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As your multinational company begins establishing its presence in the Nigerian market, you will begin hiring quality local staff to ensure your business’s success as a new entrant. Your first hire will most likely be someone to fill the role of a business manager in Nigeria.
Hiring a business manager in Nigeria is a crucial step, as this employee will oversee all of your business priorities and initiatives. As an experienced executive who has built up a fair share of businesses, you understand the significance of hiring your first employee.
The first hire helps set the tone for how you will move forward with building your business, and as a new entrant in the Nigerian market, this makes hiring the right business manager that much more important. Therefore, you should prioritize hiring someone who will accomplish your business goals and lay a solid foundation that you can continue to build upon moving forward.
The screening process you will have to facilitate while searching for a business manager will most likely be the most tedious aspect of the hiring process since hiring quality staff is one of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs and business owners in Nigeria face. Furthermore, due to Nigeria’s rising unemployment rate, there are currently many people looking for work, which means that you will have to screen a lot of applicants to weed out unqualified candidates.
As you enter into the hiring process for hiring a business manager in Nigeria, try to adhere to the following advice to ensure the selection of a quality candidate:
Provide a detailed job description. When developing your job announcement and description, be sure to highlight exactly what you’re looking for in an applicant. This includes, but is not limited to previous work experience, educational background, and relevant skills.
Test your applicants. When creating a job description for this position, include a small test that will help distinguish candidates who you would like to interview. This test will serve as the start of your screening process. An example of a test would be to insert a request in the job description that every applicant applies via e-mail using a very specific title in the subject line. This request will help you figure out which applicants have read through the description and help highlight ones who pay attention to detail, which is a sought-after quality in an employee. Also, you can create more in-depth pre-employment tests that are valid and relevant to the position you want to fill by ensuring that the test measures specific job criteria. This type of test can help predict a candidate’s future job performance or success.
Ask for a referral. To avoid being inundated with an overwhelming amount of applications from unqualified candidates, reach out to your professional network for names of people who would make a great business manager in Nigeria. This way, you can create a short list of quality candidates whom you can then interview and make your selection accordingly.
Conduct multiple interviews. Rather than spending your time and energy scheduling and conducting in-person interviews for every applicant, conduct phone interviews and select people you would like to speak with further face-to-face. During the hiring process, face-to-face interviews are essential, as you will be able to learn more about the person sitting in front of you. In-person interviews are also great ways to determine whether or not the candidate will fit the culture of your company.
Use a local human resources recruiting service. These services could save you time because they will be able to connect you to potential candidates by going through their list of professionals and selecting names of people who possess skill sets that match your needs.
Check your biases. When ushering candidates through the interview process, it is imperative that you exercise caution and refrain from letting your biases goad you into making a quick hire. In Nigeria, candidates tend to state that they are more qualified than they actually are. Therefore, it is important that you take your time to interview a few candidates to get a better idea of who is qualified and who is not.
Offer a competitive compensation package. If you want to attract top candidates to be your company’s business manager in Nigeria you have to be willing to pay a competitive salary with benefits. Ask around to get an idea of what others are being offered for similar positions, then use that information to create a compensation package for this position.
When you do hire your business manager, make sure that you have an informative and thoughtful on-boarding process in place, so that your new employee can start off on the right foot. Also, try not to harbor unrealistic expectations that your business manager will successfully build up your company in Nigeria without your guidance. Provide your employee with your industry knowledge and insight, so that they can quickly learn and eventually have the capacity to work autonomously. Doing so will ultimately allow your business manager to accomplish your business objectives and secure your company’s position in the Nigerian market for the long-run.
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