Jan12
It’s A Great Time to Hire Good People
Unemployment is on the rise again. That’s bad news for the economy and good news for you. I have small business clients who are making the most of the downturn by hiring good people NOW. And they’re getting the best of the bunch.
A client of mine recently had an opening for a commission only sales position, and 40 people applied, some with MBA’s. Another client had a opening for a part-time barista, and 100 people applied.
There’s a warning, however, with this: only one-in-four new hires actually work out, and you can’t afford to be on the wrong side of those odds. A critical business building skill, then, is hiring well. Here are three critical steps:
STEP ONE: Know exactly what you want this person to do.
Any new hire is doomed from the start with a lack of clarity around the job. Most small business owners hire out of desperation when they’re overwhelmed with work. “We need to get some help around here!” they cry. So they do, and it only produces more work for them not less.
Knowing what you want this person to do is critical for hiring success. This means having a job description for this position. Not any old job description, but a detailed job description that explains in full exactly what it takes to do this job.
Along with a job description, you‘ll need a list of one-year accountabilities: the measurable outcomes this person will be responsible for delivering in their first year on the job. Without these two things, again, a new hire is doomed to fail. As with anything in business, you get what you measure.
Yes, writing a detailed job description and one-year accountabilities will take some effort, but the up-front investment will save hours and hours of wasted time and thousands of hard-earned dollars that comes from one bad hire.
STEP TWO: Gather a pool of candidates. The bigger the pool the better.
The most common small business hiring mistake I encounter in my practice is the failure to gather an adequate pool of candidates. Busy business owners, desperate to fill an opening, often give a job to the first person that’s available (often an unemployed family member).
Other business owners, a bit more savvy than that, at least interview a few people before hiring someone, but this doesn’t qualify either as an adequate pool of candidates.
The idea is this, the bigger the pool of candidates, the more likely that top talent will be present. More milk, more cream. Right?
How do you do this?
Fortunately, technology has made it easy. My clients have used Craigslist and other free, or very low cost, job posting sites. They’ve posted the job on their own web site and contacted their email list. They’ve also used existing employees, offering a $50 bonus to anyone who recommends someone who ends up being a top four finalists (Beats the cost of a newspaper ad, doesn’t it?).
Here’s what’s essential: a pool of people from which to pick 3-4 finalists. A pool is at least a dozen, preferably 20. With technology tools available today, however, you can easily get 20, 30, and even 40 applicants for any decent job opening.
STEP THREE: Interview rigorously.
The very best interviewing methodology for new hires has been designed by Brad Smart. His book TOPGRADING: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People is THE gold standard on this subject.
In TOPGRADING Brad describes a methodology called the tandem CIDS interview. Tandem means that two people interview the candidate at the same time. Two sets of eyes, two sets of ears, and two perspectives, not just one. A slick candidate may fool you—a busy small business owner—but usually can’t fool your battle-hardened assistant. Or both of you at the same time. Am I right?
CIDS stand for Chronological In-Depth Structured interview, which takes the following six questions and asks every one of them about every job the candidate has been employed at.
- What were your expectations in taking the job?
- What were your responsibilities and accountabilities?
- What were your successes? How did you achieve them?
- What were your failures? (Get specifics)
- Who was your boss and what were his/her strengths and weaker points?
- What’s your best guess as to what your boss will tell me were your strengths, weaker points, and overall performance?
A tandem CIDS interview will take 60-90 minutes per candidate, but is worth every second. Patterns will emerge from asking the same questions for each job, and habits will be revealed that will tell you how this person will perform at the job they are applying for.
Clients of mine who use this format are amazed at how much information they get and wonder how they ever hired successfully without it. Best of all, these six questions meet legal interviewing requirements.
With thousands of big companies cutting to the bare bone and millions of workers under-employed, the marketplace is awash with talent: people who will be eternally grateful for your providing them a job. In other words, it’s a great time to hire good people.
