When you own a small business, hiring the right employees is key. You need five-star employees who bring a positive attitude with them every day and are productive throughout their shifts. The challenge is knowing how to find these people when you have dozens of candidates to sort through. Here are five tricks that will make it much easier to spot the cream of the crop.

Check Their Job History

Employee turnover costs your business money and can disrupt operations as you replace who you’ve lost, which is why you need to find people who are in it for the long haul. If a candidate has a track record of staying at jobs for years, that’s a good sign. Past behavior is your best indication of how the candidate will behave in the future, and that also means you should be wary about hiring any candidates who have a habit of bouncing from job to job.

Gauge Their Attitude

Although attitude can’t cover up obvious flaws or deficiencies, it is an important part of what a candidate brings to the table. Five-star employees will demonstrate a positive attitude from the beginning. Its fine if a candidate isn’t extremely extroverted and energetic, but they should be enthusiastic about the prospect of working for your company. Get a feel for their attitude through their demeanor and the comments they make. Some people always look for the positive in life, while others can make a negative comment about anything. Stick with the former to avoid issues at your business.

Have Them Meet with Multiple People

It’s smart to have any candidates you’re seriously considering meet with multiple members of your team. Even if you’re a good judge of character and ability, there’s always the possibility that you miss red flags. It can happen to anyone, and that’s why bringing more people you trust into the hiring process makes a big difference. Another team member could point out something that you missed. When you have a candidate meet more team members, you can also ensure that this potential new addition to the team would get along with everyone else.

Try Working with a Business HR Service

It can be tough to conduct a thorough, effective hiring process, especially when you don’t have much experience in that area. You may have better luck if you outsource some of it to a business HR service. These services have plenty of experience evaluating candidates, and can provide you with employee management software to help you pick the best one.

Ask Unique Questions

Any candidate worth their salt will have decent answers prepared to all those stock interview questions. It’s easy to go online and put together a strategy for answering “what is your biggest weakness” and “tell me about a time you had to deal with a disgruntled client.”

You’ll get a much better sense of a candidate’s personality when you throw them a few curveballs, such as “what would you do if you won $10 million” or “who’s someone you look up to and why?” Candidates will need to think on their feet to answer these. For the best results, mix these unique questions in with some of the more standard questions.

It can be tough to know who you should hire, and there’s certainly a lot of pressure involved in the decision. Give the five tricks listed above a try to help you narrow down your field and pick out your top candidates. You’ll be happy you did when you get a five-star employee who makes your business better.