FINDING HIGH QUALITY
EMPLOYEES
The first step
in hiring is to come up with a job description. The
job description serves as the basis for determining exactly
what you are looking for in a candidate. It should
explain why the job exists and what job functions are
regularly performed in the position. You should determine the
requirements for the position in terms of education, job
experience, skills, and personality traits. Then, prioritize
the requirements starting with what is absolutely
necessary.
If you have not been closely involved in that
particular job, you will want to pick the brain of one of your
employees who does have experience in that area. This will
help you determine the skills needed to excel in the position.
You should also make sure the job description is up to date,
because some jobs evolve over time.
The job description can be a very valuable tool in
advertising and interviewing for the position. If it
accurately portrays the position, the job description can tell
candidates exactly what they will be doing if they get the
job. This will allow candidates to rule themselves out if it
is clear they are not what you are looking for. In addition,
when going through resumes or applications, you can use the
list of requirements to weed out unqualified
candidates.
Once you have a clear job description and a clear idea
of what you are looking for, you can begin searching for
qualified candidates. The question often comes up: Where do I
look to find high quality employees? The short answer is:
everywhere. There are numerous ways to find potential
employees. For example, they can be found
through:
- Headhunters
- Temp
agencies
- The
company website
- Bulletin
boards around the office
- Networking
groups
- The
local high school or college
- Your
church
- Businesses
where you are a customer
- Customers
of your business
- Newspaper
ads
- Groups
with retirees who may consider part-time work
- Employment
websites such as Monster.com
- "Help
Wanted" signs you put up at a retail location
- Communication
with former high quality employees who left on good terms
and may want to come back after realizing the grass isn't
greener on the other side
- Previous
jobs you have held
- Chamber
of commerce meetings
The key is to always be on the lookout for potential
employees who would do well working for you. For example,
Nucor Corporation employs a highly productive workforce and is
the largest steel producer in the United States. One way they
find good employees is to observe the construction workers
when a new plant is being built. The best ones are recruited
to stay on once the plant is
functioning.3
When hiring for a position, you should give the people
inside your organization a fair chance to get the job.
Promoting from within is a good policy if the candidate is
qualified. This increases morale because employees realize
there are opportunities for advancement. If outsiders are
always hired, your current employees may begin to think that
they will always be stuck in their current position no matter
how well they perform. Also, current employees know how the
company operates so the learning process will be easier. In
addition, this acquisition method is cheaper for you since you
don't have to apply as many resources to locating and
interviewing outside candidates. However, this does not mean
that you should hire unqualified candidates just because they
work inside the company.
Your current employees can also be very valuable
recruiters. If they are working with other good employees,
being treated fairly and with respect, receiving appreciation
for good work, and having their ideas, opinions, and concerns
heard, then they will speak positively about their experiences
with the company. Soon, you will be flooded with job
applicants. Remember, winners want to be surrounded by winners
and play on a winning team.
One of the advantages of getting employees through
referrals is that the new hires will have a good chance of
being successful and staying longer than the ones who are not
referred to the company. The current employee can give them a
crystal clear picture of what it is like to work for the
company. This allows potential employees to decide whether or
not they can function well in that environment. New employees
who do not have the inside scoop may be in for a rude
awakening if their expectations do not match
reality.
Another benefit is that the current employee can help
the new employee get settled into the company. This will give
the current employee a morale boost, because it always feels
good to recruit somebody to the team and help them along in
the early stages of employment. In addition, the new employee
will likely feel obliged to do a good job, because they don't
want to make their friend look bad by not doing
well.
When considering employee referrals, you should take
into account who is referring the candidate. Remember, birds
of a feather flock together. If a mediocre employee recommends
somebody they know, then you should be skeptical. However, a
recommendation from one of your star performers should carry
more weight. For the most part, good employees are not going
to refer somebody they do not think will succeed in a
position. They also know that the performance of the employee
they vouched for will reflect on them.
Even though many employee referrals will turn out to be
good candidates, you should promise your current employees
that candidates they refer will be considered and nothing
more. You don't want employees thinking that because they know
someone who has the minimum qualifications that they will
automatically get the position. You should let your employees
know up front to not take it personally if you don't hire
somebody they refer. Hiring somebody for a position just
because you, one of your friends, or somebody else in your
organization knows them is the wrong move if they are not the
best person for the job.
Also, you should be careful about hiring employees from
other departments within your own company. You need to be
cautious about potentially burning a bridge with other
managers by taking away their star employees. In addition,
some unscrupulous managers might recommend a substandard
employee from their department just to get rid of them.
However, sometimes an employee who does not work out in
another company or department may perform well for
you.
Finally, if you feel uneasy about a candidate, you are
usually better off not hiring them even if you have an open
position that needs to be filled. It is better to take a
little more time and effort to find the right employee rather
than be stuck with a mediocre one. The old adage "measure
twice, cut once" certainly applies. However, remember that no
manager will always make the right choice when it comes to
hiring employees.
HIRE
FOR ATTITUDE, TRAIN FOR SKILL
In
the hiring process, a general rule of thumb is to hire for
attitude and train for skill. A person's attitude is so
embedded and nearly impossible to change, while the skills
that the employee needs to acquire can often be learned more
easily. Somebody who is unfriendly, difficult to work with,
and lazy will usually be a poor hire even if they have the
experience and skills to do the job. It usually doesn't take
long before they have a cancerous effect on the organization
by bringing their negative attitude to the position and
adversely affecting everybody they work
with.
