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ECO101 – Is Your Company In Demand?

In the Davis Household, the start of the NFL Season is always a momentous time for our family. As we’ve been watching HBO’s Hard Knocks (I’m a huge Jets Fan) and reading about the players’ reactions to having the coaches’ critiques of them being aired for everyone to see as well as how hard the coaches push the players to perform, it got me thinking about how this kind of situation applies to businesses that don’t employ professional athletes.

Specifically, a few months ago, in advance of the NFL Draft, there was a situation where a Wide Receiver from Oklahoma State was being interviewed by the Miami Dolphins and a General Manager stepped over the line. While interviews with management are very common before these Teams make their decision to spend millions of dollars, the reason this particular interview received so much press was because the GM asked Mr. Bryant, “Is your mother a prostitute?”

I’m not interested in debating whether or not this was a fair question.

Rather, I’d like to offer the following thoughts for you to ponder as a Business Leader:

One of the common complaints I hear from Business Leaders is that the process of Topgrading is too arduous to implement or, even more common, they question why an A-Player would allow someone to put them through filling out a Career History Form or go through a 4 Hour Interview. They challenge me by saying, “Other companies that want that person won’t ask them to go through all of these steps – won’t we lose the best talent if we ask them to do so much more than our competition?”

My belief is that this a simpler situation than many would make it out to be: it’s Economics 101 where you learn about Supply and Demand. However, it’s not supply and demand from the perspective that these aforementioned Leaders would think [that A-Players are in short supply and thus have high demand]. Rather, it’s whether or not your COMPANY is in demand and the SUPPLY of positions available are limited.

Everyone is aware of those companies that have such a great culture and reputation that they have thousands of people who want to get considered for each role – Companies like Google, Oracle and DELL back in the 90′s, Bazaarvoice here in Austin a couple of years ago.

With the NFL, so many young Athletes want to have a shot at “working” for a professional team that they are more than willing to subject themselves to the Combines where they are poked and prodded and then stripped down to their underwear and asked to sprint and lift weights. They take mental acuity tests (remember Vince Young 3 years ago?). Even in the college ranks, there are young men across the country who pay hundreds of dollars to attend “camps” at major universities where the instruction that they receive is secondary to their dream of getting “noticed”.

The ultimate question I would pose to you is: What are you doing to make your Culture and your Organization one where people people WANT to get in and they’re more than happy to go through an extensive Assessment Process (like Topgrading) with a smile on their face because they know that there’s a brilliant career opportunity waiting for them on the other end if they make it through?

Tags: A-Players, career history, hire better, hiring, Interview, recruit don't absorb, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

07 Sep 10 | Employment, Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comment (1)

Not All Referrals Are Created Equal

At HireBetter, we’re always looking at our processes and results to try to identify trends and figure out better ways to help our clients confidently make great hiring decisions.

One of those trends that we’ve noticed has held true over the past 6 years of business has been the SOURCE of where candidates come from and then who our clients ultimately hire. Here are our findings:

If you have 100 Candidates* that you’re considering, our experience would suggest that:

82-87 will be Direct Applicants [defined as those who see your posting somewhere and send in their resume via email]
12-15 will come from a Headhunter or Recruiting Researcher
1-3 will be Referrals [defined as anyone who you learn about through your network or the network of those you trust]

*Author’s Note: the reason I’ve chosen 100 is because it makes the %’s really easy to calculate. If you have greater or fewer than 100, look at the total % of the pipeline instead of the # of people.

For the FINAL 3 People, we’ve found that it’s very likely the make-up of that pool looks like this:

1 Direct Applicant
1 From a Headhunter
1 Referral

And when you make your Ultimate Hiring Decision – you’re at least TWICE as likely to hire the Referral versus the other 2 candidates.

Granted, there are some obvious reasons why Hiring Managers choose the referrals. Things like the stigma that might be attached to an unemployed direct applicant or the costs associated with an external headhunter that might impact your Department’s P&L. But even with those things stated, I set out to find some more answers as to just WHY a referral is so much more likely to get hired than anyone else for open positions.

To help answer this question, I turned to Thom Singer. Thom’s a well-known Author and Speaker on Professional Networking and Personal Brands and he had this to say:

[JDavis] What’s the significance in your mind of earning that referral introduction that gets you an interview?

[TSinger] Hiring Mangaers are human beings – no matter how many pre-screening tests they can use, how much training they’ve had on the psychology of hiring. At the end of the day people are drawn to do business with people they know, like and trust. When someone they know, like and trust strongly encourages them to meet with someone it’s going to get preference because ultimately what a Hiring Manager is trying to do is eliminate people so that they can have a “short list”. Being a referral from someone that the hiring manager likes and trusts, means you’re going to have a much higher likelihood of landing on the short list. If that Hiring Manager knows somebody, likes somebody – that candidate gets to ride on the coattails of those human emotions and can benefit from their referee’s reputation.

