Apart From the Crowd

Posted on by Scott

lemon-3303842_640Amid a crowd, she stood apart. Without making a sound, she spoke volumes. I’d never seen her before but knew I would like her.

Last week I traveled to Austin for a couple of meetings. In the conference room of the hotel where I stayed, a soon-to-open local business was conducting interviews. Given the number of applicants waiting their turn in the hallway, this must be a great place to work.

I approached the elevator after checking in and scanned the candidates as it made its way to the first floor. Most were engrossed in their phones – their attention focused on the familiar world offered by the tiny screen. Others fidgeted with resumes and squirmed in their seats attempting to get comfortable.

And then one young lady caught my eye. She sat upright in her seat, her eyes trained straight ahead. If she had a phone with her, it was put away. Her face held a mixture of emotions. I thought I detected confidence and anticipation – and just a hint of a smile.

Do you remember your first interview – the excitement you felt, the desire to join your skills and abilities with those of others in pursuit of a common cause? If we could bottle the nervous energy that accompanies the typical job interview, we could power a small city. Those who harness the energy and channel it properly often ace the interview and find themselves ushered into a new phase of their career.

Did you know that new employees tend to outperform their peers by a factor of ten over their first 90 days? As time goes by though, the new hire’s energy wanes. The new wears off and they let their guard down. By the time that eager new employee reaches their six-month anniversary, their performance is indistinguishable from their more tenured peers.

I think that’s a shame. Time and experience should be an asset, not a liability. Performance should improve with time, not worsen. Imagine combining the focus and determination of a new hire with the know-how and wisdom of a veteran. Now imagine a team full of these people. Oh, the wonders they could accomplish.

The real challenge of business isn’t coming up with new products. It isn’t driving efficiency or improving customer service. No, the real challenge is keeping employees fired up and engaged. It’s figuring out how to retain the attitude of the new hire – and infecting others with it. Solve that equation and the other issues will fix themselves.

Upstairs, I unpacked, changed clothes, and took care of a few emails. About an hour after I arrived I headed out for dinner. As a left, I saw the stand-out candidate rise and enter the conference room. Her name had been called and it was time for her interview. I never saw her again, but the fire in her eyes has stayed with me. I hope it stays with her too.

5 Things I Look For During an Interview

Posted on by Scott

20120207-195634.jpgA couple of weeks ago I wrote about common mistakes managers make during interviews. Since then, I’ve had a few questions about what I look for when interviewing a potential new employee. So as a follow-up to that post, here are some of the qualities at the top of my list.

1. Skill vs. knowledge.
There’s a difference between knowing how to do something and being good at it. I know how to hang drywall, but you don’t want me handling your next home renovation.

Its easy to be fooled into thinking you’ve got a great job candidate just because they know the right things to say. Luckily, there are interviewing techniques to help you better assess the critical soft skills.

2. Attitude vs experience.
Some managers place a lot of weight on experience. And I admit that, for certain jobs. it’s a must. But I learned early on not to rely too heavily on experience.

When you hire someone, they bring their learned behaviors, good and bad, to your organization. I’ve hired experienced sales people only to learn that their experience, gained with a no-holds-barred competitor, didn’t fit with my customer service oriented approach.

But give me someone with the right basic skills coupled with the right attitude and, regardless of inexperience, I’ll train them how to do the job well. Anyone you bring into your organization will have to be trained on your accepted methods. Just be sure you don’t have to “untrain” them first.

3. Coach-ability.
The best players on my team are always looking for ways to get better. They don’t assume they know everything. By continuing to grow their abilities and adding new skills, the stay sharp and continue to bring more and more value to my team.

So when interviewing, I look for people who appear coachable. They’ve learned from their mistakes. And even when successful, they can articulate improvements they would make given another chance.

4. Team fit.
Teams succeed when they work well together. That takes chemistry. So I always let the team have a shot at any potential new coworker. If the team gets a bad feeling, I know not to hire. They see team fit issues I might miss.

Of course, this assumes you have an existing team that works well together, knows each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and knows they are only as good as the weakest member of the group. If this doesn’t sound like your team, you’ve got a whole different set of problems.

5. Passion.
I’m not looking to fill a position. I’m in the process of building something. So I need people on my team that can get excited about the vision we’re working toward.

During an interview, I look for someone whose eyes light up when they talk about projects similar to what we’re working on. They want more than a job. They want to be part of something bigger.

There you have it. If you’re getting ready to interview for a new job, blow the panel away by demonstrating these characteristics. And if you’re getting ready to interview for an open position, add these qualities to your list. I guarantee you’ll wind up with a better candidate.

If you’d like more information regarding how I structure an interview, shoot me an email and I’ll send you an outline.

5 Mistakes Managers Make During An Interview

Posted on by Scott

They looked so good on paper. They have the right experience, and the interview seemed to go so well. They were so well spoken and and had all the right answers. The decision to hire was a slam-dunk.

But that was several weeks ago. That new employee – the one that was so great, the one you bragged about stealing away from the competition – just isn’t working out. What you thought was the perfect hire now seems like a mistake.

What went wrong? How could you have made such an error in judgement? In my experience, there are five key mistakes that managers often make when evaluating a prospective new member of the team.

1. Placing too much value on experience. Resumes are designed to highlight a job candidate’s qualifications for the job they are applying for. Savvy candidates will tailor their resume to the position you’re hiring; emphasizing the attributes and experience that align with your expectations, while downplaying or eliminating those that don’t fit. An astute hiring manager knows that the resume doesn’t tell the whole story. At best, it provides a starting point for a thorough investigation into the candidate’s potential fit.

2. Not properly preparing for the interview. Too many times, I’ve seen managers rush into an interview at the last minute, apologizing to the candidate as they hastily look over their resume and/or application. It’s obvious they’re not prepared. They haven’t taken the time to think about the important components of the job that need to be discussed or identify specific aspects of the candidate’s background that need to be explored. It takes time to shift your focus from a prior meeting or project to the interview at hand. These managers are beginning one the most important discussions they could engage in and they didn’t consider it important enough to do their homework.

3. Talking too much. Having not taken the time to prepare, managers now begin the interview without a clear direction for the discussion. So they talk. And talk. Unarmed with targeted questions and uncomfortable with the silence that follows the ones they do ask, they seek to fill the void. So they start with small talk and continue filling the time by focusing on specifics related to the company’s history, benefits, and even the dress code. Its not that these topics are bad ones to talk about, but when the hiring manager does all the talking, there’s no chance for the candidate to speak about their qualifications. Ideally, you want the candidate to do 70% of the talking during the interview. Save time at the end for them to ask questions of you regarding the organization or specific aspects of the job.

4. Not asking the right questions. “If you were an animal, what would it be?” “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Useless questions like these tell you nothing about an applicants qualifications or their potential fit for the position at hand. Furthermore, they are so open-ended that its almost impossible to answer incorrectly. You’ll waste a few minutes of interview time, but learn nothing useful.

5. Interviewing alone. A sharp candidate will quickly figure out the kinds of things you like to hear and focus on those topics or buzz words. Interviewing as a team allows for a multi-faceted assessment of the candidate’s experience and capabilities. Each member of the panel will pick up on things the others missed. This allows for a productive post-interview discussion. With the same panel conducting each interview, its easier to compare the qualities of your candidates.

Hiring a new employee is an expensive proposition. A bad hire means wasted time, money and opportunity. Avoid these mistakes and you’ll stand a better chance of hiring the right person for the job.