Tag Archives: hiring talent

Hard to Find Good People

“I hear you finally extended an offer today for a Project Manager,” I said.

“Yes,” Colleen replied. “This has been one of the toughest searches ever. It was difficult to find anyone who wanted to apply. And, their first question was about working from home.”

“How did you make the decision, that this was the candidate to pick?”

“First, he actually agreed that he would work in the office. And, he seemed really enthusiastic. Said his last job was a dead end, that he was looking for more challenge. I liked his attitude.”

“And, his experience,” I pressed.

Colleen hesitated. “Well, he said he had been a project manager before, so we will see.”

“And, the length of projects he has under his belt?”

“Most of his projects were about three weeks in length. I know it’s not the same as our projects, which last nine or ten months, but he knows how to use Excel, so he should pick up our project management software pretty easily. I mean, project management is project management.”

“You didn’t see a mis-match on the length of projects?” I asked.

“Well, yes, I knew that might be a problem, but he was still the best candidate, and he didn’t ask to work from home.”

“So, tell me, Colleen, what could go wrong on a three week project, and what could go wrong on a ten month project?”

What is the Work?

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Marlena thought for a moment, changed her mind to protest some more. “But, what about a salesperson who doesn’t like to do expense reports, or doesn’t like to update our CRM program? Don’t we have to look at those things in a person’s profile, attention to administrative detail? I will tell you, when we hire a salesperson, if they can’t, or won’t pay attention to the administrative part of the job, then we won’t hire them.”

“If that is the behavior you need from a salesperson,” I shrugged. “However, I think you need to think this through a bit more carefully. What is the work of a salesperson?”

“Well, first, they have to research their market, compile a list of likely customers,” Marlena started. “Then, set appointments to see those people, do a presentation, secure a contract, follow-up to make sure the contract is delivered to the customer’s satisfaction, then make sure we get paid.” She stopped. “That’s about it. If I can get them to do that, I’m happy.”

“So, let’s think through this,” I replied.

Could the market research better be done by the marketing department?
Could appointments better be done by an administrative scheduler?
Could the follow-up better be done by customer service?
Could securing payment better be done by accounts receivable?

I would submit to you that your salesperson is doing all kinds of non-sales work, which I am sure keeps them busy from making sales. It all gets down to – What’s the work of a salesperson?”

Required Behaviors

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“But, what if a person doesn’t like the work in the role? What if they have a behavioral tendency against that type of work? Wouldn’t we want to know that in advance of hiring?” Marlena asked.

“Marlena, you are a manager?” I replied with a question. “Do you really like administrative work, you know, the paperwork behind the real work?”

“You mean like approving productivity reports, writing expense reports, reviewing time sheets?” Marlena chuckled. “No, I am more interested in improving productivity, reducing expenses and making sure the time we spend working together is meaningful.”

“So, if you showed me your personality profile, it might show that you are not particularly interested in paperwork?”

“I suppose not,” Marlena responded. “But, that’s just a small part of what I do. Administrative work comes with the territory.”

“Yet, the paperwork is detailed, even tedious at times. Why don’t you just stop doing it?” I asked.

“You can’t just NOT do the paperwork,” she said. “If you don’t look at the productivity reports, how do you know you are improving productivity? If you don’t review expense budgets, how do you know you are reducing expenses? I have to do those things.”

“Are you telling me there is a set of required behaviors associated with your role, that you may not like, that you may not show a behavioral tendency toward, nevertheless, you have to do them to be effective in your role?”

Marlena was silent, but her head nodded up and down.

What’s the Work?

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“We have an opening on the team,” Marlena announced.

“And, you would like my help?” I asked.

“Yes, what kind of person should we hire?” she wanted to know.

“What’s the work?” I asked.

“It’s a project manager role, coordinating and organizing all the elements of projects we have in-house,” Marlena replied. “I am thinking we should hire someone who is analytical, good attention to detail, works well under pressure. Oh, and they have to work well with people, because there are people involved in all our projects. I think it is a very specific personality profile.”

I chuckled. “So, this person would only be able to work in the project manager role you have in mind?”

“Not necessarily, there may be other things they could do, but you have to be a special sort of person to be a project manager. There’s a lot of multi-tasking, to make sure none of the balls get dropped.”

“Marlena, the things you describe are character traits for most all jobs. Most every role requires someone who is reasonably analytical, reasonably organized, has reasonable attention to detail and can reasonably pace a project so that it meets internal deadlines. You seem to be focused on things you might describe as character traits. I want you to shift your focus to behaviors. Behaviors is how work gets done. My first question to you was – What’s the work? We often get carried away trying to climb inside the personality heads of candidates without a clear understanding of What’s the work?“

Where Trust Starts

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“So, it’s that simple,” I prodded. “Hold managers to account for the output of their team? That’s the beginning, that’s where we start?”

Pablo nodded. “Managers, who have before blamed their team, will begin to pay attention to the care and feeding of their team. It starts with who they let onto the team. If it is well understood that the manager is accountable for the output of the team, managers will develop a more rigorous selection criteria. Fogging a mirror will no longer be acceptable. If we can only assume the team member shows up to do their best, the manager has to make sure their best will be good enough.”

“You are talking about hiring?” I asked.

“That’s where it starts,” Pablo smiled.

Questions for Soft Skills

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
This is a follow-up on Interviewing for Soft Skills. You said to interview for behaviors connected to soft skills.