One other thought here: I’ve said for years people will do biz with people they know, like and trust (this isn’t an original thought – it’s widely accepted). The problem is that in the last two years, the definition of the word “know” has changed. Because of the mass adoption of social media, we all think we “know” everyone else. This used to be a process [getting to know someone] that took years to develop. It’s served to make the act of “know” less important but makes LIKE and TRUST significantly more important. Just knowing “Of” someone doesn’t necessarily lead to like and trust. Today, referrals need to come from someone that the referee TRULY likes and trusts.

[JDavis] What are the dangers of being a referral if the person who is referring you just KNOWS you, and you’re not SURE that they LIKE and TRUST you?

[TSinger] Asking a stranger or an acquaintance to introdce you to their company is just slightly better than picking up an employee directory and calling through it. The risks are that (a) the referral might not happen [as the candidate you may think you got referred but it didn't happen] or (b) the referee could give a “lip service” referral that indicates that they don’t really support you or won’t stand up for you. The power of a REAL referral is that the person will stand up for you and can really make a strong case for why the hiring manager should hire that person.

If you’re a Hiring Manager and you receive a referral from someone, what should you look for in that referral to know it’s “real”

1. How do you know this person? (look for the fact that they really KNOW the person, not just know “of” them. Get to the bottom of the story by asking, “Do you just follow them on Twitter?” or do they actually use statements like, “I worked with them for three years and they’re a rock star“.

2. What does their work product look like? Do they have direct knowledge? How do they know them related to the job that you’re referring them for?

It gets back again to that danger I referenced in the first section of “just because you follow them on twitter or you’re connected on facebook, that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”

Ultimately, it’s got to be MORE THAN “Ambient Awareness”. As a Hiring Manager your goal is to be working with a stronger foundation of knowledge versus just a marketing brochure disguised as a resume.

While the tools we use to communicate over the past 2 decades have changed, how we’re wired as humans to make decisions is still the same. How people speak about others (yourself included) and your personal brand is just as important as it has ever been.

[JDavis] Why should an interviewer or hiring manager CARE about the size of someone’s network and influence or reputation?

[TSinger] As the world has gotten more digital and electronic, the ABILITY to connect with someone and to get others to stand up and say, “I like them, I trust them” is exponentially more valuable than in previous years. This ability has become “capital” – because people just don’t do it any more (or more importantly, do it well). There’s also so much more noise. When you’ve got people who stand up and say, “I REALLY KNOW John Doe – then you’ve got a winner.” When you see that someone has real human connections that care about them, it’s more valuable because it is genuine and says people care.

But there’s more to it than just being liked! Just because someone has a lot of visibility and people like them doesn’t mean they’re good at a job. But it’s my opinion that if you have two people whose ability is equal but one of those people has great interpersonal skills and a strong network of who will stand up for them, the tie MUST go to that person because it says that they are much more well-rounded.

Bottom Line: It’s not just about the network. You still have to be good. Being good at what you do is your “admission ticket”. Too many Professionals today subscribe to what I like to call the Kevin Costner Business Model: if you build it they will come. What I tell people is, “If you’re the best kept secret in your industry, you lose”. When it comes down to a hiring decision, with all things being equal, a Hiring Manager is going with the person who has the reputation.

Thom Singer is a Professional Speaker, Consultant and the Award-Winning Author of seven books on the power of networking and business relationships. He has trained thousands of people on the art of creating a personal and professional brand. Thom’s Blog, Some Assembly Required, is widely considered one of the top resources on or off-line for Professionals and Job Seekers and his Networking Quotient Test was created to help assess and then provide the action steps needed to make networking a priority. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Tags: A-Players, hire better, hiring manager, Job Search, proactive recruiting, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, social networking, talent acquisition, thom singer, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, unemployment, using social networking tools to get a job

02 Sep 10 | Networking, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (0)

You’re Rescuing Others and It’s Killing Your Interviews

In observing an interview on-site with a client earlier this month I recognized a disturbing trend across everyone in the organization that, upon further research, is happening in nearly every company and in every interview. When asking someone a tough question, instead of waiting for a response, the interviewer is rescuing them.

We’ve modeled our interview process on the best practices of Topgrading® and they all start with:

In your most recent role, what was the situation when you accepted the position with respect to talent, resources, systems and efficiency?
What were your top 2 or 3 responsibilities?
What were your top 1 or 2 accomplishments?
What are the 2 mistakes that you made in the role or what would you do differently if you were starting that role again today?

