Perfect Hire Blueprint Blog | Perfect Hire Blueprint

Hiring Model – Do Only What YOU Need to Do

Are you a small company? Do you lack in-house HR with hiring expertise? You need to revamp your hiring model. Either you’re hiring on the cheap and getting mostly B-players, or you’re paying too much for a headhunter who cares more about his own commission than placing the right candidate in the position.

We’ve been successful helping companies hire A-Players quickly – not by taking shortcuts, but by doing the steps they don’t do well. It is at a low fixed price and the company remains in control.

Company does:	Company outsources:
1. Helps build the ideal candidate profile
	2. Job description and ad placement 3. Resume filtering 4. Phone screens
5. 1^st interview
	6. Assessment administration, interpretation and comparison to the ideal candidate profile 7. Deep dive questions for second interview
8. 2^nd Interview 9. Reference Checks 10. Offer
	11. Inform applicants that role is filled
12. Onboarding*

*Some may feel that onboarding doesn’t belong here, but you don’t have a good hire until he is integrated into the team.

The interviewers need to get some training before they interview, but they should do the interviewing. The hiring manager should do the reference checks, because she needs to know the good and the bad before the offer and needs insight into managing the new hire.

Whether you are hiring many quickly or just one periodically, this process will deliver better employees at a cheaper price than other means. We call this the Perfect Hire Blueprint.

Hiring and Team Building with DISC

My “Aha” moment came in about 1995-96. Our 6 person management team sequestered ourselves for a day of “team building” after we took a Myers-Briggs assessment. As we went around the group, many of us were similar “personality types,” but one person stood out as different. That person was the same one who always disagreed with the group, and had his own way of managing. The bulk of the group were ENTPs, and he was an ISTJ. It was then that the facilitator told us it was good that we were not of all the same type – because if we were, we would be blind to the collective weaknesses of the group.

Both DISC and MBTI have their origins in research in the 1920s or 30s, from different researchers, with DISC starting with Marston and MBTI with Jung. Their initial goals were different, but there is some correlation. I will not go into detail here, but this is an approximate relationship:

D=EST/ENJ
I=ESF/ENP
S=ISF/INP
C=IST/INJ

I have found that DISC is more effective in helping you interact with others; it can provide clear guidance for adjusting how you speak to each other, and how to understand another easily to help a working relationship. I have not found an easy way to know someone else’s MBTI profile, but in contrast, what I call RapiDISC is a very easy way to narrow someone down to a quadrant in about 60 seconds.

Knowing one’s DISC style is similar to “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.” Once you know more about that person, you will understand her better and should have more effective interactions.

For hiring and managing a team this is invaluable. Once DISC styles are known, there are fewer misunderstandings because communication is clearer. Also, by knowing one’s natural strengths and weaknesses, one can be put in a position where she will excel and succeed rather than struggle. In Good to Great, Collins says that great companies get the right people in the company and get them in the right seats. DISC and related assessments help you do both.

Hiring Manager: Offer Accepted – But You’re Not Done Yet!

Congratulations, you’ve followed an effective process to get the right candidates into interviews, interviewed well, checked all the data you can find on the candidate, made an offer, and it was accepted. You should feel good about yourself – you are done, right? Wrong. You are not done until the candidate shows up for work and gets through Day 1.

We haven’t had a hot hiring market for a while, but if you make an offer to the perfect candidate, you need to ensure that she will show up. Here’s how to make sure she comes aboard:

1. Make a competitive offer that the candidate will happily accept. It may include an unexpected bonus just to get the candidate excited about the job. Tell her that you fought for more incentives, as a way to motivate her.

2. Now ask – “With this offer, are you motivated to come onboard? Is there anything preventing you from accepting this offer right now and starting here ASAP?” If there is anything other than excitement, dig further. “Are you waiting for other offers?” If yes, ask, “What are you hoping for from the other offer?”

