#1 Hiring Podcast Designed Specifically For Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Tuesdays @12PM (PST), LIVE on LinkedIn, YouTube, & Facebook Our mission is to enable values-driven startups to win-win the strongest hires by sharing insights from top-performing entrepreneurs, game-changers, & industry thought leaders. www.hirepowerradio.com www.rickgirard.com
Episodes
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Hiring 250 Remote Employees in 2 Weeks with Brock Blake of Lendio
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Imagine having to staff 250 roles... just as many companies were laying off and scrambling to get their PPP loans approved.
Our guest today had 2 weeks to hire 250 people to handle the demand for PPP loans and is here to share his story.
Our guest today: Brock Blake, Co-Founder & CEO of Lendio
Brock spent the last nine years developing technology to get loans to more people, more quickly, and more efficiently than traditional lenders. Under his leadership, Lendio grew to be the largest online marketplace for small business loans in America. So when the coronavirus pandemic struck, he knew he was in a unique position to make a difference.
Today we discuss:
- Creative ways to bulk hire in a short period of time
- The hiring system to be able to crush a lot of hires in a very short time
Challenge today?
- We had committed to [a company] that we would hire 25+ of their people on a temporary basis to help with PPP and then they would return to their employment. It was a win/win. The painful part was realizing the people we hired through them were not skilled in computer software and systems. We ended up keeping only 8-9 people from [Company] which put us behind in getting resources to meet the demands we had.
- Being told “we are good, no more hires” next day “Let’s get 150 hired by next Monday” and we crushed those goals
Why is this important to the company?
- Getting to the bottom of the barrel in terms of Temp to hire resources for the last group that we hired. The incentive to stay home instead of work because of the unemployment benefits had kept a lot of people from applying for work. So those that were applying by the end of our hiring process were not the most employable people. The number of wage garnishments, failed background checks, etc. was much higher for this last group than our overall hiring experience.
- Having the opportunity to extend offers to people during the pandemic. Some people were experiencing the worst few weeks of their lives and were overcome with joy when they received offers. Truly an awesome experience!
- Candidates crying on the phone with us when we offered them the position because they were so grateful to be able to provide for their families or be helping w/PPP
How do we build a quick hiring structure into your company?
- Bulk interview process
- One interview, Decision
- Creating SOPs and generic equipment setup/login instructions - Getting 200+ new hires setup and logged into equipment was a massive undertaking. Staying up until 2 am helping new hires set up their computers for the next morning
- Trying to run new hire orientation with 50+ people in a Zoom meeting who have never used Zoom or their equipment before. No understanding of the mute button.
- Guy falling asleep for 2 hours during training. Snoring.
- Being responsible for retrieving equipment; traveling to unknown places (I’m from out of state), former TMs not cooperating, equipment not being left where they say it would be, thoughts of getting Covid from equipment boxes, equipment not being packed up properly and left outside in garbage bags.
- Cops involved (one emergency contact saying that the temp was MISSING and that us reporting her equipment as stolen might help the authorities find her!) - 4 total police reports
- One person saying “If you want your stuff back, come and get it. And BTW I have COVID”
- Driving all over the state
- Condition that equipment was returned in (garbage bags, shoe boxes, etc.)
- Russ and Kimberly stories of tracking down equipment after terminations
Rick’s Nuggets
- Do not get rid of your hiring process to rapid hire
- Scale the number of interviews
- Train 2-3 interview teams to allow scale
- Assigned interview questions
- Back to back video interviews
- Be aware if interviewer fatigue
Key Takeaways:
- Have a process in place
- Don't cut corners on culture fit, screening
- Get creative
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: Brock Blake
Twitter: BrockBlake
Instagram: Lendio
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
Thursday Dec 03, 2020
Thursday Dec 03, 2020
Can we all agree that the people you hire determine the success of your company. It is not enough to just “fill a role”. Especially if you're a smaller, growing company.
Every hiring mistake that your company has made is due to your focus on the wrong ego driven priorities. (Ie: the work to be done, what I think I need, image for the company)
Focus on hiring the “WHO” that aligns with the corporate values first and you’ll achieve unbelievable results.
Our guest today: Tim Spiker, Founder & President of The Aperio
...And the Who* Not What Principle, a profound research-based truth that has powered 15 years of leadership development success.
Tim’s book, The Only Leaders Worth* Following, reveals that 77% of leadership effectiveness comes from who a leader is and not what they do. Using this principle, Tim helps people become, be, and stay leaders who are actually worth following. Tim’s work includes delivering keynote talks, creating unique and customized learning experiences, and guiding long-term development journeys.
Today we discuss:
- The advantage of focusing on Who before What
- The role Trustworthiness plays in a Successful “Who”
- 3 steps to hiring the Right Who!
¾ of things working is about WHO the person is who is leading the process.
- Listening for who based questions
- Eagerness to hallmark others
Challenge today?
- Are your leaders trustworthy??
- Strong Leader:
- Who is inwardly sound and others focused = trustworthy
- Engages people at a higher level
- How much energy are you putting into your leaders to help them be more trustworthy
Why is this important to the company?
77% of leadership effectiveness comes from who a leader is and not what they do. Why? Because trustworthiness drives engagement and engagement drives performance. Therefore we must interview for and intentionally develop leaders who are trustworthy. Not leaders who give the appearance of being trustworthy, but who are actually trustworthy.
- Trustworthiness drive engagement which drives performance
- Huge Difference between image and the perception of others
- Start of a trend of external image vs
- Downside to the company - long term value creation at the fundamental level
- Company will never maximize performance of the organization
How do we hire the "Right Who" into your company?
- Become Trustworthy
- Develop the core of who you are
- Being curious - about others
- Tell me more about that...
- Depth, Community & Time
Hire for trustworthiness!
- Giving the interview questions in advance
- Let them prepare for the interview
- Dig under the hood
- Provide the Interview questions in Advance!
Interview question:
- "Tell me about a time when you broke trust with someone and what did you do to fix it?"
