Today, you’re going to learn the 10 Steps to Making the Perfect Hire. I don’t care if you’re starting a business, you’ve never had a business or you’ve been doing it for 10 years, you’re going to learn something in one of these 10 steps. It’s taken me 20 years plus to learn these 10 steps, and until I learned all of them, my hiring has never been as good as it’s been since I did. It’s been the combination of all 10 that’s made my hiring exceptional and why my companies have continued to grow.
Determine Who You Need to Hire
This is your list of who you need to put on your team if you’re starting a business. Do you need somebody to do bookkeeping? This doesn’t mean these are full-time positions, but you need somebody to open the doors. Do you need somebody to work in the office?Do you not? Where are you lacking staff?
I’ll tell you where you’re lacking staff…
Rate all your employees right now, from 1 to 10. Everybody who is seven and lower is a person that I would replace if I could. Sevens don’t move the needle. They’re get-by hires.
Determine Your MVP Hire
Who would be your MVP hire?
You need to always be looking for the one person who can move the needle the most. This could be in sales, this could be within your systems, within your management, a programmer, etc. Whatever it may be, you need to know who is the MVP, that one hire that if you would be lucky enough to attract and hire, would move your company further than it is right now.
That’s what I call an MVP hire. I’m always looking for them and I’m always looking to partner with them. A lot of times, I meet them through the interview process.
Create Job Descriptions
Create job descriptions for each one of these. You don’t know who you’re going to hire if you can’t even describe it. You need to create a nice job description, because you can’t post a good ad if you can’t describe what it is you want.
I run an ad for who I’m wanting, and then I always kind of leave a little exit ramp, looking to potentially give an ownership opportunity for someone who is exceptional in this position, or who would be exceptional. This is where I leave three sentences of like if I bumped into a genie and I could hire the perfect person, who would I want? I typically do that in my job descriptions. I leave a little a hook there that could grab an MVP.
Post on Jobs Boards
I post these positions on job boards online. Every industry has job boards that are more effective, but I’ve hired exceptional people on Craig’s List. We’ve hired them on Indeed and others over the years. We’ve used all of them and they all have worked, but you’ll find that your industry typically has one that works better, and you need to find out which that is.
Share the Open Positions Within Your Network
Share the positions you’re looking to hire, specifically the MVP, within your network. As you’re in business longer, share who you’re looking to hire. If you’re in a mastermind group where you have a networking group, share your open positions there. If you’re looking for an MVP, you might want to share this with your network, because they’re far more likely to know a person who would fit the position.
Narrow Down the Candidates
Narrow down the qualified candidates.
I’m telling you to do this because what you’re going to do is you’re just going to start scheduling people for interviews and 50% of the people you interview are going to be bad interviews, and you could tell that by just reading over their application and their job history. There are too many moves. There are a few alarm bells that set off when you read their application.
You want to review these yourself because you want to know if they’re qualified to do what it is you want them to do. If I’m looking for a bookkeeper, for example, and then I start looking through and I don’t see where this person has ever performed major bookkeeping experiences, I’m a little concerned. I want to review resumes and your applications to narrow down to the qualified candidates. I don’t spend time interviewing people that I shouldn’t be interviewing. I have done this before and wasted countless afternoons sitting in front of people that were not qualified and were never going to advance the company.
Schedule Interviews
I like to scheduled interviews back to back because I want people to be waiting in our reception area knowing that they’re all interviewing for the same job. I like to create a little bit of intensity. I like them to show them they’re not the only person that interviewed for the job and it’s easy to kind of compare two people because I’m going from one interview to the next interview. It’s easier for me to see who stood out
Conduct Interviews
A couple of things when I’m doing interviews…
If it involves someone else within my organization that will be affected by this hire, I typically like them to sit in on it. Not a lot of people work directly with me anymore, though I like to be in on high-level interviews. I typically want to have whoever is a partner with me in that area, or maybe who they’re replacing. I just did that recently with the interview with the person they’d be replacing. Because life change, this person is moving on, but she was a great hire, super helpful, and was just critical to our success. I wanted her to be a part of the interview, and she was very instrumental in replacing her position
The other thing is, I’m always pitching in these interviews because I may not get the person the first time around. For whatever reason, they may not have jumped out at me the first time. Maybe I make a hire, and then I have to come back to this person because they’re plan B or plan C for me!
Yes, I conduct interviews and then I stack them in the order of who I want, and sometimes I don’t get the first one for a variety of reasons. They took another job or they ended up staying where they’re at because their employer finds out that they’ve been offered another job and they pony up and I’m not willing to beat it, etc.
.for a variety of reasons, I’d like to conduct all of these interviews together, and then I do the interview when I conduct the interview, I’m always pitching my company because I want them to want to come work for me, because even if I don’t get them the first time they may come back, and this happens why I’m always pitching my company, they may call me a year later and go ahead, I interviewed with you, but for every reason it wasn’t the right time or did whatever. But I’d really love to talk to you further if that position is available. I’ve had this happen. Okay, .when I’m conducting the interviews, I’m always pitching the company, I always want this person to walk away going, I would love to work for that person and. Or that company.
Review
I review the candidates, I review the notes I’ve taken, and I’ve kind of stacked them in order. Typically I may need to come back with a follow-up question. It might be just a short email, sometimes it’s a text. I just want clarity on something that I may have forgotten to ask, but I’m not just going to hire somebody after calling them and following up with a few questions is. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. There are times when I didn’t catch their home address, and then I looked at it and they live too far away.
Now, in my business, that’s been something that I’ve been alarmed with. I feel like if they’re too far away, the second the weather’s bad, they’re probably not going to make it in. That’s just one little example.
Make the Hire
Review all the candidates. I follow up with any questions I want to get clarity. And then what do I do? I make a hire. I don’t spend time thinking about it. Once I’ve narrowed it down, BOOM! I pull the trigger. I make the hire.
It’s taken me these 20 plus years to learn the 10 steps to making the perfect hire because I have made some bad ones in the past, and they can really stunt the growth of your company when you do that.
- Determine who you need critical positions that need to be filled.
- Determine MVP hire, if needed.
- Create a job description for each of these jobs.
- Post these positions on job boards online.
- Share this with maybe within your network of people.
- Review the resumes and applications to narrow down your qualified candidates.
- Schedule the interviews.
- Conduct the Interviews.
- Review the candidates.
- Pull the trigger and make the hire.
