Monday Quickie - 15 Hiring Tips to Attract the Best Employees in 2020

Growth in hiring is typically a good thing.  Why thank you Captain Obvious.  While growth in hiring may very well be a good thing, successfully navigating the hiring process is an entirely different story.
Successful hiring can make or break the performance of a company.  Unsuccessful hiring on the other hand creates all sorts of fun challenges for folks like you and me.  In fact, Harvard Business Review identifies 80% of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions.
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What does this mean?  First, let’s look at the potential tangible repercussions.

According to Dice, one of the larger online job boards, a poor hiring decision for a candidate earning $100,000 per year could cost, on average, $250,000, and that expense comes right off the bottom line.  That’s scary stuff!  Basically, if the hiring decision you made ends poorly you can expect that mistake to represent 2.5 times the cost of whatever the salary is of the person you are hired.

Rather than fearing the hiring process, or having it work against us, we should approach it with a strategic and open minded process to ensure success.

Want to improve your hiring practices?  Employee (pun intended) these 15 tips:

1. Why Would Someone Pick You/ Your Company? 
No longer is it realistic for employers to have the notion that just because you are in the drivers’ seat administering the interview means you have all the power.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite as the current market is more in favor of the job seeker as they have plenty of options to choose from, you being one of them.  If you want the best of the best you have to be able to speak to WHY people should consider you and your company.  Your story must resonate with your interviewees.
 
2. Character Over Competency
The best leaders use this philosophy – hire people who will bleed for your cause and will make the right decisions even in the darkest of hours.  Competency in most jobs can be taught, character is what the person has developed well before you came around so don’t think you can change it easily, if at all
 
3. Behavioral Based Interviewing
A great tactic while interviewing is to ask people what they would do in certain situations.  This causes people to have to think and adjust in the moment.  You aren’t trying to catch someone doing something wrong here, more or less understand their thought process and how they handle certain tasks or situations
 
4. Know What You Want Before You Interview
All too often I hear people say, “we need to interview some people first to better understand who we are looking for”.  You should never need to interview someone in order to help you understand who or what you are looking for.  If you use this practice most often what it means is you don’t know what you’re doing from a leadership perspective.  Tough love I know but it’s highly important you know what you want and need before you go looking for it during interviews.  Wasting people’s time so you can figure out your direction with hiring isn’t advisable and it’s unprofessional.
 
5. Consult Others
Before you go about the interview process speak with other managers about their experiences and your plans for your hiring process.  The best advice typically comes from those who have been there and done it before that way you can learn from their successes and mistakes
 
6. Make Sure You Know And Understand Your Vision
Somewhat similar to number #1 however this focuses on you and your specific team.  Put yourself in the shoes of the person interviewing and think “Why would I want to work for her/ him?”  “Does this vision excite me?”  “What is my role in the future of this company?”
 
7. Best Foot Forward
A helpful reminder if nothing else, remember when people are interviewing you are witnessing their ideal self, seeing them at their best.  Asking questions which will give you better insight into who they are day-to-day, not just during your interview, are always good ways to get a better glimpse into who they are in a very day setting.
 
8. Tell Them Your Leadership Philosophy
This is especially important if you are hiring the person to join your team.  This is also very different than #6 which talks about the vision for your team or company.  Here you are sharing with your interviewee how you lead and what you believe in.  A great precursor question to this is asking the candidate what type of leadership they like and want in their next career
 
9. Interview Tests
It’s a great practice to test candidates on their abilities on the spot, so long as the test is directly relatable to their core job function.  If you are interviewing a Mechanical Engineer, for example, it is highly suggested you test them on the exact work they would be doing for you (ie Solidworks modeling)
 
10. The Reference Trick
I personally think references are a waste of time.  Why?  Because the people on the other end of the phone are doing nothing but singing the praises of the person you are interviewing.  In over a decade I can name on one hand the number of reference checks I’ve performed which brought about a poor review.  Here’s how to get around it – when you are on the phone with the reference which was provided by your interviewee ask who else the interviewee worked with and then try to phone that person.  This person won’t be prepared for your call and may provide you with more realistic insight into the persons’ work ethic and behaviors.
 
11. Put Yourself In Their Shoes
Interviewing isn’t easy.  In fact it can be downright terrifying for some people.  Try looking beyond the interview.  Just because someone’s interview isn’t a glowing success, or they may seem overly nervous, doesn’t mean they aren’t a good catch.  Just because someone interviews well doesn’t mean they will perform well in the job.
 
12. Job Description = Performance Expectations
It’s time we ditch the HR job descriptions and actually write and talk about what the newly hired employee will be expected to do from a performance perspective.  If you’re hiring for sales, interview your candidates based on the quotas and metrics you’ll have in place.  Ask how they will achieve those goals, what their strategies will be, etc. 
13. Know Your Non-Negotiables
What are you not willing to tolerate?  When I’m in a position of hiring my two non-negotiables are attitude and integrity because both of these are things we have 100% control over.  Knowing that I then ask questions around those two to see how they view my perspective on my non-negotiables.  Asking interviewees their non-negotiables will also give you an idea of where their priorities land
 
14. Challenge Your Own Mindset
One of the most common mistakes leaders make when hiring is they select candidates that remind them of themselves or select candidates that are beneath them skill wise.  Great leaders surround themselves with people who are not only competent but will challenge the leader to be better. 
 
15. Don’t Hire If It Isn’t What You Want
I hired an employee that was most of what I was looking for but through the interview I uncovered some things that were less than great.  Up to this point I had interviewed so many people that I just decided to move forward with this particular candidate and did the whole ‘cross your fingers’ bit in hopes they would work out.  From that experience I can tell you it is always better to not hire when in doubt than hire because you need to fill a spot.
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