For more than 35 years I have been studying the subject and teaching companies how to hire top employees.  I try to read most everything that is being written.  Some from experts.  Some from amateurs.  Some from practitioners.

Some of what I have read adds real value.  Some is interesting but not actually effective.  And some is just plain wrong.

This past weekend I was reading the Inc 500 report and in the middle of the report was a page titled, “Words of Wisdom”.  It had 10 ideas put forth by CEO’s from the list.  And at number 4 was the phrase I have railed against for years.

“Hire Slow, Fire Fast”

Just so we can limit the conversation, I have no problem with the second half of the phrase.  Fire fast is good advice.  However, the better job you do of hiring the less likely you will face the problem of firing.

It is the first half of the phrase I have the problem with.

On the surface, this seems like such good advice.  Take your time, be considerate, don’t rush into a decision.  It just sounds right.  And as a result, the uninformed and the mis-informed have been repeating it like it was the gospel for years.

To understand why this phrase makes no sense we have to go back to the beginning.  Why do you hire employees?

This is not a rhetorical question!

The answer to this question is at the heart of my argument.  Many people think you hire to fill a position.  How often do you rush to fill a position when someone leaves your organization?  How often do you let your organization be driven by “headcount” or some other measure of how many employees you have?

There is only one reason to hire employees.  That reason is to satisfy a business need.  That’s it.

Now you might be thinking that this is not a very profound revelation.  But let’s look a little closer.  Think about the last person you hired.  How well did you frame the business problem the new person was going to address?  And I am not talking about a generic job description.

Did you have very specific, time-bound and measurable results the person needed to deliver to satisfy your business need?  Whether you wrote these down or not, I can guarantee in your conscious our unconscious mind you had very specific results you wanted from this new employee.

If your new employee delivered these results, you were probably quite happy and had a successful, prosperous business.  If the new person did not deliver the results, you were most likely unhappy, your business suffered and you were forced to employ the second half of the phrase.

Employees prime purpose is to satisfy business needs.  And that is the only reason you should hire an employee.

Now let’s go back and explore the first half of the phrase, “Hire slowly”.

If I was to profess that your best course of action was to satisfy your business needs slowly, how much credibility would you assign to the advice?  Anyone who tells you to hire slowly does not understand why you are hiring.  They don’t realize that every day you have a business need not being addressed you are either losing money or wasting money.

You have to hire as fast as possible once you have identified a business need and then determined to satisfy that need with a new employee.

One of my long-time clients has monetized the process.  They hire many direct sales reps.  They calculated exactly what it costs on daily basis to NOT have a salesperson in the field selling.  Armed with that number, they can make very informed decisions about what strategy to use and how much to spend in their recruiting activities.

Before you get the wrong idea, I am NOT advocating rushing into decisions.

What I am advocating is to move through your recruiting and hiring process as swiftly as possible … without violating your due diligence process.  You need a proven and thorough selection process but that doesn’t mean it needs to take a long time.

One other myth while we are on the subject.  Market conditions have no effect on this argument.  Many people are taking much longer in the selection process due to the fact that there happen to be so many candidates currently available.  Market conditions do not change the fact you have a business need.

Everyday you have that position open you are losing or wasting money.

From now on -

Hire Fast and Fire Fast

I welcome your comments!

(B) Tell me about overcoming objections.

(G) How did you overcome the biggest objection in the ABC sale?

(B) Have you ever created a budget?

(G) Step me through the last budget you created.

(B) Do you use a system to manage your time?

(G) How did you plan your schedule today?

(B) What was the last book you read?

(G) What have you read in the last year to keep your skills current?

(B) How will you manage projects if we hire you?

(G) How did you put together the project plan for ABC?

(B) When is the best time to close in a sales cycle?

(G) At what point in the call did you start closing?

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.

Let’s start with the single biggest offender when it comes to creating ambiguity .. general questions.  How many times have you read or heard about the 10 or 12 magic questions that you should ask every candidate.  By definition, if you ask everyone the same questions they must be general generic questions (Tell me about you most recent job).  You are only going to get general generic answers to these questions.  This creates uncertainty and ambiguity.

The next big offender is not defining your requirements.  Try interviewing for attitude.  I can promise that 5 different people are going to interview for 5 different things and come up with 5 different conclusions.  Requirements need to be clearly defined describing the behavior necessary for success in the position.

Another ambiguity creator is the term “competencies”.  I conduct an interesting experiment in my live classes.  Each participant is given a 3×5 card and told to define the term competency.  No two answers are ever the same.  What effect do you think it has to tell people to interview for a whole list of competencies?

Finally, not interviewing in correct chronological order is a huge mistake.  The candidate is constantly confused when you skip all around their background.  And you get lost as well.  It is impossible to to detect trends and patterns (order and consistency) when you bounce all over the place.

Your goal in the interview is to predict whether or not the person will be successful on your job.  To do that you need to know what knowledge, skills and behaviors are necessary for success.  And you have to determine if the person exhibits those requirements.  Any action, process, question or task that introduces ambiguity into the process only makes your job that much harder.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Please visit our main page to learn more about the variety of solutions we offer for your hiring issues.

