Hiring Solutions

Making the Same Hiring Mistakes?

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When you keep making the same hiring mistakes over and over, it’s costly and very time consuming. You lose credibility with your staff and clients. It’s time to stop and get help. You have a misperception of potential employees’ work experience, skills, and/or job fit required. With clarification and by learning new ways to interview, how to use qualified assessments, and how to improve your due diligence processes, you can improve your hiring results. (BizSavvyHire.com)  Hopefully, it won’t be too late to rebuild your credibility.

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Helpful Hint:

Job ads with trite sound-bites fail to attract, e.g., great opportunity and work hard. Learn how-to attract the right employees: http://BizSavvyHire.com

 

 

 

 

Mediocrity Stifles Results

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All business owners and executives wish to succeed in their business. Yet when they hire inexperienced and unseasoned professionals, thinking they are saving money, their bottom line suffers. Why? The employees have not had time to develop the business knowledge and acumen needed to perform at the level required, instead relying on “it’s good enough.” Mediocrity stifles results—you get what you pay for.

When hiring for any position, be clear about the attributes required for the person to succeed, and the required results for the company to prosper. Use a structured interview to ensure the person has the actual hands-on experience by drilling down into his or her responses. Often candidates talk hypothetically, not having had the actual responsibility you are looking for. Use a qualified assessment to ensure they have the thinking style, occupational interests, and capabilities to do the job the way it needs to be done to achieve great results. Don’t be afraid to conduct reference checks to ensure the person can and will actually do the work, not just talk about it. (For further information on how to do it, get your copy of Hire Amazing Employees, Second Edition (BizSavvyHire.com).

Although hiring people light on experience and heavy on job fit can be a good idea, realize it will take an extra investment of time and money before they can produce at the level required. Adjust your expectations appropriately.

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Jeannette Seibly has been hiring amazing employees for over 34 years. She delivers straight talk with immediate results to business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises, achieving dynamic results. You may contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com to discuss your hiring challenges. Get her newest book, Hire Amazing Employees, Second Edition: Improve Your Profits (and Your Work Life)! http://BizSavvyHire.com.  It includes templates for interviews and reference checking.

The Know-It-Alls

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“Your attitude not your aptitude will determine your altitude.” —Zig Ziglar

Did you accidentally hire a Know-It-All? How did it happen? The answer: They had all the right answers and you failed to dig deeper into how they achieved them. They possessed the technical skills you really desired and their references agreed, but gave superficial responses to questions about their ability to work well with others.

The Know-It-Alls do not usually work well with others. They tell you the current results are good enough and spend more time complaining about problems than fixing them. They criticize new and innovative solutions from others, relying on their way of getting things done.

Although Know-It-Alls may have the right skills for the position, they are a poor fit with jobs requiring critical people and project management responsibilities, in other words working with and through other people to achieve intended results on time and within budget. Since many Know-It-Alls are unwilling to be coached and are in denial of their limitations, you must provide them with projects that allow them to work on their own.

Require that they meet with you periodically to assess their progress. Don’t be afraid as their boss to ask good business questions and expect the right answers delivered in a respectful manner. If they show a negative attitude, or disregard or dismiss your concerns, provide them with a “come down to reality” conversation: Remind them it doesn’t matter where you work or who you work for, you must listen to others and realize that 99 percent of the world’s information resides in others’ heads.

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

 

Jeannette Seibly delivers straight talk with immediate results to business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises, achieving dynamic results. Along the way, she helped create three millionaires. You may contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com to discuss your coaching challenges.

 

Moving Top Performers

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Did you know promoting or transferring top performers into the wrong job can be the greatest hidden expense for many companies? Other high-cost risks include relocating employees geographically or offering them the opportunity to become a business partner. What seems like a great opportunity can become one of your greatest challenges.  And yet most companies don’t take the time to incorporate objective information into their decision-making process and are surprised when the outcomes are not win-win. They fail to understand how moving top performers can negatively impact results.  

