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June , 2008
Have you ever hired someone and found out the person you hired is the evil twin of the person you interviewed? Have you ever hired someone and subsequently had to fire that same person? If you have answered yes to either of these questions, read on.
Some people are just professional interviewers and can sell you a bag of goods in the process. How can you avoid being taken by the new thief? Studies reveal as many as 30 percent of job applicants make misrepresentations on their résumé.
In and issue of HR Magazine , ADP payroll and benefits company stated that in one year, after performing more than 2.6 million background checks, they found 44 percent of applicants lied about work history, 41 percent lied about education and 23 percent falsified credentials or licenses.
Letting Go
If you have fired the same person you personally hired, answer the following questions:
Why did you hire her in the first place?
Why did you fire her?
If you are like the majority of the leaders in my workshops, the answer to the first question is usually based around the candidate's résumé, experience, skill set and references.
The usual answer as to why the person was fired is also somewhat predictable (e.g., the employee stole from the company, could not handle the work load, had a negative attitude which resulted in poor behavior habits ... in other words, the person lied in the interview or on the résumé).
Let me break it down this way; you hired the person for what she knows, and you fired the person for who she is. Stop and think about it for a minute. We hire for "what" and fire for "who." Let's turn that thought process around and start hiring for who candidates are and not for what they know or supposedly know.
From the Beginning
Here are several steps to help you hire right the first time.
1. First, always ask for a cover letter. Even if you are accepting online applications, ask for a cover letter. If applicants do not include a cover letter, it means they cannot even follow the simplest of directions. If they include a letter, look it over letter closely. It can tell you a lot about the person. It can tell you about their communication style, education, etc. A reasonable percentage of applicants will have their résumé professionally written, but not necessarily the cover letter.
2. If you are having applicants call or fax in a résumé, be sure to set a specific time-frame to do so. Again, this is to see how well they follow instructions. Someone who cannot follow simple instructions will most likely not follow work instructions and will try to buck your system and cause disruptions on the team.
3. Set the first interview for a phone interview. This can save you a bunch of time and can tell you about applicants' phone styles as well. Be sure to have several specific questions prepared for everyone you call. These should be questions about work experience, background, their personal objective as to why they want to work with your organization, etc. Be sure to note how well they communicate and sell themselves (without being a canned speech) over the phone. Take notes and compare them to the responses you get when you bring them in for an interview. Consistency is vital.
4. Meeting the person in person should be nothing more than a continuance of the telephone conversation. Depending on the position an applicant is applying for, you may want to schedule as many as four interviews for the person in one morning or afternoon. This shows you how serious the person is and if he is willing to take off this much time to interview. It also opens up some freedom for you. In using this approach, you need to have one or two identical questions scheduled to be asked by each person during the process. Why? Actually there are two reasons: 1) simply to see the level of consistency, and 2) to see if the candidate becomes irritated at the repetition of the same questions. If she notices and poses a positive attitude towards the process, that can be a very good sign. On the other hand, if she becomes agitated at the same question three or four times, then ask yourself the following question: "Do I want this person on my team?"
5. In the meeting, you should also be asking questions surrounding your corporate core values, corporate vision and mission. If there is no match here, you most likely will not have a match on the team and consequently you are asking for trouble down the line.
6. Questions should evoke emotion in the applicant. The deeper you dig, the more you will find out about this person. Questions here can include, "What is important about success to you?" Most likely, the answer will revolve around something monetary or at least tangible. Now you want to explore a little and ask him to expand on this. What you are doing is locating a "feeling" response, something not materialistic. Do not move on until you have at least two feeling responses. Once these are uncovered, you can now ask why they are important to the applicant. You may find out he believes in working together with a group of people who have fun to achieve the team's mission. When asked why fun is important, he unveils fun creates energy and energy gets the job done, which in turn breeds more fun. Can you work with this style of a person on your team? Better yet, is this person a good fit for the rest of the team?
7. One thing you always want to know about is an applicant's willingness to grow and continually develop. A great closing thought is to learn about the training she has had in the last 12 months. You could also ask the last three non-fiction books she has read. If she is not reading and attending workshops, she may have a small comfort zone. This translates to a large panic zone where she could get disturbed and become upset more easily.
Some organizations tell me they just want a warm body in their vacant positions That quite possibly could be the worst thing anyone could do. Putting the wrong person on the team will destroy the team in the long haul and the cost to revamp the team in a year or two is not worth it. Top organizations will tell you you are better off leaving the position open longer rather than placing the wrong person on the team in the first place.
Gregg Gregory is an award-winning speaker, sales trainer and executive coach. Learn more at www.greggspeaks.com (http://www.greggspeaks.com).
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