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

Hiring good employees will make or break your business success.  Creating success or failure when you're "shopping" for your new employee(s) has a lot in common with another kind of shopping - grocery shopping!

Imagine you've just gotten home from a long day at work. 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 end up making 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 sometimes ends up having to "make do" with what he or she finds.

That's because busy and overwhelmed managers often 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 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.

Hiring Good Employees: How Did You End Up With Missing Ingredients?

Hiring good employees IS a lot like grocery shopping - mistakes happen when you're in a rush and if you don't have a plan or a list.

If you decide to bring 'the kids' along, (ie: your interview team) then there's opportunity for even more confusion because without a plan everyone's putting what 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?

 Hiring Manger and Employer Interviewer Resources:

• Daily Tips Program & Book:  Get 70 Hiring and Interview Tips Delivered to Your Email Monday through Friday
• Plan a Talk or Workshop for Your Interview Team: Risk, Reward and Research: The Top Three Mistakes Hiring Managers Make.
  

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. 

• #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. (I show you how to do this in my book and workshop.)
  
• #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. (I teach a R.E.A.D.Y. Interview Team Meeting process my book and workshop.)
• #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 assessments 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.’

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 for dinner and a Performance Dashboard for the job.

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!

 Hiring Manger and Employer Interviewer Resources:

• Daily Tips Program & Book:  Get 70 Hiring and Interview Tips Delivered to Your Email Monday through Friday
• Plan a Talk or Workshop for Your Interview Team: Risk, Reward and Research: The Top Three Mistakes Hiring Managers Make.