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The Hiring Playbook

Hiring advice for small business owners

Small business owner in his 50s at a modest office desk, thoughtfully reviewing a ranked list of job applicants on a laptop with a stack of printed resumes beside him in warm natural window light.
Featured Hiring Strategy

Should You Use AI to Screen Candidates? A Small Business Owner's Guide

AI can save a busy owner real hours at the top of the funnel. It can also bury your best hire and hand you a lawsuit. Here's where the line sits.

David Lee Jensen

Recent Articles

Empty modern office chair beside a tidy desk in a small business office, in deep navy and green tones, conveying a vacant role and employee turnover.
Hiring Strategy

What It Really Costs to Replace an Employee

Empty workstation with an unoccupied chair and bare desk in the foreground of a small business office, with blurred coworkers at other desks in the background, in deep navy and green tones to convey the cost of a long-vacant role.
Hiring Strategy

The Hidden Cost of Leaving a Role Open Too Long

Empty office chair pulled back from a clean wooden desk in a small-business workspace with deep navy walls, muted green accents, and soft natural window light, leaving generous negative space on the right.
Hiring Strategy

Quiet Quitting Is a Hiring Problem

All Articles

Empty modern office chair beside a tidy desk in a small business office, in deep navy and green tones, conveying a vacant role and employee turnover.
Hiring Strategy

What It Really Costs to Replace an Employee

Most owners only see the recruiting bill. Replacing an employee runs from one-third to twice their salary. Here's the full math, line by line.

Empty workstation with an unoccupied chair and bare desk in the foreground of a small business office, with blurred coworkers at other desks in the background, in deep navy and green tones to convey the cost of a long-vacant role.
Hiring Strategy

The Hidden Cost of Leaving a Role Open Too Long

Leaving a role open feels like saving money. It's the most expensive kind of waiting there is. Here's what an empty seat actually costs your business.

Empty office chair pulled back from a clean wooden desk in a small-business workspace with deep navy walls, muted green accents, and soft natural window light, leaving generous negative space on the right.
Hiring Strategy

Quiet Quitting Is a Hiring Problem

Most owners blame management when a team checks out. After 25 years, I can tell you it usually started the day you made the offer.

Small-business owner and confident job candidate talking across a wooden table in a modest office, lit by natural window light, with a softly blurred background and a professional but approachable mood.
Hiring Strategy

What's Your Hiring Style? Why Gut-Feel Hiring Keeps Failing You

Most owners hire by instinct. The problem is that instinct is the easiest thing for a polished candidate to game. Here are the 5 styles, and the fix.

Small-business owner in his fifties at a tidy home-office desk, warmly lit from a front window, conducting a video interview on a laptop with a notepad, pen, and nearby empty chair in a calm, professional scene.
The Interview

How to Interview Remote Employees (When You Can't Read the Room)

Video interviewing takes away most of what you read in person, the arrival, the body language, the read on your team. So you rebuild the signal on purpose.

Small-business owner in a modest office interviewing a job candidate across a desk, taking notes with a thoughtful expression in warm natural light, shallow depth of field, 16:9.
The Interview

9 Interview Red Flags That Predict a Bad Hire

The interview is full of tells if you know where to look. Here are the 9 red flags that matter, and how to test whether what you're seeing is real.

Overhead view of a wooden desk in warm light with an interview scorecard and pen in focus, and a coffee mug plus a single resume softly blurred to the side in deep navy and muted green accents.
The Interview

How to Score a Job Interview Objectively (With a Free Scorecard)

Two owners interview the same five people and pick different favorites. They weren't scoring candidates, they were scoring how each one made them feel. Here's the fix.

Small-business owner in a plaid shirt at a wooden desk in a warmly lit office, thoughtfully reviewing two printed candidate assessment reports with a coffee mug and pen beside them.
The Interview

Should You Use Personality Tests to Hire? (DISC, Myers-Briggs, and What Actually Works)

A candidate hands you a four-letter type like a diagnosis. Here's what these tests really measure, and how to use testing as a tie-breaker instead of a verdict.

Small-business owner at a wooden desk in morning light, coffee mug beside three stacks of paper resumes with one stack clearly taller, in deep navy and warm wood tones with a muted green accent, shallow depth of field, documentary style.
Before the Hire

How to Screen Resumes in Under 5 Minutes (and the Red Flags to Catch)

Stop reading every resume line by line. Here's the pass/maybe/no method I've used for 25 years to clear a stack fast and spot the red flags that matter.

Weathered small-business owner in his early fifties stands in the doorway of his workshop at golden hour, clipboard under his arm, looking out toward town under a deep navy evening sky with warm light and a subtle green storefront glow, in a shallow depth-of-field, documentary-style 16:9 photograph.
Before the Hire

Where to Post Jobs in 2026: The Best Job Boards for Small Business

Spraying one job board and praying is why your inbox fills with the wrong people. Here's where to actually post a job in 2026, and the one channel that beats them all.

Top-down photo of a weathered wooden desk with a blank legal notepad and pen centered, next to a smartphone, a single brass key, and a coffee mug in soft natural light with deep navy shadows and muted sage green accents.
The System

Do You Actually Need to Hire? (Hire, Outsource, or Automate)

Most owners post a job the second they feel pain. Adding a permanent salary is the most expensive way to solve a problem you haven't diagnosed yet.

Small business owner reviewing a resume during a job interview, the moment when 90-day retention is decided
After the Offer

Four Hiring Mistakes That Kill 90-Day Retention

Most 90-day departures are hiring mistakes that took 90 days to surface. The four phases of the hiring process that, when skipped, cost you the new hire before week 13.
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The Naked Interview: Hiring Without Regret by David Lee Jensen
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