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.

No one knows when the current market problems will take a turn for the better.  But, only a complete cynic believes that it won’t.

Those organizations that have prepared and have the right people in place are going to have a tremendous advantage.   The CEO that takes steps now to prepare can avoid the mad scramble for people after the market does turn.

I got a call last week from a mortgage broker who needed to hire 200 new reps as soon as possible.

With the recent lowering of interest rates, he was completely unprepared to handle the demand of all the people trying to refinance existing properties.  His competitors are cleaning his clock while he is scurrying around trying to find employees.

Don’t get caught in the unenviable position of missing market opportunities because you don’t have the staff in place to capitalize.

Here are five things you can do today to get ready to pounce once the opportunities present themselves.

Identify Your Business Model

The first step is to determine what your business is going to look like on the other side.  What changes to your model are you making?  How are you addressing the new market realities?

How are your processes going to change and how will those changes affect the type of employee you need?  You might decide to go with a direct sales model versus your previous distribution model.  This dictates different employees to make the business successful.

How is your customer mix going to change?  How are their needs changing?  What type of employee will it take to service your new customer?  The makeup of your employees may have to change drastically.

You cannot effectively address your employee needs without first clearly defining your business model.

Translate Business Needs Into People Needs

The next step is to translate your new model into the specific people needs necessary to make it work.  Begin by identifying the outcomes and deliverables the new model dictates.  What are the specific results your staff needs to deliver?

Think about all the tasks and processes necessitated by your model.  How many people will it take to deliver the results you need to hit your targets?  How can you best organize to meet the new demands?

As you work through the process, focus on skill sets as opposed just raw numbers of people.  Train yourself to think in terms of outcomes instead of just open positions.  This manpower planning exercise results in a picture of a new organization.

Audit Existing Staff

To continue, you need to audit your existing staff.  A complete understanding of your current capabilities is necessary before you can make any changes.  Here’s a simple process to help you identify your existing capabilities.

First, look at your technical capabilities.  How strong are the technical capabilities in your organization?  And this doesn’t just mean technology.  What is the collective knowledge-base in your company’s area of specialty?  How wide and deep are the capabilities of your current staff?  How much bench strength, if any, do you have?

Next, assess your staff’s style.  What is it like to do business with your company?  How do you deal with your customers?  How flexible is your staff?  Do you have risk-takers or do your people play it close to the vest?

Is yours a learning organization?  How quickly can your existing people change and implement new directives?  Do your people adapt to changing conditions?  These are the types of questions that get to the heart of your real capabilities.

The structure of your company may have to change on the other side and you don’t ever want to organize around personalities.  Capabilities must be the driving force behind any organizational structure.

One final thought on your existing staff.  Do not put the baby out with the bath water.  Your greatest asset is your existing talent base.  According to Tim Jones, Vice President Global Human Resources at Hypercom, “We are challenged to both reduce cost but also initiate efforts to continue to engage the key players in our organization.”  He goes on to say, “When the inevitable up-turn comes, the organizations that have maintained their key players will emerge on the other side as the vibrant successful organization with momentum.”

Start Recruiting Now!

The one great upside to this down market is you are being offered the most fertile recruiting environment in a generation.  There are more talented people available now than at any time in the recent past.  And, you have more flexibility on compensation issues.

A colleague of mine is a recruiter in the financial services industry.  Given recent events, you wouldn’t think he is busy.  However, he called to tell me he is swamped recruiting and hiring stock brokers.  While the “big boys” are falling apart, the small, forward-thinking firms are snapping up all the talent.

The single most consistent complaint I get from clients during hot markets is, “I don’t have time to recruit, I am too busy running my company.”  Instead, they resort to throwing money at recruiting problems when they confront a hot market.

The current recruiting market is begging to be exploited.  Hording talent now is the only way to hit the ground running when the market turns.  I can just about promise a very aggressive recruiting campaign now should be void of any serious competition.

This doesn’t mean you need to hire everyone you see.  Think of this exercise as building a pipeline of well-qualified prospects you can move on in the blink of an eye when you need them.  Put together a database of as many talented people as you can.  This gives you the competitive edge on the rest of your competitors.

Almost everyone has circled the wagons and gone into a shell.  You have a golden opportunity.  Never has there been a better time to find a higher quality of employee.  Don’t fall into the trap that everyone else has.

Only a select few are going to be prepared to maximize market opportunities when they arise.  Don’t get left in the dust.

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

Are you getting the information you need or the information the candidate wants to share with you?  The only way to control the interview is to ask effective questions.

In the following video, I show you some of the techniques that are being taught to candidates so they can control the interview.  Don’t be a victim of these tactics!

Someone was silly enough to promote me to my first management job. The department needed to hire an administrative assistant. I did all the typical things. Ran the typical ad (titled “Administrative Assistant”) in the Sunday classified ads. Interviewed about 20 candidates throughout the week. Finally, it was Friday afternoon and I had one more interview to go and the desperation was mounting.

