New Employees: Try Before You Buy

The consensus is that the economy is picking up and will continue to do so.  History tells us that small and midsize businesses lead the way in an economic recovery, particularly when it comes to hiring.  So whether your company is “leading the way” or you need to replace a former employee, consider trying before you buy – with employees.

Interviews, background checks, and references are all necessary steps when hiring.  But despite your best efforts, you never know how the employee is going to perform until he is on the job.  The costs of making the wrong hire include lost productivity, irate customers, and disillusioned staff.  Some of these costs and issues could be avoided if you had the opportunity to see the prospect in action before extending an offer for a long-term position.

The idea is quite simple; instead of hiring for a long-term position, you hire the candidate for either project work or on a temporary basis.  The benefits of “trying before you buy” include:

• Seeing the employee in action before making a long-term commitment



• Setting the expectations of your current staff



• Easier to part ways if the fit is not there



• Hedge your bet that an increase in sales will last

Keep in mind that this is concept likely to work in the following situations:

• The candidate is not currently employed (employed applicants are unlikely to want to leave a permanent job for a temporary one).



• There is not a lot of training involved for the position.  If the position requires more training, you should strongly consider hiring someone on a long-term basis.



• Non-managerial positions – although a project-based manager could be a good fit in certain situations.

Try before you buy works both ways.  Believe it or not, some candidates (usually the better ones) will like the possibility of trying your company out before making a commitment.  There are some candidates that have had jobs where there was not a good cultural fit between the employee and the company and the candidate will not want to go through that again.

If you are considering a “try before you buy” option, there are some important things you need to consider: