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If you need to hire someone for your small business —whether it’s your first part-time bookkeeper or your 10^th full-time employee — it’s a good sign. It means you’re growing, you’re delegating, and you’re thinking big-picture about your business.

But it can also be pretty scary, whatever stage of business you’re at, to bring a new person in. We all know how the dynamics of a small group can change with the introduction of just one new personality, and how it just takes one rotten apple to spoil the whole bunch.

These 5 mistakes can not only make you look plenty dumb, they can also screw up your business for months or even years — if you hire the wrong person.

1. Talking too much about the job

The first interview is for you to get a feel for the person, and if you spend all of your time talking about the work the person will be doing, you’ve lost a big opportunity. Of course they can do the work, and there are lots of other people who can do the work, too, but there’s much more to it, if they want to work for you — right?

Instead, during the first interview, talk about your company philosophy and culture, and how important it is to the success of the team — even if the team at this point is only you. If the applicant seems bored or wants to “get on with it,” you’ll know they’re not for you. The ideal person will love to hear about how the company “ticks” and will be hanging on every word, will be chomping at the bit to be part of it.

You have a lot to offer, so get into the nitty gritty with them, tell them about how you started the business, talk about the growth of the company, anything but the job at hand. Save the details of the job for later in the interview or even subsequent interviews. Pay close attention to their interest in your company, not just in the job.

Hiring someone who just wants “a job” is a pretty dumb thing to do.

2. Not finding out what the person does in her spare time

What people do in their spare time speaks volumes.

Captain C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger, who made the emergency landing in the Hudson River in January, 2009, saving the lives of all 155 people on board, got his pilot’s license when his friends were getting their driver’s licenses. For fun, he flew glider planes. In his spare time, he was an Accident Investigator for the Air Line Pilots Association and worked with federal aviation officials to improve training and methods for evacuating aircraft in emergencies. There was a darn good chance he was the perfect person for the job of landing that aircraft in the river.

Do you think that a person who loves to have parties and entertain friends will be a better receptionist than a person who likes to spend her free time sitting at home, knitting? People who can use their natural talents and preferences in their work will be much better suited for, and happier in, their work — and what they do in their free time gives clues.

Hiring someone who won’t be able to use their natural abilities in their position is a dumb idea.

3. Not finding out why they want the job

Even if it seems obvious, ask why they want the job. It’s amazing what people will tell you.

• “I’m just biding my time until I get out of school.
• “I want to learn how you do it so I can start my own business as soon as I can.”
• “I have a lot of bills to pay off.”

Not good answers. And these are real, actual answers people have given to me, in job interviews at my company.

• “I’m looking for a place where I can be comfortable, do good work, and contribute.”
• “I’ve always dreamed about having a job like this.”
• “I really like what you do, I think I can fit in here, and I’m very familiar with the work.”

Pretty good answers. Also real, actual answers people have given to me, in job interviews at my company.

You want to know they’re thinking about contributing and sticking around awhile.

And you can tell if people are trying to impress you with their answers, too, so be on the alert for that.

Context makes a difference, too. “I just want to make a lot of money,” may be a great answer if you’re hiring a sales person on commission (provided other things align as well), but not if you’re hiring a personal assistant.

It’s so easy to ask people why they want the job, that it would be pretty dumb not to.

4. Not calling references

Okay, this is a no-brainer. Ask for references and contact them. I really don’t know what she was thinking, but a woman I almost hired gave me the name of a friend of mine as a reference. When I called him, he said, “I can’t talk about her, my lawyer told me not to.”

Do you think I hired her? I did not. That would have made me look pretty dumb.

5. Hiring after the first interview

Two years ago I was asked to review and “shape up” a team of 12 for an entrepreneur who was pretty hands-off in her management style. She was stumped as to why several of her team members weren’t working out — after all, as she told me about one of her hires, “she was so great in the first interview, I hired her right then and there!” And that’s the problem, actually.

I think it’s important to have several interviews with the same person — and not to hire from one interview. The person may not present the same later, and you may get fresh insights from different meetings. This also gives you time to see how you really feel about the person and if any red flags pop up. Ask different but similar questions at each interview to see how consistent the prospective employee is. See if they’re impatient with this process. If they are, drag it out even more. Let them know how important hiring the right person is to you. You need people who can follow your cues and align with your thinking. It’s difficult to figure all that out in one meeting.

This one really makes you look dumb — especially if it’s pretty obvious a short time into it that you hired the wrong person, just because you were in a hurry.

