Complete guide
How to hire someone: the small business guide
Most hiring advice is written for organisations with a recruitment function. This is written for the situation most Australian businesses are actually in: an owner or manager who has a job to fill, other work to do, and no particular desire to become good at recruitment.
The process below takes about three weeks of calendar time and around 25 hours of yours. Each stage links to a deeper guide where there is more to say.
The short version
- Decide what the role is before you advertise. Most failed hires are failures of definition, not selection.
- Three weeks end to end is achievable and is itself a competitive advantage.
- Spend your first hour on the ad. It determines the quality of everything downstream.
- One structured interview plus a paid work sample beats three conversations.
- The first fortnight is where a hire succeeds or fails, not the interview.
Step 1: Work out what role you actually need
Before writing anything, decide the outcomes the role is responsible for, the hours and employment type, and the realistic pay band — because all three constrain everything that follows.
The common failure here is hiring a version of the person who left, or hiring a generalist to absorb whatever has piled up. Both produce roles that are hard to advertise, because they are hard to describe.
Answer these four before you write a word
- 1What will be different in six months because this person exists? Two or three concrete outcomes, not a duty list.
- 2How many hours, and when? Full-time, part-time, casual and fixed-term carry different obligations and attract different candidates.
- 3What is the band? Check the relevant modern award for the minimum, then look at what comparable local roles are advertising at. If your band is below market you need to know now, not after four weeks of silence.
- 4What would make you reject a strong candidate? That list — usually three to five items — is your actual requirements.
Step 2: Write the job ad
Write for a stranger scrolling on a phone: plain searchable title, then role, pay, hours and suburb in the first 40 words, then the real day-to-day work in specifics.
This is the highest-leverage hour in the process. A precise ad does not just attract better candidates — it removes screening hours, prevents interviews that were never going to work, and shortens the whole calendar.
The full treatment is in how to write a job ad that gets applications. The compressed version:
- Title: the words a candidate would search, plus one qualifier.
- First 40 words: role, pay range, hours, suburb, and why the role exists.
- The work: specifics with volumes — invoices per week, sites per day, covers per service.
- Requirements: only what you would genuinely reject for.
- Apply: under three minutes, no account creation, one good screening question.
Don't
Posting your position description
Instead
It is written for someone who already has the job. Write a new document for strangers.
Don't
Leaving pay out
Instead
Publish a range. It increases applications and removes wasted interviews.
Step 3: Advertise where the right candidates will see it
Choose one well-matched channel rather than five — a niche board for licensed roles, a board with genuine local reach for hands-on roles — plus your own careers page and a direct approach to your network.
How the Australian options differ on pricing model, reach and candidate type is covered in the job boards guide. For most SME vacancies the practical answer is one board, your own site, and three direct messages to people who might know someone.
Budget around $150–$400 for advertising on a typical local role. Against a total hire cost in the thousands, this is not the place to economise.
Step 4: Screen applications without losing a week
Review applications daily against your three to five non-negotiables, sort into yes / no / maybe in about two minutes each, and phone-screen the yes pile within 48 hours.
Screening expands to fill whatever time you give it, so give it less. A 40-application pool is 90 minutes of work if you are decisive and a fortnight if you are not.
- 1
Two minutes per application, maximum
Check the non-negotiables and the screening question answer. Decide. Move on. Do not read cover letters closely at this stage.
- 2
Three piles, not a ranking
Yes, no, maybe. Ranking 40 people against each other is slow and you will reorder it anyway after the phone screens.
- 3
Phone screen the yes pile within 48 hours
Fifteen minutes each. Confirm availability, pay expectations, and one thing from their application. This kills most mismatches cheaply.
- 4
Reply to the no pile the same week
Two lines, templated. It costs ten minutes and it is most of your reputation as an employer.
More detail, including how to handle very large applicant pools, is in screening applications fast.
Step 5: Interview properly, once
Run one structured interview with the same five questions for every candidate, scored as you go, then a short paid work sample for your top one or two.
Structure is not bureaucracy — it is the only way to compare people, and it is your evidence that the decision was made on merit. Unstructured conversations measure how much the candidate resembles you.
- Five questions, fixed in advance, four of them about work the candidate has actually done.
- Score each answer 1–5 in writing before moving on.
