Hire the PERSON, train for the job. Someone who is good at something but doesn't have the care or work ethic is worthless.

I recently put a job on Indeed. Also $18-$20 per hour, also decent pay for my location. Paid for 44 resumes (about $700), contacted 9 potentials to come in for an interview. Of those 9, 5 responded that they would come in. Called the 4 that did not, encouraging them to come in. Heard back from 0 of the 4. Of the 5 that said they would come in and accepted an appointment, 2 people showed up. 1 of the 2 that showed up appeared to be a current or former meth addict. It is brutal out there, worst I’ve seen in over 30 years being in business. I wish I had advice for you other than to do everything you can do to reduce your need for people including raising your prices and cutting your hours.

You didn't hire either of these candidates. Any interview process is you interviewing them, they are interviewing you. With an extensive interview process of multiple full days for a $20/your job. The candidates decided the interview process wasn't worth it. The problem is the interview process. Hire a good candidate. If they don't work out, fire them and move on. Your post is complaining that 2 candidates chose to drop out of the interview process.

If sparks don't fly it's a no from me, dawg Looking for energy and potential more than anything An inexperienced person with a positive attitude and good energy is far better to connect with than someone who has experience but is operating in a less positive mental space

Putting this out there as an option but could be wildly off base. Try temp staffing or temp to hire for a month or two to get the feel of your criteria while saving yourself the hassle of hiring, firing liability, rinse and repeat. Added benefit of using on demand temps for admin tasks or staffing hourly without long term commitment. Same logic with new business and existing customers who have needs but aren't sure what pay rates will bring in. Very easy for us to recruit at a $ rate and give customers feedback on the talent pool. Worst case scenario you pay a few dollars extra per hour, temp agency handles payroll and you save yourself the added cost for onboarding payroll and benefits.

It's a grind. People are wild.... other than having probation periods there isn't much else you can prepare for if you've had good interviews, references etc. I always do 2 interviews as it's very easy to blag one, then fair bit of email communication before start date just to gauge reliability, responses & that they genuinely seem engaged in the opportunity. I recruit for a small business across different departments... its brutal!

My family has some relevant experience here. Indeed was of no help really. What worked for us was finding people that worked for relevant chains that were tired of the grind those chains put their employees through. The good news is that once you find someone, they usually know others that are looking for a way out of the "chain gang."

Hire Slow. Fire Fast. Most people make the mistake of hiring for skills. I'm not saying that you don't want skilled people, but what is most important is hiring the "Right People" and putting them in the "Right Seats". Hiring the "Right People" (RP) means that the person you are hiring fits into your companies culture and aligns with your corporate values. Putting the RP's in the Right Seats means that the people you hire are spending 80% of their time working on things that they are good at, enjoy and that gives them energy. (Conversely, they spend less than 20% of their time on things they may not be good at or they don't enjoy or that saps their energy). Now, Right People should be the priority as you may not be able to get them in the Right Seat right away...but you at least need to give them a path to get into that right seat. If I had the choice between hiring someone with a skill level of 10 and who fits our company culture and values at a level of 7 or... ...hiring someone with a skill level of 7 and who fits our company culture and values at a level of 10... I'd hire the latter every time.

Be honest about your and the potential employees expectations in the interview. Make a list of your expectations and make sure you have a well thought out job description. Training and training documentation is paramount for onboarding employees. I have taken "bad" employees, and with minimal effort, turned them into productive employees. No one is going to be invested in your business as much as you. You passive aggressive management style is not going to get you what you want. My son is making $24/hr working for Fedex sorting shipments. They have a 100% eyes on management style. They actively manage the entire process, if someone gets backed up they move people around, if someone gets slow, they move them to fill in the gaps.

Honestly, this sounds more like a failure of supporting your new hires. One of the things I do is to spend significant time over the course of the first week/month making sure that, even if they say "no problem", they are completely comfortable with how our practice needs things done. I also make sure I check in consistently to ask THEM if they need help instead of just waiting around for them to ask me questions. If I see something that needs to be done not getting done, I get in there and make sure the staff member sees the issue, understands how to correct the issue, understands how time sensitive an issue is, and corrects the issue. My biggest secret is to be a facilitator for my staff instead of a manager of my staff. I say this as a medical practice owner with 12 clinicians on staff and multiple admin staff that I manage (yes, I also treat my own caseload).