Here’s the good news.
A non-stop wave of clients are finally pouring into your business.
The bad news is you need more staff to take on the added workload.
As you probably noticed, hiring great bookkeepers isn’t exactly an easy process.
It’s tough finding talented, trustworthy and dependable staff these days.
Our co-founder, Debbie Roberts had her share of horror stories when it came to recruiting employees.
Over the years, she’s made many hiring blunders, but here are her top 3 you should avoid at all costs:
- Not testing the bookkeeper in some way in your office before appointing her
- Not spending time with her once appointed to induct her into your business and set the expectations around your culture
- In your haste to relieve the pressure you’re under, you put a new bookkeeper with a new client
The after effects of these mistakes are extremely challenging to recover from.
So, to prevent these situations from happening consider these suggestions.
Test the bookkeeper in your office before accepting them onto your team. Ideally, this would be in the form of a skills test on the software you want them to use. But, from experience, this will take some time for you to create from scratch.
Time you can’t afford.
At the very least, sit with the candidate in front of the computer and ask her questions that will indicate her proficiency in the software.
Begin with basic questions you expect everyone, who uses the software, would know the answers to. Then include more difficult questions that demonstrate more advanced knowledge.
Within an hour, if you ask important questions about the software and the Balance Sheet, you should have a clear idea of how experienced and confident the candidate might be.
Here are some more tips:
- If you’re happy with her answers, don’t offer the candidate the job right away
- Test other applicants so you can compare the results and have more choices
- Keep adding to or changing the questions to improve the results
The more tests you do, the more experienced and confident you’ll become in identifying the right bookkeeper to add to your team.
Resist the temptation to hire the first one who walks into your office and throw work her way.
Be prepared. It might take 10-30 bookkeeper interviews to hire a great one.
Yes, it's time consuming, but it’s definitely a worthwhile investment that could save you many headaches down the road.
If you'd like to learn about our successful Pure Bookkeeping System skills & speed test, feel free to send me an email.
To find out more about our full PB System, you can also drop me a message and/or click here.
To your success,
Michael
