People tend to hire people they like –
people who look like them, sound like them
and potentially think like them. This is a
risky proposition. You need people in your
organization who think and act differently
from you, with different skills, abilities
and interests.
There is nothing more
important than hiring the right people. The
right people need coaching, development and
hands-on management, but not nearly as much
as the ‘wrong’ people. The right people grow
with your company, developing their careers
over time. The wrong people jump to the next
seemingly exciting opportunity before adding
value in their current role and to your
company. Recruiting and hiring is the single
most important thing managers do, besides
manage their employees. And yet, we don’t do
it deliberately, with disciplined rigor.
A few
uncommon hiring tips:
-
Hire to your
weaknesses.
-
Assess whether or not
candidates want to be governed by your
company and team’s values and norms. If
these established behaviors don’t
resonate with candidates, they aren’t a
good fit with your company.
-
Many of the needs,
behaviors and preferences employees
exhibit shortly after starting a job
could have been detected during the
interview process. For example, the
candidate:
- Needs to work from home
and is waiting to feel
comfortable with you before
making that request.
- Doesn’t really want this
job but plans to use it as a
stepping stone to his next
opportunity.
- Really wants more money
and is hoping that a pay
increase will be forthcoming
shortly after being hired.
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Consider adding a
few questions to your interviews like:
-
What are
three things that will keep
you in this job and what is
one thing that would make
you leave?
-
What has
you interested in this job?
What do you think the job
and company will provide for
you that is compelling?
-
What are
your concerns?
-
Tell me
about the organization you
worked for that felt like
the best fit for you. What
made it the best fit?
-
Tell me
about an organization you
worked for that didn’t feel
like a good fit. What about
it wasn’t a good fit?
|
Many hiring managers
are unnecessarily and unpleasantly
surprised after bringing on, training
and developing new employees – read
investing valuable time and resources –
to learn that they can’t meet employees’
needs and desires. And thus those
newly-found employees leave the
organization within a year of being
hired, when they are still on the debt
side of the business.
-
Require a writing
sample. Most professionals, regardless
of the job they’re in, need to be able
to write using proper grammar, syntax
and structure. You don’t have time to
teach people the basics. If candidates
don’t know and practice these rules by
now, they’re not going to in the near
future.
-
Require candidates
who are in the final stages of
interviewing to demonstrate that they
have the required transferable skills by
including a chance to demonstrate the
skills you are seeking. Ask potential
trainers to do a formal presentation
during which they teach a panel of
interviewers a skill. Ask potential
sales people to conduct a mock sales
call. Ask potential project managers to
design a project plan based on
information you provide.
Spend more time learning about
candidates and less time figuring out
how to get rid of staff who aren’t a
good fit, don’t work hard and don’t have
the skills and experience you need.
A few common
hiring tips:
-
Use a mostly
consistent list of questions - 75% of
your interview questions - for each
candidate so you can compare one
candidate to the next.
-
Ask additional
questions – 25% of your interview
questions – based on different things
you want to know about individual
candidates.
-
Practice behavioral
interviewing – interview questions that
start with, “Tell me about a time you…”
and require candidates to draw on past
experiences to demonstrate transferable
skills.
Lots of ‘surprises’ can
be unearthed during a thorough and
disciplined interview.
If your track record for hiring the right
talent is weak – your staff stays less than
a year or aren’t strong performers; the
people you’ve hired aren’t a good fit with
the organization or you regret some of your
hiring decisions – get help. Have someone
you trust with a good hiring track record
screen your candidates. Debrief each
interview with him and understand how he
formed his impressions, so that you make
better decisions next time.
Hiring the right staff is too important to
not get it right. Everyone at some time in
his career makes bad hiring decisions.
Candidates are elusive and most will say
anything to get hired. The more thorough,
disciplined and deliberate you are in your
hiring practices, the better decisions
you’ll make.
Shari Harley leads The
Harley Group International, a Denver-based
training and consulting firm focused on
helping organizations hire, train and retain
the right employees. Shari can be reached at
shari@shariharley.com or
http://www.shariharley.com
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amin@aiminlines.co.th
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