What happened? Usually the boss was focused on rewarding a top performer or employees threatened to leave if they weren’t given what they wanted.  During pre-move conversations, employees may conceptually understand their new role, but the reality can very different. Many employees rely upon their initial excitement and fail to ask enough good business questions before accepting the new assignment, and therefore don’t know what is required to succeed. After they are on the job, some may not wish to work that hard to develop the new skills required of the position (despite what they tell you), or they may lack the qualifications or “job fit” to achieve the required results.  Believe it or not, some employees find themselves being offered new jobs because they said the right thing to the right person at the right time!

What’s missing? A clear directive and navigational guide on how to do it that works for them. Instead, employees are determined to do things their own way. Then, when things don’t work out, these once stellar performers feel forced to leave rather than return to their old jobs. Their egos prevent them from taking a reduction in status, perks, and compensation, or there are no other options available since the previous position was filled or is no longer needed. So they end up leaving with all the training, proprietary information, and on-the-job knowledge you provided them – many times taking other employees with them!  Some pursue costly litigation. Meanwhile, your clients and remaining employees are concerned about how this impacts them.

As part of the decision-making process, use a qualified assessment to objectively clarify a person’s strengths and weaknesses. Contrary to some opinions, you can’t build a successful career focused on weaknesses. Don’t fall into the trap of believing you can fix and change the person to fit into the new job responsibilities —nobody works that hard. Put together a 180-day plan to keep newly promoted employees focused on critical areas for client interactions, critical goals, people and project management, and self-development while providing training to enhance these skills. Hire them a coach from outside the company— it’s a requirement to develop these superstars faster and more effectively. All of these steps can also prevent these top performers from leaving when inevitable challenges occur and no one knows how to manage them.

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Jeannette Seibly delivers straight talk with immediate results to business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises, achieving dynamic results. Along the way, she helped create three millionaires. You may contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com to discuss your coaching challenges.

Easily Infuse Objectivity Early In Your Hiring System

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Did you know that requesting applicants to email or mail you resumes is outdated? Or that over 50 percent of resumes stretch the truth? Yet many companies rely solely on this data to select candidates for interviews—a poor selection practice. By doing so, they shortchange the goal of collecting good objective, valid, and reliable data in order to net truly qualified applicants.

Your hiring system speaks volumes: it’s the first impression many have of your business. Failure to utilize current technology has savvy job seekers questioning if you are a leader—or could be—in your industry. Failure to follow-up and communicate applicant status frustrates many. Top performers wish to work with winning bosses and companies that respect their time and efforts.

Using a well-designed applicant tracking system (ATS) is cost effective and allows you to post job ads and showcase your company, products, and services. It attracts qualified candidates, operates without paper, and helps you vet applicants, saving hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars. When strategically planned and followed, an ATS infuses objectivity into your hiring system early on.

Time-saving keys for ATS:

1) Require that an application form be completed. It minimizes truth-stretching (e.g., inaccurate job titles, job duties, company names, dates of employment, and titles).

2) Incorporate pre-screen questions and core value assessments to ensure objective, valid, and reliable data is used to select candidates for the next steps while weeding out unqualified ones.

3) Automatically thank applicants and make it easier to communicate with them. It’s critical to remember your applicants are future clients, vendors, suppliers, and decision-makers for awarding contracts. You want them to have a positive impression of your company. (Read Hire Amazing Employees, Second Edition for further time-saving ideas, available at BizSavvyHire.com.)

