I Need to Hire Someone, but Everything Is in My Head. Where Do I Start?

Don't start with a polished job description. Start with a recent, reasonably typical week and write down what kept coming back to you. Then choose a connected piece of that work that another person could own—with the access, authority and support to finish it.

“Take things off my plate” describes your need for relief. It does not yet describe a job.

You do not need to remember everything perfectly. Use your calendar, task list and anonymised examples to reconstruct the work. If the week was unusually busy, note that and compare it with another period before deciding you need a permanent full-time role.

Capture the interruption, not the personality you wish would solve it

Instead of “I need someone organised and proactive,” write:

A supplier delivery changed. I had to check which jobs needed the parts, call two customers, change the schedule and tell the technician.

That gives you something concrete to hand over. Record what started the task, what you did, how often it occurs, and what was waiting on you. Mark durations as estimates unless you measured them.

OPM's job-analysis guidance connects the work performed with the competencies needed to perform it. The small-business exercise below uses that basic distinction; it is not a formal job analysis or a validated assessment.

A messy week becomes one coherent responsibility

This repair-business example is fictional, not a customer case.

The owner's notes say: “answer booking messages, chase parts, remind technicians, fix the schedule, explain delays, check invoices, post on social media, find more customers.”

Those are not automatically one job. Booking, parts follow-up and schedule communication form a connected workflow. Finding new customers is a different ownership problem. Specialist financial decisions may need a different person again.

For the first hire, the owner chooses keeping confirmed repair appointments ready and everyone informed. The new person will not also own marketing strategy or accounting decisions.

This is more than rewriting verbs. It establishes the information the person needs and the end of the task. “I sent an email” is not the same as “the delivery is confirmed, or the unanswered request is on today's exception list.”

Define what done means—and where authority stops

Take one recurring situation and write the handoff in plain language:

Trigger: A supplier says a part will arrive after the booked repair.

Own: Check the affected appointment, find an available alternative within the agreed scheduling rules, contact the customer and update the technician.

Done: The customer has confirmed a new appointment, or the unresolved case is recorded with a named next action and owner.

Decide independently: Offer available appointments within normal hours.

Ask the owner: Refunds, discounts, overtime, safety concerns or a customer who cannot accept the available options.

Support: Access to the booking system, supplier contacts, current capacity and written escalation rules.

A capable person still cannot independently fix a schedule they cannot see. If every ordinary change needs your permission, include that supervision burden in the plan rather than advertising complete ownership.

Use the same method for a different business: an invoice discrepancy might end with a reconciled record or an escalation to the bookkeeper; a customer enquiry might end with an answered question or a clearly assigned sales follow-up.

Check whether you have a job, a project or a process problem

Ask three questions before writing the advert:

1. Does this work recur? A one-time backlog may need a bounded project. Ongoing coordination may justify an ongoing role. Consider the actual workload, not only the worst afternoon.
2. Does it fit together? Work sharing the same information and handoffs can form a sensible role. Several unrelated specialist responsibilities may not.
3. Can someone else complete it? If the missing ingredient is an owner decision, unavailable data or an approval bottleneck, resolve that dependency too.

These are planning distinctions, not advice on whether someone legally qualifies as an employee or contractor. Set the working arrangement with appropriate local advice. A different label does not remove employment obligations.

Now write the brief applicants should actually see

We need help because:
The recurring work you will own:
A typical task from beginning to end:
What a completed task looks like:
Decisions you can make without asking:
Exceptions you must escalate, and to whom:
Tools, access and training we will provide:
Workload, hours, location and pay:
What this job does not include:
What we will check together in the first month:

Fill in the terms honestly before publication. Do not hide an unpredictable schedule behind “flexible” or a long list of specialist duties behind “general assistant.”

For the repair business, an early review could inspect whether appointment records are current, changes are communicated and unresolved cases have owners. It need not promise that the new hire will transform the entire business in 30 days.

Only then choose a recognisable title and the experience required on arrival. In this example, scheduling, follow-through and accurate communication matter; familiarity with one particular booking tool might be trainable. Decide what you can genuinely teach and who will do it.

Use that same brief when reviewing people

Look for evidence of the responsibility, not an exact match to your old job title. Ask otherwise promising applicants about important work their resumes leave unclear. Our office-manager screening guide shows how that can work for coordination roles.

If you use Resume Ranker, provide the written job description and criteria rather than asking it to infer the job from a vague title. Check its explanations yourself. The same resumes, different brief demonstration shows why changing the work changes the review.

Your first deliverable is not a perfect advert. It is a handoff another person can understand—and that you are actually ready to let them own.