Most businesses fail at hiring because they jump straight to recruitment without doing the strategic hiring work first.

It’s like renovating without a foundational plan—you might end up with a functional space, but it won’t serve the purpose you actually needed it for.

The Costly Confusion Between Hiring and Recruitment

These terms are often used interchangeably, but they represent fundamentally different processes:

Recruitment is the tactical execution of finding candidates. It’s posting job ads, sorting through CVs, conducting interviews, and making offers.

Hiring strategy is the deeper, strategic work that defines what excellence looks like in YOUR specific context. It’s the thoughtful analysis that happens before you even write a job description.

When I speak with business owners struggling with their hiring results, they often tell me:

• “We’ve posted the job everywhere and can’t find good candidates.”
• “I don’t think we can attract good people with our budget.”
• “I’ve tried three recruiters and none of them found the right person.”

But here’s the transformative truth: Your problem isn’t a WHERE problem. It’s a HOW problem.

The Missing Foundation of Successful Hiring

Think about your last disappointing hire. I can almost guarantee the problem wasn’t that you looked in the wrong places. The problem was that you hadn’t clearly defined:

• What specific outcomes this role needs to deliver for YOUR business
• What unique challenges this person will face in YOUR environment
• What success truly looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days in YOUR context
• Which capabilities matter most for YOUR business stage and culture

When you skip this foundational work, even the best recruiter in the world can’t save you. They’re essentially searching for a target without knowing what it looks like.

The Recruiter Myth

Here’s something controversial after my years as a Corporate Recruiter: Most businesses don’t actually need recruiters. What they need is a clear hiring strategy and a few important strategic hours upfront.

Many business owners believe that paying a hefty recruiter fee means guaranteeing success and passing off responsibility. Let me be crystal clear—that’s not how it works.

When you should engage a recruiter: Only after you’ve done the strategic hiring work yourself AND you genuinely don’t believe you can find the right person on your own. When you’re convinced they’re hiding under a rock, not scrolling through job boards or networking with colleagues.

But don’t confuse hiring a recruiter with getting help with your recruitment admin. There’s a crucial difference:

• A true recruiter should know how to source and tap on the shoulder of the right person for your opportunity. They’re rare and valuable.
• Recruitment admin support helps you screen CVs and manage the process, saving you time so you only speak with promising candidates.

But here’s the critical part: NEITHER of these professionals can work effectively for you if you haven’t sorted your hiring strategy first.

You cannot skip the strategic foundation. When you do, you’ll end up paying substantial fees without seeing results (which I know many of you have experienced).

The Transformational Shift

The businesses that achieve hiring success aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the fanciest perks. They’re the ones who’ve mastered the strategy before the tactics.

They’ve stopped treating hiring as a reactive scramble when someone quits or when they’re drowning in work. Instead, they approach it as a strategic process that begins long before you ever write a job description or speak to a candidate.

This isn’t just semantics—it’s the difference between perpetually churning through hires and building a successful team that drives your business forward while giving you back your time and freedom.

Practical Steps to Strategic Hiring

If you’re ready to transform your hiring approach, here are the first steps:

1. Define outcomes, not just tasks. What specific business results must this role deliver?
2. Identify true success markers. What would “exceeding expectations” look like at 30, 60, and 90 days?
3. Map the challenges. What obstacles will this person face that are unique to your business environment?
4. Prioritise capabilities over experience. Which specific skills and attributes will enable success in YOUR context?
5. Create a detailed success profile. Document all of this before writing a job description or speaking to candidates.

The Bottom Line

Your hiring challenge isn’t about where to find people. It’s about defining exactly who you need and why—before you start looking.

When you master this strategic foundation, recruitment becomes the straightforward execution of a clear plan rather than an expensive guessing game.

Ask yourself honestly: Are you rushing to recruitment before you’ve done the real hiring work?

I help SME business owners build loyal, high-performing teams through my practical frameworks for hiring success. If you’re ready to transform your approach to finding and keeping great people, let’s connect via a Dream Team Discovery Call.

The post The Strategic Blind Spot: Why Hiring Is Not Recruitment (And Why It Matters) appeared first on Paula Maidens.