- Continued Development
- Use the phrase “tell me more” 100 times
- Develop those around you
- Depth
- Community
- Time
- Majoring in politics downgrades your trustworthiness!
Key Takeaways:
- Be willing to look in the mirror, courage to own your shortcomings
- To have a organization with world class leaders, you have to engage with world class conversations -
- Be willing to work on myself to set the example for the other leaders to have “who” based conversations
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: Tim Spiker
Websites: TheAperio.com (The Aperio) TimSpiker.com (TimSpiker.com)
Twitter: TimSpiker
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
Friday Nov 20, 2020
Friday Nov 20, 2020
Data Driven Insight into Your Video Interviews.
“Look, I just need to hire someone who can do the work so we can get this product done” Said Peter. A CEO for a newly funded startup. “Besides, there is no way to really know if someone fits into the company until you experience working together”. Not true at all!
Your interview process, when structured properly, will give you all the evidence to support making the right hire each & every time. Because, as we all know, one bad hire can destroy your company!
Today we are talking about the power of digging deep on the “right” questions and utilizing AI to confirm your conclusions.
Our guest today: Scott Sandland, Founder & CEO of cyrano.ai
Scott is the former world's youngest hypnotherapist. A few companies (and decades) later he is the CEO of a company focusing on artificial empathy and strategic linguistics.
As a former executive director and CEO of a mental health clinic and longtime technologist, he has experience leading purpose driven organizations. He has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, Psychology Today, Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine.
Today we discuss:
- Getting to the truth about the person in a video interview
- How to leverage AI to confirm your hiring decisions
Companies today have an interview process that is no better than a coin toss.
- No process
- Shallow (how can you help me)
- Or rely heavily on assessments for decision making
Challenge today?
- Understanding the mental state of the person you are interviewing
- How they are thinking allows you to understand a persons mindset now
- Analyzing the what and how things are said
- Keeping track of people
- Understanding how people will fit
- Correctly auditing the client pool at scale
- People are dishonest during interviews
- Creating a right fit with a specific management style
Why is this important to the company?
- A lot of the “right” people get screened out via a resume
- People who look good on paper/resume that don’t actually fit reality of job/culture
- How to manage/mentor the person you do hire
- Right person, wrong team… vision to see who will “blow up the locker room”
- Making sure you are in a position to get the most out of a new hire
- What burns them out/demotivates them and how to avoid it
- Allow you to really utilize all the features that are strengths (create a more well rounded team!)
How do we build into your company?
- Profile yourselves & your team
- Look at the relationships of what already exists
- Understand what you really need
- Make strategic decision for similarity or diversity
- Profile each person to interview
-
- Run youtube interviews /linkedin profiles through their system
- Get a head start on your hiring process
- Creating custom interview questions based on insights
- Measure relationships between interviewer and interviewee
- Confirm understanding of what motivates and what burns out
- Accountability vs recognition environments
- Gives the tools to accurately set performance metrics
- Makes the intangibles, tangible from the beginning.
- Hire
- Confirm fit & hire
Rick’s Nuggets
- Understand yourselves then build your company values around
- Do your homework, target & connect
- Interview for values first
Key Takeaways:
- Soft skills assessment of candidates is more important than resume checklist
- Consistency and transparency in that assessment is critical, which is why machines should be used instead of a person with moods and distractions
TAGS
#AI #data #videointerview #artificialempathy #strategiclinguistics
Links
LinkedIn: Scott Sandland
Website: cyrano.ai
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
Thursday Nov 05, 2020
Thursday Nov 05, 2020
Values are the foundation of what your company is built upon. As we all know, without a foundation, the structure that is built can be destroyed at any time. Too often the foundation is poured after the structure has been built.
Our guest today: Darius Mirshahzadeh (Mir Shah Zaday), Founder of The Real Darius & Host of The Greatness Machine Podcast
Darius is a dad, husband, twin, brother and son who was born and raised in California and now lives in Austin Texas.
He is a serial entrepreneur, author, conscious capitalist, speaker and mad scientist CEO. He was ranked #40 in Inc 500 CEO’s in 2007 and #9 in Glassdoor’s Top Ranked CEOs in America for small to medium business. He participated in Birthing of Giants at MIT, graduated from Stagen Integral Leadership Program, is a TEDx curator and expert on core values. Darius’s new book, The Core Value Equation, explains everything on core values.
Today we discuss:
- Why values are so critical in landing unobtainable talent
- How to roll out a Core Values based recruiting machine
There is a silver bullet to hiring! Smart hiring decisions are much easier when you evaluate people for evidence of core value alignment, rather than skills.
Challenge today?
- Social proof
- Everyone pretends to be a cool company
- Catfishing-
- Making sure the best people show up
- A-players are never filling out job applications
Why is this important to the company?
- Not seducing with $$$
- Leading with core values
- Differentiating value proposition
- Value hires are stronger fits for the organization
- Cements a validation process
- You will win Hires
- You are building a better company
- You are only competing with yourself
- Foundation for a “REAL” conversation with each person
Rick’s Nuggets
- People are attracted to opportunities that have a fundamentally stronger foundation
- Opportunity for growth is greater which fuels more impactful work
How do we build a core value recruiting machine into your company? Discovery
What your values are
- Leading with values
- Content
- 2 of 3 hires are referral hires
Design
- High utility value
- Translate into the most powerful language
Roll out
- Teach team the language
- Immersed in the language
Implementation
- Nurture
- Implement in an ongoing basis
Measure
- Measure for efficacy and optimize based on results
Plug into your recruiting efforts
- Built a language for accountability in the organization
- Leading with values when contacting people
- Filter for decision making
- The people on the boat are in alignment with the values
- Dig deep in discovery for value alignment
Rick’s Nuggets
- Design: build interview questions that unearth evidence of alignment with your core values
- Implementation: Train & assign specific questions for each interviewer
Key Takeaways:
- Ultimate decision making engine
- Invisible scale - allow you to grow faster / better
- Magnet for top talent that shouldn't even consider your company (marrying outside your envelope)
Guest Contact & Links:
Darius: therealdarius.com
Book: The Core Value Equation (Amazon)
Friday Oct 30, 2020
Friday Oct 30, 2020
The keys to attraction and retention are transparency and process. Just like having a strong interview structure, Compensation structure is just as critical.
