The burden have reversed from not being able to find candidates to having too many to deal with.  Many people have never faced this problem before and are looking for solutions.  This 22 minute video gives you the model I have used successfully for many years to deal with this specific problem.  The ideas can be put to use immediately and don’t cost any money.  As always, I welcome your comments.

Unfortunately, the mob mentality is not good when it comes to choosing employees.

Many of you will defend the practice of group interviews (although I hope no one will defend 25 people at once) insisting on the real benefits.  Let’s look at your arguments.

“”We get more information” is one argument I hear all the time.  My response is that you still only have one questions being asked at a time.  There is only one answer being given at a time.  If anything, you have opened the door for multiple interpretations of the same information.  It really is an opportunity to create ambiguity instead of clarity.  You are NOT getting more information by having multiple people in the room.

“The more opinions we have, the better our decisions” is another argument.  The problem once again is “more opinions”.  You really don’t want opinions.  You want informed judgments based on data.  But, you are not getting more data by having multiple people in the room.  It is much better to have a few informed judgments from individuals who have had the opportunity to go “deep” in their questioning to get real data.  This is accomplished with a series of one-on-one interviews.

“Others can observe body language and reactions while someone else is questioning” is still another argument.  There is certainly merit to the fact that you are so busy figuring out what you are going to ask next that you do miss some reactions.  This problem goes away, if you are prepared with your questions and trained to ask them in a way that allows you to listen.  And, how many of us are trained to effectively interpret body language?  It is way too easy to get off track and make a mistake with this approach.

Now let’s look at a few of my “downside” arguments for not conducting group interviews.  First, you put the candidate under extreme pressure.  How many of you would like to be grilled by 25 people at the same time?  Increasing a candidate’s anxiety level never improves the quality of data you get.

Trying to control multiple people’s input is very difficult.  Who takes the lead?  Who follows up?  When is it OK to interrupt with a follow-up questions?  Who decides when a subject has been exhausted an it is time to move on?  What are the politics between the people in the room?  Should you interrupt the boss?  I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

Finally. what happens if 24 people vote yest and 1 person votes no?  How do you resolve this situation.  Hiring is not a democracy.

It makes so much more sense to have 2-3-4 well-trained interviewers with over-lapping focus conduct a series of one-on-one interviews.  Afterward, they can compare notes about the data each uncovered helping to make an informed decision.

Although group interview might seem like a good idea on the surface, once you understand the dynamics of an effective hiring process it is simple to see they are not very effective.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Please visit our main page to learn about the variety of custom solution we have for your hiring issues.

Just yesterday I read the feature article in a major business publication titled, “The Hiring Game, New Times, New Rules.”  (The fact that they use “game” in the title should be your first clue that they don’t get it.)  The article outlined that, due to the current economic conditions, the power in the has shifted from candidates to the hiring managers.  Idiots!!!

There is no power in this relationship.  A good hire has to be win-win.  It cannot be anything but and expect to survive.  If either side loses, everyone loses.  For years there have been dozens of books written about how to win the employment game (either hire better employees or outsmart the employer).  When you stop and think about this, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s assume a person applies for your job and is sparkling in the interview.  You are overwhelmed by the person’s personality, energy and enthusiasm.  And, you hire them on the spot.  But, what you are unaware of is that the person just finished reading a book on how to ace the interview and what you witnessed was a great act and not reality.  This happens all too often.

Now the person reports for work and the real story is told.  It doesn’t take long for you to be disappointed.  Now you are faced with the unpleasant task of firing the person and having to repeat the process.  Not a lot of fun in anyone’s book.  This represents the classic case of a candidate playing a game and winning the interview.  Unfortunately, you both lose in the long run.  You can NOT have a winner and a loser when it comes to hiring employees.

The article went on to talk about  how employers are really putting candidates through their paces now that they were in charge.  Let’s assume that “putting them through their paces” means they are now doing a thorough job of selection.  My question is, “What were they doing before?”  Doing a thorough job of selection should never be an option?

