‘HIRE’ LEARNING
HOW TO AVOID MAKING A BAD HIRE PART 1 HOLDING EFFECTIVE INTERVIEWS Step Zero: Expectations First
Step One: Now Hiring (refining your application process)
Step Two: Interviews Aren’t Everything
Step Three: References and Background Checks
Step Four: Decision Time
By Will Mason At this point, you have a well defined job description, a thorough application (hopefully in an online format) and a group of people who are interested in working for you. It’s time to get selective. I’m breaking the topic of interviews into two parts. The first part will be about holding effective interviews, and the second part will be why interviews aren’t the only thing that matters in your selection process. OK, here we go. Any time you make a selection, your brain 58
is working with parameters, or criteria to base your decision on. If you are selecting a bunch of bananas at the grocery store, your top three criteria may be color, size and quantity of bananas in the bunch. For me personally, I’m looking for yellow with maybe a few small brown spots (no green!), and a bunch of three to four bananas. If there are only green bananas, I’m going to pass. On to the grapefruit … So, back to hiring the right people for your team. It’s essential to define your criteria so you know what to look for in your new hire. This will improve the quality of your hiring decisions over time, lowering your turnover and improving your customer experience. Here are three of our top criteria that we use at Mason Music: character, experience, skill. Definition of character: The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. This is enormously important. It does not matter how experienced or skilled a person is if they do not have strength of character. I cannot overemphasize this. One of the biggest mistakes I see in interviews is simply not carving out enough time to get to know the applicant. How do they hold a conversation? Where do they take open-ended questions? How do they speak about previous employers? What gets them excited? And of course, are they on time to the interview? One reason we have several rounds of interviews is to see the applicants demonstrate an ability to simply show up. It’s also imperative that you understand the culture at your business (both as it exists on paper and as it exists in reality), and think about how potential new hires will affect it. You’ve probably heard people say before, “He just wasn’t a cultural fit” about someone who was let go from a job. This is a frequent scenario that I believe is mostly avoidable with the right selection process in place. Think about what values your team operates on and figure out if your applicant shares those values. Does their character line up with what you are looking for? How will they perform in your absence? (I’ll discuss more on this in part two.) Experience: Looking at your job description, what past experience is needed in order to reasonably predict future success? What has this person done (in previous jobs) or learned (education and training history) in the past that will make them a valuable addition to your team? Phrase your questions in a way that elicits responses based on historical events, not hypotheticals. For example, “Tell me about a time you had to navigate a conversation with an upset customer and how you were able to resolve the situation” is a better question than “If you had an upset customer, how would you handle that?” History, not hypothetical. This was a big lesson for me, and has helped create much better interview questions at our company. Skills: Where is this person naturally gifted? What are they capable of? Some of these can be discussed in conversation, while other abilities may need to be demonstrated. For example, when hiring a piano teacher, we ask them to perform for us, so we can be sure they can do what they say they can. Think about the position. Would an audition be helpful? If it’s a receptionist, can you give them a page out of a book to type and time them? How can you test their abilities before you hire them? Again, use your job description as a guide to be sure you cover all of the expectations during the interview and selection process. With these three simple criteria, you can sort through a lot of candidates and easily decide whether someone is a fit or not. These filters alone will save you from a lot of bad hires. But there is one more criterion that has nothing to do with the ability to perform the work required. Longevity: Turnover is a plague to any business. Hiring people who will go the distance is vital to the health and sustainability of a company. There is no better way to burn yourself out than hiring and losing people too frequently. First things first, set a goal for each role you are interviewing for. How long would you like to see someone stay in this position before either JUNE 2018