Having clearly defined salary thresholds allows people to be comfortable with your environment while eliminating uncertainty in the minds of your employees.
Our guest today: Louis Beryl, Founder & CEO of Rocketplace
Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace, a curated marketplace of high quality professional service providers. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and was also previously a YCombinator Partner part-time. Outside of being an entrepreneur and investor, Louis is an avid cook and has recently been perfecting his homemade pizza.
Today we discuss:
- Benefits to establishing a compensation structure early on
- 4 step process to building a successful comp plan
Challenge today?
- Setting a correct compensation structure
- Disparity in salary
- Miscalibrated pay system
- How to promote and compensate properly
Why is this important to the company?
Ultimately compensation to align with the values of the company
- tighten range of cash & equity
- Wiggle room for negotiation
- Tradeoff flexibility
- Determine range of percentile before you start ( Netflix 110%)
- Trade off on higher compensation is a recipe for disaster
- Compensation is what does NOT determine the level
- Provides organizational transparency
- Manage expectations & promotions
When compensation changes, adjustments are across the organization
How do we build a compensation structure into your company?
Talk about what values you have in your compensation package
- People feel that teammates will be paid very similarly
Build compensation Matrix
- Cash, quality, bonus, etc
- Determine levels
- Functional areas
- Collect data (compensation data)
- Determines what percentile your organization is willing to pay
Leaders need to define what each level is
- Interview process at each level
- Promotion process
Live values through the interview process
- Adjust the interview process according to the interview
Key Takeaways:
- Think about what you value
- Think about compensation in advance
- Develop methodologies to allow the organization to scale
Guest Contact & Links:
Email: louis@rocketplace.com
Website: Rocketplace Facebook Twitter
Friday Oct 02, 2020
Why the 30, 60, 90 Day Job Posting Wins Hires with Dan Moore of Vaporware
Friday Oct 02, 2020
Friday Oct 02, 2020
Our guests today: Dan Moore, Co-Founder & CEO of Vaporware
Dan is a trained computer scientist who helps clients craft ideas into scalable products. Always one for over-communication and compulsive attention to detail.
Dan co-founded Vaporware to help entrepreneurs take their software ideas to market. Over the past 7 years he has helped Vaporware deliver dozens of apps in Human Resources, Staffing, and Recruiting—all while building vaporware into a stellar organization.
Hiring a bench of developers, designers, and product managers is a challenge for any organization, but Dan has created 2 expert teams that combines all 3 roles at Vaporware.
Today we discuss:
- The 30,60,90 job posting; What it is & how it works
- How to build it for hiring success!
What is a 30/60/90 job posting?
- A better way to do job postings to find the right candidates.
- A list of objectives at different checkpoints (30-60-90 days)
- Designed to ensure proper onboarding and culture fit before the company invests too much.
What happened to drive this solution?
- Created out of personal desire because of the experience from prior companies- escape from past experiences
- How would we want to be hired?
- Tailoring to culture fit is much more important
- Allow people to do different things within one company
- Not looking at what they have but looking around ….
Why is this important to the company? Yes can meet those objectives!
- Limits company risk
- Shifts away from skills
- Keeping people onboard
- Retain people longer from 3-6 months to up over 4+ years
- Bottom line, higher attraction of more seasoned employees
Rick’s Nuggets
- 90 day performance metrics are a necessity for a successful hire
- Sets up the framework for the communication and expectation structure
- Clear guide of what needs to be accomplished by when
How do we build out a 90 day plan?
- Start with the end goal (6 months to a year)
- Stay with us forever: They’re bought into the mission and helping us define it
- Figure out how we can evaluate that in the first 90 days (limit our investment)
- Question what is realistic in 90 days?
- To get to 90 days
- Negotiation between desires and realism.
- Hope for the best but don’t negotiate your minimum expectations
- Define 60 and 30
- Break out what needs to happen for 90 to be successful = 60 days
- Break out what needs to happen for 60 to be successful = 30 days
- Keep flexible enough for applicant to define their own OKRs within that framework
- Post into job listing. Applicants can define OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) within that posting
- Reverse engineer what needs to be
- What are the OKRs
- Set up framework for people to self manage their goals
- Break things down into strategy
- Compelling ability to break things down for company
- Autonomy, bring people who are smarter and can teach us something
Rick’s Nuggets
- Additional formatting for the job add to attract passive people
- What’s in it for me?
- Solution
- Performance metrics
- Call to Action!
Key Takeaways:
- Align to culture first
- Have a 90 day plan
- Review and adjust the plan as you go
Full video of today's #hirepowerradio show available on YouTube
Guest Contact:
Vaporware website or Email: dan@vaporware.net
Links
Website: Vaporware
Vaporware's Sample: 30,60,90
#hirepowerradio #vaporware #hiring #founder #startup #business
Friday Sep 11, 2020
Friday Sep 11, 2020
Today's Guest: Jerri Rosen, Founder & CEO of Working Wardrobes
Jerri’s organization helps over 5,000 men, women, veterans and young adults each year re-enter the workforce with career development services and professional wardrobing.
Today we are discussing:
- The hidden gem that is the veteran pool
- How to find and hire veterans to diversify your talent pool
Why Companies don't actively seek to hire veterans?
- Bias
- Think they all have ptsd
- Not knowing the value of the training that vets get in the military
- Not knowing the true value
- Too much bad press
- Painting with a brush that is very negative
- Vets fall on hard times because they miss the discipline/brotherhood
Why is this important to the company to hire veterans?