What we’ve witnessed is that nearly everyone is more than willing to answer the first three questions – and when asked in this order, they feel more and more confident as you give them permission “brag” about themselves. However, when you get to the 4th question, a significant number of candidates (whether for fear of appearing weak or not wanting to have to talk about the tough parts) will respond with, “You know, I can’t think of anything.”

Because interviews are often scheduled for 30 or 60 minutes at most companies, hiring managers and interviewers often feel like there’s a ticking clock that doesn’t allow them to stop and wait and (this is the hard part) endure the awkwardness of silence. Yet throughout history, the top business leaders are in agreement that our greatest learning opportunities happen when we are making mistakes – not when things are going really well.

To learn more about the skill of the skill of purposely allowing candidates to struggle, I interviewed Christopher Mursau, the Vice President of Smart & Associates in Chicago, IL.

JDavis: What’s the benefit of letting someone struggle through a tough question?

CMursau: It sets the stage early on that you’re going to ask the questions that allow them to give positives but you also need to know about the negatives and you’re not going to let them off the hook. It’s important that they understand that when you ask them a question they need to answer it honestly and if they need some time to think – that’s ok!

JDavis: How have you learned to be patient during these difficult stretches of an interview?

CMursau: It depends on where we are in an interview – if I’m talking about someone’s career when they were just coming out of college and they can’t think of a mistake that they made (in a position from 20 years ago) I’ll often use the opportunity to let it slide to get to know them a little better. I’m also starting to “train” them about what’s coming up in future questioning – that’s why it’s called a CIDS Interview (Author’s Note: CIDS = Comprehensive, In-Depth, Structured)

There’s a difference between pushing and building rapport. Ultimately, I want the candidate to give me their best and honest answers about their most recent positions. If they’ve had 5 jobs in their career, I might let them off the hook on the 1st one but the next 4 jobs (leading up to the present day) I’m going to be more patient and more insistent on them answering the tough questions. Because I’ll ask the questions in the format you mentioned above about every position, the person I’m interviewing realizes quickly that it’s going to be awkward for them and unacceptable to me when they say, “I don’t remember” twice in a row about the same difficult question.

JDavis: How much significance do you give to the questions around admitting weakness or owning up to mistakes?

CMursau: Incredibly significant – it’s possibly the earliest warning sign for me of an interview that won’t end well. When someone is unwilling to talk about weaknesses or mistakes, it’s been my experience that they won’t respond to constructive criticism, they’ll be hard to coach and more often than not they’ll be prone to blaming others when something goes wrong. When someone has shallow insights into their strengths and weaknesses I seldom advise a company to hire that person.

JDavis: What counsel would you give to an interviewer to help them deal with the candidate who can’t find it within themselves to share the mistakes that they made?

CMursau: Give the candidate opportunities. Ask the question around the mistakes about 3 straight jobs (if they struggle twice in a row, try asking it in a slightly different way the 3rd time). Employ the “pregnant pause”. If, after the third time they can’t think of anything, it’s likely they have low self-awareness. When this is present, I’ve found it to be a leading indicator of a lot of other red flags and the likelihood of that person being a fit for your company is very, very low. I’d strongly encourage someone to end the interview if the candidate shows lack of awareness about 3 consecutive roles in their career.

Chris completed his undergraduate degree in psychology at The University of Wisconsin, and his MBA at St. Thomas University. He joined Smart & Associates, Inc. in 2001 and provides the full range of professional services.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, chris mursau, hire better, Interview, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

24 Aug 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (4)

I Can Smell You From A Mile Away

I had the good fortune of hearing Cameron Herold today while I am in Boston for EO’s Entrepreneurial Masters’ Program. His topic was “Leadership at 100 MPH” and a lot of the focus was on hiring with predictability and not making mistakes that really could really hurt your company.

For 2010 we’re proud to sponsor Cameron because we agree with what he teaches to Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders around the world. While I’ve heard him speak a number of times I always get a few new things each time I hear him. Here’s some quick thoughts from today that hopefully you can benefit from:

