I spent nearly 20 years crafting the perfect hiring process.
I’ll give it to you for free.
I have nearly 100 employees worldwide and couldn’t be more proud of the team we’ve assembled.
It takes an average of 248 applications for every new hire we make to our Google Ads team.
That’s 0.4% of the talent pool. Here’s the exact process we follow:
First, you have to pay more.
This repels many employers. Based on first-hand experience and an entrepreneurial lifetime of making mistakes, the biggest mistake you can make is thinking cheap employees aren’t expensive. If you pay 10% more, you get 3x more.
You have to pay more because you’re going to make applicants jump through a shit ton of hoops, and it needs to be worth it. Plus, peak performers must be paid at or above the high water mark. I have a whole thread on Peaks here: [insert thread].
The job description is fundamental.
Think of this as your sales letter. If you hire peak performers, you need to sell them on the opportunity. I wrote a thread on the perfect job description. You can see that here: [insert thread].
I list my job posting on as many job boards as possible. I focus on local job boards wherever I’m trying to hire (RemoteCo for Latin America, OnlineJobs.ph for the Philippines, etc.).
Don’t rely on one job board; diversify to reach the broadest talent pool.
I primarily seek out job boards that aren’t specifically for remote work. My experience has been that most people don’t realize or even believe that true work-from-home opportunities exist, especially in emerging nations. Open their eyes to the opportunities!
If you look at my thread on the perfect job description, you’ll note that applicants must follow particular and detailed instructions. Our process automatically filters out anyone who needs to follow the instructions. This is so important, especially for remote employees.
That first filter will cut your applicant pool down as much as 70% to 80%. Crazy, right? From there, go through the submissions and cut out anyone who needs to be qualified or is obviously not a good fit. This can cut the remaining candidates down to half. I’m looking for a shortlist of 10.
Once I have my 10, I offer them a paid trial project (they need to know you respect their time).
This is before any interviews! Offer a reasonable rate for the market and never more than two hours of work. I pay in advance via PayPal or Venmo.
Here’s the trick: I send the money immediately but forget to send the project details. Anyone who ghosts me is automatically filtered out. It’s a very inexpensive way to see who isn’t worthy of your trust. Once they follow up, I’ll send them the details of the trial project.
Make sure the trial project truly reflects the skills you’re looking to hire for, which shows what they’re capable of! Give them opportunities to go above and beyond. It could even make the instructions a little opaque to see where they might get creative.
The trial project is the last filter.
Cut out anyone who bombed it or didn’t deliver to your standards. From here, you’ve got nothing but massively qualified applicants. Now, it’s just a matter of hiring the best culture fit. You probably won’t have to do more than 3 to 5 interviews.
It’s not uncommon for me to find more than one amazing person. If I can’t hire them all (which I have done), I’ll make sure to save the runners-up information. I also make it a point to let them down easily and on good terms so there’s a chance of working together again.
By following this process, I have built a team of beyond-exceptional people. Everything we’ve accomplished at Solutions 8 has been done so because we have the best people in the world. I hope this process serves you as well as it has served me!
I’d also love to know what you do to find peak performers! Please let me know if there’s something you think I can or should improve in my process.