- Intense loyalty, when treated with dignity
- Absolutely mission driven
- Path of a veteran
- Make outstanding employees
- Can help recruit -underground network
How do we find and hire veteran talent? Decide to hire outside your comfort zone
- Outstanding, dedicated people
Finding Vets
- Active duty national guard or reserves (highly under employed)
- Vet spouses,
- Military connection through working wardrobes, on your own
- Vetnet team
Interviewing & Hiring
- Understand a MOS- military status
- Translate what was done in the military to civilian language
- Look past the acronyms
- Look for the passion & talents
- Experience & gravity of the work
- Look past the stoic demeanor
- Recognize that task at hand/orders need to shift to a “going above and beyond” mindset
- Requires a bit of patience
- Hire as normal
- Understand that everything was provided for them in the military
- Learning to operate in a very different world & culture
- Different level of expectations
Rick’s Nuggets
- Dig deeper on what work was done and look for transferable skills to justify
Key Takeaways:
- Veterans become a much better employee
- Veterans also bring a network of additional talent
- Looking to hire veterans, WW can be the one stop shop. Hidden Talent Pool!
Working Wardrobes is Rebuilding Careers, and we’ve teamed up with Hire Power Radio Show & Podcast to support this initiative.
The Hire Power Radio team has created limited edition shirts, the proceeds of which benefit Working Wardrobes. Together we can make a small dent in reeducating, coaching and providing resources for our transitioning veterans, professionals and workers affected by the current world landscape.
Get yours here: T-shirts
Guest Contact:
Website: Working Wardrobes
Office Number: 714-210-2460
Friday Aug 28, 2020
Friday Aug 28, 2020
Why Hiring through the pandemic is a strong Indicator of a innovative business.
“We have all been forced to pivot and now we are weathering the storm” for most businesses.
Our guest today: Jay Connor, Founder & CEO of Learning Ovation
Recognized as an early thought leader in collective impact, Joseph A. “Jay” Connor, JD/MBA, is the Founder and Chief Executive of Learning Ovations, Inc. The mission animating Learning Ovations is to have all students reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade.
Jay, a C-suite officer for two separate Fortune 500 corporations, has extensive leadership experience in the business, nonprofit, and public policy arenas.
Today we are discussing:
- Why you should be hiring NOW
- How to evaluate for the business and skate to the puck
Challenge today?
- Is this company able to adapt and respond?
- Have a future, capacity to respond to change vs. being changed
- Higher quality people attracted to the company simply because they are hiring
- People are open to talking.
- Not hunkering down during pandemic is a sign that the company will thrive post covid
Why is this important to the company?
- Expanding & growing in the face of problems
- Approaches & ways of doing things are more attractive to potential businesses. New approaches are welcome and critical to moving forward in the business.
- Engagement at the strategic level is more accepted today. Requiring employees/people to expand their knowledge base.
- We are in the second wave now and you can't be on the sidelines anymore!
How do we do it?
- "Skating to where the puck is going to be." - Wayne Gretzky
- Force yourself to ask “what is the opportunity”
- What allows me to be active vs passive?
- What windows are opening up when the doors are closed?
- What do we need to do to skate to that puck?
- Something need to change about what your delivering (product)
- Or way to change about positioning, branding, communication
- What to change about your team?
- Evaluate every person.
- Where will people have to be 6 months from now.
- Top down assessment
- Gives the opportunity to expand & refine
- Decide to grow the workforce with their PPP
- Highest risk position is the status quo!
- Ability to minimize the risk by acting
- Business as usual is NOT viable!
- Start hiring for new competencies (what are we missing?) and values & mission focus!
Rick’s Nuggets
- Now is the opportunity to double down and be able to attract strong talent
- People are open to talking because of the uncertainty
Key Takeaways:
- Never too late to pivot. What is the most likely scenario for my business a year from now. Assume that there is not going to be a quick fix. Position for the worst case scenario!
- Do an honest appraisal of the team… Including yourself! Will the people you have be good for the business a year from now. Change is tough
Guest Contact:
Website: Learning Ovation
Thursday Aug 20, 2020
Thursday Aug 20, 2020
What's your story?
"Well, we are funded by Greylock and we are disrupting a $30 Billion dollar industry. What else do you need to know?"
This is good information to know but it is not your story. I quickly became a very bored audience with this CEO. Ultimately your story is what draws people in and invites us to work with you. When communicating with the people you are needing to hire it is critical that your story inspire them to join.
Our guest today: Stepahanie Paul, Founder & Head of Training & Development of The Executive Storyteller Academy
Stephanie takes great pride in coaching developing executives, sales teams, TEDx speakers, Women in leadership and experts of all kinds, to become master communicators.
In fact, her proven approach, "Powerful Emotional Engaging Presentations," draws upon her years of rich and diverse entertainment experience as well as she is a certified trainer using 5 science based assessments for behavior and communication using Psychology and Neuroscience.
Today we are discussing:
- Why communicating your story is so critical from your hiring process through tenure
- A 3 step method maximizing your communication
Communicating effectively during an interview is riddled with assumptions, bias and shallow content. Rarely is communication deliberate and with purpose.
Challenge companies face today?
- Developing a person to be in more of and executive leadership role
- Understanding your True Values because your values whether you know them or not depict your behavior and your audience define you by your behavior and actions not by what you say.
- Many are so busy “doing the task” they have no concept of how you show up in the process of the task! Understanding your Stimulus Value
- Checking your behavior before you engage what do you want the audience to do, achieve, react in a certain way?
- No one wants to tell you how you show up because everyone just wants to keep the boss happy being open to feedback is the key to a growth mindset
- Developing lifelong learners for value added leadership that build engagement within themselves and their teams rather than dictators who only drive the bottom line and don’t see the wealth in their people.
- Great leadership is looking at the possibilities not the limitations and not focusing on your “Power” instead using your energy to empower others to ignite the leadership within themselves.
- The way you deliver is more important than what you say
- Come up with a great question to ask yourself on everything - Mine is “How do I make this more fun and engaging for the audience so they will remember?”
