Hiring Your First Employee: Job Post Template and Scorecard

Your first hire is also the first time you build a hiring process. Many small firms do it from scratch, under time pressure, and judge candidates on a gut feeling from one conversation. This guide gives you four tools you can reuse for every hire: a role brief and job post template, interview questions tied to the role, a weighted scorecard, and a 30-day onboarding checklist.

Legal steps (registration, right-to-work checks, payroll) differ by country. Where they matter, the guide gives examples from the US, the UK and France and tells you where to check the rules that apply to you.

Step 1: Write a one-page role brief

Before you write the job post, write a one-page brief for yourself. It forces you to decide what you need, and it becomes the source for the post, the interview questions and the scorecard.

• The problem: what work is not getting done today, and what it costs you (lost clients, late projects, your own evenings).
• 3 to 5 outcomes for the first six months, stated as results you can check: “all client projects have an up-to-date schedule”, not “helps with projects”.
• Must-haves (4 at most) and nice-to-haves, kept apart. A must-have is something you will test in the interview.
• Budget: the salary range plus employer costs (payroll taxes, insurance, pension or social contributions). These costs vary by country, so ask your accountant for the full cost before you publish a range.
• Employee or contractor: decide which you are hiring. Status depends on how the work is done, not on the label in the contract.

On that last point, the rules differ by country. Two examples: in the US, see our guide Independent Contractor or Employee? The IRS Test Explained; in the UK, the official step-by-step for first-time employers starts by checking who counts as an employee (GOV.UK (UK), page updated 19 May 2026). If the need is a project with an end date, a freelancer or consultant may fit better than an employee; you can compare profiles of consultants available for missions on Sendbiz.

Write must-haves as skills and outcomes, not years of experience. In a 2022 re-analysis of selection research, years of job experience at hire correlated only .07 with later job performance (Sackett et al., Journal of Applied Psychology, 2022).

Step 2: Write the job post (annotated template)

The example below assumes an 8-person digital agency hiring a full-time project coordinator. Replace the bracketed parts with your own details.

Include the pay range. It saves you interviews with candidates whose expectations you cannot meet, and in some places publishing it is a legal requirement, so check your local rules.

Check the wording

Describe the work, not the person. Each country has its own anti-discrimination rules for job ads. One example: in the US, it is illegal to publish a job ad that shows a preference for, or discourages, applicants based on protected characteristics such as sex or age (40 or older), and the official example is an ad seeking “recent college graduates” (EEOC (US), page consulted 4 November 2026). Other countries protect other characteristics, so check the rules of your national equality or labor authority.

• “Recent graduate” → “Entry-level role, training provided”
• “Young, dynamic team” → a description of how the team works
• “Digital native” → the specific tools the person will use
• “Send a photo with your CV” → remove it: in the US, for example, official guidance advises against asking for a photograph before an offer (EEOC (US), page consulted 4 November 2026)

Post in more than one place. In the US, for example, official guidance warns that relying only on word-of-mouth recruitment can produce a discriminatory result (EEOC (US), page consulted 4 November 2026), and the same risk applies wherever discrimination law covers recruitment. Combine job boards, your professional network and, if you use it, the Sendbiz jobs section.

Step 3: Prepare structured interview questions

A structured interview means every candidate gets the same questions, in the same order, scored on the same written scale. Google describes this approach in its guide to structured interviewing (Google re:Work, guide updated March 2026).

The research supports it. The 2022 re-analysis by Sackett and colleagues ranked structured interviews as the top selection method, with a mean validity of .42 against .19 for unstructured interviews, on a scale where 0 means no prediction (Sackett et al., 2022). That is an average across studies: a poorly designed structured interview will do worse.

For each must-have, write one question about past behavior and, where you can, one short task close to the real work. Agree on what a strong answer contains before the first interview.

Use the same follow-up prompts with everyone: “What did you do next?”, “What was the result?”, “What would you do differently?”.

Step 4: Compare candidates with a weighted scorecard

Score each criterion from 1 to 4. An even scale stops you from defaulting to the middle.

• 1: no evidence, or evidence of a problem
• 2: some evidence, with clear gaps
• 3: clear evidence that meets the need
• 4: strong evidence that exceeds the need

Give each criterion a weight and, for real deal-breakers, a minimum score. Set both before the first interview. Worked example, with assumed scores for two candidates:

Candidate B has the higher total but scores below the minimum on client communication. If that minimum is real, Candidate A is the stronger choice, or you give Candidate B a second task on that criterion before deciding. The minimum stops a high total from hiding a deal-breaker.

Rules that keep the scorecard fair:

• Each interviewer scores alone, right after the interview, and writes the evidence next to each score.
• Discuss only once all scores are in.
• Do not add “culture fit” unless you define the behaviors it means.
• Keep the scorecards and notes. Record-keeping rules for hiring documents vary by country.

Step 5: Make the offer and complete the legal steps

This section is general information, not legal advice. Rules change and differ by state, sector and company size: confirm them with your labor or tax authority, an accountant or a lawyer before the start date.

Put the offer in writing: role, pay, hours, location, start date, any probation period and any condition (such as a right-to-work check). Then complete the employer steps in your country. Each country has its own steps: the table gives three examples only, not a complete list.

Step 6: Follow a 30-day onboarding checklist

Onboarding is often where small firms lose a good hire. Gallup found that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job of onboarding, and that employees are 3.4 times as likely to rate onboarding as exceptional when their manager takes an active role (Gallup, page consulted 4 November 2026). In a small firm, that manager is usually you.

Before day 1

• Signed contract and legal steps completed or scheduled
• Laptop, accounts and access ready and tested
• First-week calendar sent to the new hire
• One colleague named as the go-to person for everyday questions

Day 1

• Walk through the 3 to 5 outcomes from the role brief
• Introduce the team and explain who decides what
• Finish one small, real task the same day

Week 1

• Shadow you or a colleague on live work
• Read the key documents: client list, processes, templates
• Agree on a weekly check-in slot with a fixed agenda: what went well, what is blocking, what is next

Weeks 2 to 4

• Take ownership of one piece of work end to end, with your review
• Write down the questions that keep coming up and add the answers to your process notes

Day 30

• Review progress against the outcomes, with written feedback both ways
• Set the goals for days 31 to 90 and note the end date of any probation period

Keep expectations realistic: new employees typically take around 12 months to reach their full performance in a role (Gallup, page consulted 4 November 2026).

Common mistakes

• Hiring the person before defining the role. Write the role brief first, even if you already have a candidate in mind.
• Listing ten must-haves. Nobody meets them all, so you end up ignoring them. Keep four.
• Changing questions between candidates. You can no longer compare answers.
• Scoring after discussing. The first opinion shared shapes everyone else’s scores.
• Letting the total override a minimum. Decide your deal-breakers before the interviews.
• Leaving pay out of the post. You find the mismatch at the offer stage, after weeks of work.
• Letting someone start before the legal steps are done. Check the order your country requires. For example, in the UK the right-to-work check comes before employment, and in France the DPAE comes before the first day of work.
• Treating onboarding as day 1 only. Plan the full 30 days and hold the weekly check-in.