Jun. 5, 2017 "Slow down the hiring process to build a winning team": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:
Here are four quick ideas to consider about hiring: It’s better to leave a position unfilled than to make a bad hire. You should be spending 20 per cent of your time – one day a week – on hiring to improve your odds of success.
Your next great hire is likely to have no experience in whatever business or industry you operate. Play down the many job description criteria you normally develop to assess applicants and focus on four elements: Attitude, accountability, past related job success and cultural fit.
That advice comes from Adam Robinson, co- founder and chief executive officer of Hireology, which offers software tools to help improve hiring techniques. Based in Chicago, he notes in an interview that nobody teaches managers how to hire, with 75 per cent reporting they struggle.
Their hiring instincts – and the practices of people around them they might emulate – are often weak. And that hurts: “What more important activity does a builder of teams have than selecting new members? You need the right person in the right seat and it doesn’t happen randomly.”
Their hiring instincts – and the practices of people around them they might emulate – are often weak. And that hurts: “What more important activity does a builder of teams have than selecting new members? You need the right person in the right seat and it doesn’t happen randomly.”
Usually, hiring is rushed. Not enough care is taken to find proper candidates. And the person perceived to be the best is brought on board, even if there are huge alarm bells. Yet a bad hire means endless problems down the road. So slow down. Be willing to start the process over. It’s better to leave a position unfilled than to make a bad hire.
That leads to a second important dictum from the author of The Best Team Wins : Spend one day a week on hiring. Give proper time to interviewing, increasing your involvement in early screening interviews – which most managers delegate – and be willing to take an extra round interviewing and assessing the best candidates.
As well, scout for good people even when you don’t have openings and they aren’t planning a job move; develop a relationship so that you can call them or they can call you if a change in circumstances occurs. Don’t have the time for all of that? He says that’s probably because you are drained by dealing with all your bad hires over the years. “Would you rather spend one day a week on hiring or five days a week dealing with poor hires?” he asks in the interview.
As well, scout for good people even when you don’t have openings and they aren’t planning a job move; develop a relationship so that you can call them or they can call you if a change in circumstances occurs. Don’t have the time for all of that? He says that’s probably because you are drained by dealing with all your bad hires over the years. “Would you rather spend one day a week on hiring or five days a week dealing with poor hires?” he asks in the interview.
Think broadly with those hirings. He says 50 per cent of the factors predicting career success have nothing to do with experience in your industry. He urges you to focus instead on what he calls the four “super- elements” of success:
Attitude. You want people to have a positive disposition to work – not just with your company or the job you are offering but the act of working itself. That outlook is unlikely to change over time.
Ask what was frustrating in their previous job or what makes it harder to do their job. Individuals with the desired attitude will go out of their way to be positive in answering.
Accountability. You want people who feel they have control over the outcomes of their work and take responsibility for results rather than those who blame external factors.
Ask about the last time they set a goal for themselves that was not achieved and listen carefully to whether they see themselves as accountable. Past related job success. Check whether they have met formal goals in past jobs that are similar to the goals of the job they are applying for.
A barista at Starbucks is constantly monitored. A salesperson probably had a quota. People who haven’t had such monitoring can still be successful. But the odds are with those used to such a work environment.
Attitude. You want people to have a positive disposition to work – not just with your company or the job you are offering but the act of working itself. That outlook is unlikely to change over time.
Ask what was frustrating in their previous job or what makes it harder to do their job. Individuals with the desired attitude will go out of their way to be positive in answering.
Accountability. You want people who feel they have control over the outcomes of their work and take responsibility for results rather than those who blame external factors.
Ask about the last time they set a goal for themselves that was not achieved and listen carefully to whether they see themselves as accountable. Past related job success. Check whether they have met formal goals in past jobs that are similar to the goals of the job they are applying for.
A barista at Starbucks is constantly monitored. A salesperson probably had a quota. People who haven’t had such monitoring can still be successful. But the odds are with those used to such a work environment.
Cultural fit. Does the candidate share values and work style with the organization? This can be a grey area; it therefore involves understanding the culture yourself, so you know what to seek.