3. Who is making the decision? “Is this decision yours alone? Does anyone else have a say in this decision?” Even if she says no, ask, “What will your spouse think of this decision? Will your spouse be fully supportive?” If there is hesitation, you don’t have a deal yet.

4. If #2 is not a solid answer, walk the candidate through this process:

a. “What will your spouse say?”

b. “Why are you accepting this offer? Is it a better opportunity than your current job or any other opportunity? Be ready to tell your spouse why this job is a better fit. Do you think the reasons are convincing? Why is this transition good for your family?”

c. Is there anyone else who will influence this decision? Walk through b. above again for this person.

5. Now ask if currently employed – “When you give your notice for your current position, what reaction do you expect?”

a. “Will they be happy for you?”

b. “Will they want you to stay more than 2 weeks?” or “Will they be unhappy and walk you to the door?”

c. “Will they counter-offer with, ‘What will it take for you to stay?’” (This question will expose whether you are being used to get a raise at the current position.)

i. “If they do, what will you do?”

ii. “If you decide to stay,

1. do you think your wanting to leave will shake the trust they have in you? If so, do you think that may put a target on your back?”

2. “Will the reasons that you want to leave now change? Will you want to leave only a few months from now when nothing really changes?”

iii. I recommend that you go in and tell them, “I’m giving my notice today. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and this is an opportunity that is great for me. I’ve put a lot of thought into this and my mind is made up.

iv. If they push further, tell them, “There is nothing you can say that will convince me to stay. I am excited for the transition and so is my family. Please don’t try to jump through hoops to keep me. It may be flattering to me, but the basic reasons for leaving will not change.”

1. The candidate is saving them all the work that it would take to counter offer.

a. (By the way, if the old company counter offers, the candidate will look to you to sweeten the deal. Nip that in the bud. That is why you tell them up front that you fought for them and gave them a very good, motivating offer. She is less likely to come back asking for more if she feels you’ve already fought for her.)

2. If she rejected the counter offer, more bad feelings would result. Terms like ungrateful and manipulative may be used.

6. To test the eagerness of the candidate, ask – “Would you like some pre-work that you can do before you arrive to ensure you hit the ground running?”

a. If she answers yes, you should feel pretty good that she will show up.

b. If she answers no, pause and let her fill in the dead air. She’ll either reconsider or answer why she will not have time to look at it before she starts.

c. Either way, this question will give you more comfort depending on the answer.

7. To really seal the deal, send flowers to the house with a note, “Welcome to our family, you’ll make us even better.”

a. If there was any doubt in her mind, her guilt and/or her spouse’s will prevent any reconsideration.

b. This gives the spouse confidence that the new company cares and that the right choice was made.

c. An alternative (or supplement) would be to send some company clothing that can help them envision being part of the team.

And you thought you were done when you gave an offer!

Follow this process, and your star prospects will show up eager to contribute immediately.

Small Business Growth Using Comprehensive Assessments

I’ve been helping small businesses get “unstuck” for the past 10 years. For much of that time I relied on my knowledge and experience to guide these businesses down the right path, and that worked well. But over the last few years, I have become certified in all assessments from TTI Success Insights, a leader in assessments. Earlier this year I was in the first certification training for what is called the Stages of Growth (formerly known as Growth Curve), and have already used this assessment successfully with a number of companies.

Stages of Growth

Today, by utilizing the comprehensive set of research-based objective assessments, I can not only diagnose the true issues that hinder small businesses, but also have certainty about what will get them unstuck and ready for growth. To have sustainable growth you must focus on the people, processes, and profit design.

Hiring is an important piece of this puzzle – if you don’t have great people, it’s hard to grow your company to the place you want to be.

There are many consultants who will focus on one area and say that that will fix all the issues in a company. As they say, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Some consultants tend to focus on only culture or marketing or finance, and they will look at your company through those lenses.

I disagree, because I’ve seen these issues firsthand and have studied extensively how to remedy them. Only a comprehensive objective assessment will identify the true root cause of the issues. I not only administer the assessment, but I also give a detailed debrief of the results to the management team, and help develop the initiatives for the business to reach the next level of growth.

