Entrepreneur: The 3 Things All Leaders Must Consider When Hiring

Entrepreneur picked the brain of Trynka Shineman, president of Vistaprint, a company providing small-business owners with marketing products, to share her top priorities when considering new applicants.

“Staffing and hiring is one of the most challenging topics for business leaders, regardless of the size of their company,” Shineman told Entrepreneur. “Many struggle with figuring out how to prioritize their time, and it’s even more difficult to determine how much of that time you as a leader should spend on recruiting. Ultimately, prioritization of hiring is more of an art than science.”

Shineman suggests focusing on these three key areas:

1) Imagine how this new hire will directly impact your customers

When going through the hiring process, consider how the position you’re filling will affect your customers. Do the applicants fit the bill in regards to how you want your business represented?

“As a leader of any business, your single biggest asset is your reputation -- if it’s strong, it creates a long runway for success through increased word of mouth referrals and customer loyalty. But even a single negative customer can have a dramatic impact on your brand and growth in the future,” says Shineman.

2) Make sure you’re using your time wisely during the hiring process

“Once you’ve reflected on how you are spending your time, you can prioritize hiring roles that help create space for you to do the work that only you can do,” says Shineman. “Being able to extract yourself from working in your business to actually working on your business is one of the most difficult challenges for any founder, but also one of the most critical needs to keep your business thriving.”

3) Prioritize hiring the positions which could potentially slow you down in the future

“Without deliberate prioritization, businesses can default to inadvertently hiring for the roles that are easiest to fill as opposed to those that can unlock the most value for the company at a given point in time,” says Shineman. “One of the most important characteristics of a growth business is the ability to get to market quickly so you can deliver value to customers, get customer feedback and continue to improve. With that in mind, I suggest prioritizing the things that are slowing you down -- bottlenecks that are preventing you from moving as fast you otherwise could.”