Tag Archives: hiring talent

Why They Don’t Want to Help

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“But how can you hold the regional manager accountable for a hiring decision made by the supervisor?” Regina complained. “That’s what my regional managers will say. That’s why they don’t want to help. Helping gets their fingerprints on the hire. If it’s a poor hire, they get dragged into mess.”

S-III – Regional Manager
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S-II – Hiring Supervisor
——————————————-
S-I – Technician Role (open)

“Exactly!” I replied. “Except, I don’t want to simply drag the regional manager into the mess. The regional manager is accountable to drive the whole process. Just as the supervisor will be accountable for the output of the technician, I hold the regional manager accountable for the output of the supervisor. If the regional manager is accountable for the quality of the decision made by the hiring supervisor, what changes?”

Hiring As a Matter of Opinion

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“I still don’t think this is going to work,” Regina pushed back. “My regional managers don’t see this as a priority for them. They think the supervisor should be able to handle their own recruiting.”

“What do your statistics tell you?” I asked.

“Well, out of a workforce of 500 technicians, this past year, we had 176 leave, 83 percent left on a voluntary basis.”

“And your regional managers think your supervisors are capable of driving their own recruiting effectively?”

“Yes,” Regina politely replied.

“I think they are mistaken. The biggest mistake most companies make is, they underestimate the level of work in the task assignment. Underestimate the level of work in the task, and you will select the wrong person every time. In this case, your supervisor is appropriate to be the hiring supervisor, but the supervisor’s manager (the regional manager) is the manager-once-removed from the open position.

S-III – Regional Manager (Manager Once Removed)
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S-II – Supervisor (Hiring Manager)
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S-I – Technician Role (open)

“It is the regional manager who is the quarterback. The Regional Manager is accountable for the output of the Supervisor. That includes the quality of the hiring decision. Only when you make it necessary, will you get the attention of the regional manager.” -Tom

Hiring is Not Necessary

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“We have our supervisors do the hiring for their own team of technicians. We laid out how they are supposed to recruit candidates and how to conduct the interview,” Regina explained.

“So, how do they do?” I asked.

“Not very well. I don’t think they like to recruit new players, so they get one technician short, then another. Now, they are willing to settle for any candidate that can fog a mirror. They don’t have enough people and more service calls than they can handle. The supervisor ends up on-site doing technician work.”

“Does the supervisor have a manager?”

“Yes, the supervisor has a regional manager. Each regional manager covers seven or eight supervisors,” Regina replied.

“And does the regional manager get involved in the hiring process?”

“They are supposed to give guidance and direction to the supervisor, help them out. But, you know, people get busy. I don’t think much of that is happening.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s like the regional manager doesn’t want the responsibility if the supervisor makes a bad hire. If their fingerprints aren’t on process, they can’t be held accountable.”

“But, you said, part of the role of the regional manager was to give guidance and direction to the supervisor?” I pressed.

“You know how it goes. I think it rarely happens.”

“It rarely happens because you haven’t made it necessary. In life, people only do two things. They do the easy thing and they do those things that are necessary. Hiring is not easy. Your regional manager is allowing your hiring supervisor to twist in the wind, without guidance and direction. Your regional manager gets away with it because you haven’t made it necessary for them to be involved.” I stopped.

Regina’s eyes opened wide, so I continued. “Your regional manager is the quarterback of your recruiting process. It’s the regional manager who should be driving the candidate sourcing. It’s the regional manager who manages the screening process and puts people into the qualified candidate pool. The hiring supervisor gets to make the final selection, but from a qualified talent pool created by the regional manager.”

“But they don’t have time to do that,” Regina defended. “They have more important things to do as a regional manager. I can’t have them get bogged down in the hiring process. I mean, they can give guidance, but it sounds like you want them much more involved.”

“What more important thing does your regional manager have to do, than to build the infrastructure of your technician teams? In fact, the reason they are so busy, with management issues and motivation issues, is they did a lousy job of this in the first place. You do this job well, your life as a manager will be wonderful. You do this job poorly, and your life as a manager will be miserable and for a very long time.” -Tom

Results Can Be Misleading

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
In hiring, you caution against the myopia of results-based-performance. We may naively “assume that a company’s results were created by the candidate’s performance, when there are a hundred other things that contribute – reputation, price point, product superiority, terms, another supplier that failed to deliver.”

I would think that a track record of consistent results over an extended period of time would hold a tremendous amount of value. So the question is, are you minimizing the use of results even when there is a proven track record of results over an extended period of time? Or is it just in situations where the “results” are much more limited where it would be difficult to verify that they really are the result of the individual’s actions?

Response:
Yes, results for short sampling periods are always suspect, and, yes, I also have my red flags up, even with a longer term statistical track record of positive results. I am more interested in the behaviors that created the result than in the result. Especially during an interview, I am not in a great position to judge the cause and effect relationships that ended in a positive result. I may be encouraged with positive results, but I will still focus on behaviors.

Hiring Talent in the Heat of the Summer

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Hiring Talent in the Heat of the Summer starts on August 1, 2016. September marks the run-up to the 4th quarter. Are you prepared? Is your staff at capacity?