Without an assessment, all you have to rely on is your best guess or gut instinct. That’s why I say, If you’re not assessing, you’re guessing.

Don’t bet your company’s future success on a guess – use the Stages of Growth assessment to determine the true root causes that limit your company from reaching its full potential.

Click here to email Dave Clough

For more on this topic visit mpoweradvisors.com

If You’re Not Assessing…You’re Guessing!

Dimensions of Superior Performance I use assessments for almost everything I do. I use them in hiring, for promotions, to understand others on your team (such as coworkers), and even for diagnosing business issues. They can also be used in determining compatibility in personal relationships, although I only focus on workplace relationships in my business.

Employee Placement

Offers are given to people well before the company knows whether or not the person will succeed in that position. This used to surprise me, but it no longer does: companies hire key employees (or any employee, for that matter) with very little information. I believe there is no reason to be taking this risk, as the company cost of a bad hire is thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands.

Assessments are also important for promotions. We have all heard of the Peter Principle, where an employee is promoted to the level of their incompetence. People are promoted inappropriately all the time. Just because someone is a good individual contributor does not mean that person would make a good manager.

Coworkers

As for understanding coworkers and team building, it’s helpful to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each person on the team. In Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, the office succeeds because they got “the right people on the bus” and got them “in the right seats.” From my experience, very few companies do the former, and fewer still do the latter effectively.

Additionally, coworkers will work better together when they understand the other’s strengths and weaknesses. It is very common for people working together to get angry with one coworker because they don’t understand why that person acts a certain way. By reading a person’s assessment, we can know exactly why the person does what she does.

For instance, you’d want a certain type of person to deal with the finances of a company – I would look for a Compliant Behavior (aka High C). But by the same token, a complaint personality is not someone who would necessarily excel in customer service.

Business Assessment

Lastly, there’s the business assessment. As a small business advisor, I help small business owners and entrepreneurs reach their goals. It has been my experience that the business owner often does not fully understand the issues that he or she is facing.

Often I hear the symptoms of the issues, but rarely do the owners know the root causes. Without getting to the root cause, the issue is never fully solved, and will commonly come back again in the future. I also see times when the owner doesn’t know the real problem because he doesn’t see what happens at the lowest level, day-to-day.

Stop Guessing – Start Assessing!

The above is a long-winded way of saying and justifying that “When you’re not assessing, you’re guessing.”^TM In my experience, guessing rarely pays off. But as they say, “even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes,” and “a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

Most of the time we do a formal assessment, generate a report, and have a comprehensive, detailed analysis. But assessments can also be informal, and done on the fly by educated guessing. I have coined these “RapiDISC” because I use the DISC Behavioral Assessments. You can learn more about how to do a 60-second RapiDISC^TM on this page. This is a good practice engineering that I learned long ago. First, make an educated guess based on experience, and then compare that to the detailed analysis before assuming the detailed answer is correct.

Few business owners run their business with the information needed to make informed decisions. I use fully researched and proven assessments that I have verified firsthand, and I leverage this knowledge to advise my clients on the best course of action. Ultimately it is their decision, and their decisions take on less risk and fewer unintended consequences.

For more on this topic visit mpoweradvisors.com

Hiring and Assessments

If you are like many hiring managers, you feel that hiring can be random. You don’t really know what you’ve got until the employee has been in the position for 6 months.

I know of a company that hired a COO through a headhunter, and they had to let him go after just 9 months. That was at least a $300k mistake, and that’s just the cost in hard dollars. The cost for a committee to interview many candidates (now having to do it all over again) and the opportunity cost of having another employee stretched thin, doing double-duty to fill this role are probably another $300k.

There are many steps you take in hiring your employees. All of these are important steps to take – yet they’re also easily manipulated by applicants.

Resume – stretches the truth and rewritten by a professional
Cover letter – rewritten by a professional
Interview – coached and refined through mock interviews
Reference checks – either over-the-top praise, or just name, rank, and serial number…

Dimensions_of_Superior_Performance

After the process, did you get to know the person who will show up on day 1, or the well coached version, who took his behavior modifying medication that day ?

