There are a handful of questions that seem to crop up weekly.
"How do you find and hire good people?" Is one of them!
It seems like the common consensus of how to hire is to put a "Help Wanted" sign in the window or an ad out on craigslist, Indeed, Monster, or maybe on Facebook and then either settle for whoever answered, or sift through endless piles of resumes and run endless interviews hoping that you can figure out who the professional interviewers are and weed them out so they don't damage your company.
Professional Interviewers - People who have been from job to job often enough that they are as skilled at giving you the 'right' answer as you are at asking the questions you found in that online article....
The problem is - that idea is time-consuming, expensive and just plain isn't working! There are still too many business owners out there wondering how they are supposed to find and recruit good talent to help them grow. We all recognize, to an extent, that we need to hire help to grow our businesses. But hiring will either be the best or the worst thing you can ever do for your company.
Here's my top four tips for streamlining your hiring process!
Know your company....
This is really two pieces: your mission and your current people.
The mission matters because if you don't know the one thing your company is here to do, then how are you going to know who's going to be a good fit to help you accomplish that?
Second, you've got to know who your current team is and how they interact and operate. We use TTI assessments with Scheller and with my clients to deep dive into how we each communicate, what our skills and behaviors are, and what motivates us.
Why? Because when I go to hire a personal assistant for myself, I already know that she needs to come with certain passion for our mission, and certain skill-sets that are severely lacking in my own assessment (such as customer-focus) to build out a complete team. But at the same time, since she'll answer directly to me, there are certain communication influences that she can't possess or rely on or we will never get along!
Not to say that those communication influences don't work elsewhere in the company - just probably not to directly report to me!
Know who you want...
Don't get too excited! It's not time to put an ad out or a "help wanted" sign in the window.
Before you can start to advertise that you're ready to hire, you need to know two things: Who do you want to work for you? What will they do?
In market terms, you need a target market and a job description.
What? I know you're already asking "A target market? For hiring? Is this chick insane?"
The answer is...yes. But that insanity is working for hundreds of companies!
Let me put it this way. Wouldn't you like to know if your employees are hanging out down in the alley with the other drug dealers, or at a starbucks with a barista? Would you prefer that your employees follow Tony Robbins, or Charles Manson?
Yeah - I have a preference too. And I'd prefer to write a job description that will appeal to the right kind of person, and place my advertising in the venues to appeal to the people who have the mindsets I want.
Regarding your job description, all I have to say is that it needs to clearly outline what they are responsible for, how their success will be measured, and keep it short (one page or less).
Know your hiring process...
This seems to be one of the key areas that entrepreneurs are falling down on.
The hiring process seems to involve one, maybe two interviews and the possibility of a skills test. Whether or not the references on the resume get called seems to be a matter of whether or not the employer has time.
Ugh!
Before you start hiring, figure out exactly how you're going to weed people out. How many interviews are you going to do? What questions are you going to ask and what's the purpose of each interview? Then, FOLLOW that process!
A sample (short) interview process:
Interview 1: Over the phone - focus on determining fit with company mission and core values
Interview 2: In person - determining knowledge and skill sets
Personality Assessment: Virtually - determining culture fit
Interview 3: In person - determining authenticity & honesty
And just a hint - stop asking leading questions! Instead of asking "Do you have a reliable form of transportation." Try asking "What happened last time your car broke down?"
Know your retention plan....
It's funny how many people stop after the hiring process.
Seriously? Losing an employee often costs approximately 6 months of salary in lost time, opportunity, training, etc!
There are three keys to great retention:
- Hire the right person
- A great onboarding process
- A great training program
What are you going to cover in the onboarding process? What information do they need in the first day? What about in the first week? What information needs to be repeated the second week? How are you going to contact them once they are hired? Do they receive information before their first day on-site? All of this should be figured out before you go to hire if you want to retain long-term.
In regards to training, instead of training on-the-fly as they create problems, try listing out exactly what training they need in their first six weeks. Know what you need to cover, and when you need to re-cover it (because you know you are going to have to re-visit material you've already taught them at least once).
If you can, figure out how you want to teach it ahead of time, and when you're going to turn them lose to handle it themselves.
And just in case you haven't figured it out - ALL of this should be documented!!!
Yes - that means in writing.
So...
That's it! It's not HARD to hire. It's just not been taught correctly up till now!
On April 19th, 2018 I'll be walking an elite group of individuals through creating their OWN hiring process start to finish. If you want to be part of that group, check out more info Here