- Being hyper aware of how you show up and listening and reading your audience effectively
- Audience will always tell you what they need
- Energy you chose to bring to the table is super important!
Why is this important to the company?
- Immediate benefits to the team and individuals include better fits for task assignments and fewer, easier resolved conflicts. You will find these communication tools and understanding this type of developed skill set will also help you grow in your work and as a member of your field as well. The concepts we are talking about here can help you get a better understanding of yourself and your clients’ communication styles and motivations, which will help you more effectively respond to their needs. And because these are cutting edge concepts in the market space, will give you the opportunity to continue to grow as leaders in your industry.
How do we do it?
- Y: In the first component we use a series of assessments to build understanding around stimulus value and the areas of strength and opportunities for growth in the recipient. We then teach successful behavior, memorization and delivery techniques for connecting with an audience
- O: The overall objective is to teach the recipient effective ways (established in science) to build storytelling, supportive images, stimulating slide decks, and content that is dynamic and influential.
- U: The last component of “The Y.O.U Method” and the most important is the audience. We work with the recipient of the training to guide them through effective techniques to read and work with an audience so they develop deep engaging presentations based in our biology and how that works.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Yourself: must be your corporate values
- The person you are hiring is your audience
Key Takeaways:
- Always check in with where you are at, how you show up is a choice not a reaction to what just happened to you. Make sure that before you start communicating with your audience of 1 or 1001 you are emotionally and energetically where you need to be to achieve the results you want to achieve.. Self leadership is just as important as leading others.
- Learn to read the behavior or your audience, know how to check in and deeply listen to what they are communicating, research, prepare and listen to their needs and be value added.
- Make sure that your content supports your message (result) with powerful emotional images, stories and delivery. Make sure your accessories support you and make you shine rather than become a distraction.
Stephanie's resources:
I would love for you to become a founding member of our newly formed Facebook Group Executive Storytellers and follow us on Instagram @executivestorytellers
Instagram: https://vimeo.com/444640964
Facebook Group: https://vimeo.com/445080878
Here is a discount code to Stephanie's e-book that was released in February “The Why Guide To Story Hacking” use the Code: HACK4U
Thursday Aug 06, 2020
Removing Bias in the Hiring Process with Bruce Marable of Employee Cycle
Thursday Aug 06, 2020
Thursday Aug 06, 2020
“I want to work with really smart people and here is a list of schools that this person will have graduated from” said Lawrence, the CEO. “I do not want to interview anyone who has not come out of one of these schools”.
My gut reaction was to simply say, “no thanks” and exit the meeting. Afterall, this CEO was going to be difficult to work with.
My response back was simply “Confirmation Bias”
We favor information that confirms our world view and this helps us to reduce any cognitive discomfort that discounts our values and realities. As Entrepreneurs, we are more susceptible to this bias because we are so focused on the task at hand. This reduces our ability to objectively make decisions that are best for the business.
Lawrence laughed, grabbed the sheet of paper and threw it in the trash. “Ok find me smart people”!
The truth is the strongest people often surface in the most unexpected ways and your bias clouds your vision of the truth!
Our guest today: Bruce Marable, Co-founder & CEO of Employee Cycle, the all-in-one People Dashboard
Bruce is a Philly-based serial tech startup founder. When Bruce is not helping HR leaders better use data to make smarter workforce decisions, he is making music playlists on Spotify, taking self-care at the boxing gym, or hunting for the best bread pudding around town.
Today we discuss:
- Why Bias needs to be eliminated from your hiring process
- How to deliver an unbiased, evidence based interview
Challenge today?
According to Wikipedia, Bias is defined as a disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair.
We all have bias. It is important to eliminate it for one simple reason… Your company’s success
Why is bias elimination important to the company?
- More diverse companies succeed
- More revenue
- Higher productivity
- Cannot properly market to diverse groups of people/customers
- Totally different backgrounds bring different ideas
- More diverse individuals create more self awareness, well rounded thought process
- Disabilities
- Sexual orientation
- Ethnicity
- Ageism
- Re entering workforce
- Incarcerated
- Parenting
Rick’s Nuggets
- Innate Biases
- Overconfidence: Subjective confidence in ideas or decisions
- Illusion of control: overestimate ability to control situation or outcome
- Anchoring/Adjustment: past experience predicts plans for future
- Confirmation: preexisting beliefs- devalue contradictory information
- Cognitive tunnel vision
- Curse of Knowledge : experts assume similar content understanding in others
- Optimism: See the positive outcomes… delusional optimism
How do we solve the bias issue?
Mindset
- Open to People who are different
- Everyone is on equal footing
- Allow people come in as being perceived as qualified
- Vs. unqualified
- Reinforce that they are qualified
- Eliminate your assumptions- college degree
Actions
- Recruit from a diverse pool of job candidates
- Remove all language in job descriptions that may have bias.
- Standardize the interview questions.
- Perform the same due diligence on all candidates whether that candidate is a referral or not
- Give all candidates the same level of respect
- Blind the resume process
- Remove bias from likability
Rick’s Nuggets
- Customer experience mindset - applicants are your customers
- More difficult to say No than yes
- Conduct a qualifying call with most
- Interview questions
- Pre-determined and assigned to the individual interviewer according to the order in which they participate
- Must gather evidence to support the decision either way
- Feedback & closure
Key Takeaways:
- Acknowledge confirmation bias.
- Review the language in your job descriptions
- Standardize your interview questions
Guest Contact:
Thursday Jul 23, 2020
Thursday Jul 23, 2020
We are now remote. And we are learning so much about what it takes to keep your people engaged and productive. The balance between communication and micromanagement is often the Biggest challenge.
Here’s what we’ve learned: Consistent communication with ultra flexibility is working. Encouragement to take care of yourself first: ie: a walk, bike ride or step away is increasing productivity. Virtual happy hours are helping to forge team comradery.