There has to be a better way, and there is.

You need to add assessments into the mix to make sure your prospective employee will be a good fit for the position and the company. In only about an hour, it’s possible to assess the candidate’s Emotional Intelligence, values, skills, behavior and acumen for the job. These assessments have been proven to meet and exceed OFCC regulations and are non-discriminatory and fully EEOC compliant, giving you comfort with the process. With job benchmarking, we have seen year over year retention rates of 94%, making the hire more of a sure thing than a crapshoot.

Not only are the TTI Assessments good for new hires, they can also be used to evaluate and coach existing management and staff. To learn more visit our Assessments page.

Effective Interview Questions

What was the most interesting interview question you’ve ever been asked?

Why did you find it interesting? Was it effective at identifying you as a good candidate? What do you think was the purpose of the question?

Here are Glassdoor’s Top 10 Oddball Interview Questions for 2015, and the companies that asked them:

“What would you do if you were the one survivor in a plane crash?” – Airbnb
“What’s your favorite 90s jam?” – Squarespace
“If you woke up and had 2,000 unread emails and could only answer 300 of them, how would you choose which ones to answer?” – Dropbox
Who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Batman?” – Stanford University
“If you had a machine that produced $100 for life, what would you be willing to pay for it today?” – Aksia
“What did you have for breakfast?” – Banana Republic
“Describe the color yellow to somebody who’s blind.” – Spirit Airlines
“If you were asked to unload a 747 full of jelly beans, what would you do?” – Bose
“How many people flew out of Chicago last year?” – Redbox
“What’s your favorite Disney Princess?” – Cold Stone Creamery

What is accomplished by asking questions such as these? Does it give insight into the prospective employee? Does it put a company in the right light in the candidate’s eyes?

Many companies don’t understand the full importance of the on-site interview. If CEOs actually considered what is at stake, I believe many would have a better plan for the candidate’s visit.

An interview should:

Sell the value of the company
Qualify the candidate
Communicate the culture of the company
Show the caliber of people the candidate will work with
Convey a typical day of working at the company
Identify if the candidate is a good fit for the company and the position.

One the oddest interview questions I’ve heard is, “What’s the first thing you know?” It was used multiple times in the early 90s by a Regional Manager in Dallas. This question stumped many people. It can be the start of a “stress interview” or it can be an ice breaker, depending on how long the interviewer allows the candidate to struggle.

Does your company have a plan for who asks which interview questions? Is it a well-choreographed endeavor? If it isn’t, your company may not only be missing a great opportunity, but it may also be missing out on hiring the best candidates for the company.

To hire the best workers, the in-person or on-site interview should be 70% interview and 30% selling.

Great candidates, A Players, will not be there to just get the job. A Players want to work with other A Players at a great company. You will not attract A Players with B Players, so put your best and brightest on the interview team. Selling the company is not a sales pitch, but should be done by your A Players talking about why they work there – what keeps your top talent motivated? Your A Players should either be asking behavioral interviewing questions, answering questions, or injecting why they work there. Otherwise, the candidate should be talking.

A great interview question might be, “What did you do to prepare for this interview today?” This uncovers how the candidate prepares for something important (or if she thinks the opportunity is important). This should be asked by only one interviewer. ALL questions should be asked by only one interviewer. This is not only more efficient, but also more effective. Savvy candidates will learn from the first time a question is asked. The second time, she may answer it the way she thinks the company wants it answered, and this will make her look like a better candidate.

Choreographing the on-site visit is very important, and the post-interview team debrief is also vital. The team needs to hear about the responses to key questions from the people who asked the questions.

While the in-person interview is critical to hiring the best people, it is only one piece of the puzzle. A research-based assessment will give much more insight into the candidate. A good assessment, like the one I use (TriMetrix HD), will allow the company to more fully understand if the candidate will be a good fit for the company and the job.