Culture’s hard to build and easy to destroy. One of the fastest ways to destroy it is to not fire people who clearly can’t do the job they’re in. Not only that, you’re doing that “problem” employee a disservice by asking them to live on pins and needles while you’re “too chicken” to let them go.
When you’re hiring someone new onto a team, don’t ever let your team’s “average performance” drop. More pointedly: if you’ve got 6 people on your marketing team and you’re about to hire a 7th, make sure that the person you’re hiring is at least more qualified and better than 3 or more of the existing team members to keep raising the bar.
Ensure that you’re very clear on what your needs are when hiring and then make sure you can “smell the right person from a mile away”. Cameron used the example of going duck hunting with his grandfather as a child. Early in the morning, as the sun was coming up, small V’s of ducks would appear on the horizon and even as they were just specs a mile away Cameron’s grandfather would be able to tell whether or not they were the right ducks for them. “Nope, put your gun down” he’d say. When pressed to explain why he would clearly describe wingspan, formation of the flock and altitude. The business application isn’t a hard jump to make: it’s easy to get excited when you’re in the thrill of the hunt but you have to be very clear about what you’re hunting.
Staying with the aforementioned parable, when Cameron was out duck hunting they’d always bring decoys to go by their blind. To an amateur, a decoy is a decoy. However, to the experienced sportsman, the use of decoys will make or break your time on the water. Choose the right decoys with the proper placement and you’ll have plenty of opportunities but choose the wrong one and you won’t attract a single target to shoot at. Business application: if you walk outside your office and look at the front door and you’re not impressed with the look, what’s an A-Player going to think? If your reception area is unattractive and your office sounds like a funeral home, how’s that 28 year-old superstar going to feel when they show up to learn more about your company culture? The morale of the story: if you’re not using the right bait, you’re going to end up eating really nasty fish or not eating at all.
Are all of your Hiring Managers fully aware of the background that you’re looking for in team members 2 years from now? If you’re hiring for the people that your company needs TODAY, and with the scorecards of the performance targets they need to hit this month, you’re likely not attracting the A-Players who will move your company forward. Instead, they’ll be the people who will keep your company stable. Are your Hiring Managers guardians of your culture? Are they clearly aware of your company goals?
Tread carefully during negotiations with top performers and try to avoid including profit sharing as part of their compensation plans. When you’re growing like crazy, profit-sharing can be a great bonus for people for their work but if your key players rely on profit-sharing bonuses to pay their bills and maintain their lifestyle they’ll bail as soon as the company hits any rough spots – and that’s when you’re going to need them the most. Build compensation packages that key team members feel is fair for the work that they’re doing and then have any profit-sharing programs be the cherry on top.

And lastly, Cameron shared the matrix of Jack Welch at GE used when evaluating his teams. Nicknamed “Neutron Jack” for his often rash and emotionally-devoid decisions, he was also widely regarded as one of their very best evaluators and developers of talent. In fact, Jack was the first CEO to implement executive-level Topgrading. This simple 4square was his way of slotting and categorizing talent that he already had on his team. I found it both really easy to understand/remember while also profound.

Here’s the image:

The Definitions:

F = FIRE THEM. NOW.
C = COACH THEM – THERE’S STILL A CHANCE.
H = HANDCUFF THEM. MAKE SURE THEY”RE LOCKED UP FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, Brad Smart, hire better, hiring, hiring manager, Interview, jack welch, job description, recruit don't absorb, Retention, Scorecard, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

25 Jun 10 | Compensation, Employment, Interviewing, Recruiting, Retention, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (2)

The 5 Best Ways to Judge People

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to evaluating talent and Topgrading is about the best way that I’ve ever seen to do it. It’s objective, gives you a structure to follow and makes it easy to judge prospective employees without a lot of emotion.

To keep up with the latest and greatest tips for Topgrading better, I’ve subscribed to Brad’s newsletter. You can sign up here.

His most recent newsletter was fantastic – it was titled “The 5 Best Ways to Judge People”. The most significant parts of that newsletter can be seen below. Enjoy!

When people are just learning Topgrading, it’s easiest to use the A, B, and C categories, to show the dramatic differences. Topgrading professionals are able accurately put people in the right categories. In doing this they actually have three slightly different categories – A Player, A Potential, and Non-A. We define A player as someone in the top 10% of talent for the pay, in your location, in the industry, and reporting to you.

Following are 5 of the best ways I know of to judge people in a fair, objective, legally defensible way:

1. How A, B, and C players differ on key competencies. The following chart is a bit simplistic because not all A players are that great on all competencies and not all C players are that bad on all the competencies. Indeed, in real life C players usually are A players on some competencies.

2. Look for patterns of success. The “magic” of Topgrading comes from understanding, bottom line, how successful a person was in job 1, job 2, job 3, etc., with the greatest weight given to the most recent jobs.

Last year I interviewed a smooth talking executive who had clearly been a superstar in the industry, but the guy had not worked hard for years. He had peaked years ago, was on a decline and frankly the pattern showed he was “over the hill,” someone who had lost his energy, drive, resourcefulness, and passion.