So you know what to do, right? Avoid these 5 mistakes. You’ll be way ahead of the game when it comes to hiring the right person for your business — and you’ll look anything but dumb.

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A method to make sure I hired the “right person” is something I wanted desperately in the early years of my small business. I would have given anything to avoid the painful mistakes I was making. Since I could find nothing to help me, I developed my own system, out of desperation, to try to increase my chances of hiring people who would be right for me and my company.

I started my marketing communications firm 26 years ago, and almost immediately, it started growing fast. I was overwhelmed by the amount of work I had to do, and referrals were coming in all the time. I knew that if I wanted to keep my company growing and live up to the promises I’d made to clients, I had to get help. So I just started hiring.

I was lucky with some hires and extremely unlucky with others. I had some great team members, and others who embarrassed me in front of my clients, stole from me, wasted my time, and “poisoned the well” of my good, existing team. I spent a great deal of time fixing their mistakes and trying to understand them, to mold them into the type of people I needed. Or I’d find a way to let them go and start over with a new person — who sometimes had a new and different problem. I was constantly frustrated, and not able to get to my own work of growing the business.

Here’s the most important thing:

What I didn’t realize then was that I hadn’t taken the time to hire correctly in the first place — I should never have hired many of these people!

Once I figured this out, I got serious about why and how I was hiring people. I read all I could about it (which wasn’t much — most of the team building information is geared towards big business and is written from an HR perspective, and I needed something that understood me, as a small business owner!), I talked to everyone who could help me, and I thought carefully about what was going wrong with the the way I was doing it. And then I started to try things, to do things differently when I hired. And slowly I developed my own system, which allowed me to get out of the ongoing cycle of managing people and fixing mistakes and back to what I’d started my business for in the first place.

I found that hiring really included 3 major areas:

1. the conversations with candidates
2. the interview logistics, and
3. protecting myself and my business

And so I developed a series of conversations, interview logistics, and methods for protecting my company. I learned what to watch for in candidate reactions — what they said, and what they didn’t say. I created a series of checklists, grading sheets, and contracts. And it started to work overwhelmingly well for me. I started to get more of the right people on my bus.

It worked so well that my team started to sync with me, because I was only hiring people who shared the same values, philosophies, and work ethics. They began to roll up their sleeves beside me in the business, and before long, they managed many of the day-to-day aspects of the company without me. My business continued to increase in revenue while I decreased my direct involvement, enabling me to focus on my strengths and other business building activities. At the same time, my team was taking off — growing into their capabilities, gaining confidence and leadership skills.

So that you can hear, straight from me, a bit more about how these strategies work, I’ve created a short, 18-minute audio, and I’d love to have you check it out. Download the free recording, “Hiring the Right Person: 8 Proven Strategies You Need to Know Before Your Next Hire,” below.

If you’re building a team, these strategies are must-haves.

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One of the top frustrations I hear from small business owners is about hiring correctly. They want to know how to find the right people: really good team members who will stay, people who will understand them, how they work, and match their personality. They want people who will fit in and support them so they can do their genius work — what they started their business for in the first place.

As an entrepreneur, you might have the same frustrations. You might really need to hire someone to help you with your overload — whether you need an employee, a part time worker, a virtual assistant, or a whole bunch of people — but you may be holding off for the fear of hiring the wrong person. And if you’ve ever hired the wrong person before, like I have, you know that it can often be worse than not hiring and continuing to do all of the work by yourself, or overloading current team members.

Hiring the wrong person can cost you a lot of money. And every day that you wait to hire because of indecision is costing you money. And both of these scenarios can cost you lots of time and stress. You don’t need any of this!

8 Proven Strategies for Finding and Hiring the Right Person
1. Don’t talk about the job at first. Talk about your company and your philosophy and see how interested they are.

2. Ask them what they do in their spare time. People who can use their natural talents and preferences in their work will be much better suited for and happier in their work.

3. Ask them why they want the job. It’s amazing what people will tell you if you ask.

4. Get references and check them. All of them.

5. Have multiple interviews. The person may not present the same later, and you’ll get fresh insights.

6. Have team members interview prospective employees. They’ll have great insights.

7. Test prospective employees. Make up a test that can be completed in 15 to 20 minutes, related to the job requirements.

8. Hire on 30- to 90-day trial periods.

Taking the time to implement these strategies will give you worlds of insight into how prospective team members will fit into your company’s culture, and how well they’ll sync with you. To learn more about this subject, download my free recording, “Hiring the Right Person: 8 Proven Strategies You Need to Know Before Your Next Hire,” below.