How to Hire the Best Employees

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you want to create a dream team, attract the best specialists to your company and become a real leader, advice from the book “Who. Solve Your Problem # 1”by Jeff Smart and Randy Street can come in very handy.

What is this book about?

The book is about how to hire the best employees who contribute to the development and growth of the company. The authors detail what to look for when selecting new staff, how to hunt Class A players, and why you shouldn't trust voodoo recruiting.

What is voodoo recruiting and why is it bad?

Voodoo recruiting is a hiring method based on intuition, sixth sense, and psychological tests. This also includes questions like "If you were an animal, what kind?" And body and sign language. Some recruiters claim that they can easily identify the right employee by barely looking at him: by gait, hairstyle or suit.

So, all this is voodoo recruiting, which is completely unrelated to the real professionalism and skills of the candidates. Therefore, it is wrong to rely on it, so you will definitely not select class A candidates.

Who are Class A personnel?

These are highly qualified specialists who will be able to perform 90% of the work that only 10% of potential candidates are capable of. Those people who bring the company to an unattainable level, increase its profits and know how to select a “dream team”.

A serious struggle sometimes flares up for such candidates, but if you approach the selection of employees correctly, you can get what you were looking for.

How do you find the one who turns out to be the best of the best?

Make a list of goals. In short, this is a list of your wishes in relation to the candidate. It consists of:

• the main task;
• expected results;
• professional qualities.

The bottom line is that you work through each point in detail. That is, you must clearly understand what you expect from a new employee.

It doesn't matter if you are looking for a manager or a secretary - you must have a list of goals and you must follow it. Only with a clear idea of who you want to see in the vacant position will you be able to select an A-class player.

How to create a list of goals and what to do with it later?

1. Briefly explain why the position was created: 5-6 sentences reflecting the purpose of the vacancy.
2. Enter 3-5 specific wishes, what exactly do you expect from the new employee.
3. List the professional qualities you need. Do not run your thoughts along the tree, write only what you really need from the candidate.
4. Check if the resulting portrait matches the business plan and goals of the company and the department in which your future colleague will work.

When the goal sheet is ready, create a pool of candidates. To do this, resort to the help of recruiters and existing employees of the company. Connect your personal and professional contacts, involve invited researchers.

You should find as many A-class candidates as possible in order to be able to select the exact employee who will meet your needs by at least 90%.

Every time you interview or chat with new acquaintances, ask them who they could recommend for a position in your company. Write down contacts, expand the base of potential candidates. The more candidates you attract, the more likely you are to find the one that will fully meet the list of goals.

The pool of candidates has been completed. Moving on to the interview?

Yes. The most interesting is ahead. Now you need to conduct four interviews with each of the candidates.

• Selection interview. It will help weed out clearly inappropriate candidates. If there are discrepancies with the list of goals, immediately abandon such an applicant. Even if you liked him and he had a nice suit and a winner's walk.
• Qualification interview helps to reveal how the professional qualities, experience and skills of the candidate correspond to your wishes. And here, too, there should be no deviations from the plan.
• Focus interview will allow you to focus on your main requests, as well as get to know the candidate better.
• Interview with referees … This is a good way to find out how well the words of your interlocutor correspond to the truth, whether it will be easy for you to work with him, whether he is suitable for your team.

What to ask at a qualifying interview?

At the qualifying stage, it is worth finding out how a person evaluates himself as a professional, about his aspirations and personal qualities. Among other questions, you should ask: "How will the former bosses assess you on a 10-point scale, when will we turn to them?" Precisely “when”, not “if”.

Such a formulation of the question will force the candidate to answer honestly, so that later he does not have to make excuses for lying. Practice shows that this particular question can reveal fascinating details about the candidate. For example, at the last moment it turns out that the seemingly ideal candidate not only did not find a common language with the previous boss, but slapped him in the face before leaving. And such attacks do not mean anything good.

What questions to ask in the qualification interview?

At the qualification interview, it is worth asking in more detail about the past work: the tasks that the candidate faced, relationships with colleagues, achievements and reasons for dismissal. Don't dwell on monosyllabic answers. Ask the questions "How?", "What?"

What about the focus interview?

In focus interviews, you should focus on the tasks that you set for the candidate, and find out if he can handle them and if he meets your list of goals. Find out as much as possible about past victories and losses, conclusions based on previous experience.

For focus interviews, you can involve your colleagues or professional advisors to get the most complete picture. Take notes about the applicant so that later it will be easier to remember the conversation.

Why do we need referees?

During the selection interview, you should ask the candidate for five or even seven contacts of people who could act as referrers. These are former bosses and colleagues. Be sure to contact them and ask them in as much detail as possible. This is not about dirty linen at all, but only about professionalism and relationships with the team. How your colleagues and leadership treated your job seeker in the previous job, which was the hardest and easiest for him to give.

It is very important to catch the hidden signals. For example, you asked the referee how easily the candidate found a common language with his subordinates, and in response you heard: "In principle, he is a good guy, almost everyone treated him with respect."

This is a signal that not everything was so smooth. If your candidate is really a good guy, they will be talked about with great enthusiasm. People are so arranged that they do not want to scold or expose anyone. Therefore, it is easier for them to wrap the unpleasant truth in a wrapper of restraint. Be on the lookout.

How to choose the only one?

When all interviews are complete, it's time to choose. Your main reference point is the goal sheet. If you end up with only one Class A candidate left, offer him a job.

If there are several of them, make a rating. Analyze how each of them coped with the questions, what the referees said about each, how their professional qualities meet your needs. Get the best and close the deal.

Should you read the book?

It would seem that everything that the authors of the book write about is obvious and so. Every business owner wants his company to be the most successful and only hires those who seem to him to be the best.

But “seems” and “is” are different things. Therefore, if you want to become a leader, you only need leaders. And from this book you will glean real advice on how to find them.