vary between different countries, so decide whether you’re going to offer paid public holidays at all.

I find it’s often simpler to just stick to a set number of paid days off. Then they can choose to work their public holidays or take them off as they wish.

You don’t need to have all this mapped out in advance. You can always discuss it with them and figure out what’s important to them on the call.

Arrange a call to discuss the offer with them making sure you let them know how pleased you are with the process, how they came across, and how much you’re looking forward to working with them. Whilst on the call you’ll also need to discuss the start date so you can both agree on when they’ll start. 

Whilst you might be keen for them to start immediately, you may have work to do so that everything is ready for them to start. Consider giving yourself a few days to be fully ready for their start and onboarding even if they’re available immediately.