All ATSs are not all created equal. Factors to consider when choosing your ATS (taken from Hire Amazing Employees):

  • User-friendly sites can be reached within one or two clicks from the social media site or the job posting. Busy professionals need to be enticed the moment they read your online ad; most will not return—even if they have the best of intentions to do so. Make it easy for them to apply and for you to receive their information in order to infuse objectivity in your decision-making process.
  • Is there a fee for posting your openings on the ATS site?
  • What is the cost for setup and maintenance of the site?
  • Can the application form, job posting, and other pertinent information be customized?
  • Will it notify interested applicants of future positions? (That’s a great way to keep your candidate pool filled.)
  • Do your job openings easily post to job boards?
  • Can you collect EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) information? Tracking may be required if you have any government contracts (or if you are a subcontractor).
  • Is there a human verification process to reduce spam? This process prevents hackers from completing your application form and blasting resumes to you.
  • Is it easy to communicate with candidates inside the system and generate automated notifications (e.g., completion of application, request for interviews, etc.)?

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013 All Rights Reserved

Want an award-winning ATS to attract amazing employees to your company? Click here

Jeannette Seibly has been hiring amazing employees for over 34 years. She delivers straight talk with immediate results to business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises, achieving dynamic results. You may contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com to discuss your hiring challenges. Get her newest book, Hire Amazing Employees, Second Edition: Improve Your Profits (and Your Work Life)! http://BizSavvyHire.com It includes templates for interviews and reference checking.

 

There Are Hiring Solutions!

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The resume looked great. She interviewed well, saying all the right things and providing great examples. You were so excited that you finally found “the one” that you skipped conducting reference and background checks—after all, you pride yourself on your ability to read people. Yet after only three weeks, you had to admit you made a mistake! You contacted the previous employers post-hire and found out they had fired your new employee for not achieving the results she bragged about! The bottom line? You hired a wolf in sheep’s clothing! 

You lament that it’s too costly to use the right hiring tools. You falsely believe in your intuition, but human bias is alive and well and the reality is you are correct only 15 percent of the time. You rely on the candidate’s resume to determine his or her qualifications, but over 50 percent of applicants stretch the truth. By only accepting “good enough,” you place your company in jeopardy—clients do not want to work with wolves, or the bosses of companies who employ them.

There are solutions to your hiring dilemma: collect enough objective, valid, and reliable data. Using the right hiring tools can be cost effective, when used correctly.

First, use an application tracking system that requires completion of the application. Create pre-screening questions to help you weed out unqualified candidates. Also, have each candidate complete a qualified core values assessment. These three items are very cost effective and will help you vet candidates faster and more objectively.

Next, use unbiased skills testing and a qualified job fit assessment to determine if the candidate can do the work, and if he or she will do the job successfully in your organization. Remember, most applicants exaggerate their abilities, and high skills proficiency does not equate to a great job fit or the ability to achieve the required results. Ensure the job fit assessments meet the Department of Labor guidelines.

Now that you’ve collected objective, reliable, and valid data, it’s time to interview. (Relying upon interviews alone will result in a good hire only 14 percent of the time!) Interview to confirm the data you’ve collected and to find out more about the candidate’s work experiences and accomplishments. Weeding out poor interviewers who would be good hires is no worse than moving forward with candidates who interview well and are bad hires.

Don’t forget to conduct due diligence by conducting reference and background checks, along with employer and education verifications. These will illuminate a great candidate and provide a healthy work environment for current employees!

Do you still think the right hiring solutions are too costly and time consuming? Add up the hours you’ve spent skimming resumes, talking with unqualified or uninterested candidates, and hiring someone not really interested in the job. Yikes! Not using the right hiring tools is costly and doesn’t reveal the 101 other known and unknown factors! The solution: a well-designed selection system ensures your profits improve and your work life does too! It may even save your own job!

Before you hire another person, get your copy of Hire Amazing Employees, Second Edition (BizSavvyHire.com), which includes interview and reference-checking templates.

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Jeannette Seibly has been hiring great employees for over 34 years. She delivers straight talk with immediate results to business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises, achieving dynamic results. You may contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com to discuss your hiring challenges.

Are you hiring happy employees?

