Finding the right staff can be difficult on a good day.  However, if you haven’t thought about what skills you really need it can be a daunting task.  Often, we need someone to fill a vacancy and we need them now.  Being proactive rather than reactive will help you fill a vacancy quickly. Even before you needed to feel a position you need to determine what skills each position needs.  These skills need to be balanced with the skills you already have. While it is great to have people, who are creative and think outside the box, it is equally as important to have people who look at the day to day operation and make the creative ideas happen. Ultimately, you need both the creativity and detail-oriented individuals to make things go smoothly. 

Someone who answers the phone needs a different skill set than someone who teaches in a classroom.  For example, if you need someone to answer the phone and greet individuals as they enter your business or childcare center, you may need someone who has a pleasant voice, is punctual, and is accepting and respectful of others.  On the other hand, if you need someone to teach a group of three-year-old’s, you will need additional skills sets, such as an understanding of how a three-year-old processes information as well as what is physically and developmentally appropriate for that specific age group.  Each skill set is unique and important to the job that needs to be done.  It is always great to get the staff involved in determining skill sets needed for a specific job. These are great activities during staff meetings or in small work groups.  This allows the staff to feel a part of the hiring a person than maybe be working with. 

Once you have determined what skills each job needs, it will be easy to create a job description and a job want ad that outlines the skills needed for each position.  Consider where you have placed an ad before and what type of response you received from that ad.   Determine where people look for job openings in your community.  Is it at the local grocery store, a community paper or a job placement service?  While many employees look to the internet, others may look to technical schools and local colleges to look for interns that could become potential full-time employee upon graduation.

Once you have decided where to place the ad make sure you are aware of what format they would like the ad.  Do they need it electronically?  Is there a special form that needs to be submitted?  Is there a word limit?  Do they require the applicate to submit their resume as part of the process to submit? Knowing what skills, you need in a given position and the best place to find the right fit for your organization before a vacancy occurs will help you to get the information about an open position out quickly and fill the position as quickly as possible.