However, a candidate with the right attitude should be
strongly considered because many skills can be learned in a
short period of time. For example, if a position requires
knowledge of a certain computer program, you can send the
employee to a training class to acquire that skill. It would
be a big mistake to eliminate an otherwise high quality
candidate, because they do not have experience with a software
program that can be taught in a one or two day class. The
training costs are almost certainly much cheaper than the
costs down the road of hiring somebody with a poor attitude.
Of course, there are limits to this maxim. Typically,
the higher level the position, the less this rule applies.
There is a point where the training the employee needs is too
costly. And, obviously, technical knowledge is extremely
important in a lot of positions (e.g. CPA, professional
engineer, etc.). Therefore, you can't always just hire
somebody with a good attitude if they don't have the skills
needed for the position and they can't be acquired easily. But
it is good general rule to keep in mind so you don't rule out
a potential employee who could turn out really well with a
little training.
When assessing candidates, you should be sure to
differentiate between the essential requirements for a job and
the preferences you have for the position. You don't want an
otherwise good candidate to rule themselves out and not apply
for the job because they don't exactly meet the preferred
requirements. For example, sometimes experience in a certain
field may be necessary. But a lot of times the employee can
get up to speed on the intricacies of an industry in a brief
period of time.
For example, imagine you are hiring a manager for a
customer service call-in center. Here is a summary of the top
two candidates from which you have to
choose:
Candidate #1 - She is currently a manager of a nice
restaurant and has been in that industry with three companies
for a total of fifteen years. The interview went extremely
well and your initial impression was confirmed when all of her
previous managers spoke very highly of her. She said she has
grown really tired of the restaurant industry due to all of
the nights and weekends she has had to work and wants to make
a permanent change to a Monday through Friday, nine to five
type of work week. The only concern you have is that she does
not have any experience in a customer service call-in
center.
Candidate #2 - He currently manages a customer service
call-in center that is very similar to yours. He has nine
years of overall experience in call-in centers with three
being as a manager. Based on his experience, this candidate is
certainly qualified to do the job. But you were not overly
impressed with him in the interview. In addition, both of his
previous managers that you were able to contact gave lukewarm
reviews of him. He also seems to jump from job to job quite
often.
So which one would you choose? When considering this
question, think about how you define experience. Has the first
candidate had experience managing a customer service call-in
center? No. Has the first candidate had experience managing
lower-level employees in a high stress environment?
Absolutely. In reality, although the industries are different,
the skills needed to manage a restaurant and the skills needed
to manage a customer service call-in center are quite similar.
Therefore, the first candidate seems to be a much more
attractive option once you take this into consideration.
One significant benefit of hiring for attitude and
training for skill is that your pool of potentially
outstanding candidates greatly increases. Here is an example
that shows the benefits of being open-minded to candidates who
have the right attitude but don't have the particular
experience you want.
Paul Kopplow is the transportation manager for an
upscale Denver hotel. He manages fourteen shuttle drivers who
take the hotel guests to and from the airport. The hotel
shuttles are large enough to require a commercial driver's
license, and a lot of hotels compete for a small pool of
qualified drivers. This makes staffing a perpetual problem. At
one point, Paul was short three drivers and was scrambling to
fill the positions.
Since finding three qualified candidates immediately
was unlikely, he cast a wider net in his search. Before
accepting the position as transportation manager, Paul was a
shift supervisor at one of the local plants. About a month
earlier, the plant was shut down and several of his previous
shift workers were out of work. There were four people that he
worked with who were standout employees on his shift, so he
decided to contact them to see if they still needed a job. One
of the employees had just accepted a position at another
plant, but the other three were thrilled to have the chance to
work for Paul at the hotel.
None of the three men had ever been a driver before.
But at the plant, all of them worked hard, got along well with
their co-workers, and never had any unexcused absences. So
Paul hired them and put them through an intensive course to
get their commercial driver's license. Each of them passed
with flying colors and has been a standout employee on his
staff for a little over a year.
Another factor involving the attitudes of prospective
employees is to consider how well a prospective candidate will
fit in with current employees. After all, team chemistry is
important. You want to hire people who are qualified to do the
work, but they also need to be able to work harmoniously with
your other employees. A candidate who seems capable of doing
the work of a particular job well can still be the wrong
person to hire if they have a negative effect on your other
employees.
Imagine you are hiring a person for a position that
will support three college professors in various
administrative functions involving their research. The
professors are highly regarded in their fields, but they love
to kid around with each other and are always game for the
occasional practical joke. Some other people in the department
affectionately refer to them as "The Three
Stooges."
Your first area of concern in hiring should be how well
a particular candidate can do the tasks involved in the
position. But a close second would be finding somebody who has
the personality to fit in well with Moe, Larry, and Curly. If
you have a candidate that seems to act very reserved and
proper, you should probably not hire that person, because
there will likely be friction between the two parties once
they start working together.
SUMMARY
The
first rule of management is to surround yourself with high
quality employees. The talent level of your personnel will
have a major impact on how successful you are as a
manager.