The Tools I Use Daily

• ChatGPT: Perfect for research, brainstorming, and initial drafts
• Claude: Excels at nuanced writing tasks and context-specific content

Where AI Shines in Hiring:

• Drafting initial role descriptions (with expert templates)
• Generating preliminary interview questions
• Brainstorming potential KPIs for roles
• Creating first drafts of onboarding documents

Where AI Falls Short:

• Salary benchmarking (always unreliable)
• Creating compelling job advertisements from scratch
• Understanding the crucial difference between job ads and role descriptions
• Providing current market insights

Smart AI Implementation for Your Team:

• Set clear boundaries on approved AI tools
• Create guidelines for information sharing
• Establish quality control processes
• Define when to use AI vs human expertise

Protecting Your Business:

• Never input client information or private data
• Treat AI platforms as public spaces, even with privacy settings
• Anonymize all sensitive information
• Keep up-to-date templates for consistent output

Making AI Work Smarter:

• Use it for initial drafts, not final products
• Pair AI with expert templates and frameworks
• Always review and refine AI-generated content
• Focus on using AI to free up strategic thinking time

The Bottom Line

AI isn’t replacing expertise – it’s creating space for what really matters: leadership and growth. When used thoughtfully, it optimizes team performance and cuts costs while maintaining quality.

Ready to make AI work for your business?  Book a Dream Team Discovery Call to discuss your 2025 strategy.

About Paula Maidens Paula Maidens is a leadership and hiring strategist helping ambitious business owners build high-performing teams. With years of experience in recruitment and team optimization, she guides businesses in implementing effective AI strategies while maintaining human expertise.

The post AI in Hiring and Leadership: What Actually Works for Small Business Owners in 2025 appeared first on Paula Maidens.

These are important questions. But after 14 years as a Hiring Strategist and building three businesses myself, I can tell you with certainty – they’re not the right first questions.

The Common Approach (And Why It Fails)

The typical scenario plays out like this: A business owner realises they need proper documentation. They quickly download some templates, or hire someone to write something generic. Everyone signs off on the documents. They get filed away. Job done.

The typical scenario plays out like this: A business owner realises they need proper documentation. They quickly download some templates, or hire someone to write something generic. Everyone signs off on the documents. They get filed away. Job done.

Sound familiar?

If you’re nodding your head right now, you’re not alone. And I’m definitely not judging you… because I completely understand the impulse to get these things sorted quickly.

But here’s what 20+ years of transforming businesses has taught me: The most expensive team problems don’t stem from missing compliance documents. They come from missing foundations – which means you’ve skipped the strategy part of building out your team.

The Real Cost of Skipping Strategy

When we rush to tick the compliance box without first establishing strategic foundations, we create hidden costs that compound over time:

1. Misaligned Expectations Your role descriptions become generic documents that fail to clearly communicate what success looks like in your unique business context.
2. Cultural Disconnect Without strategic intent, your policies and procedures fail to shape the workplace culture you actually want to create.
3. Performance Gaps Generic documentation leads to generic performance – because you haven’t clearly defined what exceptional looks like for your specific business needs.
4. Hiring Mistakes When your foundational documents don’t reflect your strategic needs, you end up hiring for generic skills rather than specific capabilities that drive your business forward.

The Strategic Difference

When created with strategic intent, these “basic” documents become powerful tools that:

• Shape your desired culture to avoid so many problems from the get-go
• Create clarity that prevents conflicts
• Set expectations with detail and clarity that will in turn drive consistent performance
• Guide smart hiring decisions so you don’t have to ‘fire fast’
• Align your team with your vision

Think About It Like Building a House

You wouldn’t just focus on meeting building codes without first designing a home that works for how you live. Yet that’s exactly what happens when we rush to compliance without strategy.

The same document can tick all the compliance boxes but still fail to help your team perform, or your business grow or achieve its basic goals (like turning a profit!) if it’s not built on strategic foundations.

Moving Forward: Strategy First, Then Documentation

The real opportunity isn’t just in ticking boxes and getting your HR docs sorted… it’s in creating the foundation for a high-performing team that drives your business forward, increases your profit, and gives you back your time.