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Google the phrase “happy employees” and you will find statistics that show many employees don’t like their jobs, their bosses, their company, or their work requirements. The bottom line? They are not a good fit for their job. Unhappy employees become bored or overwhelmed, start complaining, and don’t do the work as it needs to be done. They expect you, the boss, to fix what’s wrong with the job, the company, their customers, their coworkers, and everything else they view as difficult! They don’t understand that from your perspective it’s their job to provide solutions to these problems and be open to training to enhance their skills—which is why you hired them in the first place! Remember, high proficiency in job skills will not necessarily mean good job fit!

Using qualified assessment tools will help avoid a bad fit and create happier workers (aka top performers)!

Top performers are employees who truly fit their jobs. They help create a positive work environment, reduce communication issues, increase job satisfaction and loyalty, and ensure customers keep coming back.  As a boss, you will find that they are effortless to coach, train, and manage.

Using more objective data provided in a qualified pre-employment assessment will eliminate the time and money spent trying (usually unsuccessfully) to “fix” them. An attempt at “fixing” usually leaves them, and you, unhappy!

High-quality “job fit” assessment products predict success in a specific job and have been thoroughly researched and validated. They can provide reliable and relevant information that is non-discriminatory. (Be sure to review the technical manual of any assessment you wish to use for pre-hire purposes and Department of Labor guidelines to determine which tools are qualified pre-employment assessments. Do not rely solely upon a product letter stating its virtues.) Used as directed, they work! Everyone is happier!

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Mark your calendars for March 13, 2013. Hire Amazing Employees, Second Edition: Improve Your Profits (and Your Work Life)!  will be available for purchase.

Jeannette Seibly delivers straight talk with immediate results to business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises, creating dynamic results. You may contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com for an initial free consultation.

Create Consistent Results

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Change is constant. What worked once, may not work again. Outcomes may not be what we anticipated, long term. Outside factors beyond our control can change even the best of plans. Achieving consistent and intended results requires vigilant attention!

Sometimes the smallest of changes can cost money if we do not catch them! When a plan doesn’t work, we often ditch the whole program instead of looking at the specific component(s) that may need to be altered. We forget employees may not run our systems exactly in accordance with set policies and procedures, thus changing expected outcomes.

A company, fast becoming a leader in their industry, created a strategic hiring system. It worked. Turnover was remarkably reduced. People fit their jobs and enjoyed their work. However, as veterans from the industry joined the team, they refused to trust the new system – it was different from their former cycle of hiring/firing until someone finally stayed. They were not used to following a well-defined system designed for retention. Only after the bottom line suffered, and their jobs were jeopardized, did they jump onboard.

Everyone has their own concept about how things “should” run. The reality is there are many inside and outside influences that can unpredictably vary how things actually do work out. Train your new employees on your systems, policies and procedures; give them the background information about why it works that way within your company. Be sure you have the right employees in the right jobs with the right training to handle outside technology and social media influences. These factors, along with others, will impact your sales.

Review your results objectively with your business advisor – it pays to be focused on the right things daily and catch changes early to maintain and improve your bottom line!

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Jeannette Seibly challenges you to ask yourself:

  • What changes have you had to make to maintain or increase your results?
  • Did they work?
  • Why?

Is Impatience Hurting Your Results?

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Envision yourself driving down the highway. You have a driving lane and a passing lane. The speed limit is 75 miles per hour. The challenge? Many drivers are only going about 60 to 69 mph in the driving lane. Those in the passing lane are zipping along between 65 and 75. The problem? You are impatient. You want to bypass the slow-pokes, zoom ahead and arrive at your destination quickly. You ignore any warning signs to slow down.

It’s a great analogy of how we run our business systems and practices. We live in a fast-paced global market. Opportunities happen quickly. While many human beings believe they have the endurance for ongoing fast-paced mobility, the reality is most professionals’ thinking styles, personalities or interests won’t support it. They burn out. Deadlines are missed. Customers or potential clients are dissed. Promises to follow-up and follow-through are marginalized.

