(This is a modified thought received by me & expanded in 2004 from an unknown gentleman in the internet space who was looking for people)
Looking to build an organization, your most important skill is hiring. Get excited! If you are not thinking about it or networking, you need a partner/colleague/subordinate who does it. Having been there done that, the amount of hiring I have done, led me to list some important elements.
And surprisingly a lot of people agree though becomes difficult to practice!
Why is hiring so important?
Think of your teams in the past.
Think about the best person you ever managed...
Think about the worst person you ever managed...
Everyone wishes that we have more of the former than the latter.
Hiring Criteria
Listed in order of my priority.
1. Bandwidth. I'm a sucker for intelligence, preferring to surround myself with people much smarter & faster than me. People who can multi task, are extremely important.
2. Attitude. I like
People with fire in their belly, competitive, & are very goal / results driven.
Who are fun and who laugh a lot, including at themselves.
Who are so confident in their skills that they are openly and instantly humble about things they are not good at.
Who delight in seeing others perform?
Who are open and honest?
3. Experience. I want people who have been successful at something-- getting stuff done. They don't need to have done what I'm hiring them for, but they need to bring some new success experience to the team. (People with more exposure to extra curricular activities/hobbies such as singing, dancing, acting; this is not their job, but I know if they are good at that, it say's a lot about his/her determination etc.)
4. Lack of dysfunctional behavior.
I will not tolerate anyone who hurts the team. I don't care how good they are. We all have insecurities and much dysfunctional behavior is bad responses to such.
Recruiter(HR)/Headhunters
The most important hire is your recruiter, the partner you will work with to hire the rest of your team. This person must be someone you trust completely, and someone you enjoy spending lots of time with.
If you hire the wrong recruiter, change them immediately. Be prepared to pay money for a superstar recruiter, they are well worth it.
The CEO and each hiring manager should meet with this person EVERY DAY even if just for five minutes.
I prefer to have all new hardcopy resumes handed to me by the recruiter, and I review them all WHILE THE RECRUITER(HR) IS STANDING IN MY OFFICE. This might seem like a waste of time, but it is not. If you do this, and think aloud while scanning, you recruiter will VERY QUICKLY get tuned to your criteria, and you will find that you will start getting much better candidates.
Some headhunters are good, many are bad. With some work, you and your contract recruiter can just leverage your own networks. If you do end up using any headhunters, here are a couple important rules:
(a) Train your managers to never take calls or receive resumes from headhunters unless they have already signed a contract with your contract recruiter or HR manager, and
(b) Do not let the headhunter be involved in offer negotiations, as they can screw them up to just to try jack up the offer/fee, and you also want to directly get this important experience with your new potential employee.
SEVEN-DAY Rule
One of the nice things about using a database is that it will show you how quickly you are hiring, as you can see how long a resume has been in the system. I push the heads to make an offer within seven days of anyone on my team first hearing about a candidate. Does this mean my team rushes, and thus makes mistakes? No, it means we are/have to be very focused on our hiring process. We can make better decisions that our competitors who are not as disciplined, and we can save time, and (perhaps most importantly) we can energize candidates by showing them how fast we can move. Example: get a resume on Monday, phone screen, schedule interview for Tuesday or Wednesday, back channel references after that, then second interview on Thursday or Friday, with offer that night, acceptance by next Monday. This requires a very good process so you can efficiently get all the steps done well at this speed!
Visitors
Train all of your people to be energized and nice to all candidates and visitors to your workplace.
Make eye contact with all visitors; give them a smile and a hello.
Ask the visitor if they want some tea/coffee/water or need any help.
Do not ever leave a job candidate sitting on a couch waiting for someone.
If you see someone sitting alone (bored), energize him or her by saying hello and chatting with them.
If you train all your people to do this, it very well could mean the difference in winning over that superstar candidate, and also having
ALL candidates always speak highly of their experience with your team.
The Interview
30-60 minutes. Try and NEVER be late. Avoid interruptions. Ask them about the person they just met. Be focused. Know ahead of time your plan, what you are evaluating this person for and what questions you will ask. Give the candidate immediate feedback, tell them something about them that excites you! (Do not ever give anyone false feedback.)
Ask the candidate about specific projects to get their philosophies based on something real which happened. Otherwise it is too easy for them to miss-speak if they are speaking in generalities.
Challenge the candidate; give them difficult problems to solve. You can get away with this, and not only not offend the candidate, but energize them, if you do this correctly and handle the candidate's entire experience with your team (including phone calls, hallway meetings, interviews, etc) correctly.
Each interviewer will develop their own favorite questions and style; I have my own which I'm not listing here as it won't help if others use the same techniques.
(Provided the interviews are not held in a complete forum/team) When you are done, bring the candidate to the next person on the list. (Do not have an admin do this, and do not leave the person alone in a conference room without calling the next person first.) If you have a minute, tell the next interviewer which things to probe (if you have some discomforts) and which things are important to this candidate (if such a thing came up).
The Decision
For any position, ahead of time have a job description including requirements, responsibilities, and work style needed. All interviewers for a position must know this stuff. I have candidates meet 2-4 people, no more than that. Trust your interviewers, give them veto power. Better to lose a good person (if you are good at hiring you can find another) than to hire a dud. Usually do a five-minute stand up meeting with all interviewers (or the key few decision makers) to make our decision. This must be done at the end of the day of each interview.
The Close
Once you decide you want someone, do whatever it takes to get him or her to join you. Sell them on your vision; mission; show them how you will be changing the world. Make them like you; show them how much the organization likes them & why they will be so important and successful here. When necessary for critical positions, take the candidate out to dinner.
Close the candidate on the job, not on the compensation. I always try to get the candidate to tell me they accept the job before we talk about compensation. And then negotiate a fair and good package. Ask the candidate the following: of their entire job opportunities, which one will make them, drive a little faster to work in the morning, which one seems the most exciting, the best team, the best mission. You want your opportunity to be the best one for them.
Post Hire
1. Requirements. Every one of my team members, regardless of their role, is required only to do two things: be world-class high quality output at your field, and make the team stronger. It is not enough to be team neutral (not to hurt the team); you must make the team stronger. At the end of the day, ask yourself what you did to help the team? Did you encourage people? Did you give people (at all levels) honest and immediate feedback and coaching? Did you laugh a lot and have fun?
2. Reverse indoctrination. Some companies train new people on the culture and rules, so they can get up to speed. Looking at our current situation, I think this is a bad idea. I would like to instead do the reverse, go out of your way to learn from new people all the time, before you warp them to become a clone of your pre-existing team.
3. Networking. If your new hire is good (hopefully!), use them to network to find more good people to hire!
Have I been successful, in following these!
70% YES. (Not a bad %)
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