By the way, there is only one correct answer for “What’s the first thing you know?”, and I can almost guarantee that no millennial would get it. Baby boomers are more likely to get it, and even then, it’s likely a small number. The answer is…”Ol’ Jed’s a millionaire.” If you still don’t get it, play the Beverly Hillbillies theme song in your head. When the answer was given, the candidate relaxed a bit.

Have a Pre-Interview Meeting

Some hiring managers think that the interview is supposed to be stressful, so that you can better gauge how the candidate may perform under stress at work. I have to two answers to that:

There shouldn’t be that much stress at work, and
You will not get a true read on the candidate’s natural behavior at work.

The goal of the interviewing process is to create a composite of how the candidate will perform in the job as described. But, the interview is not a natural setting. The interviewee is trying to be who she thinks you want her to be, and the interviewer is “judging.” This “interrogation” is not a comfortable situation for any interaction, whether it is a teenager coming home late, or a candidate interviewing for a job.

To have a better chance of seeing how someone will really behave if hired, I recommend a face-to-face meeting before the formal interview. This is especially important for a job that tends to draw introverts, or people with lower social skills. (I highly recommend a Job Benchmark to identify these traits.)

There are many good reasons to have a pre-interview meeting:

More casual – less stilted
Less stressful for the candidate
Prescreen for any anomalies – strange behavior or appearance
More realistic view of behavior – not under the spotlight
Isolate strange behavior early – don’t bring it into the office
Better in-office interview – fewer unknowns means more comfort
Saves time and resources – don’t schedule if not a fit
The candidate will be more comfortable at the interview

The ideal environment is a coffee shop for several reasons:

Short amount of time – much less than with a meal
Neutral ground – no one has home field advantage
In public – likely won’t make a scene, safer for strangers to meet
Comfort of knowing what to expect – likely been to one before
Low cost – any budget can afford it
Daily routine – may already be going there in the AM
Fits the candidate’s schedule – won’t have to take time off from current job

Remember, this is not a formal interview. It is a casual conversation to get to know the candidate. Don’t bring a prepared list of questions or give a test. Keep it light and topical.

How can I keep the conversation casual?

Start with: How are you? Can I get you a coffee? (Another drink if not coffee?) Need a small bite to eat? I am getting ______. Did you run into any traffic on your way here? The construction/road conditions are… When do you need to leave? What do you think of this weather?

Continue with: Just let the conversation go – don’t steer it. See where the candidate takes it.

End with:Just wanted to get to know you a little bit. We have a process to make sure we hire only very good people. You’ll hear from _____ about the next step. We have some very good candidates, so it may not be immediate. (If good candidate: Are there any times or days we should avoid? Please be patient if you can. I believe you will find the result to be worth the effort. We will go as fast as we can. Please call me if you have any concerns.)

Disclaimer: While it may be casual, don’t cross the line by talking about personal, non-job related topics that may make the candidate less desirable in your mind (for example: relationships, children, extra-curriculars, military activity, criminal record, age, religion, etc.). This can be easy to fall into since it is a casual conversation. If the candidate brings up one of the “out of bounds” topics, make a mental note of it and move on. Don’t keep digging.

Positions where I don’t recommend this meeting:

I don’t think it is as good of an idea to have a pre-interview meeting for a position such as an outside sales person or senior execute who needs to make a great first impression and adapt to any in-person situation. It will be common for those people to be in unknown situations, and it is more than fair to see how they would react to the unknowns.

Hiring Benchmark

How do you know if your top candidate is going to work out?

Will she still be at the company 12 to 18 months from now?
Do you feel hiring is just a shot in the dark, and you need a 90 day trial period?
Is your preferred hiring method to “go with your gut”?

You may be an anomaly, but most people who hired by gut get results as poor as those with a bad process. Data shows that around 50% of new hires fail within 12-18 months. Clearly there is a need for a better way to hire, and the Benchmark process is the solution.

