HOW TO SELECT A GREAT TEAM MEMBER

 

This may sound counter intuitive but I would urge you never to select someone as an employee or agent based on their experience. 

 

That may be somewhat of an exaggeration.  What I am saying is really don't base your decision solely on experience.  One of the biggest mistakes a business and hiring manager makes is hiring based solely on experience. I have seen the business owners in Westchester County New York beginning to understand this.

In my last blog I spoke about leading indicators. Business owners will do well to base their decisions on these indicators. This brings me to the point of why you should not rely on experience. Experience is in the past. And as mentioned in the last blog, “Past experience is no guarantee of future performance.  

In Good to Great Jim Collins explains that building a great organization is as simple as “Getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” It may be simple but it’s not easy. You will need to change the way you hire people.

Unfortunately, all too often managers tend to make hiring decisions by looking at background in the industry, jobs held before, and job history. Significant time is spent looking at a candidate’s skills and knowledge before extending an employment offer. Some of this is important but most is a trailing indicator.  What you did in the past will not make you successful in the future.

Later on the manager learns that the new worker “is really not working out”. The manager can’t figure out why. The employee was so bright and had all of the skills and experience. More than likely he or she was not a culture match for the company. He or she did not share the vision and values of the company. Also, the failure might have occurred because the employee did not display the knowledge that you thought he or she had. Before making the hiring decision the manager spent all of his or her time determining skills and knowledge but the employee failed because of behaviors and attitudes.

A well-executed hiring process that balances skills and behaviors will result in more successful hires. Here are some suggested steps in developing and executing your plan.

1.        Have a clear job description written before you begin. The job description should include job duties as well as requirements for the job. If you have never written a job description you should read a book on the topic or engage the services of a professional.

2.        Ask open ended questions. The candidate should be doing most of the talking, not you.

3.        Ask behavior based questions. Asking behavioral based questions helps you discover how the interviewee acted in specific employment-related situations. A person’s behaviors are based on past and finding out how the applicant behaved in the past will predict how the new hire will behave at your company. Past performance predicts future performance. One example of a behavior based question would be, “Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.”

4.        Use assessment tools. Psychometric assessment tools provide objective and standardized measures of a person’s personality. Using assessment tools along with behavior based interviewing is a cost effective method of predicting how a person is likely to perform in a particular job.

 

Using predictive tools rather than time worn closed ended questions with help you make the correct hiring decisions the first time, reduce failure, and increase performance. You will see a large performance improvement if you use leading indicators rather than hiring based on experience.  See a similar blog titled WHEN HIRING DON'T RELY ON EXPERIENCE on our web site.

 

Need help identifying the right behaviors for your organization?

Contact Us for a Free Consultation

or call 914-953-4458.

 

 

Business Coach - Strategic Plans - Sales and Marketing Coach

Grant Schneider - Leadership and Business Coach Creating Successful Business Outcomes

President Performance Development Strategies

- Business Coach

- Business Performance and Strategic Business Plans 

- Sales and Marketing Coach

- Organizational Effectiveness

- Time Effectiveness and Organization

914-953-4458, Armonk NY 10504 grant@pdstrategies.com

Visit my website www.pdstrategies.com for information on how you can obtain quantum leaps in your business performance.

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