Also, determine if the candidate truly wants the job or just will take it as a placeholder until something better comes along.
Also, determine if the candidate truly wants the job or just will take it as a placeholder until something better comes along.
Finally, consider the math of recruitment. Just as selling requires a funnel with lots of prospects at the start of the process, since many won’t work out, you need to be sure that you draw sufficient interest in the job to get the ideal person.
You want 130 résumés to review and 27 people to quickly screen with phone interviews, leading to nine in- person interviews. From those nine, aim for three finalists you re- interview in depth to choose the winner.
You want 130 résumés to review and 27 people to quickly screen with phone interviews, leading to nine in- person interviews. From those nine, aim for three finalists you re- interview in depth to choose the winner.
Hiring isn’t easy. But it’s crucial to business success, so consider integrating his ideas into your approach.
The Ladder: Graham Buksa: Today I found this article in the Globe and Mail:
Graham Buksa is founder and owner of Rayne Longboards, a North Vancouver-based manufacturer of downhill racing skateboards.
When I grew up, I had friends that were into skateboarding but I never got into it. When I was 20, I got a longboard because I needed transportation to school and between classes on campus.
I took engineering in university and enrolled without having a good grasp of how much work I was signing up for. I simply wanted to build things. Design competitions allowed me to take sketches of things I wanted to build, develop them to samples and build business plans around them. These competitions put me on the edge of my comfort zone. They tested whether I actually had good ideas, whether I could articulate them to an audience and win them over.
I volunteered to get my hands dirty doing welding and fabrication work for the Autonomous Robotic Vehicle Project [AVRP] at the University of Alberta. Because of my earlier design-competition skills, I was made leader of this project for two years and managed the team of 40-plus students.
I was both in love with the experience my first board gave me, but disappointed in the performance. During university, I worked at a ski shop and was inspired by the technology in skis and snowboards, and decided to build a longboard using ski technology. Because I was fabricating bodywork for the ARVP project, I worked with the U of A Industrial Design program quite a bit.
When I started to build my own equipment to design a board, they provided a lot of advice and even helped make my first moulds. From there, I made boards in the basement of the engineering building using ARVP’s equipment until moving my operation into the back of a garage I rented nearby.
The industrial design department saved me a ton of headaches and, after my first small production run, I packed up a truck and drove to 50 shops in Alberta and B.C. to do some market research. The trip to talk to actual buyers was the most important part of the process. They told me, “Your product doesn’t meet our sales standards in these ways.” I should have started there.
I started writing business plans for design competitions. Later, I wrote plans for ARVP and finally I took a business-plan class that I used to write the first draft for Rayne. My professor, Ted Heidrick, took me under his wing and encouraged me. He made sure our plan was rooted in reality.
With my first draft in hand, I continued to perfect it. I was lucky enough that all of the pieces fell into place. I met a supplier at the U of A during a career week seminar; a friend who saw me working on my business plan during exams gave a small investment; and my parents never said no. With their blessing, I was set. I never looked for another job and focused only on longboards.
The first obstacle was moving to Vancouver and finding acceptance in the burgeoning longboarding community. There was already a community fiercely loyal to another brand. I had to have a thick skin, develop my own longboarding skills to gain acceptance and then build new equipment that helped riders become better.
I had to learn how to ride a longboard really fast. In 2004, there was no YouTube to show you how, or even what downhill longboarding looked like. We had to figure it out on our own.
Rayne just turned 13. We’ve had such a good ride. Our boards have won the world championships multiple times. We have an almost zero-waste production facility in North Vancouver and ship boards globally and we innovated many of the longboard designs on the market. Those are some of my biggest business achievements. I’m really proud that I took the time to try compete in the World Cup before I got too old.
I don’t ride as much as I used to, but I still compete, about two races a year. I just got back from a race in China which was pretty crazy: 10 per cent to 14 per cent grade, and cliffs on the other side of the hay bales. I love that there are still places out there to be explored.
As told to Brendan McAleer
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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