Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Hiring the right resources

I thought I’d write a bit about hiring the right people. I read Mike’s blog entry about hiring, and I wanted to add a few comments on that subject.

Our business is defined by knowing and hiring the right resources always. The best source for quality people is always from the personal network - as most of our best resources come from those we know. Quality people tend to know other quality people, and there’s still no substitute for personal recommendation.

However, when you can’t rely on the network connections for people, I thought I’d pass along some screening tips I learned as a recruiter during my stint in Big 4 consulting.

We had a pre-screen interview (30 minutes or less) and it had 4 questions on it. I think those 4 questions are able to identify the best quality candidates, and here’s why:

Question 1: What does the company do? This question demonstrates that the candidate has at least done some research about your company, and may even demonstrate some surprising understandings based on what they might find out about you. You can judge interest and understanding from this question.

Question 2: What extracurricular leadership activities do you take part in? Everyone has a “day job”. That may be as a student (if you’re doing new hires), or a current position (if you’re hiring an experienced candidate). If someone is willing to devote their time & talent outside of work to something else (in a leadership role), then that person may have leadership qualities you can tap into. If the person is neighborhood garage sale coordinator, soccer coach, youth club leader, or any other leadership activity, this demonstrates two things that are valuable: Leadership, and initiative - both vital qualities in a successful candidate.

Question 3: How many hours do you work in a typical week? For new hires, we determined that a full time student that also held a 20 hour/week job (regardless of the nature of that job), showed the ability to schedule, time manage, and demonstrate responsibility. This question is obviously geared for student recruiting - but the same can be applied to experienced hires as well, just with different frame of reference. Ask those questions that demonstrate the ability to multitask, or hold a disciplined work schedule (ask anyone with kids this question, and you’ll know what I mean).

Question 4: Tell me about a time when you were NOT able to perform a task you were instructed to do. What did you do? This question is one designed to reveal their problem solving ability. You will learn a lot about the person based on the situation they explain to you (can they even explain themselves well?). The solutions to overcoming their difficulty will tell you something about their ability to solve problems for you. Answers like “I got help” or “I researched the problem until I found the answer” are generally good, while “I quit”, “I yelled at the customer because they were stupid”, “I told the boss to deal with it”, (all answers I’ve received in interviews) may not indicate the best person for the position.

These 4 questions typically take about 20 minutes, and can tell you the factors about an employee that have the best indicators of success: Interest & Understanding, Leadership, Initiative, Time Balancing, Scheduling, Responsibility, and Problem Solving ability. You’ll also likely be able to assess if the person would be a good fit with the team that you’ve already got in place, because those same skills you’re interviewing the candidate for, will also be valuable skills for fitting in with your current team.

I’ve seen fancier interview techniques, but these 4 questions seem to be an accurate indicator of success in my field, and I think you’ll see that most of these traits are the ones that are the best indicators of success in any field.

Posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm and is filed under ProCore Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.