This final person walked into my office and announced that she wanted the job and that I would be smart to give her the job. Having been beat into submission all week and liking aggressive people, I threw up my hands and said, “You’re hired!” And boy was that a decision that will go down in infamy. If ever there was a walking nightmare, it was now working for me.

I know I am not the first person to have made that mistake. We have all hired someone out of desperation at some point. And, if you are like me, you probably regret some of those desperate decisions. Hiring people has to stop being a necessary evil and start being a key strategic part of managing your business.

Hiring mistakes can kill your company. All the motivation, all the coaching, all the training, all the total quality management and all the reengineering in the world can’t make up for a hiring mistake. You simply can’t overcome it or train your way out of it. Yet, while business experts agree on the importance of quality employees, not too many managers are very good at making the right hiring decision.

Just think of the positive impact on your business . . . and more importantly, your peace of mind (how many walking nightmares are you dealing with?) when you lower your number of hiring mistakes.

Every time you hire someone who is not good, the entire organization suffers. Bad hires not only create customer ill will, but they effect the people who must work with them and manage them. Bad employees create stress and disruption in the entire company. Morale is lowered, productivity decreases, and absenteeism increases. And, your life gets miserable.

What causes most bad hires? Ignorance. No one has ever shown you how to do it. You are probably using a haphazard approach based on rumors, myths and some form of trial and error. And you are probably basing your decisions on vague, indefinable factors such as chemistry, gut-feel and guesswork.

Understanding Success

You need to have a mission if you are going to hire winners. Think of it as your guiding principle. The mission is to have the right person in the right job at the right time doing the right things. Take a minute, close your eyes and just imagine how nice life would be. Feels like success doesn’t it?

The person you hire is going to have to achieve on-the-job success (satisfying your business needs). Just what is on-the-job success? Success on a job is a critical concept that changes from company to company . . . from industry to industry . . . from department to department . . . and even from one year to the next. How you define it, and predict it will determine if you end up hiring winners?

The purpose of any selection process is to predict whether the person you hire will be successful on the job.

Successful employees do the right things – they deliver results in a particular position. But doing the right things is not enough – they also have to do those things the right way. So if you clearly understand “what” the person has to do and “how” they have to do it, you have a template for the successful employee.

The Best Predictor of Success

Your entire focus in the interview should be to answer one question: “How is this person going to handle the tasks and situations of my job?” A great way to get your answer is to focus on past behavior. According to social scientists, past behavior predicts future behavior 88 percent of the time. People are creatures of habit. People act and react to specific situations exactly the way they have done in the past.

Find out how the person handled similar situations on previous jobs if you want to predict how a candidate is going to handle the tasks and situations of your job (to have on-the-job success),

Here is a 7-step process we have taught our Selecting Winners clients:

7 Steps To Hiring Success

1. Have a Process
2. Know What You Are Looking For
3. Develop a Recruitment Mentality
4. Prepare Effective Questions
5. Maintain Control of the Interview
6. Evaluate Against the Profile
7. Sell Your Job the Right Way at the Right Time

Sell Your Job The Right Way

“Why should I work for you?” This is a question that every good candidate has in the back of their mind. And, you better have an answer! Good candidates always have choices. How is your job and company going to stand out from the crowd as the employer of choice?

Develop a list of compelling reasons if you are going to convince a candidate they should work for your organization.. A good first step is to talk to your existing employees and find out why they are working for you.

Also, it is important to sell your job at the right time – which is at the end of the interview. There are two reasons to wait until the end to sell. First, you want to make certain this is a good candidate. There is no sense in selling someone who isn’t going to get the job.

Second, you have the highest probability of packaging your job in a way to close them after you know something about the person,. It is really difficult to sell to someone you don’t know anything about.

I hope this has given you a number of ideas about how to recruit and hire the best employees. I know I have only scratched the surface so please check out the link below to learn how you can get more information.

www.SelectingWinners.com

This month, they published a second article because lots of members wrote in and asked how they were supposed to interpret the answers to the questions.

I can’t be the only person that sees the irony in this situation.  An expert tells you to ask questions but you need an expert to explain to you how to interpret the answers.

Give me a break!

Many of my articles over the years have dealt with how to avoid bad advice when it comes to interviewing.  This is another example of someone giving you information that actually makes matters worse.

Common sense should always rule.  Any advice you get should easily pass the common sense test.  I often tell my clients that any advice you get needs to pass the “EUE” test.

One, is it (E) easy?
Two, is it (U) useful?
Three, is it (E) effective?

Let’s apply the test to the advice of asking 15 standard questions to all applicants in an interview.  It seems to be easy on the surface.  It certainly is not useful if you need an expert to help you figure out the answers.  And without some concrete statistical proof that the questions work (which there is none) you are simply wasting your time.

One primary goal of my Selecting Winners program is that you should never put yourself in a position in which you are not qualified.  Asking questions that require an expert to interpret violates that very common sense principle.

Feel free contact our office for more information about questions that deliver the information you need to make great hiring decisions.

Till next time!