Tag Archives: Interviews

How Do You Hire the Right Person? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is in the process of hiring a new employee for a key position. The company is now writing the position description to post for candidates. What can they do to improve on past hiring experiences? How do you hire the right person?

Advice of the Forum:

  • Two of the members of the Forum have worked with a skilled consultant who taught them a system for improving employee selection. Both companies have experienced excellent results from this system.
  • Key points of this system include:
    • Screening applicants for appropriate skills and inviting for interviews those who have the right background. The interview process is a 2-day affair. Day 1 focuses principally on behavior and culture.
    • Day 1 Interviews: the focus is behavior and adaptability. This involves 2-4 hours of tightly scheduled 15-minute interviews. These are scripted with standardized questions. Several candidates are run through this process simultaneously. The objective is to create the same type of pressure that an employee normally face when the company is chasing a tight deadline. Interviewers are instructed to observe how the individuals being interviewed respond to this pressure. Those who are not right for your culture quickly screen themselves out of the process. Those who pass Day 1 are invited back for Day 2
    • Day 2 Interviews: the focus is on a skill drill down. This includes real-time tests of the key skills that are typical of the position for which the interviewees are interviewing. The objective is to assess the familiarity of the interviewees with the required skills, and to determine who reacts both competently and creatively.

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How Do You Hire and Retain the Right People? Four Suggestions

Situation: A CEO is concerned about employee turnover, particularly among promising younger employees. He doesn’t know whether these employees are different from past employees, or whether it is a function of the current economy and recovery. They look like a good fit during interviews and appear to fit well with the company when they come onboard. Yet, after a few weeks or months they leave. How do you hire and retain the right people?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Ask other companies in your area whether they are experiencing the same phenomena, and what they are doing about this. Are their experiences similar? Why do they think this is happening? Have they developed successful strategies to stem the resignations?
  • Conduct follow-up interviews 3 months after the employees leave. Use an independent party – or at least a neutral party within the company – to conduct the post-departure interview. While there may be a variety of reasons why individuals leave, are there similar themes in their motivations?
  • Are employees being treated similarly to the way that Margery Mayer and others have discussed treating customers – are they being heard?
    • Ask and listen to their true motivations – perhaps they value the opportunity to take an extended vacation for a life experience more than they value a raise. Intel and other companies offer their employees an extended sabbatical after a certain number of years of service. The employee does with this time what he or she wants.
  • Host informal beer and pizza sessions with employee groups. Keep the mood relaxed. Let them open up and complain if they so wish. It’s far better to let them air these feelings with the CEO than as buzz within the office – particularly if the see that they are being heard.
    • It is important to follow up and respond to what is heard. Employees appreciate the opportunity to be open and honest, but only if they sense that their input is producing the changes that they desire.

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