- Allow ten minutes at the end for their questions — what they ask is itself signal.
- Then a paid work sample: one to two hours of the real job. Pay for it; it is the most predictive step you have.
Question sets you can use directly are in interview questions that actually tell you something.
Step 6: Check references and make the offer
Two short calls to former managers, then move to a written offer within 24 hours of deciding — delay at this stage is where offers get declined.
Three questions is enough on a reference call: what did they own and what did you still check, what would you have them do more and less of, and would you hire them again into what. Listen for hesitation on the last one.
Then move fast. A candidate who has been through your process has also been through someone else's, and the gap between "we'd like to offer you the role" and a contract in their inbox is where good hires evaporate. Call first, email the written offer the same day.
Step 7: Get the new hire's first fortnight right
Send all paperwork before day one, give them one real finishable task in week one, name the person they can ask anything, and have deliberate check-ins at day 10 and day 30.
This is where hires actually succeed or fail, and it is the stage small businesses most often treat as administration. A new starter whose first day is forms and an unconfigured laptop has learned something about how the business runs.
- 1Before day one: contract signed, TFN declaration, super choice, payroll set up, equipment working, systems access created, and a note to the team saying who is starting and what they will own.
- 2Day one: introduce them to the four people they will actually work with. Show them the work. Go to lunch.
- 3Week one: one task they can finish. Competence beats welcome.
- 4Day 10 and day 30: a real conversation. What is unclear? What is harder than you expected? What did we tell you that turned out not to be true?
If something is clearly wrong in the first fortnight, act then. The cost of a mis-hire is almost entirely in the waiting — see what a bad hire costs.
What are your obligations as an Australian employer?
At minimum: pay at or above the applicable award or minimum wage, pay superannuation, meet the National Employment Standards, provide the Fair Work Information Statement, keep records for seven years, and hold workers compensation insurance.
A non-exhaustive checklist for a first or early hire:
- Pay at or above the relevant modern award classification, or the national minimum wage where no award applies.
- Superannuation contributions at the current guarantee rate, paid at least quarterly.
- National Employment Standards — leave, notice, maximum weekly hours, flexible work requests and the rest.
- Fair Work Information Statement to every new employee; the Casual Employment Information Statement to casuals.
- Record keeping — pay, hours and leave records kept for seven years, with compliant pay slips issued within one working day of payday.
- Workers compensation insurance, through your state or territory scheme.
- Tax — PAYG withholding registration, TFN declaration, and Single Touch Payroll reporting.
- Work health and safety duties, including induction appropriate to the role.
Common questions
How long does it take to hire someone in Australia?
Industry benchmarks put average time to fill at around 39 to 40 days, but three weeks is achievable for most SME roles and is a real competitive advantage — strong candidates are typically off the market within two to three weeks of starting to look.
What do I need before hiring my first employee?
An ABN, PAYG withholding registration, a workers compensation policy, a payroll method that supports Single Touch Payroll, super fund arrangements, and a clear view of the applicable award. business.gov.au has a free checklist that covers the registrations in order.
Can I hire someone as a contractor instead?
Only if the arrangement is genuinely one of contracting rather than employment. Australian law looks at the substance of the relationship, not the label or the paperwork, and getting it wrong — sham contracting — carries significant penalties plus back-payment of entitlements. The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes guidance on the distinction, and it is worth checking before you decide.
Do I have to advertise a job before hiring someone I know?
Generally no — there is no obligation to advertise before making a direct hire. The exception is where you are sponsoring a worker on a 482 or 494 visa, where labour market testing requires documented evidence that the role was genuinely advertised.
Go deeper on this
Read next
How to write a job ad that actually gets applications
The anatomy of an ad that pulls candidates — and the eight writing habits that cost you applicants before anyone has read a word about the role.
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What not to do when you're hiring
Fourteen specific, common, expensive mistakes — from the eleven-week vacancy to the reference check nobody does — and what to do instead of each.
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Australian job boards, compared
What SEEK, Indeed, Jora, LinkedIn and the rest actually cost, who they reach, and which one suits the role you're filling — including where the big boards genuinely win.
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What a hire actually costs you
Advertising is the smallest line item. Here's the full picture — owner hours, vacancy cost, ramp-up, and what a mis-hire really costs — with Australian benchmarks.
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