Purpose of this program – to train hiring managers and HR specialists to conduct more effective interviews in the context of a managed hiring process.

How long is the program? Designed to be completed in 3-4 weeks, the program is self-paced so participants can work through the program even faster.

How do people participate in the program? Participants complete online assignments and participate in online facilitated discussions, working directly with Tom Foster as the online coach, along with other participants.

Who should participate? This program is designed for managers and HR professionals who play active roles in the recruiting process.

What is the cost? The program investment is $499.

When is the program scheduled? This program is self-paced, on-demand, so participants can login and complete assignments on their own schedule.

How much time is required to participate in this program? Participants should reserve approximately 2 hours per week (on demand) for 4 weeks (total 8 hours).

Program Description
Module One – Role Descriptions – It’s All About the Work
Learning Objectives

  • Examine what hiring managers are up against.
  • Define the steps in a comprehensive hiring process.
  • Specifically define the Role Description as the cornerstone of the hiring process.
  • Define the Structure of the Role Description
  • Write a Role Description

Module Two – Interviewing for Future Behavior
Learning Objectives

  • To understand how most managers conduct interviews, so we can stop bad habits.
  • To identify, from the Role Description, the specific data we need from the candidate.
  • To design questions to capture the data we need to make an effective candidate selection.
  • To construct a bank of organized, written, prepared questions on which to base the interview.

Module Three – Conducting the Interview
Learning Objectives

  • To prepare mentally to conduct an effective interview.
  • To practice asking prepared questions and creating clarifying questions during the interview.
  • To practice taking notes during the interview and re-capping those notes following the interview.
  • To create a Decision Matrix to compile interview data and compare candidates.
  • To effectively work with an Interview Team.

Pre-register now at the following link – Hiring Talent Course. No payment due at this time. Looking forward to seeing you online. -Tom

How to Interview for Teamwork

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“The new guy just doesn’t seem to fit,” Cynthia said. “Our company is built on a culture of teamwork. He doesn’t seem to be a team player.”

“You hired him. What questions did you ask about teamwork?” I wanted to know.

“Well, I asked him if he thought teamwork was important?” she replied.

“And?”

“And, he said yes. He said teamwork was very important at his last job.”

“What did you expect him to say?” I pressed.

“Well, I wanted him to say teamwork was important, because, to be successful at this company, we have to work as a team,” Cynthia insisted.

“So, the candidate gave you the response you wanted to hear?”

Cynthia was silent.

“Look, teamwork is a state of mind,” I nodded. “It’s like an attitude. You cannot interview for an attitude. You cannot interview for a state of mind. You can only interview for behaviors connected to that attitude. Ask yourself, how does a person, with an attitude of teamwork, behave? Once you identify connected behaviors, you can ask a better set of questions. So, what are some behaviors connected to teamwork?”

Cynthia thought for a moment. “Cooperation, support, listening, constructive feedback,” she replied.

“Okay, try these questions.”

  • Think of a time when you worked on a project where teamwork was critical for the success of the project?
  • What was the project?
  • What was the purpose of the project?
  • What was your role on the team?
  • What was it, about the project, that required a high level of teamwork?
  • Describe how the team worked together?
  • What worked well?
  • What went wrong?
  • What did the team do to pull together?
  • What was your role in pulling the team together?
  • What was it, about the project, that pulled the team apart?
  • How did the team respond to that?
  • What was the outcome?
  • What did the team learn about working together from the experience on this project?

“Would these questions give you some insight to the candidate’s attitude toward teamwork?” -Tom

How to Interview for Project Management

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
All of our projects are different. We never know what our customers will want, in advance. It’s almost always a custom solution. So, when we are hiring a project manager, it’s difficult to determine what skills the candidate will need to be successful. That’s why, most of the time, we wing it, when it comes to interview questions. How can we do a better job in the interview, instead of just working off of the resume?

Response:
We may not know anything about the project, but we can still work on preparedness. So, think about behaviors connected to being prepared.

  • Diagnostic questions
  • Project planning
  • Short interval planning
  • Project adjustments
  • Discipline

The only way to work through an ill-defined or unknown project specification, is to define the project. You are accurate, that many customers don’t really know what they want. Sometimes your best contribution, in managing the project, is helping the customer to define the project. What are the problems to be solved and the decisions to be made as the project meanders its way to completion?

Determine questions related to diagnosis, planning and project adjustments.

  • Tell me about a project you worked on where the customer was not clear on what they wanted?
  • What was the project?
  • What was your role on the project?
  • What was the purpose for the project?
  • How did the customer describe the project?
  • What was the real project?
  • How did you determine the real project specification?
  • What changed about the project when it was better defined?
  • What changed about the resources required when the project was better defined?
  • What changed about the budget when the project was better defined?
  • How did you explain the changes in resources and budget to the customer?
  • How many people on your project team?
  • How did you explain the changes to your project team?
  • What mid-course corrections were required?
  • How did you discover the mid-course correction?
  • How did you determine the overall project met the initial purpose of the project?