Our guests today: Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey, Founders of the world's top wine brand, Barefoot Wines
Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. Michael & Bonnie pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and as a result were acquired by E&J Gallo. Today, they offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) & Shelf Smarts courses to help consumer product brand builders achieve success by maximizing the value of their human resources.
Today we are discussing:
- Virtual challenges today
- How to build company culture to an off premise workforce
Off Premise challenge today?
- Disengagement
- Not routine
- Physical commitment
- Daily encouragement
Why is this important to the company?
Two biggest hidden costs in every business!
- Reduce turnover
- Increase engagement
Good people transform to great people through growth
- Improve skill sets & relationships
- Allow people to do the work they like to do and not do. Allow them to create their own roles.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Accountability & Productivity
- Remote causes you to really put your business under the microscope
- Cost of a Bad hire is 30% of individuals earnings (US Dept of Labor)
- Does not include Morale & Productivity loss costs
How do we do it?
Find good people & build great people *****
- Keep people from being isolated (Team based)
- Culture of permission - make mistakes right. Don't hide mistakes.
Hiring tactics?
Overkilling Orientation
- Over educate
- Money map
- About understanding how the money flows to get to your paycheck
- 2 division company
- Getting into the cause & effect of the business
- Sales & Sales support
Include people in the solutions
- Everyone asked to contribute their ideas
- Footsteps to the wine in stores from the receptionist! (recognition)
- Throw problems out on the table and allow people to contribute
- Promote the idea that everyone has a voice
Rick’s Nuggets
- Finding good people requires work & a lot of conversations
- Creative ways to encourage engagement
- Virtual happy hour
Key Takeaways:
- You have a responsibility to improve your hires. Find their talents and expand upon them
- All companies have 2 divisions- sales & sales support
- All salaries start from the community not from the company!
Find Bonnie & Michael here:
Business Audio Theatre Linkedin
Websites: www.thebarefootspirit.com & www.consumerbrandbuilders.com
Thursday Jun 25, 2020
Thursday Jun 25, 2020
Ever finished an interview with a great person and just felt unsure or maybe you need more data to make the decision either way?
This all too common scenario is caused by a poorly executed interview process and not asking intentional questions designed to gain the evidence to support a decision either way. Today we will be discussing how to avoid the pitfalls of this conundrum when hiring for your company.
Our guest today: Steve Pfrenzinger CEO & Head Peformance Coach of Pfrenzinger Agency, Inc.
Steve Pfrenzinger is an entrepreneur, a coach to entrepreneurs and a Hall of Fame investor in entrepreneurs. He’s also an author, speaker, and Self-Awareness expert helping entrepreneurs, innovators and change agents solve big problems. Steve is also a Forbes Coaches Council member.
Using his decades of experience building multiple 8-figure businesses, where he hired over 1,000 team members, Steve has helped hundreds of clients make better decisions, plus expose their career and business blind spots that can clear their path to success.
Today we are discussing
- Why gathering evidence is critical to support your decision
- What Steps need to be taken to avoid this conundrum
Why is gathering deep evidence important
- You have found a very good candidate, but you are just a little unsure, you want one more data point
- E.G., 3 said yes and one said no or “not sure”. then what?
- Finding out how people are “wired mentally” in DISC or Myers & Briggs might impact the decision
Why is this important
- Personality type is a predictor of future behavior and key to major hiring decisions
- Knowing one’s “preferences” is key, how they “lean” in certain situations, e.g., Thinker vs Feeler
- Ask Steve to define a “preference”
4 elements to the personality
- Compare DISC styles to Myers & Briggs types. Cheat sheet below. If you know one, you know the other. If you know neither, you need to find out.
- D = ET (Dominance = Extroverted Thinker)
- I = EF (Influence = Extroverted Feeler)
- S = IF (Stability = Introverted Feeler)
- C = IT (Consciousness = Introverted Thinker)
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview questions need to be intentional
- Digging deeper uncovers the truth…. How & Why?
- Must avoid injecting your own personal bias/agenda
How do we do it?
- Ask them for their DISC style or M&B type
- Have them take a test at www.16personalities.com
- Fast type them with Steve’s 2-page form, uses easy-to-learn computer metaphor
- Fast typing form, Steve has one for all that ask. Contact him at steve@stevepfrenzinger.com
What is Fast Typing?
- PIPO model
- Power
- Imput
- Process
- Output
Rick’s Nuggets
- Proper sequence: Interview => Assessment => Interview close
- Assessments often done too soon
Key Takeaways:
- Personality Type and the behavioral preferences (tendencies) it highlights can further insure the success of key hires.
- You can fast type others without a formal test in minutes, with the PIPO fast typing form
Check steve out at www.coachstevep.com or email him at steve@stevepfrenzinger.com He has many coaching and educational programs for executives and management teams, from entrepreneurial ventures to major corporations.
Saturday Jun 20, 2020
Hiring Trusted Talent with AJ Bruno of QuotaPath
Saturday Jun 20, 2020
Saturday Jun 20, 2020
Why you need to hire trusted talent to build and scale your startup. Referrals are still the strongest way to stack the deck with talent for your organization. But you cannot shortcut the interview process. Just because a person worked well in another organization does not mean they will be successful at yours. Diligence in gathering evidence of value, growth and cultural alignment must be gathered to avoid making a bad hire.
Our guest today: AJ Bruno, CEO & Co-founder of QuotaPath.
AJ leads the QuotaPath team as CEO & Co-Founder. Prior to QuotaPath, AJ spent 6 years at TrendKite, the company he founded and was president of in Austin Texas. At TrendKite, AJ led the go-to-market and sales strategy/execution and took that team from initial product inception through $20+ million ARR and 250+ employees. TrendKite was acquired by the public company Cision for $225 million in January 2019.
AJ is religious about vetting and hiring talent and has made over 300 hires in his career
Today we discuss
- Why trusted talent is the best option to build and scale your startup.