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

1. Start with Strategy Before touching any templates, get clear on:

• Your business vision and goals
• Your desired culture
• What success looks like in each role
• How each role contributes to your business objectives

2. Define Success Specifically Create role descriptions that:

• Reflect your unique business context
• Define clear success metrics
• Align with your culture and values
• Support your business strategy

3. Build Supporting Systems Develop policies and procedures that:

• Reinforce your desired culture
• Create clarity around expectations
• Support consistent performance
• Enable strategic growth

The Bottom Line

The biggest risk to your business isn’t a HR compliance claim – it’s the hidden cost of poorly designed foundations that fail to support your team to perform and therefore makes your growth and profit goals suffer.

Want to learn how to make your team documentation both compliant AND strategically powerful? Let’s have a chat about building foundations that truly serve your vision.

If you’re ready to transform your team documentation from basic compliance to strategic advantage, book a free call and let’s chat. 

The post The Hidden Cost of Rushing Your Team Documentation: Why Strategy Must Come First appeared first on Paula Maidens.

The Hidden Dynamic in Every Team

Picture this scenario: Your marketing manager presents a brilliant new campaign strategy. It’s creative, future-focused, and could transform your brand presence. But instead of enthusiasm, your operations director responds with a barrage of questions about implementation timelines and resource allocation. Meanwhile, your finance manager is asking for ROI projections, and your people and culture lead is concerned about how the team will manage the increased workload.

Sound familiar?

What’s fascinating is that this isn’t actually a conflict. It’s different thinking preferences in action, and understanding this could be the key to unlocking your team’s full potential.

Understanding Thinking Preferences with HBDI®

Think of thinking preferences in the same way you think of being right handed or left handed. In the same way most people favour using their right or left hand as a preference to pick things up or write, our brains have preferred ways of processing information and approaching challenges. 

The HBDI® (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) helps us understand these preferences through four distinct thinking styles:

Analytical Thinking (Blue)

• Focuses on facts, logic, and quantitative analysis
• Prioritises data-driven decisions
• Values clear metrics and proven results

Practical Thinking (Green)

• Emphasises implementation and organisation
• Focuses on detailed planning and execution
• Values structure and reliability

Relational Thinking (Red)

• Centres on people and emotions
• Prioritises team harmony and communication
• Values connection and collaboration

Experimental Thinking (Yellow)

• Generates innovative ideas and possibilities
• Focuses on the future and strategic vision
• Values creativity and exploration

Why This Matters for Your Business

Understanding thinking preferences isn’t just interesting—it’s transformative for your business. Here’s why:

1. Enhanced Problem-Solving When you understand thinking preferences, what looks like conflict often reveals itself as complementary perspectives. Your analytical thinker ensures decisions are sound, your practical thinker makes them achievable, your relational thinker keeps everyone engaged, and your experimental thinker pushes boundaries for better solutions.
2. Improved Communication Knowing how different team members prefer to receive and process information allows you to communicate more effectively. For instance, when presenting a new initiative:
   • Analytical thinkers need to see the data
   • Practical thinkers want clear action steps
   • Relational thinkers need to understand the people impact
   • Experimental thinkers want to see the big picture vision
3. Better Team Composition Understanding thinking preferences helps you build more balanced teams. Rather than seeing differences as obstacles, you can leverage them as strengths.

The Leadership Challenge

As a leader, your own thinking preferences influence how you:

• Make decisions
• Communicate with your team
• Prioritise initiatives
• Solve problems

The question isn’t whether these preferences affect your leadership—it’s whether you’re aware of how they do.

Moving from Awareness to Action

Understanding thinking preferences is your first step toward better team dynamics. Here’s what becomes possible:

• Reduced Conflict: When team members understand and appreciate different thinking styles, perceived conflicts often dissolve into productive discussions.
• Faster Decision-Making: Teams that leverage different thinking styles make more well-rounded decisions more quickly.
• Increased Innovation: Diverse thinking styles bring different perspectives, leading to more innovative solutions.
• Improved Engagement: When people feel their thinking style is valued, they engage more fully with their work.