3. Recruit a replacement. This really is the best way to see if your employee is truly among the top 10% of talent available.

After you have argued with your employee, complained about unsatisfactory performance, and heard 1,000 excuses, the simplest way to see if there are better people is to actively recruit them. This can be done secretly, but go through all the Topgrading hiring steps including talking with former bosses.

Over the years I’ve heard it hundreds of times: “It became very easy to replace my employee after going through the Topgrading hiring steps, because I became absolutely certain my excuse-making employee was a C player, and I had three A players very willing to join me at exactly the same salary as my C player.”

4. Never stop building your recruitment networks. As a Topgrader, you know the best way to recruit is by staying in touch with 40 A players you’ve worked with and also stay in touch with 20 “connectors,” people who know a lot of A players.

But in addition to using your networks to recruit, staying in touch helps you figure out if your team consists of A, B, or C players. As you chat from time to time with A players you’ve worked with in the past you hear about their accomplishments, what they pay people, the standards they set … and when you share your frustrations with a certain employee, your network will give you feedback that your expectations are too high or too low.

5. Assess employees using Topgrading methods. You might already know that my first consulting engagement with General Electric was to improve their success promoting people. They improved from 25% to well over 90% success, and the internal assessment methods are almost identical to Topgrading hiring methods. Two trained interviewers conduct the tandem Topgrading interview and instead of talking with outside references (for hiring) they talk with bosses, peers, and subordinates in the company.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, Brad Smart, career history, chris mursau, Fame, Family, Fortune, Fun, hire better, hiring, Interview, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, smarttopgrading, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, TORC, virtual bench

01 Apr 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (7)

Only the Employed Need Apply (Especially in Sales)

I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a while thinking that its efficacy would get better and better as the economy and job market failed to recover at the pace that the economists thought (hoped) it would. It looks like my hunch was right.

Nine months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article called “Only the Employed Need Apply“. The premise of the article was that many employers were only interested in talking to people who were already employed – even if the candidate who had applied had lost their job even after performing at a high level.

Bobby Fitzgerald, a partner in five restaurants in three states, says these days he gets two dozen or more unsolicited résumés each day at one of his Phoenix restaurants, the White Chocolate Grill. But Mr. Fitzgerald says his top candidates, for jobs ranging from servers to management, usually are people who are employed elsewhere. He currently has 50 openings across his five restaurants and has told recruiters to bring in only people who are working.

When you consider that in March 2010 our unemployment rate is still on the precipice of 10% and the average time that someone is unemployed is still over 1/2 of a year, it would appear that Business Leaders like Bobby Fitzgerald aren’t alone.

At Hire Better, we’ve seen a significant up-tick in the number of clients who want us to assist them in hiring salespeople. For those salespeople who we see as applicants, the statistics are NOT in their favor if they’re applying for a role in which Hire Better is involved. Here’s what we’ve found:

In a typical hiring cycle, assuming that we have 100 people to consider for a role:

82-85 will be Direct Applicants
12-15 will be People who are “headhunted” or from our Network
1-3 will be Referrals from internal employees at the client company

When we get down to the Top Three Finalists, they’ll look like this:

1 Direct Applicant
1 “headhunted” Candidate
1 Referral

And when the finalist is hired: The chance of the Direct Applicant goes DOWN exponentially as the salary and responsibility goes UP.

For a Sales role, the prospects of a Direct Applicant are even WORSE. The same statistics will apply to the Candidate pool as before but I have to expand the pool to 5 people when you look for Finalists:

1 is a Direct Applicant
3 are “headhunted”
1 is a Referral

And when this is the case, the Referral has more than a 50% chance of getting hired and the Direct Applicant has less than a 10% chance. In the case of sales candidates – I believe these stats are just about right. And they’re justifiable! If you’re considering hiring an unemployed salesperson or sales manager, you should be asking yourself “Why would a good salesperson be unemployed?”

Dave Kurlan, who I haven’t mentioned in quite awhile, recently shared his findings on how long it takes to get an ROI on a salesperson. His bold mathematical formula looks like this:

If you have a 12 month sales cycle and an 8 month learning curve, it will take nearly 2 years to get your new salesperson producing consistently. In that 2 years, maybe you’ll pay out close to $150,000 in subsidies.

Using your average margin, how much revenue must be gemerated to offset that subsidy?

How much revenue must be generated to produce a satisfactory ROI?

How long must the salesperson stick around in order to produce that ROI?

To bring it all back together, if a prospective sales candidate (who, for the sake of this blog post is unemployed) has found him/herself in a new sales role every 2-3 years, what are the odds that anyone who is hiring them is going to experience a positive ROI?