We fail to listen to ideas from our employees, yet we rely upon them to get the work done quickly. We fire them for failure to achieve the desired results, which change due to our constantly shifting focuses — jumping from the newest fad to the next brilliant concept!

When we progress forward too fast, we become reckless. Poor planning, if any, and overlooked details negatively impact our bottom line, business relationships and reputation. Coveted results are elusive and top performers leap at the chance to work with our competitors.

Steadiness allows your team to utilize their experiences and create win-win strategic and tactical outcomes. Build on what you do well. Utilize a business advisor and executive coach to keep you focused on the right things, and doing them the right way.

Your 2013 results thank you!

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Jeannette Seibly is a business advisor for business owners and executives of $1MM to $30MM enterprises creating million dollar results. Contact her at JLSeibly@SeibCo.com for a free consultation of how to achieve amazing results.

Small Employer Hiring

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Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and on average employ 1 to 10 employees. Many of these business owners have previously worked in corporations, and falsely believe they don’t need a systematic way of hiring due to their smaller size. While they may be right about not needing a formal hiring policy like a larger company, cutting corners and using subjective tools and practices will not protect them from litigation. The sad fact is that a small employer is more likely to make a hiring mistake for multiple reasons, mostly due to lack of experience in hiring. They are under the mistaken belief they can coach and motivate anyone for success. Their lack of awareness simply creates sleepless nights and unnecessary expense of hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars!

The biggest challenge? One bad hire can literally force a small enterprise to close its doors due to theft of money, data and proprietary information. Or, they incorrectly reason it won’t cost them anything to hire a straight commission salesperson, if that person is unable to sell. They don’t calculate the cost to their reputation nor the excessive marketing costs with no positive ROI. One small business owner suffered through theft of proprietary information. It cost him dearly. Instead of seeking better ways to hire people, he simply recreated the mistake by solely relying upon his gut.

Gather objective information. The more objective information you can gather up-front, the less likely you are to interview and select the wrong person. Most interviewers make their decision within the first five minutes of an interview, but spend the next thirty or sixty minutes asking questions that make no difference in changing their minds. Instead, use a structured interview format focused on experience, education and job skills. Have candidates take a skills test to determine true proficiency. Often overlooked is asking about any special requirements. Never assume they read the job posting simply because they applied for the job (e.g., if travel is involved, ask if they are available to travel and how often).

Qualified assessments. Many small employers need to broaden their perspective of what is a qualified assessment. If you’re relying upon non-qualified assessment results, its pay now or pay later in loss of clients or the employee’s unwillingness to do the required activities. Insist upon reviewing the Technical Manual for any assessment you wish to use; do not rely upon a letter from the vendor telling you it meets all federal, state and local laws. Select qualified tools in accordance with the Department of Labor Testing and Assessment 2007 guidelines (for a copy contact: JLSeibly@SeibCo.com. If you have developed one on your own, spend the millions of dollars required to ensure the validity and reliability coefficients comply with EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity), DOL (Department of Labor) and various other requirements.

Training. Since most small business owners don’t hire often, they may overlook current employment laws. Set up a written strategic hiring process and have it reviewed by legal counsel. Review it each time you hire. Take time to learn best interview practices, how to correctly use assessments and skill testing and when to conduct background checks and drug screens (states laws vary). The basic rule of thumb is stay focused on the job responsibilities along with the applicant’s ability to successfully achieve intended results.

All jobs are important! One business owner didn’t feel the receptionist position was an important job in his company. He didn’t understand it’s the client’s first impression, and often a long-lasting one! He spent 5 minutes talking with each candidate and then selected the first one he liked. He went through three employees within a month. He not only lost several clients, one top employee left in protest of his hiring practices.

Hiring Amazing Employees, 2nd Edition, is coming soon! I’ll share more information during this upcoming month.

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2012  All Rights Reserved