On the other hand, if putting them through their paces means playing games and trying to gain advantage then this is just as unproductive as the candidate playing games.  An interview needs to be an opportunity for both sides to gain enough information to determine if there is a good match.  Think of it as a sales call.  The sales person needs to find out if the prospect needs and wants their product and the prospect needs to determine if the salesperson has a product or service that satisfies their need.  If either side fools the other, both will ultimately be unhappy.

Let me put this employment relationship in a different light that will hopefully simplify everyone’s thinking.  A job is simply a “Behavior Rental Agreement”.  That’s it.  Nothing more.  We enter into a contract with a person and both parties have to hold up their end of the agreement.

You don’t hire a person because you like them or they look good in a suit.  You hire someone because you want something in return.  You have a job that needs to be done.  You need a business need satisfied.  You hire someone to accomplish these tasks.  And in return, you will offer compensation.  It’s really a simple contract.

Now, if you entered into a contract with someone and they did not hold up their end, you would take action.  The exact same principle holds true in the behavior rental agreement.  The contract has been violated if the person does not deliver the behavior necessary to satisfy your needs.  The contract has been violated if you do not deliver an environment where the person can be successful and the compensation agreed upon.

This really is a simple situation.  Going back to the selection process, it is not an opportunity for either party to exert their will on the other, it is a simple data gathering process to determine if the parties can satisfy each other’s needs.

How many of you have ever bought a tool or piece of equipment because it was pretty or you liked it?  Then why would you hire someone for similar reasons?  The same logic and evaluation has to take place when you go through the selection process.  Hire someone because you are absolutely convinced they will deliver on their end of the agreement and satisfy your business need.  Apply the same evaluation to the person that you would to a piece of equipment.

One more quick rant.  A person recently told me she could tell quickly if someone will fit in her company because she looks for midwestern values.  I am from the Midwest (born and raised in Cleveland … Go Browns!) and I will bet you this person would not hire me!  Please do not put yourself in the foolish position of believing you can figure out other people.

You are much better off using a proven selection system (like my Selecting Winners System) designed to get you the information you need to make an informed decision.  The bottom line is that you are much better off using a proven structured process rather than relying on gut-feel and other less effective techniques.

When you read or hear about one of these latest and greatest hiring methods, my advice is to always run it by your common sense test.  Does this seem too good to be true? (I once read about the 3 questions interview)  Does the techniques describes seem like it would get you information that will help you predict success on the job?  Are you going to be comfortable using the technique?  You will be amazed how far a little common sense will take you.

Your UHP simply answers the question, “Why should I work for you?” Think of it as the driving force, your mission statement for all your recruiting activity. People need a reason to work for you and your UHP supplies that reason. As a side note, your UHP also helps identify those people who should NOT work for you.

With your UHP in hand, you need to view attracting candidates as a sales problem. How do you go about attracting prospects for your product or service? First, you identify what a good prospect looks like. What interests them? Where do they live? What do they read? What do they do for fun? Where do they congregate? Once you know all this, then you can determine the best way of raising their interest. Finally you present your product in an appealing way and try to close the deal.

Recruiting is no different.

You can start to put your strategy in place armed with all the information you know about your prospective candidates. You use this knowledge to decide where to advertise, in what publications or on which sites. More than 50% of the success of any ad is determined by where it is placed. The greatest ad running in the wrong location is not likely to generate a whole lot of response. Industry specific publications, web sites, ezines and discipline specific sites are a much better source than general newspaper classified or generic job-posting boards. Think strategically about where you will place your ad.

Next, you have to attract attention. This is done with the headline. Forget the boring “Tax Preparer” headline. You need to use the right words to attract just the right types of people. Remember, you must break the person’s pre-occupation and get them to read the copy. The purpose of the headline is simply to get them to read the ad copy. Here are some great words for your headlines:

Imagine
You
Amazing
New
Introducing
How would
Discover
Life
Do you
Now
Join

The best way to get the person’s attention is to appeal to something important to them … NOT YOU! If you have the word “we” in your headline, get rid of it. Remember, the focus of the ad must be on the candidate not you or your company. Candidates want to know what is in it for them.

In the body of your ad, you must appeal to the person’s interest or they will not read the ad. Once again, what’s in it for them? Talk about how they will benefit instead of features of your company. Solve their problem!