The Path Forward

Creating a high-performing team isn’t about finding people who think alike—it’s about understanding and leveraging different thinking preferences. The HBDI® assessment provides a framework for understanding these differences and turning them into advantages.

Ready to Transform Your Team Dynamics?

If you’re curious about how understanding thinking preferences could benefit your team, let’s talk. I offer both standalone HBDI® assessments and comprehensive coaching packages that help you apply these insights to your specific business challenges.

Book a Dream Team Discovery Call to explore how understanding thinking preferences could transform your team dynamics. During this call, we’ll:

• Discuss your current team challenges
• Explore how thinking preferences might be influencing your team dynamics
• Identify specific opportunities for improving team performance
• Determine if HBDI® assessment would benefit your team

Understanding thinking preferences isn’t just another business tool—it’s a fundamental shift in how we view team dynamics. Ready to see your team in a new light?

The post HBDI Assessment: Transform Your Team Dynamics with Whole Brain Thinking appeared first on Paula Maidens.

Among these challenges, one that stands out as crucial to our well-being and productivity is mastering boundaries.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the significance of boundaries in creating a business and life that thrives, addressing common struggles, and offering actionable strategies.

The Importance of Boundaries:

Boundaries play a pivotal role in shaping the dynamics of our businesses and interactions with both team members and clients. They serve as guardrails, guiding us toward a path of balance, respect, and productivity. However, establishing and maintaining boundaries can be a daunting task, especially when met with resistance or uncertainty.

Many of us can relate to the feelings of overwhelm, stress, and guilt that arise when boundaries are lacking. Without clear guidelines in place, it’s easy to find yourself inundated with interruptions, distractions, and unrealistic expectations. These challenges not only impede your ability to focus and perform but also erode your well-being and overall ability to ‘switch off’.

The common boundary that is often lacking and needs clarification for most 6 and 7 figure female service-based businesses is around communication.

How to Address and Create Boundaries for Communication: 

It’s essential to adopt a proactive approach to boundary setting and here are some actionable strategies and steps that you can take:

1. Clarify Expectations: Start by defining your expectations for communication, availability, and response times. Often the confusion comes from lack of explicit conversation and clarity. Clearly communicate your expectations to your team and make sure your clients know what your communication rules are to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts.
2. Establish Clear Communication Channels: Implement a Communication Framework that outlines when and how different channels should be used for communication. This helps streamline communication processes and minimises disruptions.
3. Set Time Boundaries: Determine specific work hours and times when you are available for communication and stick to them consistently. Encourage your team to do the same, fostering a culture of respect for personal time and boundaries.
4. Practice Kind Assertiveness: Don’t be afraid to assert your boundaries firmly but respectfully. Think of it as ‘reminding’ rather than ‘reprimanding’. Remember, boundaries are essential for your well-being and the health of your business. Hold yourself and others accountable for respecting them.
5. Seek Mutual Understanding: When setting boundaries, consider the perspectives and needs of others involved. Strive for mutual understanding and agreement to ensure that boundaries are fair, reasonable, and supportive for everyone.

By implementing these strategies you’ll be well on your way as a female entrepreneur to overcome common boundary-related challenges and to create a work environment that fosters productivity, respect, and well-being.

Mastering boundaries is not just a skill – it’s a cornerstone of a sustainable success for female entrepreneurs. 

By setting clear expectations, establishing communication channels, and practicing assertiveness with empathy, you can create a work culture that prioritises balance, respect, and productivity.

If you’d like to learn more about Setting Healthy Boundaries listen to the Boundaries: How to set ones that work (& keep them!) episode of the Big Dreams Great Teams® podcast.

The post Mastering Boundaries: A Key to Sustainable Success for Female Entrepreneurs appeared first on Paula Maidens.

Your partner, your friends… your team.
So, how do you know where the line falls between being reasonable or unreasonable with your “asks”?

Hmm.. when you are busy and stressed, this can be hard to know.

As a high achiever, you’ll naturally hold pretty high expectations for yourself and in turn, you’ll hold high expectations for everyone around you.

(Which is a good thing!)

But often all that hope and excitement can come crashing down when those high expectations aren’t met.  

