Hiring someone new at your company is a big step, especially if you're at a standard sized agency where each person plays a critical role in the core of the business.

At larger corporations, employees can tend to fly under the radar, but at an agency, more specifically a Joomla agency, each new face you bring in will be key to the next steps the business plans to take.

You want to hire someone qualified who can jump in and hit the ground running right? I mean, you're at an agency so there's always something to be done. While you absolutely need a qualified candidate, you also need the right candidate.

As you put together your next job description and interview questions for your next open position, keep some of these things in mind.

Personality & Values

How will this person fit into your company and company culture? If your company culture is important to you, this should be a key point while hiring. Your ideal candidate should be someone who has values and beliefs in align with your company philosophy.

Ask questions exploring what they have done in their past that demonstrates these values they claim to possess.

What have they done previously that shows they are a hard worker with a go-getter personality? Find out who this person is at their core, such as what they like to do in their free time and in their community.

Personality traits and values a person has outside of work will prevail in their professional attitude. Someone with all the experience in the world still might not have the personality to really jump right in, in a way that you would need.

Professional Advancements

You're a Joomla agency. So what does that mean? It means you're hiring people to work in an industry that's constantly changing. A key trait you want to look for is someone who can easily adapt to change and someone who is actually keeping up with these changes in the industry.

This is important for any web development, web design or inbound marketing agency.

Consider asking questions such as:

• Professional blogs or authors this person they like follow and read
• Who they think are the 3 most influential people in the industry
• What they thought was the most astonishing change over the last year or few years and how did they adapt along with it
• Any professional conferences they went to or would like to go to
• Any areas they are hoping to learn more about and improve in
• Have they received any awards or promotions

Answers to these questions will tell you if they are keeping tabs on what's going on and how deep their passion is for their line of work. If you're passionate about it, you're going to care about the advancements and changes that will affect the work that you do.

Skills Test

This is probably what you've been waiting for, the actual talent part – and YES it is important. While it is important to ask questions regarding their knowledge and skills to ensure they can explain their skill-set confidently, it is also important to put those skills to work.

As a Joomla agency, you want to make sure they will be able to handle the projects, platform, campaigns, etc.

Whatever the position may be you are hiring for, pick a matching skills test to accompany it.

For marketing positions, consider the following:

• Building an email
• Building a landing page
• Sample blog post
• Marketing campaign/strategy plan
• Analyzing data
• Ideas for a new layout for a homepage

For development positions, try these:

• Submit a sample of any previous PHP or (preferably) Joomla development they have done and walk you through how it works and what it does
• Have them install a Joomla site from scratch and add sample data
• Create and activate system plugin that checks if there is "test=1" in the URL and if so, shows a Javascript popup that says "Hello!"
• Create and activate a module that displays "Hello World" in a module position.
• Modify the module to use the Joomla API to access the site's articles and display the latest five with the most recent article first. It should display the title that is linked to the actual article.
• Since Joomla is PHP/MySQL based system, have them complete an online competency test

As you go through these phases of the hiring process, the right candidate will start to shine through. They will possess the values you are looking for, the drive & determination and the skills required to fill the position.

And, if the right candidate doesn't seem to be there – that's ok. Take your time in hiring. A misfit hire for your agency could set not only your company back, but also the person that you hired.

Wasting time training the wrong person doesn't benefit anyone. Remember your "favorite" life lesson while hiring that patience is a virtue.

If you stick to these steps while hiring someone, you will find the talent you're looking for that will fit right in to your team at your Joomla agency and will bring you the successes you're looking for.

What type of skills test are you considering to use while hiring?