Fit. How does a person who “fits” our organization behave?
Values. How does a person with our values behave?
Attitude. How does a person with a positive attitude behave?

What do the questions sound like?

Response:
Fit. How does a person who “fits” our organization behave? Answer that question first.
A person who fits our organization shows up for work early, always finishes tasks assignments and double-checks their work for accuracy.

Shows up for work early.
At your previous position, what was the start time in the morning?
What were the first things you did when you got to work, coffee, check e-mail, meetings?
Think about a time you worked on a time-sensitive important project?
Step me through your day when you worked on that project?

Always finishes a task completely, doesn’t leave things undone for someone else to finish.
Tell me about a time when you worked on a complex project that had phases with multiple steps inside.
What was the project?
How long was the project?
What was the purpose of the project?
Who was on the project team?
What was your role on the project team?
How were the phases and tasks on the project organized?
How did the team know when each task was completed?
How did the project leader know when each task was completed?
In this project, was there re-work or items missed?
How was re-work identified? How was re-work placed back on the project schedule?
In this project, how were missed items identified?
How were missed items placed back on the project schedule?

Double-checks their work for accuracy so someone else doesn’t have to look for mistakes.
Tell me about a project where accuracy and attention to detail was mission critical.
What was the project?
How long was the project?
What was the purpose of the project?
Who was on the project team?
What was your role on the project team?
What elements of the project made accuracy and detail mission critical?
How were those elements identified?
How were those elements tracked?
What was the quality standard?
How was the quality standard measured?
How often was the quality standard measured?
Was the quality standard sign-off formal or informal?
What happened when defects were discovered?

How to Interview for Soft Skills

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From the Ask Tom mailbag.

Question:
I think I know how to interview for technical knowledge, but how do I interview for soft skills, that are difficult to pin down. Specifically, how well will the candidate fit with our existing team? Does the candidate share our organizational values? Will the candidate bring the right attitude?

Response:
These ideas are actually good ideas, noble characteristics to find in a candidate. Here is the rub. How can the hiring manager, who is not a psychologist, evaluate the candidate on fit, values and attitude?

You have to get down to behaviors. You are not a psychologist, but you can spot positive behavior and negative behavior in the workplace. Observing and evaluating behavior is what managers do. Play to your strength. Interview for behaviors.

Fit. How does a person who “fits” our organization behave?
Values. How does a person with our values behave?
Attitude. How does a person with a positive attitude behave?

Now, interview for those behaviors. Yes, fuzzy stuff can be important, a valuable part of the interview and the criteria for hiring.

And, We’re Back

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Some of you may have noticed a service interruption for Management Blog last month. There was a problem between our RSS feed (syndication) and our SSL (socket security) configuration. Fixed now. Well, if you are reading this, as an email, it’s fixed. We published throughout the duration, so if you missed some posts, they are all available at managementblog.org all the way back to Nov 2004.

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I want to grow my company, but a bit overwhelmed at what I need to focus on. I see so much opportunity in nearby markets within a six hour drive. I think I can go into those markets without a huge initial investment, and organically grow as the business matures. Of the thousand things I need to pay attention to, what’s the focus?

Response:
I am often asked, what are the biggest constraints to growth. There are lots of them, geography, capital, market characteristics, economic cycles. The biggest, I think, is people.

We can purchase lots of things, equipment, office space, advertising. But, you can’t purchase talent. You have to find it. You have to seek it out.

We often only hire people when we have an opening, when we need to always be recruiting. You can have the brightest office space, brilliant marketing, pristine equipment, but with the wrong (not-right) people, you will still fail. Yet, with the right people, you can still be successful with Class B office space, used but serviceable equipment in a struggling economy. The biggest constraint to growth, even in otherwise challenging times, is people.

Where to Start?

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Jean was upset. After two weeks of interviewing, the committee finally made an offer to a candidate for an open position. “I called her up and she laughed, said she took another position last week. So, we went to our second candidate, same thing. Our third candidate was missing two essential qualifications, but the committee didn’t want to start the process over. I just made the offer, but I am skeptical. I just hope it works out.”

“Well, hope is a strategy,” I replied. “Why did it take so long to make a decision on your first two candidates? You interviewed them almost two weeks ago.”

“Whenever the committee got together, we would argue about what was important for the position. Our meetings were more confusing than helpful.”

“The job description, wasn’t that helpful?”

Jean nodded. “It’s funny, we didn’t actually write one until this past weekend. It was only when we did, that the committee was able to agree on the qualifications and make a decision. It was just too late.”

Jean stared at the table, shook his head and smiled. “That’s where we should have started.”

Who People Are

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“But, I think understanding motivation is important for a manager,” Bailey protested.

“And so, when did you become a mind reader?” I asked.

“You know very well, I don’t pretend to be a mind reader,” Bailey continued to push back.

“Yet, there you go, looking for something inside a person that you cannot see.”

“Then, just exactly what are we supposed to do?”

“Don’t play amateur psychologist. Stay out of people’s heads. If you want to know who people are and what they are capable of, don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do. If you want to play the motivation game, you will find a ton of popular psychology, pop psychology, answers. There are books and assessments that propose to teach you the insights we should all have, as leaders, about those on our teams. But, if you want to be an effective manager, you have to think differently. And you cannot think differently if you continue your search in this invisible stuff. You will confuse yourself and those around you.

“If you want to know who people are and what they are capable of, watch what they do.”*
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These were the watchwords of the late Charles Krauthammer observing the behavior of presidents and presidential candidates. “Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do.”