Those initial hopeful feelings get replaced with heavy disappointment and confusion.

This is when you’ll start to ask “Is what I’m asking for reasonable or unreasonable???”

So how the heck do you know? 

Here’s what won’t help you to answer that question:

Looking around at what other people are doing or what other people can ‘expect’ from someone in a similar role.

Because what applies to their business, doesn’t automatically apply to yours.

That’s the confusing reality with this ‘team’ stuff.  

Unique people, unique businesses, unique asks, unique solutions.

You can however ask yourself these key questions to reflect on your own unique situation to start to uncover if you are being reasonable or unreasonable:

1⃣ CLARITY: Did the person have all the info they needed? Have I been explicit with my ask?

2⃣ WORKLOAD: Do they have the capacity to complete what I’m asking?

3⃣ SKILLS: Do they have the skills or knowledge necessary to do the thing?

4⃣ DESIRE: Does this fall within their wheelhouse? Within their role and what they like and want to do?

Here’s the thing…

You’ll be able to answer some of this… but you often won’t be answer it all on your own

It’s likely you’ll need to reflect and then step into a conversation with them – to truly get the information you need to understand what’s going wrong. 

The good news is that these conversations DON’T have to be awkward, confrontational and or unnecessarily difficult.

(They CAN actually be inspiring, clarifying and result in a much stronger relationship)

But to achieve this, they need preparation and the right language… a technique you’ll usually need to learn. 

So, if you have a situation where you are asking yourself “am I being reasonable” then I invite you to reach out to me.  I’d love to help you to map a powerful, effective AND graceful conversation that leaves you feeling confident, proud and clear with your path forward to your high expectations getting met.

We can cover this in a 2 Hour Strategy & Action Call

Teaching entrepreneurs how to have tricky conversations is my superpower and as my clients attest, once you’ve learnt this leadership skill, it stays with you forever.

Let me leave you with this Saying nothing is actually saying something.

So it’s time to say what you need to.

Check the link HERE to grab a time or book a FREE Dream Team Discovery Call to chat about what’s right for you.

The post How to know if you are being Unreasonable? appeared first on Paula Maidens.

For some of the incredible clients I’ve had the pleasure of working with, balance is all about the hours they work – or don’t work, for that matter. 

It’s about:

Relishing those blissful Fridays off.

Clocking out in time for the school pick-up.

Thriving on a 20-hour workweek.

But for others, balance is more of a feeling:

It’s the joy of not having work constantly looming over your thoughts.

It’s the freedom to glance at your calendar and see pockets of time for family, hobbies, or just a bit of peace and quiet.

It’s that inner “calm” that comes from knowing you’re in control of your life.

Now, here’s where it gets exciting. When I work with my private clients in my 12-week coaching program, we make it a point to talk about and set an aspirational BALANCE goal. Even if that goal seems miles away, we use it as our guiding star, linking every decision, every hire, and every process to inch closer to turning that aspiration into a reality.

So, here’s the deal. If you’re reading this and you’re sensing that your life is a tad OUT of balance, if you’re itching to find that path toward living your aspirational life.  

When we dive into this journey together, here’s what’s in store:

We’ll uncover your one-of-a-kind leadership style and then roll up our sleeves to build (or tweak!) your dream team into a crew that has you doing a happy dance daily because they’re your backbone on the road to achieving your aspirational balance goal.

We’ll implement simple yet remarkably effective changes to your team structure, allowing you to step back while still driving outstanding performance and results.

And here’s the best part – before you know it, your once-aspirational idea of balance will become your new normal.

With only 90 days left in 2023, let’s make a plan to set you up for an aspirational 2024! Let’s have a chat. Book your no-obligation, FREE Dream Team Discovery Call about your unique situation, your business goals, and what it looks like to join forces and make incredible things happen. Find a time that suits you here.

The post Finding Your Balance: It’s More Attainable Than You Think appeared first on Paula Maidens.

However, there’s a critical reality that often goes unnoticed in having a high-performing employee – sustainability. As time passes, even the most energetic and dedicated individuals may find it challenging to maintain the same level of enthusiasm and output. They begin to question whether constantly pushing themselves to do everything and working tirelessly is truly in their best interest.

