Hire hard, manage with ease – hire the right person the first time
It has happened to all of us who manage others. We are overloaded at work and need additional help. After what seems like a hitch, our budget requests are granted and we can go out and find someone to ease the workload. We create a “wish list” job description and send it to a headhunter, internal recruiter, or the classifieds section of the local newspaper.
We always start with the best of intentions. We will only hire someone who meets all of our expectations; we want someone who fits our “wish list” perfectly. After wading through stacks of resumes with misspelled words, obviously inflated skills, and skills that clearly don’t match the position on offer, we switched gears.
Okay, check out the wish list. We will take someone with a bachelor’s degree instead of an MBA. Do we really need five years of experience? maybe someone with 6 months of experience will. After all, we can train almost anyone to meet our needs, can’t we?
After a few weeks, or for those of us with a lot of patience, a few months, we discarded the wish list entirely. “Find me someone, anyone who can do the job,” we plead with our annuiters. And they do.
We interview three to five candidates for the position. Then we make an offer to the best group of candidates and cross our fingers, on both hands.
As an employee relations manager for a Fortune 100 company, I often got calls from managers who said something like this: “I hired this man (or woman) about three months ago. He interviewed well, but he was a disaster. No He can meet any of the labor standards and I want to fire him today. “
After further discussion, I learned that the manager had some doubts about the employee before hiring him, but “was desperate for help. We were overwhelmed by work here.” When asked what managers had done to advise the employee in question, the answer was generally “nothing.”
What many managers don’t understand is that firing an employee cannot be done on a whim. Fire someone who has not received counseling on their performance deficiencies and has not had a chance to improve, and the result may be a lawsuit, a complaint to a state agency that the termination was discriminatory, a complaint to the Equality Commission of Employment Opportunities. (EEOC) that the termination was discriminatory, etc. Forget about the fact that there is no discrimination (in most cases) and the employee just can’t get the job done. Before the ink dries on the completion paperwork, the manager has been called racist, sexist, incompetent, or all of the above; and the company is an insensitive corporate bully.
And after all that, the manager has to start over, looking for someone to fill the position. More time, more money, more training for the new employee.
Get it right the first time
So how do you avoid the nightmare described above? You get it right the first time. Hire the right person for the right job. It’s called “hire hard, manage easily.” If you take the time and energy to hire the right person, even if it takes a lot of effort to identify the candidate who can get the qualification, it will be easy for you to manage and you will not have to repeat the recruitment. process over and over again.
Start with that “wish list”. What exactly do you need? If you are looking for a senior accountant, you probably want someone with substantial experience in addition to formal education. It is not reasonable to expect someone who has just graduated to be able to take on the responsibilities of a senior accounting position. Exactly what skills are needed for the position? If the job requires a lot of written communication, throw out those resumes and cover letters full of grammar and spelling errors. If oral presentations will be required in the position, do not even consider a candidate who appears nervous or inarticulate during an interview.
More than once, a manager confided in him that he sensed something in his “gut” when he was interviewing the candidate. “Something didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t point it out, so I went ahead and hired him.” Listen to your instincts. If something during the interview sounds the alarm bells, listen to the warning.
The interview itself is crucial, but many managers have not been trained to interview. The behavioral interview is an excellent method of learning how a candidate will fit into your company. “Tell me about a problem you had in your last position and how did you solve it?” “Tell me about the worst supervisor you ever had and what made it so difficult to work for him or her.” If the candidate says something like, “Well my last boss expected us to work overtime if we were late and I don’t like working more than 8 hours a day,” this tells you a lot. If the candidate’s way of solving a problem at work was to give it to his supervisor, is he someone who will reduce or increase his workload?
Many employers will only give neutral references to protect yourself legally, so it is difficult to get a lot of information when you call for references. But listen carefully when you call for referrals. And it should be the hiring manager who calls, not your recruiter. You are the one who needs to know what type of employee was in other companies. If the previous manager seems hostile when asked about his former employee, this could be a sign of potential problems down the road.
If the employee is going to work closely with others in his department, it is not a bad idea to have someone else interview him. You don’t want a candidate for a managerial position to interview a potential subordinate; But you can ask another director in your department or one who is closely related to your department to conduct the interview. Or you can ask someone in a higher position (for example, vice president) to interview the candidate. It always helps to have a second opinion.
Once you’ve made the decision to hire a candidate, give that person every opportunity to be successful. From the beginning, let him know what you expect from him. Schedule conferences for the first few weeks to check on your progress; Let him know where you are meeting his expectations and where he falls short. In those areas where an employee is falling short, give constructive criticism, letting the employee know that you want to work with them to be successful.
Despite our best efforts, we can occasionally fall short when it comes to hiring the right person for the job. But putting our energy into identifying the right person will likely result in a successful outcome for us and the new hire.