How To Hire Someone In The Recession

The rules for hiring someone has changed, in part due to the recession and in part due to the fact that the old way of hiring (read a resume and discuss experience) no longer works. Here are the new rules:

1. Skip Experience - Identify Attitude, Energy & Intelligence

You can give people experience... it is called training and learn as you go. The three things you can't give people is their attitude, their energy or their smarts. Either they have those things or they don't. Hire people who have the best attitude, energy & the highest degree of intelligence. Can't tell all those attributes from a single interview? Do multiple interviews, and get to know their history (tip #3).

2. Hire The Hungry, Not The Starving

When prospective employees are hungry for your company's opening, they will come in with all their effort and focus and excitement. But when someone is starving to work they will jump into the first thing they can get. Desperate people do desperate things, and they will jump ship the second a better suited, better paying job comes their way.

3. History Repeats Itself

Interviews should revolve around their experiences in life. Ask them how they liked high school. What were the good parts, and bad parts? Did they like their teachers? No? Why not. Ask them about their first job. The boss sucked? OK. Ask them about other jobs. The boss was always a pain to work for? Well guess what, you are the next boss that is going to suck. History repeats itself.

4. Try Before You Buy

Implement a probationary period of 90 days. It is very hard for someone to fake it for 3 months, let alone a week. Don't pay as much attention to their final product as, their consistency for start and finish times. See how they handle mistakes. Do they show consistent improvement? How well do they communicate? If all things are stellar for 90 days, you most likely have an employee who will be stellar for life. But, if you have problems in the first 90 days, it is time for drastic correction or termination -- because a person who can't perform during the first 90 most likely will never make at your company.

5. Show Your Commitment

The most important day for a new employee, is their first day. It is up to YOU to perform your best that day, not them. For their first day, cut out 2 hours to spend with the person. Take them for a tour of the office, talk about their background and interests, tell them about the company history. Show them the true you and build rapport that only time can afford. Also, by spending time with them you are also showing them you have a company that is in control and not in constant fire drill mode.

Just know, when you show them your commitment, they will show it to you.

By Mike Michalowicz, Author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

Category: Hiring & Firing
Tags: employee, hiring, How to hire someone, Interview, the recession.

http://tv.factor77.com Jared O’Toole

I like the 1st point about skipping experience. Experience is nice and all but personalities are whats going to make someone truly fit and become passionate about your business. Those employees will be the ones that get your business to the next level.
http://www.skislakdigitaladvertising.com Nick

Good Stuff here; I am wondering if you will suffer by not hiring the experienced people, …..?????? Training is very expensive.
http://www.kreatek.com George Barckley

I always like to ask the question during an interview;

What was your last mistake? (don’t follow-up with another word and let the interviewee squirm then provide their own answer). You’ll get the basic question “Personal or Professional?”. I don’t say a word and let them figure it out.

After they provide their “mistake” then follow-up with “How did you resolve it?”. Nine times out of ten, they will have already answered it during their description of the mistake.

And of course, you’ll get someone to say; I don’t make mistakes. You can write them off early.

At the end, you have a good feeling about the candidate.
http://www.in-rev.com Laxmi Khatiwada

Nice article. I believe that we can train a person, but can’t change his/her attitude. Others points are simply great. Your points are always applicable, not only for recession.
http://www.dougmcisaac.com Doug McIsaac

I agree, especially in a startup, attitude is vital and it is the only thing that cannot be taught.

The only piece that I would add is that to hire successfully, you need to you also need be ready to fire employees that aren’t working out at the first sign of an issue. It doesn’t do you any good to waste your time trying to “fix” an employee.

I’m not talking about skills mistakes, those will happen, and as long as the employee learns from their mistake, that’s OK, but attitude issues need to be nipped in the bud immediately, before they infect the rest of your organization,

Doug
http://www.Obsidianlaunch.com Mike Michalowicz

@Nick – retraining is even more expensive.