When we look at candidates through this lens we find it’s a lot easier to not find ourselves getting “sold” during an interview by someone who has all kinds of great excuses for why “things just didn’t work out” at that last job they were in…

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, bad hires, Baseline Selling, challenges of hiring salespeople, Dave Kurlan, hire better, hiring, hiring manager, Interview, Kurlan, mediocre salespeople, Objective Management Group, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, recruiting salespeople, Salespeople, talent acquisition, unemployment, unemployment rate, virtual bench

10 Mar 10 | Compensation, Employment, Interviewing, Networking, Retention | Read on | Comment (1)

You Weren’t Born With Those Opinions

Doing a quick search in Google for “common interview questions and answers” will yield you 25,100,000 results.

I’m not sure what’s more surprising: the results or the questions that people typically ask in an interview?!

A few years ago, I had the unique opportunity to join an organization called EO. One of the first things they require you to do upon joining is go through a full day of “Forum Training” in which you get interested to a bunch of fellow Entrepreneurs and you also learn how to no longer offer opinions or advice. It really messes with your head – even today, after 5 years of practicing, I still find myself struggling to avoid hearing a challenge a fellow member is having and not offer feedback based on my opinions. As a society it’s present in our lives from the moment we can crawl and reach out for things like power outlets, hot stoves, etc. ”Don’t touch that!” we yell as parents. Yet, as our children get older and ask, “Why not, Daddy?” it’s sometimes hard to justify why we told them not to do something.

Instead of Advice or Opinions, EO encourages you to abide by something called “Gestalt Protocol“. A quick review of Wikipedia will tell you that Gestalt Therapy:

…focuses more on process (what is happening) than content (what is being discussed). The emphasis is on what is being done, thought and felt at the moment rather than on what was, might be, could be, or should be.

Gestalt therapy is a method of awareness, by which perceiving, feeling, and acting are understood to be separate from interpreting, explaining and judging using old attitudes. This distinction between direct experience and indirect or secondary interpretation is developed in the process of therapy.

Put more simply, by sharing my experiences and how I reacted to a situation that previously happened to me is much more valuable to a colleague than what I would do if I were in their shoes at that moment. In other words: opinions are worthless.

Mary Schmich wrote an OpEd piece in the mid-90′s titled “Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted On The Young”. In that was a very appropriate quote:

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

To bring this idea back to the focus of this blog, how to help you HIRE BETTER, I’d offer the following random questions from that Google Search of 25,100,000 results:

What’s your biggest weakness?
What motivates you to do a good job?
How are you when you’re working under pressure?
Are you a team player?
How long would you expect to work for us if hired?

Can you guess the common theme in every one of those questions?

The answer: EVERY ONE OF THEM CAN BE ANSWERED WITH AN OPINION

One of the ways that we’ve made our process so consistent and effective is that we don’t allow people to share their opinions in interviews. Opinions in an interview are, simply, worthless. As a hiring manager you’ll find that you’ll have a LOT more success if you are asking questions that require someone to share with you how they behaved in a situation. We actually use a lot of the questions from the book Topgrading to assist in our evaluation of talent. Here are some examples:

What are a couple of the best and worst decisions you have made in the past year?
Describe a situation or two in which the pressures to compromise your integrity were the strongest you have ever felt.
What are examples of circumstances in which you were expected to do a certain thing and, on your own, went beyond the call of duty?
Describe a complex challenge you have had coordinating a project.
When was the last time you missed a significant deadline?

Upon review, what do all of these questions have in common?

They require the candidate to answer based on their experiences.

The Bottom Line: if you’re asking questions in an interview that allow for someone to offer their opinion, there’s a high likelihood that they’ve been to a lot of the 25,100,000 websites that Google returns when you go hunting for common interview questions and how to answer them so you sound like a superstar. But for job-seekers, there isn’t a single website they can go to that will give them the answer to a question that requires them to share their past experiences.

While there are a lot of people who will argue that past experience is NOT the greatest indicator of future success, you, as a hiring manager, often have the choice of either relying on those past experiences or listening to someone’s rehearsed answers and opinions instead.

Tags: A-Players, advice, Advice is a form of nostalgia, behavioral-based, Brad Smart, career history, chris mursau, EO, hire better, hiring manager, Interview, Scorecard, smarttopgrading, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

06 Jan 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (6)

When a C-Player is Better Than an A-Player

Today’s blog post comes courtesy of Brad Smart, the author of Topgrading. I remember reading his post in September of 2009 and thinking how powerful it was. When going through my list of topics for what made the most sense to blog about this week I realized that this was as timely and quite a bit more profound than anything I had come up with. He and Chris Mursau, the Vice President of Smart & Associates, write a great blog that you should definitely read on a regular basis.

