Table of Contents
Being Methodical in Your Approach
Finding outstanding talent requires being rigorous and systematic in your approach to locating and interviewing applicants. We’ve put in place a thorough approach to locate exceptional candidates: First, an email screening with a questionnaire is conducted, followed by a 45- to 60-minute interview with a manager. Following that comes a 30-minute interview with the company’s CEO, followed by multiple 15-minute Google Hangouts interviews with additional team members. Our staff will then vote on the top one or two applicants.
Locating Useful References
We do reference checks on finalist candidates. The time we spend on reference calls, like in-person interviews, should be optimized to learn as much as possible about the candidate. A reference will rarely respond “no” when asked if the candidate is good at a certain job. Instead, one of the questions I’ve found useful to ask is, “If you created a new company, what would you hire the prospect to do?” This allows the reference to communicate what kind of position they believe the candidate is most suited for without sounding negative.
Taking Yourself Out of the Process
When I first started my company, I interviewed and employed everyone. Even as we grew in size, I remained completely committed from inception to end. After opening the third significant location of my studios, I found I had become a hiring bottleneck and couldn’t keep up with the company’s quickly expanding needs. While it was frightening at first, I went ahead and delegated our hiring process to a group of trustworthy colleagues. We can now interview, hire, train, and onboard new employees far faster than I could when I was doing it alone.
Finding the Right Person
The most difficult challenge I’ve faced in hiring new employees is finding extroverted accountants that can communicate effectively and are proactive! To combat this, we altered our job description and ad phrasing to attract the type of individual we desired. We then gave them a behavioral assessment to ensure that they fit our culture. I recruit people that already suit my culture and don’t try to modify their personalities.
Looking Beyond the Interview
It’s difficult to appraise someone in an interview, and my team is quite picky and has high expectations—too high to judge in one hour. So I came up with two solutions. The first step is for each candidate to complete a writing exercise: In an email, explain this challenge to a client. This demonstrates their ability to convey things succinctly and thoughtfully. The second method is a tried-and-true trial procedure. New employees have 90 days to prove they can do the job and work well with others.
Understanding Who the Applicant Is
I discovered that the majority of applicants replied based on what they learned from books or YouTube. Only a few are genuine, and even fewer will tell you the truth. I hired someone to spend time recruiting and asking in-depth questions to help us understand who the applicant is and how well he or she fits the current job posting. Although everyone is great and skilled, not everyone is ideal for the company.
Recruiting the Wrong People
We made a significant hiring blunder early on in our company, one I hope others can learn from. Our job descriptions and recruiting materials emphasized all of our fantastic advantages, such as unlimited PTO, the ability to work from home, exciting office environments, and team bonding events. While we believed this was a terrific approach to attract exceptional employees, it ended up attracting people who only wanted to work at Influence & Co. for the perks and not for the real work.
Examining Bias
We teach individuals how to employ inclusively, and we’ve been expanding our workforce so that we can do what we preach. Hiring is by far one of the most difficult aspects of our organization because bias exists. We have many needs, as do any founders, and we wish to hire as soon as possible. We are aware, however, that hiring rapidly can lead to additional prejudice in the hiring process, therefore we deliberately slow down by implementing a process.
Contacting Candidates
You can’t expect prospects to just show up at your door in today’s competitive job market. We conduct a significant amount of outreach to potential applicants to fill our pipeline, which may be time-consuming and irritating. Our team produced a weekly report that summarises outbound outreach by the hiring manager to boost accountability and keep things fun.
Finding Others Who Share Your Interests
For ten years, I worked as a sole proprietor. When I first started assembling a team, I was frightened of making a mistake. The most challenging challenge I’ve encountered is finding ladies who are as enthusiastic and committed to the business as I am. My epiphany occurred when I turned to my clients—people who had utilized my services and had great success, ladies who were obsessed with the same vision. I shortened my training time in half because they already knew the business and understood the client’s point of view.
Waiting For The Right Person
The need to find someone to fill a post fast has been one of the most difficult problems we’ve faced when hiring. This has frequently resulted in our making rash decisions and not waiting until we locate the proper individual for the job. It’s especially challenging when you’ve spent weeks or months putting candidates through the hiring process and conducting interviews, and you’re under pressure to decide by the end. To combat the “push to hire,” we’ve permitted ourselves to leave job applications open for longer periods, resulting in a rolling hiring process.
Getting Past Lies
Many people appear to be wonderful candidates at first but are simply masters of great speech. They are certainly better suited to sales than anything else, but even so, offering a short test as part of the hiring process is the best way to go. If they complete it diligently, then this is most certainly the right hire.
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