It is important to recognise and address the evolving needs of your employees. Everyone, including your star performers, eventually crave a sense of rhythm and the opportunity to work in their “zone of genius.” This desire for efficiency and expertise directly correlates with job satisfaction and engagement.

When your highly engaged employee reaches a certain point, their journey can take one of two paths:

1. Finding Their Flow: In this scenario, they successfully navigate the transition from intense enthusiasm to sustainable engagement. They identify their strengths, optimise their workflow, and continue to see your business as a mutually beneficial opportunity. This path leads to long-term productivity, job satisfaction, and loyalty.
2. Disengagement: On the other hand, if the signs of evolving needs and burnout go unnoticed, your star employee may start to disengage. They may lose inspiration and begin considering other career options, either consciously or unconsciously. This path can be subtle, and the signs may not always be evident to you.

The challenge here lies in detecting the signs of impending burnout and disengagement before they escalate. Some common indicators include:

• Snippet of Frustration: Your once-positive employee starts displaying signs of frustration, even over minor issues.
• Venting About Inefficiencies: They begin venting about inefficiencies or problems within the organisation that wouldn’t have bothered them previously.
• Increased Discussion of Inefficiencies: Your employee becomes more vocal about inefficiencies in processes or workflows.
• Excuses and Reduced Productivity: They start making more excuses and exhibit a noticeable decrease in their work output or speed.

The Power of Regular, Open Conversations

To prevent your exceptional team member from veering down the path of disengagement, it is imperative to have regular, open conversations with them.

Regular: These conversations should occur at least monthly and be scheduled in advance. Consistency is key to building trust and keeping a pulse on your employee’s evolving needs.

Open: An open conversation is one that encourages a two-sided exchange. Both parties should feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, concerns, and ideas. It’s not just about the manager giving feedback; it’s about listening and understanding the employee’s perspective.

Conversations: Emphasising the importance of dialogue here. A genuine conversation involves both speaking and listening. It’s not a one-way communication where instructions are simply handed down.

Transformation Through Conversations

When you commit to regular, open conversations, you’ll begin to notice a transformation in your working relationship and your business:

• Improved Relationship: Your rapport with the employee will strengthen as trust deepens through open communication.
• Enhanced Information: You’ll gain valuable insights into what’s working well, what challenges your employee is facing, and how to make improvements.
• Greater Control: You’ll feel more in control of your business, your team, and your future as you proactively address issues and foster a culture of engagement.

By recognizing the signs of you ‘can-do’ employee’s evolving needs and embracing regular, open conversations, you can ensure that your star performers continue to shine. These conversations will not only help you retain exceptional talent but also create a workplace where everyone can find their rhythm, work in their zone of genius, and ultimately, enjoy their work. So, seize the opportunity to have those conversations, nurture your team, and watch your business thrive.

If you’re ready to take action and build a framework for your dream team, consider booking a FREE Dream Team Discovery Call. During this no-obligation call, we’ll discuss your business, identify areas for improvement, and chart a path to make your work environment 1000% better for you. Find a time that suits you here.

The post Nurturing Your ‘Can-Do’ Employee: The Power of Regular, Open Conversations appeared first on Paula Maidens.

Words on a page or on a wall or drafted for marketing purposes to ultimately sell or promote more.

But, they are an incredibly important part of the backbone of your team.

Your VALUES. 

Your MISSION.

Your WHY.

Your team needs to know all of this to be able to PERFORM to and exceed your high expectations.

These are the things that are important TO YOU and therefore, they become the guiding principles to help your team know…

How you want your clients to feel. 

How you want the team to feel when they ‘open up their laptop’ to work with you.

And in turn… How to make micro decisions in their day to day including all those little (but oh so important) judgement calls they need to make.

A list of VALUES that describe the WAY you want people to FEEL and what is IMPORTANT will form the foundations of being able to hand decision making OVER to your team, as they’ll have the foundations to make the RIGHT decision each time.