I’ve taken the liberty of shortening the article down to apply more to a Hiring Manager than a job seeker so that you’re aware of the kinds of challenges that an A-Player might be having in clearly articulating how and why they’re exceptional.

A players are remarkably … um … inexperienced at job hunting, and they are remarkably inept at it.

C players, however, are nudged out of jobs and companies and they become masters at getting the next job. C players also become masters at imitating A players. They’ve read many books that teach them how to make their resumes look better and how to answer interview questions.

In this economic downturn thousands of companies have folded and hundreds of thousands of not just under-performers but high performers, A players, are out looking for jobs. The unemployed are from every industry and there are quite a few super sharp people out looking for work – sometimes for the first time in their career.

Here’s the problem: C players become masters at imitating A players; their resumes are full of hype and conceal negatives, and their interviewing behavior is well-rehearsed. So on the surface C players look like A players. And the poor A player who is looking for a job doesn’t know how to convey – “Hey, my resume is truthful and so is everything I say in interviews.”

Throughout their careers, A players needing a job have simply gone to their network and asked for connections to hiring managers. That historically has been a very productive method. “Birds of a feather …” and when A players contact their networks and say a super sharp A player they know is available … hey, job offers pop up.

Rewrite your resume, tooting your horn. Keep it to 2 pages and list ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND SUCCESSES. I’ve looked at hundreds of resumes since the economic slide and I see A players being TOO HUMBLE. Don’t include much about responsibilities and don’t state your career objective (save that for the cover letter). Don’t puff yourself up – stick to the facts. But make it clear when YOU accomplished something and not just the team, of which you were a member.
Rewrite your cover letter. Cover letters are usually boring and canned. Speak from the heart, say what you’re looking for, but here is the key…
Make it clear that your bosses in the past decade would give you rave reviews. If you have received overall performance ratings that are tops, say so. Humble A players rarely do this – too bad because C players don’t do it for a different reason (it ain’t true that bosses gave them top ratings!).
Offer to arrange personal reference calls with your former bosses (and subordinates and peers, too). Only A players CAN make such an offer and actually follow through, but again they are too humble. In the past their network got them a job and they knew that others were singing their praises, so they were simply their usual understated self. In this economy if you won Olympic gold metals, you’d better display them if you want to get on the team. It frankly impresses the heck out of recruiters and hiring managers to read and hear that your former bosses would praise you and that YOU do the work of arranging the phone calls.
Don’t accept low pay. In the past few months I’ve seen some companies take advantage of people they are recruiting and hiring, knowing that even A players are desperate. Trouble is, when the economy improves, A players who KNEW they were worth more than what they were paid, leave. Companies you would want to work for won’t try to cheat you in the short term.

Brad writes that he’s interviewed more than 6,500 people over the years as his basis point for the credibility of his thoughts. I’d make the argument that I’ve seen more than 100,000 resumes in my career and maybe 0.1% of them were well written. Takeaway value = far too many hiring managers who made snap decisions about candidates based on just a resume even though resumes have a high likelihood of not telling anywhere close to the whole story about someone.

Tags: A-Players, Brad Smart, C-Players, chris mursau, hire better, hiring, hiring manager, Interview, job postings, resume, smarttopgrading, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, TORC, unemployment, unemployment rate

10 Dec 09 | Employment, Interviewing, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (2)

More Thoughts on Incentive Pay

Continuing with the theme of evaluating the behaviors of Major League Baseball Teams and trying to tie their contracts, incentives, etc into those of a business, I thought it would be beneficial to look at an interesting article that was just published called, “How One Cy Young Vote Could Be Worth $21 Million“.

Written by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Mr. Goold pulled back the curtain on the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) by suggesting that they were politically motivated (or de-motivated) when casting their votes for this (and previous) Cy Young award winners.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of Steven Levitt (Author of Freakonomics). In his blog that he writes for the New York Times entitled “The Hidden Side of Everything” he said:

Most people, given the opportunity, would like to have a say in what other people earn. If someone is nice to me, throw a little extra Christmas bonus their way. If they are rude and surly, how about a 3 percent pay cut?

So I find it interesting that the Baseball Writers of America (BBWAA) recently approved a rule which says that any player who has an incentive clause based on an award voted by the BBWAA (e.g., the Cy Young award) will not be eligible to win that award. The proximate cause of this decision is Curt Schilling’s contract, which pays him $1 million if he gets even a single third place vote for the Cy Young. When he joked about paying off a writer to throw him a vote, that was the last straw.

