Leadership Coaching | How to hire
This is Clay stairs America’s leadership expert with podcast number 69. How do we hire. So in this podcast we want to talk about the four steps that are involved in bringing people into your organization. As we’ve talked about many times as Clay steers America’s leadership expert I spend a lot of time traveling across the country speaking to organizations managers entrepreneurs and one of the key topics probably the top topic that I that I approach as a speaker is how to get the right people in the right seats. So we talked in our last podcast number 68 about when do I know that it’s time to hire or when. Am I strategically prepared to hire. And now I want to talk about the specific process that we need to go through as business owners to make sure that we are hiring. Well we want to make sure we get the right people in the right seats. So how do we from the very beginning how do we have more confidence in hiring these a level people the A level employees or a level players. So I want to talk in this podcast as Clay stares America’s leadership expert. I want to talk about the very first experience that people will have with us is what we do in each of our companies is the group interview. And as we have done our recruiting either through online or word of mouth or just a sign in the window to let people know that we are hiring the very first thing that we do is people respond to us is we set up a group interview. We do not say on the phone when we talk with them that they are coming to a group interview. Leadership Coaching. You don’t have to do that. You can if you want to let people know. But we have every single week. Wednesday evenings at 5:30 we do our group interview and it is consistent and goes on and on and on and on. Sometimes people show up. There are some times where people don’t show up even though they have told us that day that they would be there. So this group interview as people respond to our recruiting whether they are e-mailing in or calling in the first thing that we do is send them an e-mail saying that we have received their information and what we want to do is now schedule a time for them to come in for the group interview. This is an email it is not a phone call. Leadership Coaching. We want them to respond first of all saying yes I will come. Once they have committed to come then we will do a phone call the day of to confirm that they’re going to be there. But in this e-mail that we’re sending out we simply want them to know that again we have gotten their information and we when the interview is going to be the the location of the interview including a map or including a link to a map and any contact information that you may want to put. One other thing that is very important to have on on the instructions for your group interview is I would say we’re what we do say in each of our e-mails is to bring three things or to do three things. Number one dress to impress.Number two be on time. And number three bring a reference letter. I’m sorry. Or number three bring a resume. Leadership Coaching. These three things are important for you to tell them it is so important for you to make sure that you tell them to do three things. It may be these things three things or you may have other three things that you want to do but it’s so important for you to tell them to do three things. Because from the very beginning you want to know if they are going to do what you ask them to do. There have been many times as we have done our interviews where people first of all people will show up late they have already disqualified themselves because they have proven that they can’t do things on time. I do not want to hire people into my company that can not be on time. So and of course they will have many excuses. There will be traffic. A great one will be car problems there will be I couldn’t get a ride there will be all kinds of excuses but just understand that these excuses are the same excuses that you will be hearing over and over. If you hire this person so again now if they are late sometimes we don’t even let them into the interview. We let them know that there will be another interview next week Wednesday at 5:30 that they can try again. Leadership Coaching. But sometimes we do not let them into the interview. Other times we may let them in but we already know that there is not. They are not an option for us. So also we have had several times. I remember just last month a gal came in to interview was a the group interview went really well out of about five people she stood out from each of the others and was very interested in asking her to come to the next level. But then when it came time to OK do you have your resume with you she said Oh no I don’t. I didn’t get a chance to print the thing off. Can I just send that to you. And of course I’m just looking at her and I’m smiling I’m going. Sure. Just send that to me. But in the back of my head I’m saying you have just disqualified yourself from a job that I was willing to give you simply because she did not do what I asked her to do. And again there will be all kinds of excuses. My printer didn’t work I didn’t have time. I ran out of paper. The electricity went out. But those are the same exact excuses that you will hear later from this employee. If you choose to hire them next of all with having them dress to impress. This is classic. We had a gal show up again a few months back when we were hiring for our insurance company to be an insurance agent and she came to the interview she had a very low cut blouse with a wide open at the chest and had a huge tattoo across her chest along with multiple earrings and so on. And this was for her to be an insurance agent. Now there may be other jobs other positions in other companies where this would be just fine but coming for a an interview for an insurance agent dressed like that did not impress. And so immediately even though she sat through the entire group interview immediately she was disqualified from being a potential hire for us. So the reason why we have again these these three pieces is just to let you know or just to make it very easy for you to call this the interview of first impressions. There will be so many people that will disqualify themselves immediately. And this is why we do the group interview. If you actually took the time to interview each of these people then you’ve probably been in that spot before I know that as Clay stares America’s leadership expert. This is something that I have found to be true in the past. If I have five different people apply I set up five separate interviews which takes up time to do each one of those. Even if the interviews will claim it’s just 15 minutes well that’s still five interviews at 15 minutes each and it takes up too much of your time. Leadership Coaching. So we do a group interview bring everyone together these group interviews are about 30 minutes long. There are specific things that we talk about when every every one comes in. We introduce ourselves. We have a specific script that we walk through and we have a handout that we give everyone but we start out talking about our core values and our mission and vision statement why we are here. The next thing is to go around the circle at everyone introduce themselves and take just a want to let us know where you have been what you’ve been up to you’ve been doing after we’ve done that. Our next step in the group interview is to talk specifically about the job as we talk about the job. We don’t go into great detail but we talk about the job or jobs that we are hiring for. And then we talk about the type of employees that we are looking for at that point. We begin to ask a few questions. We go around the circle again and we ask each person tell us a little bit about the perfect work environment that you would like to work in. This always lends itself to some wonderful answers because they think they are describing this wonderful nirvana of a place for them to work and in the back of your head while you’re listening you’ll you’ll get a really good idea if you are going to be able to provide that wonderful nirvana for them. It was just last month we had a group of young kids they were probably 19 20 may be 21 but each one of them it was hilarious. Leadership Coaching. Each one of them were talking about their perfect environment was a place where they felt really comfortable a place where everybody liked to everybody. A place where everybody was friendly. And it was very comfortable and in the back of my head I’m going. Leadership Coaching. You guys are all describing your home. This is not your home. Leadership Coaching. This is a place where you come to work. And so and one guy even said you know I’d just like to work at a place where. But his smile and all the time kind of like a cartoon. And just immediately you’re going No they will disqualify themselves in the group interview. So again this is the first step of of the four steps of how to hire for a a level employees and this is clay stairs America’s leadership expert with podcast number 69 how to hire.
