For Chief of Staff: How To Hire

Being a chief of staff involves hiring new members for your company and executive team.

This process can be overwhelming, especially considering how new employees affect your company in the long term. For instance, you might get a bad hire, costing your company thousands of dollars. Worse, you may even dedicate hours of training, and they turn out to be incompatible with your team.

That's why it’s critical to create a hiring framework you can follow each time you hire someone.

This blog post will explore an easy-to-use hiring framework for new chief of staff professionals. Read this guide if you want to add members that bring in results.

Discuss the Scope of the Job With Your Executives and Team

The first step on how to hire the right candidate is to discuss with your team what you're looking for. This involves:

• Their scope of work
• The skills you need
• Your willingness to train
• The personality and values you're looking for

Discussing the scope of the job will help you crystallize what you're looking for and narrow down your list of candidates. Write down the critical items from this discussion so you won't miss them.

Identify the Right Terms and Descriptions for Your Job Listing

The next thing you need to do is determine the terms and descriptions you'll need to use before posting a job listing.

This is crucial because you don't want to mislead individuals into applying for the position even if they're not suitable.

Here's a quick template you can use when figuring this out:

1. Job title: Your job title should reflect the work's content, purpose, and scope. You can refer to similar positions in the industry to determine the job title.
2. Purpose: A job purpose provides a quick overview of what they will be doing when they're hired.
3. Duties and Responsibilities: Elaborate on the specific functions of their position within your team and company. This is where you'll be laying down their job's why, how, where, and when.
4. Qualifications: Determine the qualities you need in potential candidates. For example, you may be looking for someone with experience in a specific work or skill.

Post Your Job Listing on Trusted Communities

After sorting out your job details, you can finally announce that you're hiring for a position.

You can communicate this with your company to see if they can refer someone with the desired skills, or you can post it on job listing websites.

However, we recommend that you only post the position in trusted communities. Occasionally, employers are scammed by someone with a fake identity, and you don't want that to happen to you.

Here's a list of job listing websites on which you can post that you’re hiring. Our favorite is LinkedIn and Indeed, professional networking websites with many talents to choose from.

Optional: Record Your Interviews

We recommend this optional step for new chief of staff professionals learning how to hire a new employee.

You can record your job interviews to take better note of their qualities. Write them down, discuss them with your team, and sort the candidates together. Recorded interviews can help you assess your candidates with the benefit of hindsight.

Of course, make sure to ask for the interviewee's permission before recording.

Final Thoughts

Are you ready to tackle another chief of staff responsibility? Join our chief of staff professional network for more frameworks and strategies.