View this situation just like a marketing document. How do you stimulate interest in the prospect to learn more? You will not hire someone with an ad alone, but you will get the person to take the next step.

Finally, here is the most important technique you can use in creating a good recruitment ad: “Use Plain Language!” Write you ad as if you were talking to a prospect. After you write your ad, read it out loud. Does it read like a conversation or does it sound like an ad?

Your results will be significantly better when you use these techniques.

Samples Headlines

1. Join the fastest growing sales team in Cleveland
2. Join the #1 sales team in Seattle
3. Do you enjoy being on a winning team?
4. Imagine being surrounded by the best team in the industry?
5. Your life will never be the same
6. Now is the time to discover a winning opportunity
7. Do you want to help us grow in the fastest growing industry?
8. You have an amazing opportunity with our breakthrough
9. Discover and amazing opportunity
10. If fast growth and opportunity appeal to you, come talk to us
11. Want to sell the #1 product in the market?
12. Help us solve real problems for our customers
13. You will make a difference when you represent out product
14. Are you a quick study? There is an opportunity waiting for you
15. State of the art products require state of the art salespeople
16. Come grow with us
17. Your sales skills + our products = success!
18. Controlling your future is not an option, it is part of the job
19. Read on to find out why our salespeople are ranked #1
20. How would you like to write your own ticket?

One final thought, make it easy for them to respond. Give them as many options as possible. You don’t want to seem like a difficult place to do business with. You wouldn’t make it difficult for a prospect to get in touch with so don’t make it difficult for a candidate to get in touch with you.

The answer is extremely predictable.  The company that gets the business is the one with the best sales people.  Good sales people win more business regardless of the circumstances.  Are you going to win the next time you find yourself in this position?

The best opportunity you have to impact the productivity of your organization is every time you make a hiring decision.  Good hiring decisions propel you to success.  And, all the managing, coaching, systems, training and technology CANNOT help you recover from a hiring mistake.

Over and over again we see examples of companies with inferior products; over-priced products and poor reputations win the business.  Why?  Because they have the best people.  Today’s market is as competitive a market as you are going to find.  If you want the edge in this battle, upgrade your work force and you have the best chance of succeeding.

Most organizations suffer from the 80-20 rule.  You get 80% of your productivity from 20% of your people.  This applies to hiring as well. For years I have listened to Business Owners talk about hiring five and keeping one good person.  This is a terrifically costly way to do business.  Let’s translate some of the costs so you can see just how much this flawed strategy is costing you.  Here’s an example:

You hire John in your Seattle office.  After a month it doesn’t look good.  After 90 days it is really bad. At six months you give up and let John go.  This problem is even worse when John worked with some of your best clients.

This all too familiar scenario happens time and time again.  Unfortunately, you get lulled into believing that all you lost was six months of salary and benefits.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In addition to salary and benefits you have the following hidden costs; opportunity costs, administrative costs, training costs, vacancy costs and separation costs.  And for a small business, these costs could be fatal!

Let’s look at a CPA with a $75,000 base salary.  Salary and benefits for six months cost $48,750.  It cost you $10,000 to recruit the person.  You spent $5000 on training classes and materials.  And those are just the hard dollar costs.

Your soft costs begin with lost opportunity.  If John alienated you top client, what is the life-time value of that client? (Cost $200,000)

How about your time?  Would you have been more productive using your time working with someone who was more productive?  (Cost 15% of your annual compensation ($45,000) Make sure you add separation and administrative costs.  (Cost = $60,000)

Another intangible in this equation is employee morale.  Your good employees resent having a non-performer on the staff.  It makes them look bad and they have to work harder as a result.  (Cost: What is the cost of losing one top employee?)

Your cost of one hiring mistake is roughly $308,750 without counting the cost of losing one of your top employees.  And here is the really sad part, if you do make this hiring mistake; you have to do it all over again doubling all the numbers!  How does $617,500 sound for a $75K CPA?

Now you can see why the “hire a bunch and keep a few” staffing strategy is a mistake.  The good news is you are on your way to fixing the situation as we speak.  The first step in upgrading your work force is to recognize the problem.  Next, you have to put a great recruiting and hiring process in place that gives you the highest probability of hiring top talent.