- What to do when you don't have a strong network
- The steps to take to hire through referrals:
Why is hiring “trusted talent” the best route
- Look into your own network of people you have previously worked with or go to a trusted source to help build the team you need to take you to the next level.
Why is this important
- Avoid running into bad hires
How do we do it?
- Reverse engineer your network
- Looking for trust and loyalty
- A lot of back channeling (connect with at least 5 people)
If you know the person?
- He needs to justify why for both parties
In the Interview process
- Disqualification questions- do you know who Elon Musk is?
- Tie questions to the importance of the role
Rick’s Nuggets
- Knock out questions
- Provide a growth path to avoid a transactional experience
Key Takeaways:
- Backchannel with at least 3 references if the hire is very strategic (the first hire in their position or respective position)
- Create a consistent process (with knockout questions or frameworks) if it will be a hire you will make multiple times (sales reps).
- Ensure that the person is sold on working with you and learning from you as much as possible if it is a strategic hire.
Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
There is a flood of great talent on the market and the competition for those limited positions is heating up. With this rise in the talent pool the ability to properly access applications is a major challenge. The bar has been raised! Are you leaving good people on the table?
Our guest today: Shawn Sheikh, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Pivot CMO
Shawn is a Silicon Valley & Beach serial entrepreneur and Y Combinator alumni. His specialty is helping companies scale from $0 to multi-millions in revenue, through both conventional paid acquisition and non-conventional growth hacks.
Apart from Pivot CMO, Shawn loves to work with founders to find creative ways to scale their businesses and owns and invests in a portfolio of small to medium sized businesses
Today we are discussing
- The challenges in a heavy applicant reply market
- How to effectively screen applicants to avoid false positives
What are the issues you are finding in screening applicants
- Quality
- Response rate
- Don't want to do the case study
Right Approach?
- Reply with application (google form)
Phone Screening
- Report to person call screen
Rick’s Input
- Job description- performance metrics and call to action
- CTA: 3 questions for submittal - to be completed for all applications
- Timing of the event…. ie: when to do a test
- Phone screen for Purpose
Current process that works
- Application process does work (cuts from 3k to 300)
- 20-30 people are qualified (phone screen)
- 75-80% show up for phone screen
- 6-8 to interview
- 1-2 to offer
Referrals- from employees
- 4 all hires
- One referral from a person they
Process
- Applicant review/application
- Phone screen -50% technical/ 50% fit
- Walk through assignment
- Test
- Interview
- Offer
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview Structure & process tied to your Company values
- “What are you capable of achieving?”
- Make the call based on the person’s answers rather than the resume
Key Takeaways:
- Better screening questions during the process
- Addressing people’s needs before money
- Owning who you are!
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Using Assessments to Eliminate the Resume with Josh Millet of Criteria Corp
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
The key to successful hiring is in uncovering evidence in a person's ability to align culturally and professionally with your unique company. … None of this evidence is on a resume! How do we gather evidence? First, not short cutting the interview process. Focusing on deep behavioral questions then confirming your conclusions with data through assessments.
Our guest today: Josh Millet, Founder & CEO of Criteria Corp
Josh started the Criteria Corp in 2006 with a vision to create a SaaS-based pre-employment testing service that would make the highest quality employee assessment tools accessible to companies of all sizes.
Criteria has over 4,000 customers in more than 40 countries across the globe. Their pre-employment tests are an efficient and reliable means of gaining insights into the abilities and tendencies of potential employees.
Today we discuss
- Assessments
- Why and how to use them effectively
- A process to properly assess the person you want to hire
Why are assessments important?
With all the advances in HR tech in the last ten years that have transformed talent acquisition, we aren’t getting better at hiring when you look at results. 46% of all new hires are unsuccessful. The problem is we are relying on 70-year old tools, resumes and unstructured interviews, to gather info on applicants and make hiring decisions. These tools are letting us down. Why is it important? Immense bottom line implications.
Problem with Resumes
- Poor, incomplete, unreliable information that in the end does not predict much
- 85% of resumes contain falsehoods or inaccurate information
- Inject unconscious bias into the hiring process
- Boston & Chicago study
Unstructured interviews don’t work much better. Highly subjective, most interviewees make decision about applicants in first 5 minutes, based on highly subjective Criteria
- Evaluating for good data - using objective data to reinforce your decision
- When you think about how to gather data to make good decisions on candidates you should be focusing on:
- Accurate, reliable info
- Objective data not subjective impressions
- Removing bias from decision-making
- Being forward-looking data: how can this person learn, evolve as job does, rather than just past experience
Why are assessments the answer to resume
- Focus on good reliable data
- Things that are relevant to the job. Data that is not subjective and predicts job performance
- Ie cognitive ability (best predictor or job performance, critical thinking, attention to detail learning ability, problem solving)
- Behavioral or personality assessments - Interaction driven roles
- EQ/EI- overlapping
Rick’s Input
- Confirmation of data gathered minimizes bias
How to do it?
- Moving past the resume
- Use assessments early in the process (high applicant to hire ratio)
- Right after the application
- Resume submittal
- Link to assessment in the job post
- Most common after the application has been accepted
- Passive searches (a bit later in the process)
- Assessment become a resume substitute
Process for Active
- Choose assessments that are job related
- Measuring things important to the role
- 30-40 minutes of assessment
- Tailor the testing for the role
- Run at the Application stage or just after (automated)
- Use results to prioritize the people that are more likely to succeed
- Interview
- Assessment can generate further behavioral interview questions tailored to the individual based off their results
Process for Passive (recruits)
- Smaller number of people
- Lower number of people interviewing
- Use later in the process when the candidate is more engaged
- Assessment after the phone screen
- During the interview or just before
Rick’s Nuggets
- Must gain a personal buy in BEFORE giving tests or assessments
- People perform better when they want something
Key Takeaways:
- Do things in your hiring process to get good data
- Make sure everything you are using has a purpose that measures outcomes related to it
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
How can you tell if someone is good just through a phone screen?
