Hiring Good Employees:
Five Important Employer
Interview "Shopping" Tips

Hiring good employees will make or break your business success. Here, I'll give you five employer interview tips that will help you make the right choice every time.

Let's Go to the Grocery Store:

To demonstrate these key interview tips, let's talk about dinner at home tonight. It’s spaghetti night at your house, and you’re looking forward to whipping up a tasty meal for your family. You open the fridge for green pepper, mushrooms and salad fixings.

Then you go to the pantry to grab the sauce and the pasta. Uh oh. Where IS the pasta? Damn! You almost have everything you need to make a delicious meal, but you're missing something vital: pasta. Without pasta all you've got is sauce! What was going to be a tasty hot meal turns into a salad supper.

You've made the best of what you had, but it's not what you intended, and it's not ideal. Hiring Managers face this scenario every day in their quest for hiring good employees.

An unexpected opening in a key position means the rush is on to find a replacement. And just like a frustrated chef, the hiring manager may end up having to "make do" with what he or she finds.

That's because busy and overwhelmed managers may tend to hire the first person they meet whose background sounds good, and who says all the right things in the interview.

But oftentimes, before long, the Hiring Manager discovers - despite good intentions for hiring good employees - that the new employee is missing 'key ingredients.' The new guy is abrupt with customers, he lacks discipline, he can’t follow directions and he's defensive when he anyone gives him feedback.

The new guy sounded great in the interview. The entire interview team liked him. But he can't get the job done because he lacks key personal skills needed for success.

Things are not going according to the hiring good employees plan.

How did everyone miss these key ingredients?

Hiring good employees IS a lot like grocery shopping, mistakes happen when you're in a rush if you don't have a plan or a list and, if you bring the kids along, (ie: your interview team) then there's even more confusion! Everyone's putting everything that they like and want 'into the cart.'

Scattered focus and competing interests make your grocery shopping experience chaotic and harried, causing you to:

Leave the store with some things you don't need.
Spend more than you intended.
Miss key ingredients for key meals. (But you won't know that until you try to try make dinner next week.)

How can you end the confusion? How can you make sure
that you have the right 'ingredients' when hiring someone new?

I developed this Self-Paced, Audio MP3 & Workbook Online Program: How to Conduct an Interview from all of the material I teach in workshops and based upon the work I do with hiring assessments.

This Program will help you avoid interview mistakes and hire the right people. I'll show you how to create a dashboard for your positions and how to build a superior performance worksheet, give you a 6 step interview meeting agenda, provide 170 of the best interview questions, and much, much more!

For more info, review How to Conduct an Interview, here.

Hiring Good Employees:
Follow These Five 'Shopping' Tips

#1: CREATE a ‘meal plan.’ The ‘meal plan’ for the job is called the Performance Dashboard. It is 3 to 5 summary statements of what must happen in the job for the job to be successful. (See the a sample Performance Dashboard for a Sales VP, here.)

#2" DEVELOP a ‘shopping list.’ This is a list of personal skills and strengths a candidate would have to have to do the things you list in your Performance Dashboard.
#3 SHARE the ‘meal plan’ (your Performance Dashboard) and your 'shopping list' (strengths required for success) with the interview team. Make sure the interview team agrees with, understands and focuses on looking for the skills and traits related to your 'meal' and 'shopping' plans.
#4 TRAIN your interviewers how to ‘shop’ (interview). Nervous interviewers, who don’t have a ‘meal plan’ or ‘grocery list’, tend to talk too much and put all their personal preferences ‘into the cart.’ Train each interviewer how to do it right.
#5 'CHECK the cart' before leaving the store. Follow up on any and all concerns and vague answers. Consider using my validated-for-hiring talent assessment s and conduct detailed reference interviews and background checks on every new hire. Make sure you have what is needed for success in the position before you ‘leave the store.’

Sample Performance Dashboard: For a Sales V.P. Position *
*From Hiring Good Employees #1 Tip: CREATE a 'Meal Plan'

#1 Priority - Takes complete ownership of our sales strategy.
#2 Priority - Brings a sense of urgency to ensure delivery of successful revenue results.
#3 Priority - Effectively manages, motivates and develops the sales team.
#4 Priority - Brings significant software sales knowledge to the position to guide the executive team.
#5 Priority - Institutes efficient and measurable sales analytic(s).

The first step, and one of the most important ones, for a great meal and for hiring good employees is to have a clear vision and SPECIFIC LIST of the ingredients required for a good meal and a good job: a Grocery List or a Performance Dashboard.

Interview and the hire people who have the professional and personal skills to meet the top priorities of the job (from the Position Performance Dashboard) and you’ll NEVER have to settle for 'just a salad' again!

Need help with these hiring good employees tips? Check out my self-paced, How to Conduct an Interview Program.

I can also help you create a Dashboard and Assess Candidates, read more about my Three-Step Superior Performance Assessment Process, Here.