I understand that the politics of voting for the Cy Young award may not make all that much sense to you if you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up so I’ll get to my point. Topgrading has long suggested a Scorecard by which you can measure the performance of an employee using statistics, accountabilities and accomplishments. This is something that baseball has been doing for over a decade. Granted, it’s a lot easier to measure OPS (On Base Average Plus Slugging Percentage), ERA (Earned Run Average), WHIP (Walks & Hits per Inning Pitched) or VORP (Value over a Replacement Player) than whether an HR Manager was able to improve the coaching skills of middle management, but the idea is the same.

For a baseball player, when millions of dollars are at stake, would you rather have someone demand $10 million per year in guaranteed pay with no performance incentives (hint: the sales guy who wants a base of $150k) or would you be more inclined to sign the player who said, “Pay me less than the market but if I perform, you’re going to need to back a bank truck up to my house”? As a business owner, I’m MUCH more inclined to risk the chance of paying a lot more in the long run to get stellar performance because, if the employee performs at a level a lot higher than what I anticipated, our company will be better for it.

Here are some additional thoughts from Derrick Goold on Adam Wainwright, the Runner-Up for the 2009 Cy Young Award in the National League:

Wainwright’s deal is packed with a two-year option for 2012 and 2013. Both years are triggered at the same time and the base value set for them is $21 million. Wainwright’s two-year option vests like [Matt] Cain’s [a pitcher with the San Francisco Giants]. If Wainwright finishes the 2011 season healthy — i.e., not on the disabled list with an arm injury — then the option vests if he has pitched a total of 400 innings in the previous two years or finished in the top five of Cy Young voting in the previous two seasons.

Consider that for a moment in light of what happened Thursday [the voting for the NL Cy Young].

If Wainwright finishes in the top five of the award in either the 2010 or 2011 season and he finishes the 2011 season healthy, a $21-million option vests for him and the Cardinals. We saw yesterday two voters make two votes that put two pitchers in the top five. That was it. One vote and a healthy arm could equal $21 million.

While I can see the point of Mr. Goold, I’d also argue that paying someone like Adam Wainwright, if he can pitch 400+ innings in the two years leading up to a contract extension and he’s getting votes for the Cy Young, is a VALUE at $21mm. He’ll be about 30 years old (the middle of a Pitcher’s Prime), he’ll have shown stability, he’ll be leading the pitching staff and he’ll have thrown well enough to have earned some recognition.

CEO’s who find themselves worried about Performance-based and Incentive Pay are only worried because they’re incentivizing the wrong things. If you can get your incentives truly aligned with moving your organization in the right direction – they make all the sense in the world.

Tags: A-Players, baseball, chris mursau, cy young, hire better, Incentive-based pay, incentives, incentivizing salespeople, recruit don't absorb, st. louis cardinals, talent acquisition

01 Dec 09 | Compensation, Recruiting, Retention | Read on | Comments (0)

Team Motivation When You Need It Most

It’s that time again: I dug up an old gem from Dave Kurlan as I was working on building the incentives for our Executive Team at Hire Better.

Earlier this year, Dave shared his opinions on the 5 Steps To Motivation. We Tweeted just this past week about ensuring that you’re worrying less about Motivation as a Leader and more about De-Motivating your employees.

Below are some of Dave’s thoughts. Of note: he suggests that various people react to these in different ways. I found that doing a Communication Builder with my Sr. Team and Executive Assistant was really valuable (thanks to the suggestion of my Mentor Lois Melbourne). Knowing how each of them wants to receive information and how they want to be Praised/Critiqued was really valuable but I still have found that the #1 item on his list is the most valuable. I’ll only (personally) use #2-5 as the situation gets more dire.

“I believe that motivation is very misunderstood. You can’t motivate by being a cheerleader, nor can you motivate by reciting somebody else’s inspirational quotes. Motivation comes from within and you must find out what your people’s internal motivators are. Why are they doing this thing called selling?

The other thing that’s important to know is that everyone reacts differently to motivation and motivation takes many forms. For instance, perhaps you have some people who respond to one of these methods when trying to get them to perform:”

Challenge them (I have a challenge for you…do you think you’re up to it?)
Feign that you’ve lost faith in them (Tell them that you don’t think they can do it)
Encourage them (I just know you can do this!)
Demand that they perform (You are required to do this)
Ultimatums (If you don’t do this you’ll be out of a job)

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, Baseline Selling, challenge, Dave Kurlan, demand, encourage, Fortune, hire better, job description, lois melbourne, lose faith, motivate, motivation, Scorecard, Twitter, ultimatum

23 Nov 09 | Compensation, Employment, Retention | Read on | Comments (0)

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