@Everyone – just got a cool tip from this morning session (I’m at an entrepreneurial retreat at MIT), the speaker (Hint – CEO of the largest insurance provider in the world), said to hire people who have navigated adversity. The people who fail to navigate adversity play the victim role, the ones who come out fighting and winning… will also do that in your business.

- Mike
http://mywifequitherjob.com Steve C |MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

I couldn’t agree with this post more especially #1. I see companies (including mine) make this mistake all the time and it drives me crazy
BillyP

As someone who has been job-hunting for over a year now, I find this article frustrating because I know that employers are NOT following this handy list.
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http://www.southplattewebdesign.com Bill

As someone who has been told my personality was why I was not chosen, I look at number one a little differently. My personality is straight forward, no BS, let’s get the job done. When a potential employer mocks me, forgets my name several times during the interview, demeans what I have done and the experience I have and otherwise belittles me – they will get my straight forward personality, that will call them on their game. That usually makes the interview go bad. They ASKED me to come in, why? To mock me? To try to make me feel stupid? I don’t think so. They should have asked me to come in to see WHO I am WHAT I am and HOW I can help propel their company forward.

One thing you should have pointed out, is would be employers need to have an automatic small amount of respect for those they actually call in for an interview – without that, they are ruining the entire experience for both side.
http://www.greeNEWit.org greeNEWit

Great stuff. Keep it up!!!
http://www.personalboardofadvisors.com David Sandusky

Another goodie Mike.
I’ve spent my 10k hours interviewing and I will tell you where instincts come from:
Listening to core values and core competencies while working through a real problem. Rinse and repeat. Confident and passionate people have no problem marketing potential you can FEEL.
vaibhav agarwal

I wonder, if you would like to add the test for integrity and honesty for an employee there, since one might have the right attitute, zeal and intelligence, but without honesty he he/she could be harmfull for the company.
http://dvovirtualtech.blogspot.com/ dvovirtualtech

This is a very good point of consideration since most people put experience as a value to how work should be done… after all, you can never train an old dog with new tricks…
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http://www.tips-on-dog-care.com Randy @ dog training basics

I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work.
http://brockwolfefenden.easyjournal.com/entry.aspx?eid=4288447 Diana O. Moore

Have a great day.
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http://BillVick.com Bill Vick

Mike – I like your blog and commend your efforts but the bit about hiring for attitude and not experience is more questionable touchy feely assumptions that is just not true. I agree that hiring somebody for what they can do, not what they have done, makes great sense. But time after time it has been proven that people perform in the future as they have in the past. As an executive recruiter I placed hundreds of mid level and senior executives and without exception it was what they did that counted, not what they said they could do, regardless of their enthusiasm or can do attitude. Getting a job is really more about the road ahead than the rearview mirror of what has been. Bring me someone who can do, not somebody that thinks he can.

http://www.ToiletPaperEntrepreneur.com Mike Michalowicz

@Bill – Thanks for the feedback. I agree completely that a persons future performance can be best anticipated by their past performance. I believe we should interview and hire people based upon their past attitude, their past energy, their past intelligence. Asking people what their attitude, energy, intelligence, values are is a waste of time, since people will say what you want to hear. Instead you need to interview them and seek the patterns of their behavior. Identify how they have demonstrated these components in the past, and you have a good indicator of who you will be hiring.

By the way, interviewing for past behavior is NOT easy. You can’t say “How was your energy in the past? How was your intelligence?”, etc. for example. Instead you need to seek out patterns by asking for stories. For example “What was your first job like? What kind of hours did you work? Was your boss helpful?” Then keep asking “why? how? why not?” to peel back the onion and discover how their behaviors have played out.

If for example, you find that the candidate again and again says “my boss was a jerk. She was always telling me what to do!”, about all their jobs… I have news for you, YOU will be the next “jerk”. In other words, this person has the behavior pattern of not wanting to take direction from a superior. And if that is a requirement at your company, you probably don’t want to make the hire.