These questions will get you better data, than just winging it off the resume.

Levels of Work in Project Management

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
Last week, we attended your workshop on Time Span. Your explanation of the capability difference between a technician, a supervisor and a manager, I think, provides a profound clarification for a huge hole in our hiring process. I now understand the difference between the roles. How do I tell the difference between candidates? How do I test for time span capability?

Response:
Don’t overthink this, and don’t play amateur psychologist. Telling the difference between candidates is not a matter of climbing inside the head of the person across the interview table.

We spend a great deal of time in the workshop defining levels of work and that’s the foundation for the diagnosis. You are not trained in psychology, but you are an expert in the work. Play to your strengths as a manager.

The cornerstone document that defines the level of work is the role description. To determine the level of work in the role, I ask –

  • What are the problems that must be solved and how must they be solved?
  • What are the decisions that must be made and what must be considered in making those decisions?
  • What is the longest time span task related to those problems and decisions?

Let’s look at project management.

Can you manage a project with sticky notes stuck around your computer screen? The answer is yes, as long as the project has few problems or decisions, and is of very short duration. For a long duration project, the glue on the sticky notes dries out and notes fall to the floor (or behind the desk). Stratum I level of work.

Longer time span projects will typically require list making and checking deadlines. Sticky notes graduate to an Excel spreadsheet. The problems to be solved will reference documented solutions (like a best practice) that are well-defined (as long as we pick the right best practice to the problem to be solved). Stratum II level of work, project three months to one year.

But spreadsheets break down when the project becomes more complex. Difficult problems appear with no defined solution. The problem requires analysis. Priorities change, elements in the system are uncertain, yet must be accounted for. Project management software replaces the spreadsheet checklists. (MS-Project is a spreadsheet on steroids). Stratum III level of work, one to two years.

And then we realize that we have more than one project attacking the same set of resources. Everything that could go wrong on one project is now multiplied by several projects. Projects, and their resource allocation, begin to impact each other, competing for budget and managerial attention. Simple project management software gives way to enterprise project management software like Primavera and Deltek. Stratum IV level of work, two to five years.

With the level of work defined, looking at problem solving tools, the next step is to interview candidates about their projects.

  • What was the time span of the longest project?
  • What were the problems that had to be solved, decisions made, in the planning stage?
  • What were the problems that had to be solved, decisions made, in the handoff stage to operations?
  • What were the problems that had to be solved, decisions made, in the execution stage?
  • How were those decisions and problems managed?
  • What systems did you use to manage those problems and decisions?

Don’t play amateur psychologist. Play to your strengths as a manager. It’s all about the work. It’s all about the level of work. -Tom

Not the Right Questions, Not Enough Questions

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
You told us not to hope. You told us not to look in the eyes of the candidate. You told us not to make the decision in the first three minutes of the interview. All you told us was what NOT to look for. But, you didn’t tell us WHAT to look For!!

Response:
Look for something that sits in front of our eyes. And yet, we cannot see it.

It is easy to observe behavior AFTER the candidate shows up for work, we can see the evidence of the work product, and we are often disappointed. We made the hire based on hope, based on what we thought we saw in the eyes of the candidate, and made that decision in the first three minutes. We made our decision BEFORE we had any data.

The question is, how do we get that data, how do we get that evidence in the interview? It is, as easy to see in the interview, as it is to see in the work. No, we cannot directly observe, but we can certainly ask questions that allow us to observe through description.

The problem is that we don’t ask questions related to behaviors in the role. We rely on stupid stuff that we, as interviewers, interpret about the candidate. We use trick questions. We try to climb inside the head of the candidate. STOP. Don’t play amateur psychologist.

But, we are experts about the work. We can spot positive behavior on the plant floor or in the field. We can spot negative behavior, and it takes only a nanosecond for us to tell the difference. Why? Because we are competent managers.

Don’t play amateur psychologist, play to your strength as a manager. It’s all about the work. We don’t see the evidence in the interview because we don’t prepare to ask the right questions, because we don’t prepare to ask enough questions. So, we rely on faulty assumptions, like hope. And because we don’t have the right questions, or enough questions, we make the decision in the first three minutes.

What to look for in the interview is EVIDENCE. And most interviewers don’t ask enough questions to gather that evidence. -Tom

Hope Derails an Interview

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“I had hoped that my new hire would have the potential to work at a higher level,” Marilyn explained.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, at his last job, perhaps there wasn’t the kind of opportunity we have here. During the interview, he was very interested in the work we do. I could see it in his eyes.”

“And?” I prompted.

“And, after the first three minutes, I just knew he was the right person,” she concluded.

“And, now?” I pressed.

“And, now, I think I made a mistake.”

“And, why do you think you made a mistake?”

“Now, that I am looking at the real work output, it is remarkably disappointing,” Marilyn shook her head.

“So, the real evidence of work product is a different picture than what you hoped, what you saw in his eyes and what you interpreted in the first three minutes of the interview?”

Marilyn stared. “I guess I was looking at the wrong things.”

“The real measure of performance, even in an interview, is not a gleam in the eye. The only measure of performance is performance.”