Having worked closely with managers and business owners for many years, I have seen their hiring process fall on its face because they have forgotten several important rules. Forgetting any of these principles may bog you down, slow down your hiring process and ultimately foster the new hire failing even if you stumble into the “right” person.
- Don't expect to hire a replica of yourself! You are not the “be all and end all’ of great talent and, as such, don’t expect to hire a clone. First of all, one factor to consider when hiring may be to hire someone who complements your skills and talents rather than replicates them.
If you are looking at junior staff, you may accidentally place an angelic halo around someone because their experience or behaviors may remind you of yourself and, by doing so, may fail to adequately investigate their experience.
Lastly, by doing so, you may foster an environment where you fail to adequately interview and hire people from racial, ethnic, religious and other backgrounds and experiences far different than your own that may foster “lock step thinking” and behavior and, obviously, bias.
2. Know exactly what you expect from your new hire. It may seem obvious in an era where job specs are approved at many levels before a person is actually hired but, again from experience, I know how often people ignore what is on the job description to hire someone who doesn’t fit in some key way or another (for years, the Wall Street Journal would publish a statistic that approximately 20% of all people hired did not fit the job description. That was 20% who admitted it!).
3. Know exactly what you expect from your new hire. What will someone need to do in order to be successful in your job? Do you know? How will you know that this person can actually perform as you hope they will? What will you ask to find out? No matter how junior or senior the person is you need to be able to know your expectations of them and how you will measure their potential for success before you actually hire them.
4. Set aside time. T may seem obvious but you can’t hire someone without making the time to interview them and making sure that your team has time, too. Try to anticipate when there is a lull in the action and avoid interviewing people when you and your team have far too much to get done. Don’t expect that job hunters will be willing to keep visiting your offices or plant time and again because you are too busy. They get the message that they will be overworked and that manners are not important. After all, they took time off from work or to make arrangements to meet you at a time that you said would work. How rude is it on your to push them away and make them return.
5. Create a training program. It may be a simple as “When you have questions, ask Jeff over there” how to handle it. Far better that that is a few days of immersing the new person in your company or group’s practices and processes so that they know what is going on, they know how to handle the basics, and that they learn the informal rules of the road.
6. If you aren’t sure, ask for advice or help. It never hurts to get a second opinion from someone if you are wavering. And after you get the second opinion, if you still aren’t sure, reject the person and keep looking!
Taking the time to do these things will go a long way toward helping you as a manager, a business owner or as an HR professional focus in on the success points to hire someone who will succeed for years to come.
Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com
© 2007 all rights reserved.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.
To subscribe to Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, or receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com
If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).