A great way to get started is to invest in your education.  The more you know about recruiting and hiring good people, the better chance you have of building a winning team.  Reading books and attending workshops will help you expand your knowledge base. If you are not expanding your knowledge base, when you compete against someone who is, the outcome is fairly certain.

You have to start by knowing what you are looking for.  This sounds so simple but is at the heart of most hiring mistakes.  Begin by outlining your work process.  Understanding the mechanics of your business cycle is crucial to understanding the type of person who will be successful.  Just because a person was successful at another company (even a direct competitor) does not mean they will be successful on your job.

At each step of your business cycle, identify what behaviors are necessary for success?  How do your successful people behave?  The answer to this question is the key to building an effective performance-based success profile.  Build a list of all the behaviors necessary for success on your job.

Now the question that I am sure is swimming through your mind is, “How do I figure out if the person sitting across the desk from me behaves this way.  Let me start by saying if you rely on gut feel, interview behavior and the person’s track record you are doomed to fail.  That’s right; these typical measures are not the best way to predict success on your job.

You need a proven system of gathering and evaluating data if you are going to make good hiring decisions.  The more you know about a person, the easier it is to predict success on your job.

Once you realize the economic impact recruiting and hiring has on your business, you’re ready to take the steps necessary to get on track.  You just can’t leave your recruiting and hiring to chance.  Recruiting and hiring top talent has to be your top priority.

Typical Costs of a Bad Hire

Separation Costs:
$ Termination administrative costs
$ Costs for exit interview
$ Severance/separation pay
$ Unemployment compensation

Vacancy Costs
$ Additional overtime
$ Temporary help
$ Missed deadlines

Replacement Costs
$ Recruiting costs
$ Selection interviews
$ Testing
$ Travel/moving expenses
$ Pre-employment administrative expenses
$ Acquisition and dissemination of information

Training Costs

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$ Formal training
$ Informal/OTJ training

Opportunity Costs
$ Lost sales
$ Missed opportunities
$ Management time
$ Dissatisfied customers
$ Low employee morale
$ Cost of mistakes made by poor employee

I had a discussion with an executive coach recently who was telling me how he was counseling his clients to take their time in hiring.  I asked him why he was counseling this.  His answer was that it only makes sense to take your time hiring so you don’t make a mistake and have plenty of time to compare candidates.  Seems to make sense.  But, not so fast my friends.  This is a lousy piece of advice.  Hiring must be done a fast as possible.  Let me explain.

t all starts with understanding why you would hire a person in the first place. The only real reason you hire a person is to satisfy a business need. People are tools that help your business solve problems. Most problems are costing your business money or at least opportunity. Why then would you want to take a long time to solve a problem?

The longer you take to address the problem (hire a person) the more it is going to cost your company. I tell my clients that once they have identified a business problem that needs to be solved by a person it cost them money every day that position remains open.

Of course this does not mean that you cut corners or just hire the first person who walks into your office. You should never violate your due diligence. It does mean you need to move as fast as possible to hire that person. A good system (like my Selecting Winners System) supports your sense of urgency.

The other assumption the coach made was that moving slow would improve his decision. Not so. The quality of your decision is going to be tied to the effectiveness of the process you use to make the decision. Not the speed at which the decision is made. A flawed process doesn’t care how fast you are moving. The result is still a poor decision.

Finally, he said that moving slow gave him the opportunity to compare candidates against each other. Why would you want to? This is another of those flawed strategies that has been around forever. Most people will interview 3-4 candidates and then hire the best of the bunch.

But, if none of the candidates were very good, you end up hiring the best of the worst. This will always be a possibility when you compare candidates. The better strategy is to compare each of the candidates against a pre-determined standard. In my Selecting Winners System we use a performance-based success profile that acts as the template of success. Each person is measured against the template. No one gets hired if no one meets or exceeds the standard. You can’t fall into the best of the worst trap.

Take your time and think about the advice you get or read about when it comes to hiring. Or better yet, contact us here at Selecting Winners and we will be happy to share out 35+ years of experience.

For more information you can reach us at www.SelectingWinners.com