Making the right employee hires is critical to small business success.

Of all the challenges business owners face as they work toward achieving business success, hiring the right employees may one of the biggest. With the right staff in place, a company can rapidly ascend to being a leader in the marketplace. However, bad hires can cost time, money and keep a company from reaching its goals.

There is no way fool-proof way to prevent bad hires from occurring. It’s one the realities associated with running any company, no matter how large or small. Employee personality tests are designed to identify the characteristics you would like to see in a potential worker and help you make hiring decisions based on how they answer questions after taking the assessment.

Employee assessment tools are helpful, but in no way do they completely eliminate bad hires. Sometimes people test well and still don’t work out, and good employees can often be overlooked because they didn’t do as well on the assessment. All told, there is no real science to making the right hires and sometimes it has a quite a bit to do with luck.

However, there are some ways to increase your chances of making hiring decisions than aid in company growth and steering clear of those that can set your company back.

Hire for tomorrow, not today
Most business owners make hires based on an immediate need, but foresight can be a very useful tool as well. Understanding where your company is now and where you’d like to see it go in the future can help greatly in the search for new employees.

Bankrate lists a number of good hiring tips for small-business owners and for those immediate needs, the website suggests employing a temporary staffing agency help.

On the front end, the cost associated with using temps may seem high. However, the website lists several advantages of this, including not locking yourself into the commitment of making someone a full-time employee. If he or she doesn’t work out, you can easily replace the worker with phone call to the agency.

However, temps also allow you to assess whether or not the person is a potential fit in the long term. If so, you can negotiate the conversion fee with the agency and hire the employee outright, or wait until he or she has worked a certain number of hours through the staffing company that allows you to hire the candidate without paying a fee.

Don’t forget about the passive job seeker
Many times, the person you want to hire already has a job, isn’t looking but is always open to hearing about new opportunities. In this situation, the thrill is in the chase. Entrepreneur magazine offers a number of good tips for attracting the passive candidate, but the best piece of advice is to try and meet him or her in person.

Unless they’re unhappy in their present jobs, it’ll likely take more than a cool job description to entice them. By sitting down and meeting with them, a feeling out process can occur. If a good connection is made, it increases the chances of a passive candidate making a switch to come and work for your company.