Having spoken to many HR Mangers, General Managers and Business Owners I have trained on how to hire really effective and valuable employees, I have noticed there are a lot of common ideas concerning what to look for in an interview. Unfortunately, a lot of these concepts are built upon preconceived notions that certain qualities are necessary in a candidate in order for them to be considered for hiring – and many of these notions are not based on fact or what really works. In the end who really cares if a person seems like a great guy, can sell himself or wears a nice tie if he doesn’t get soaring results that make the company and his department prosper and grow?
So I’ve created this seven part series on what NOT TO DO when hiring a new staff member:
1. Making the job ad too good to be true.
2. Focussing on education, “experience” and other wastes of time.
3. Listening but not looking.
4. Let’s find someone just like me!
5. Making personality a priority.
6. Not reference checking.
7. Losing the right candidate by not acting fast enough.
THE SECOND DEADLY SIN: Focussing on education, “experience” and other wastes of time.
Simply, how many engineer graduates have you met who have the ability to build a bridge right after they finish their final exam? How many successful people credit their MBA for their success?
Don’t get me wrong, education and training is important – but only to the degree a person applies the knowledge and subsequently gets results from it. I know from experience, most of the most successful people I’ve come across didn’t even make it all the way through high school, let alone university. If you look at the top 100 most successful people in the country, you will see my observation is supported. Ironically, they demand their employees to have a university degree!
The other credential is often experience, “We need a sales manager of 15 years experience!” Experience in what though? You might find someone who has spent the last 15 years putting the company into debt, or even that he relies on his staff to bring in the results and personally doesn’t contribute a thing. To make this point even more clear, who would you prefer: Richard Branson at age 21 with little experience or a guy who has been a nation sales manager for 20 years and only got mediocre results?
These aspects of a person’s job history may give some insight into their ability but it doesn’t prove that they will come into you company and increase sales by 50% in the next 6 months. The key to know this is the results a person has achieved in the past. You want to see what difference has this person made in their previous roles. By knowing that a person has successfully added substantial value in their previous roles, this is the best indicator to know whether they can produce in your company.
Picture this; we hired a telemarketer for a client a while back. He had never done telemarketing before, didn’t like change, no university education, was quiet, didn’t promote himself and seemed quiet nervous. Not the perfect fit for a telemarketer you would think. However, he previously managed a business and increased profit by 30% in a year – real results. This guy got into the company and in the 5 days got 10 appointments from cold calls, and these people were interested in making investments upwards of $500k.
The point is who cares about education, experience and looks. You can train a person to do a job but you can’t train someone to be productive. So sure, these factors may play a role in who you are going to hire but the first thing you need to be sure of is that they can produce results.
Part 3. Listening but not looking, next week
Alexander Bell
National Training Supervisor
Performia Australia
Tags: Build your Team, employee, Executive, HR, Management, Productivity, Profit, recruitment, Team, Training
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