The Benchmark assessment must be the starting point for all hiring. While it’s possible to hire without it, the chance of success is much lower. If you’ve had a bad hire, you know the pain and expense involved to shed that person – not even accounting for the expense and time required in the hiring process, and the opportunity cost of not having the right person. The Benchmark is the standard by which a candidate should be measured.

A Job Benchmark will help determine whether a candidate has the desired qualities necessary to be successful in the position.

With an accurate Benchmark, the job description can be more than just a list of duties. The Benchmark forms the job description and the ad that will be seen by prospective employees. It is the starting point that helps ensure that the right candidate is hired.

To create this Benchmark we need to know why this job is different from other positions in the company. Why is this job needed? What are the responsibilities that are unique to this position? Once these questions are answered, the Benchmark gives an outline of the ideal candidate.

So how do you know if a candidate is right for the position?

After the candidate takes a Behavioral Assessment, it is compared to the standard (the Benchmark) via a Gap Analysis report. Many factors determine if the candidate is the right fit: the cover letter, resume, interviews, references and the online Behavioral Assessment. The assessment is objective, so it cuts through the nervousness – or charisma – that the candidate displays that may affect the interviewer’s perception. The assessment also takes away the unconscious bias of the interviewer.

No matter your hiring process, the Benchmark and the Behavioral Assessment will improve your hiring success rate dramatically. We have found that in over 90% of the cases using this process, new hires stay at least a year.

Remember, If you’re not assessing – you’re guessing

Bride or Groom: What’s Your Project Management Style?

Everyone could be or has been a manager of a project, but some people are more natural PMs than others, and different projects require different skills and behaviors. I recently experienced a stressful situation that was resolved though good project management.

My son had a winter wedding scheduled Saturday, January 23, 2016. The bride had planned every detail for the perfect “destination” wedding: everything from the music for the father/daughter and mother/son dances to the 8 bridesmaids’ hair and makeup appointments; from the hotel rooms to the chair covers. Her wedding day was going to be just like she always imagined it.

But then everything went wrong.

The winter destination wedding wasn’t in a tropical locale, but in northern Virginia. The odds were good that it would go well because the weather is typically moderate at that time, but this particular weekend turned out to be the Blizzard of 2016: the forecast called for 20-30 inches of snow. The contract with the venue called for cancelation of the event if the snow measured over 12 inches.

The Wednesday before the wedding, it was clear that their perfect day was looking less perfect. All the planning in the world could not account for the state of Virginia’s lack of snow preparedness. Tough choices were going to have to be made when faced with no venue, no attendees, and no vendors (photographer, videographer, DJ, etc).

These tough situations call for objective thinking. We needed someone who could separate the emotion of a personal event and months of planning from the reality of the situation at hand, but also had the authority and tact to get a solution. There was really only one person who could do it: the groom.

Luckily the groom had some engineering PM experience and a support network of people he could count on, including one who he knew could help: his father. Both could think objectively, logically, and unemotionally, and communicate tactfully under pressure.

The results were nothing short of memorable. That was the word used most by anyone who could attend. The local news covered the event, and the news segment was picked up nationwide:

The bride had the organizational skills and the vision to plan the perfect wedding, but with so much emotionally invested, she needed someone she could trust – someone who had complementary skills and understood her vision. While postponing the wedding might have been a typical choice, clear thinking and objective problem solving minds made the event happen.

When your company is looking for someone to act as a project manager, you need to consider the project. Does it require someone who does thorough planning and creates a vision for everyone to rally behind, or does the project require quick decisions, actions and objective thinking under pressure to make things happen? Don’t just look for someone with PM experience –look for someone with the right kind of PM experience, values, behaviors and skills. In rare cases, as the one above, you ultimately need both styles for a successful result.

Benchmarking the Project Manager job will identify exactly what is needed for the candidate to be successful in that position. The assessment process will identify the right person for the job and weed out those who only seem to be the right fit and might have been erroneously hired if not for a process that identifies the ideal candidates.

For more on this topic visit mpoweradvisors.com