#Hiring December 23

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

I heard a college football coach say once that recruiting is a science but even at its highest level there is some guesswork. I believe the same thing can be said for HIRING. The secret is to take out a lot of the guesswork in the process which unfortunately many organizations do not do.

Adam Bryant formerly of the NY Times wrote a weekly column called the Corner Office. It was a weekly profile of someone who is a leader in business mostly CEO’s. Each week he asks some of the same questions including “How do they HIRE”.

Here is what he gleaned from 500 CEO’S.

One-Ditch the standard interview

Two-Get away from your desk

Three-Throw them curveballs

Adam prepared a Guide on Hiring on all three of these steps he learned from some of the best.

Adam also wrote a book called The Corner Office which explains what 5 qualities leaders possessed to get them to become a CEO.

I have been strongly influenced by one book when it comes to HIRING. It is called WHO: The A Method For Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. The book is a dose of reality about the hiring process. It also describes a process that requires time and diligence which many hiring managers will not like.

To do HIRING correctly it does requires effort and a specific process. Geoff and Randy had 4 steps.

1. Create a SCORECARD

2. SOURCE the best candidates

3. SELECT the best candidates with a 5 part interview process. One of those parts is references. It is amazing how many people get lazy with this step. I cannot even begin to tell you the number of people I have seen get hired where reference checks were not performed in a comprehensive fashion.

4. SELL the candidates -this happens at every step in the process.

I realized prior to reading the book that all my techniques and the process I used were what the authors described as voodoo techniques. Making a HIRING mistake is painful.

#Hiring December 23