If your businesses not only made it through the recession, but is gearing up for higher sales or productions, congratulations! You’ll probably be venturing back into the hiring pool, too—and if it’s been a while since you’ve dipped a toe in it, this is a good time to re-think your previous strategies and try something new.

Hire for Good Fit and Train For the Job
Sure, experience counts for a great deal when you’re hiring a new employee. But for long-term success, a number of companies look at how well employees fit their culture, not how many years of experience they’ve gathered.

Zappos is an online mega-store, which started out selling shoes but now sells clothing and accessories, too. Zappos‘ employees work hard toward common business goals—and they think of themselves as a family. And when it comes to hiring new employees, Zappos’ carefully-crafted company culture rules. (You can’t let just anybody into your family.) They look for people who are “fun and a little weird.” Potential hires also must embrace the company’s nine other core values, including “be humble,” “do more with less” and “deliver WOW through service.”

Another example of success is Southwest Airlines—pretty much the only profitable airline around. Southwest hires for attitude and trains for skills. Their interview process includes group tasks, which help determine if an applicant has the right attitude and/or leadership abilities. They want more employees who have fun, don’t take themselves too seriously and are “passionate Teamplayers.” At Southwest, they know that “Happy Employees = Happy Customers. Happy Customers keep Southwest flying.”

If you’re going to be hiring employees soon, you might want to adopt some of these ideas as your own.

Tips For Hiring Employees Who Fit In

1. Look for passion: for your company, your product or service, and for life.
2. Find out if an applicant has the same values as your company: if fun is important in your company culture, a dour employee won’t be as successful as one that loves to have fun.
3. Embrace individuality. Don’t limit your hiring to clones of yourself or other employees.
4. Ask applicants to do something unusual: Like write an essay about their hobbies, goals or grandparents. Have them meet your team, send in a video, or list their top ten movies, books, or albums.

Remember, even if you think you’ve found a perfect-fit employee, it’s always smart to conduct a thorough pre-employment screening. Checking an employee’s background, including credit check and criminal records check, is the only way to know for sure that you’re making the best and safest hiring decision.

And the survey says… more Human Resources professionals are using social networks to augment or replace traditional recruiting techniques. According to a social recruiting survey by Jobvite, an online social recruiting service company, 83% of businesses polled said they are already or planning on using social networks to find new employees this year.

In the sense that referral hires in general are stronger and of higher quality, it’s fitting that social network recruiting would be a natural way to attract the great-fit employees who already know about your company and are inclined to stick around longer.

Jobvite’s survey indicates:

• 46% of respondents plan to spend more on social recruiting in 2010 than in 2009
• 38% will spend less on third-party recruiters and search firms
• 36% will spend less on job boards
• Only 17% use no social networking or don’t know if they will use social networking for recruiting new staff

Why less on job boards? Respondents rated job boards last for candidate quality; referrals were rated highest. Only 17% of companies surveyed planned to spend more on job boards in 2010 than they did in 2009.

Another interesting fact is that Jobvite’s first survey in 2008 showed that more than twice as many recruiters used LinkedIn than Facebook as a social network recruiting tool; Twitter didn’t even appear as a response to “what social networks do you use for recruiting?” This year, 78% of those surveyed indicated they use LinkedIn, 55% use Facebook and 45% use Twitter.

HR managers are also using social network tools to research candidates through LinkedIn (over 70%) and Facebook (nearly 50%). About 60% used search engines to research job seekers—perhaps as simply as Googling each name.

With both the cost of recruiting and the number of candidates for every position going up, it can make sense to take advantage of low-cost or free tools to improve the quality of your next group of job interviewees.

And don’t neglect to conduct thorough pre-employment screening before you hire! No social network will tell you whether a new hire has a criminal history or is a financial risk to your company.

Congratulations—your business not only survived the economic downturn, but it’s growing—and now you need to hire your first employee. You might be a great pastry chef, shoe shop owner, or candlestick maker—but if you don’t know a W-2 form from a can of WD40, you might have a big problem.

Relax—hiring your first employee is not as tough as you think. There are plenty of resources on the web, as well as at your nearest state and federal tax offices, where the staff will supply all the proper paperwork and manuals. They want to make sure you are completely compliant with all the taxes you’ll be responsible for.

You’ll need to obtain an Employer Identification Number, set up a payroll system, file withholding taxes, and report the new employee to the federal government. You’ll also need to register with your state employee office for their disability or worker’s compensation program, or obtain your own disability insurance.

But first, you need to get through the hiring process. Determine exactly what you need from your employee. Make a list of every single task you want the employee to perform. Write down all the things that are not being done well—or at all—because you cannot get to them. The list may be longer than any single employee could take on—but write them down anyway. You’re going to cut the list to a manageable number.

Write a quick job description, based on the list. Think of it as the goals you need help reaching and the tasks required to meet them. Keep the job description flexible enough to change it to fit your needs and the employee’s skills after he or she has been in place for a month or so.

Think about the education and skills needed to perform the job you’ve just described. Don’t forget physical requirements, like standing for several hours, reaching, bending, or lifting 25 pounds. These are all important aspects of your job listing.

Next, determine pay and benefits. Your local Economic Development Office and Small Business Administration are great places to research local pay rates. Or, check a site like PayScale.com, and you can find out what your job title average pay is, nationwide, or narrow your search by geographical location.

Now you’re ready to advertise. Most employers advertise online through local newspapers and Craigslist.com or use large online job boards like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter are also great ways to get the word out that you’re hiring. And don’t forget word of mouth—you’re more likely to find a great employee through someone you already know.

Once the resumes start coming in, weed out those that don’t meet your qualifications. Of the qualified applicants, some may no longer be interested (if they accepted another job, for example) and others may expect a higher wage than you can pay. How to find out? Conduct a telephone interview, and ask a few pointed questions about availability, ability to perform the job, and interest in the position at a certain wage range.

Call in the finalists for in-person interviews and have them fill out applications. You can find templates online or create your own. Be sure to have a separate permissions page for background screening and credit check. Pre-employment screening should be part of your new hire process. You don’t want to subject your business to an employee with an arrest record for embezzlement or who lies about her employment record.

The last step is to choose the best-fit employee, based on background screening results, your impressions, and qualifications. Personality has a lot to do with choosing the right employee, but don’t let emotions get in the way. Even if you really like a person, it doesn’t mean they’re the best employee for you!