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I am in the process of moving my home website business into commercial office space because I need to hire an employee (or two) to help with all of the work.

I need to hire a writer - but the person needs to be in-office, because there are many specific day-to-day chores. For example, the person will have to be an expert in specific microsoft-office formatting, each piece needs to be checked and rechecked before being published, I need someone handy to check my own work, etc. Long story short, internet freelancers don't work well for my business any longer.

My question - Does anyone have any advice for finding and hiring my first employee?

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3 Answers

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I could certainly give you some pointers on hiring an employee and reviewing resumes. Email me directly at maria@smallbizbreak.com

I would be more than happy to help.

smith

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Thanks - I will email you. :) I don't have the job officially posted yet. I did sign the papers for my new office - I can't get in until August 1st. Hope to the an employee to help out by early September. I apprecaite your offer for some pointers - this is all new to me. – steampunk Jul 22 '10 at 2:48
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Find someone with solid writing skills and who is easy to get along with. SEO and proper copywriting are highly learnable skills, whereas an understanding of how to tell an interesting story or write something engaging are less so.

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Agreed - good points. My sites have resources for teachers (worksheets and such). I am pretty good at SEO and I'll be there to help with editing and whatnot - but I need someone who can write creatively and at a child-friendly level. I have found that the bigger challenge is not only finding someone who can write, but someone who has a meticulous eye for layout detail... and someone patient enough with MS Word to format and lay out the page properly. – steampunk Jul 22 '10 at 2:51
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Your best bet is someone who has done similar work for someone you know directly or indirectly.

If you are on LinkedIn, try asking your contacts (and their contacts).

Also determine if the need to work in-house is temporary or permanent. (There are more options with contract writers, and a contract writer could work on site for a period).

If possible, make sure the person is prepared to work with you on a trial basis: in a 2-person office you both need to get along with each other, and in a small company you can't afford a bad hiring decision.

Good luck.

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