Sometimes the questions are more complicated than the answers. You just have to know where to look. Is nuclear power safe? This Japan disaster is terrible and doesn’t seem to be over. My point here is, the answer to this complicated question is very simple once you discover that you can’t buy insurance for a nuclear power plant. It’s just not possible!
Insurance companies are very smart people. If there was the slightest chance of making money at it, they will do it. But with nuclear power they can’t see how it’s going to end well. So, no insurance. Questions are only complicated if you’re looking for answers in the wrong places. Nuclear power plants are probably not safe!
Management is often like that. Management is complicated only by where you choose to look for answers. I’ve written twenty one recommendations (below) to managers about the hiring process. When we hire, we determine the fate of our departments, our company. It’s all talent, even the guy driving the forklift. People make, or break your company.
Click the link below for the my complete paper, 21 points, “A letter to a young general manager, about the process of hiring people.” Read it, pass it on to your group. Every word is hard won experience.
On July 13th, Surrey, we’re doing a seminar on sales. Title, “Sales process engineering.” About designing and building a foundation business acquisition system for your company, or for yourself, that will reliably and predictably manufacture sales.
See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang
A letter to a young general manager, about the process of hiring people.
- Stop looking for the best candidate. Start looking for the right candidate.
Trying to find the best candidate sounds like a good idea but it isn’t. You’re supposed to find the right candidate, not the best candidate.
Reality shows like the Bachelorette have a low relationship success rate because the bachelorette is comparing the guys against each other and not against her needs. We’ll know when it’s going to be a good relationship. When the bachelorette, picks her guy, marries him and aborts the rest of the show, we know she’s stopped comparing and has found what’s right for her.
Compare the candidate to what this company needs. Comparing candidates to each other is what you do when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Know the territory and hire the right person.
- Why candidates sometimes don’t show up for interviews.
I’ve learned candidates don’t show up because they’ve lost faith in the process or the succession of people they’ve been exposed to in our company.
Often candidates speak to HR, and like what they hear. They then speak to a manager, and they’re impressed. Finally, they get to speak to the supervisor they’ll be reporting to and their enthusiasm starts to fade.
Different people in our company view new hires differently. Often a smart, A-string candidate will make a lot of our existing employees nervous. Supervisors can feel challenged. Other times supervisors are overworked and sound uninterested, they spiel off endless job requirements and skills questions over the phone, and finally agree to see the person. Highly skilled people won’t put with being treated disrespectfully and many chose not to go through with the interview.
People always show up if they want to. No shows are our fault, fix it.
- Be careful with employee referral candidates.
Familiarity has not yet replaced competency in this company. We don’t care through which gate the candidate arrives at our hiring desk. We only care that everyone crosses the finish line.
Our staff, as much as we love them, are not qualified to know whether someone they know would make a good hire or not. Many people referred Bernie Madoff to their friends and helped him steal their money as well. Well intentioned people tend to be wrong a lot.
Treat referrals with greater scrutiny than you would a cold resume application. Make your own decisions and don’t let referrals blur your judgement.
A warning. Referrals tend to absorb more amounts of higher level time than they should. Too many referrals go up to executive interviews when someone should have “deleted” the resume as soon as it was submitted. What referrals tends to be missing is a critical block of required experience, and nobody spots it until ten thousand dollars of company time, resources, testing, etc. have been wasted, - if they spot it at all.
Referrals often come with promoters. Those people who badger you about seeing their friend or colleague because he’s “such a great person.” Neutralize them, hide behind the committee excuse. “The hiring committee has not given me a green light.
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