HireBetter Blog

Why don’t new hires work out?

September 10th, 2008 | by | interviewing, retention

Sep
10

We’ve been spending some time at American Workforce trying to figure this out.  As you can imagine, we came up with dozens and dozens of reasons that were both simple and complex.  We came to realize, however, that there was really a TRUE question that we weren’t asking ourselves and after a few days we figured out that the question was a lot more hard-hitting and difficult.

The real question: WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO BE FIRED?

No one enjoys firing someone.  It makes you sick to your stomach, causes all kinds of legal challenges and really puts a pinch on productivity.  Further, the cost of a mis-hire is prohibitive in a business cycle like we’re in today.

So why do we have to fire people?  In the end, it’s really simple and comes down to 2 real reasons:

REASON 1: You didn’t know what you were looking for.

-When you don’t clearly establish, up-front in the recruiting process, exactly what you’re looking for you’re bound to hire someone who isn’t quite what you thought.  It makes you prone to “hiring with your gut” and becoming emotionally attached to a particular candidate that might really impress you (ever heard of the sales guy who was hired because, ‘he had a great rolodex?’).  By planning, asking the hard questions about what you really need in a person and then interviewing and comparing the candidates you’re talking to with that clear focus on mind you can build your questions specifically around your needs. Behavioral-based interviewing is a lot easier when you’re looking for specific behaviors.

Reason 2: You failed to tell the new employee what they would be judged on.

-At American Workforce we’re huge fans of what we call Dashboards.  Patrick Thean, in his book Execution Without Drama talks a lot about breaking down the specific tasks inside of your company that will lead to success and then holding people accountable to engaging in the behaviors on a daily and weekly basis that, if adhered to, will lead to success.  When companies don’t clearly outline this for a new employee they end up keeping people in positions far too long, not recognizing the warning signs of when someone is struggling or sitting an an annual review wondering what to grade someone on.

Sure, if you really think about it you can probably come up with a couple of other abstract reasons why someone would need to be fired (Sexual Harassment, an affinity for automatic weapons in the workplace, et al) but just about everything else that you’ll come up with will point back to one of these two areas.  What are you doing in your business today to clearly define roles?

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Creating a Proper Scorecard

July 27th, 2008 | by | interviewing, recruiting, retention, topgrading

Jul
27

I’ve been asked a lot in the past few weeks the same question: “I really want to do a scorecard for my interviews but I don’t know how to make them?”.  I started looking into how these Hiring Managers were going about the process and I realized that it’s not the end result that has been elusive but rather the starting point.
When creating a scorecard don’t start with a job description and hope you can create a good one.  Instead, write the Performance Evaluation Plan for the prospective employee at their 1 year review meeting.  By honestly assessing the results you hope to achieve by hiring someone you end up with a number of things (in addition to the basis for a scorecard).  You get (a) the metrics for bonus-based compensation (b) the foundation of a much better Job Description (c) a solid way of working backwards to see if an employee is really “getting it” in their first 30, 60, 90 days in the job.

 

Here are some examples of real “Responsibilities” that we’ve seen on Job Descriptions and how they would have been written better if someone had started at the Performance Evaluation and worked backwards:

 

CONTROLLER – Large Construction Company

Key Responsibility:  Ideal candidates will have strong leadership, communication and organizational skills.

If they worked backwards it might look like this instead:

Performance Review:  Possess the organizational skills necessary to reduce the closing of the books each month from 18 days to 7.

New Job Description Requirement: Track record of implementing structure and organization to an existing accounting system that resulted in significant reductions in the amount of time it takes to compile, reconcile and close the books each month.


CALL CENTER MANAGER – Publicly Traded Phone Company

Key Responsibility:  Staff Recruitment, Training, Hiring and Development

If they worked backwards it might look like this instead:

Performance Review:  Implement employee retention programs that will reduce our turnover from 300% per year to 100% (a net reduction of 66%) and establish a quantifiable system to allow us to reward our top performers for their day to day behavior while tracking customer satisfaction.

New Job Description Requirement: Experience Recruiting, Training and Retaining employees at a high level through the implementation of high quality talent assessment with a focus on improving the customer experience and staff retention.

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3 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Chances

June 22nd, 2008 | by | interviewing

Jun
22

We have thousands of job seekers sending their resumes in for every single position we have open at any given time (and sometimes, there are a lot of positions). You aren’t doing yourself any favors by sending in your resume to jobs you are not qualified for. In fact, you are probably lessening your chances of actually getting a job that would truly match what you are looking for.

Because of this, we’d like to offer up 3 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Chances with Us:

1) Cross check your qualifications: If you are going to apply for a job, please read the ad and try to determine if you really have the skill set necessary to fill the job. Just because you may have some of the same keywords in your resume that the job posting has, does not mean you are qualified for the job. Having experience as a medical claims coder in a hospital does not make you qualified to be a doctor.

2) Include your contact information: We often see this with technical applicants. They will not include their location and contact information in their resume. Full disclosure is the key here. Please don’t make us guess if you are in our search parameters. Also, if you want the job, make it easy on the person reviewing your resume to be able to contact you for an interview. Making them chase all over trying to find a way to get a hold of you will just cause frustration on their part and could eventually make them mark you off their list of potential candidates.

3) Include Dates: Again, full disclosure is best when it comes to relevant information within your resume. When we see a resume that does not have the dates listed within their employment history, it often means that the applicant has something to hide. Either the person has a jumpy, job hopping work history or they don’t have the required years of specific experience. Either way they are not being open about their work history, which makes us question their intentions in the first place.

If you are considering sending your resume in for a job you are truly interested in, look your resume over and make sure it has all of the important details listed. Making a few small changes to your job search and resume strategy can make a large impact on your results.

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Preparing for an Interview

April 17th, 2008 | by | interviewing, topgrading

Apr
17

It’s incredible how often we find candidates who are entirely unprepared for an interview. In light of this, we offer the first in what will most likely become a series of tips for interview preparation:

Tip 1: If you’re going to take a phone interview from your cell phone, try to make sure you’re not (a) in the office of your current employer (b) in the middle of a noisy restaurant or bar or (c) in the middle of nowhere where reception is poor.

Tip 2: Plan ahead – not only for what you’ll likely be asked but also be sure you’ve done your homework on both the company you’re interviewing with and the role that they need to fill.

Tip 3: Build your resume around the job description. If a job description specifically states that it is looking for a Senior Manager with 10 years of experience handling complex situations, it’s a pretty good idea to make sure that your resume outlines how you’ve done this.

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