Paying Employees – 2 mins

Before you begin:

Outline the job responsibilities, qualifications and expectations.
Come up with a list of skills and attributes you are looking for this year.
One of our mentors once joked about wanting an apprentice who can read their mind. It was a joke but a helpful one! Which attributes are essential, not essential or just preferred?
One way to do this is to think about what your farm will be prioritizing this year. For example, if you have building projects on the go, you might want someone who is acquainted with the business end of a hammer. Or is it a big slog of a year with 18 miles of fencing to fix, maybe you just really need someone with a sense of humour.
If you have numerous applications, we encourage you to use a hiring rubric or checklist combined with a good strong gut response. Why?
- You might forget your own criteria when you are looking at an application you like. A standardized checklist or chart can help keep you on track.
- We think we can remember a lot more details than we can and keep it all straight in our heads
That all said, pending on how many applications you receive choosing who you want to interview might be a no-brainer and a rubric or checklist might be overkill. If you’re flooded with excellent applicants, which we hope you are, then it might be more useful.