Hiring for a small business with AI: job posts, screening questions and interview kits

In a team of ten, one hire is ten percent of the company. Owners usually hire in a hurry, with a job post copied from somewhere and interviews that are friendly chats. AI helps you prepare properly in an hour.

Step 1: Describe the work

Before any job post, answer four questions in your own words:

1. What will this person do in a normal week? List five to seven tasks.
2. What must they already know on day one?
3. What can we teach them?
4. What would make us say after three months, "this was a good hire"?

Step 2: Write the job post

Write a job post for a small business in India. Role: [title]. Company: [what you do, size, city]. Weekly tasks: [your list]. Must have: [list]. Good to have: [list]. Working days and hours: [details]. Salary range: [range, or say it will be shared]. How to apply: [WhatsApp number or email, and what to send]. Use simple, honest English. No exaggeration, no "rockstar" or "ninja". Do not mention age, gender, religion, caste, marital status or any other personal characteristic. Under 250 words.

Honesty in a job post saves time. If the job includes Saturday work or field visits, say so.

Ask for a shorter version for WhatsApp groups and a version in Hindi if your candidates prefer it.

Step 3: Add three screening questions

Ask applicants to answer three short questions with their application. They show effort and fit far better than a CV does.

Suggest three short screening questions for this role that a candidate can answer in two or three lines each. One about relevant experience, one practical situation from the job, one about availability and location.

Example for a made-up accounts assistant role:

1. Which accounting software have you used, and for how long?
2. A customer says they have paid, but the payment is not in the bank statement. What do you do first?
3. Can you work from our office in [area], six days a week? From which date?

Step 4: Read the applications yourself

AI can help you compare answers, but be careful:

• Do not paste CVs with names, phone numbers and addresses into an AI tool whose data settings you have not checked. A CV is personal data.
• Do not ask AI to rank or reject candidates. It can carry unfair bias, and you cannot explain its decision to a candidate.
• A safe use: paste only the answers to the screening questions, without names, and ask for a summary of each against your must-have list.

Step 5: Build an interview kit

Create a structured interview kit for this role: eight questions (two about past experience, three practical situations from the job, two about working style, one for the candidate to ask us). For each question, say what a strong answer and a weak answer look like. Add a simple scoring sheet from 1 to 5 for each question.

Use the same kit for every candidate. Two people should interview, score separately, and then compare. Structured interviews are fairer, and they stop you from hiring the person who is simply the most pleasant to talk to.

Step 6: Give a small practical task

For most roles, a 20-minute task tells you more than an hour of talking:

• Sales: reply to this customer enquiry.
• Accounts: find the three mistakes in this sample sheet.
• Customer support: answer this unhappy customer.

Ask AI to create the sample material with made-up data. Pay for any task that takes longer than an hour.

Step 7: Reply to everyone

Rejected candidates are also people who talk about your business. AI drafts the messages in a minute:

Write a short, kind message telling a candidate that we have chosen someone else for the [role], thanking them for their time. Under 50 words. No false promises about future openings.

Step 8: Prepare the first week

Write a first-week plan for a new [role] in a small [type of business]: what to learn each day, who to meet, and what they should be able to do alone by Friday.

A new joiner with a plan becomes useful in days instead of weeks. Your written procedures help here: see Turn what your team knows into SOPs with AI.

Fairness and the law

Choose people on their ability to do the job. Do not ask about religion, caste, marriage plans or pregnancy, in the post or in the interview. Keep candidates' documents safe and delete them when they are no longer needed. This is general information, not legal advice.

Mistakes to avoid

• Copying a big company's job post. It attracts the wrong people.
• Hiring on a CV and a chat. Use the questions and the task.
• Letting AI decide. It prepares. You choose.
• No reply to rejected candidates.