One of my clients named this her Team Charter and it was a game changer for getting her out of all ‘the weeds’ and empowering her decide and act in a standarised way that represented her preferences and her business brand.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

You may have a value of OPENNESS – and that may give your team permission and guidance to share info and to not worry about ‘bothering people’ with extra info AND it will also give permission to ASK if they are feeling uncertain or don’t have the info they need.

You may have the value of CUSTOMER RETENTION OVER PROFIT – which could provide guidance if a refund request was escalating or if someone was faced with a mistake they’d made which a client had noticed.  

You may have the value of HEALTHY BOUNDARIES – which could provide clear guidance in relation to work /life blend, supporting your team to know how to act with last minute client request and form the basis of a SOP that ‘we schedule all emails to be sent between 8-6pm’ even if we are working outside of those ours

You may have the value of TRANSPARENCY – and to you that may be about not making exceptions for individuals and treating every client and every team member in the same way.

My top two values are FLEXIBILITY and TRANSPARENCY. 

If you need a hand working out what your values are, how to create a values statement for your team, or how to build a rockstar team to support you AND your business, book in a free Dream Team Discovery Call with me and let’s chat about how I can help you.

The post Why A Values Statement Is Important appeared first on Paula Maidens.

How to do it

When to do it

Why to do it…

And two of my favourites…

Why YOU should NOT be the one to do it … (ahem YES you should).

How it’s all such a guess and it’s a 50/50 of getting it right (what?!).

Trust me when I say, I think I have heard it all. It’s one of the reasons why I started my business in the first place, to change the story that hiring people & building a team needs to be hard. Because, it doesn’t! 

So let’s dive into 5 hiring MYTHS that you NEED to ignore!

1⃣ The best candidate is ALWAYS the one with the most “experience” or “education”

Experience is RELATIVE and education is THEORY.

You still need to put in the work to find out if their experience is RELEVANT to you, and if their education or qualification built the skill or knowledge base that your BUSINESSS NEEDS.

2⃣ Hiring is all about filling the job as quickly as you can

Nope.

That’s why I don’t recommend a closing date on your job advertisement. Because you are going to advertise for as long as you need to attract the right people… right!?

Rushing through the advertising part of the recruitment & hiring process will almost definitely leave you to hiring someone who is either the “best of a bad bunch” or someone who “seems OK” without the true scope of comparison you need to make a great robust and confident hiring decision.

This is why it’s so important to have a STRATEGY and PLAN in place before you get started… so that your emotions don’t kick in after only 2 people apply in a short time frame and you make a time based decision.

You need to BE STRATEGIC and give yourself the space to hire the RIGHT person at the RIGHT time.

3⃣ You can hire someone else’s “person” without an interview because they’ll be as great for you as they are for them.

Unless you are the identical twin of that person, with the exact business and exact role as them.. (which is impossible..) you STILL need to be clear on what you need and have an interview conversation with them about if THEY are right… 

4⃣ You never really know if someone is any good until they start

Yes you CAN and you SHOULD.

If there is something that is important to you, then you need to test it. You can test via an actual test (give them a practical test) or present a situation and have a discussion (a verbal scenario or role play).

This doesn’t need to be awkward or weird! It can be fun AND beneficial to you both.

They get to get a sense of what’s involved in the job (so they can show you their skills and get a taste if they want to do it ) AND you get to assess how they’d handle that exact situation

5⃣ You can work out how to hire as you go

Well yes sure… you can… but that’ll mean trial and error which also means wasted time and wasted money and a whole heap of emotion along the way!

(That you could and should try to avoid)

When you work with me as a private client you’ll learn my signature recruitment process, Hiring Mastery, which shows you a robust AND objective way to only hire winners for your team.

You get full access to video modules for you to dive into (if you choose) and together we map out your strategy and create the tools you need to execute it flawlessly.

AND once you learn the process, you’ll use it time and time again… so that each time you hire you can always make a confident hiring decision and stop wasting your valuable time and money guessing and getting it wrong. Sounds good, right?\

I encourage you to book in a complimentary Dream Team Discovery Call with me so that we can chat about your current situation, the challenges you are facing, and how I can best support you to build a rockstar team and live a spacious beautiful life.

The post 5 Hiring Myths that you NEED to ignore appeared first on Paula Maidens.