A BIG thanks to our guest today: John Driscoll, Co-Founder & CEO of Naked Development.
Part 1: Outlining Key Points for Episode:
- Phone Screening: From reviewing the application to proceed to scheduling a call should be between 2-4 days (MAX)
- Ideal timing for phone call: 45-60 minutes
Part 2: 3 components of the phone screen (understanding the person) Why, What & How
*PAIN (Why):
- Discussion part 1:
- Pain is the person's reason for talking to you
- Types of PAIN to be aware of from an employer prospective:
- LEGITIMATE PAIN
- Lack of Growth
- Work Content/Technical Exposure
- Leadership Issues
- Unappreciated, Under challenged, Underutilized & Underwater
- Commute
- SELF-INFLICTED PAIN
- More Money
- Personality conflicts
- Always open
John’s role “Hiring Manager”
*DESIRE (What): What is the environment that this person will THRIVE
(This is the part where the employer should look into whether or not the candidate is a cultural fit)
- Things to consider when taking a deep dive into their desire:
- Their Vision for where they will thrive
- Fit to your company
- Important note for employers:
- Cultural fit and Attitude are far more important than skills. Yes, More important than skills! Skills can be taught and acquired. Attitude and cultural fit are often woven into the fiber of who this person really is at their core.
IMPACT (How?) (Identify Level of performance)
- Evidence of Success
- IMPACT - Do they go above and beyond (This should be demonstrated by example they give you of their past success and how they work with others)
- Commitment to Personal Growth
- Phone Screen Script:
- *PAIN (Locate a solid PAIN) …. Dig, dig, dig!!!
- What is happening with your current role that is making you open to exploring something potentially stronger?(Very important one to begin with)
- *DESIRE:
- If you could create your next company, what would that look like for you?
- What is your vision of your next role?
- What type of environment do you flourish? Culture, Size, Role, & Domain?
- *IMPACT:
- Tell me about the most significant impact you had in your current role?
- *SKILLS:
- What are your core Strengths?
- COMMUTE:
- Where are you willing to commute on a daily basis? (push limits)
- INTERVIEWING: Currently: Interested:
- To properly pace out the process, where are you in the interview process?
- CITIZENSHIP:
- What is your current work authorization status?
- SALARY: Looking to make $
- What are your minimum salary requirements?
- AVAILABILITY:
- What is your availability to interview this week? (dates/times)
- ***OFFER ACCEPTANCE MAIN CRITERIA: 1: 2: 3: 4:
- What are 3 or 4 “Main Criteria” that you would need to see in a company for you to accept an offer with them?
Final Step: Connecting the Dots
Thursday Apr 16, 2020
AI: Solving for Ego Hires that Fail with Neil Sahota of UC Irvine
Thursday Apr 16, 2020
Thursday Apr 16, 2020
Is AI the future of recruitment? Better yet, will AI replace the need for a resume? Tools are available to utilize AI in improving workflow and screening applicants. The question lies in their accuracy and viability in identifying the strongest people for your unique organization.
Our guest today: Neil Sahota, AI Expert & Author of “Own the AI Revolution”.
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor, United Nations (UN) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advisor, Faculty at UC Irvine, and author of Own the A.I. Revolution. He is one of the few people selected for IBM's Corporate Service Corps leadership program that pairs leaders with NGOs to perform community-driven economic development projects.
In addition, Neil partners with entrepreneurs to define their products, establish their target markets, and structure their companies. He is a member of several investor groups like the Tech Coast Angels and assists startups with investor funding. Neil also serves as a mentor in several incubator/accelerator programs.
Today we are going to discuss
- All things AI, What is it, how does it help with hiring
- Why it is important today
- How to implement the effective use of AI into your hiring today
Why is AI important in hiring through today’s landscape?
- People looking for work should be looking for more than just a paycheck.
- Why is this important?
- People quit when you bring the wrong person onto the team
- Productivity plummets
- Ai can eliminate the need for a resume!
Rick’s Input
- Automating workflow
- Sourcing/screening
- Good at all things transactional
How do we start leveraging AI to optimize hiring in today's landscape?
- Using AI to eliminate ego based hiring decisions
- Story of Omelveney (law firm)- use pymetrics
- Testing for cultural value
- Allow you to evaluate for culture and team fit
- Ai tools to analyze how well code is written
AI Tools Currently Available:
- Pymetrics: https://www.pymetrics.ai/
- Paradox.ai: https://www.paradox.ai/
- Ayra: https://goarya.com/
- Eightfold.ai: https://eightfold.ai/
- Xor.ai: https://www.xor.ai/
- Pandologic: https://www.pandologic.com/recruiting-with-ai/
Rick’s Nuggets
- Add CTA’s into your job postings to allow the cream to rise to the top
- Innovation is eliminating the resume
Key Takeaways:
- Elimination of resumes
- Reduced bias in recruitment
- Increased diversity & inclusion (by accessing “non-traditional recruitment pools)
- Quantifying cultural/team fit
Tuesday Apr 14, 2020
Tuesday Apr 14, 2020
Special Episode!
Video Interviews are the new necessity. But what is the best way to run an effective process? Today we breakdown the framework to run a strong, evidence based video interview. Through partnerships with fully remote based companies, we are sharing what has proven to produce the strongest hires. RIGHT NOW is your opportunity to elevate your companies productivity by hiring stronger talent.
Key Points for Episode:
Timeline for Interview Process
- Startup- 7-10 business days max
- Review - 24 hours from submittal
- Phone Screen - 48 hours (Day 4 max)
- 45-60 minutes
- Video Interviews - 72 hours (Day 8 max)
- 1- 45 minutes
- 2- 45 minutes
- 3- 45 minutes
- 4- 45 - 60 minutes
- Decision - 24 hours from Final Interview (Day 10 max)
Interview steps
- Phone Screen - Phone / Video conversation
- Your Goal
- Learn about the person!
- Understand: Pain, Desire & Impact
- Not to pitch your company, job or yourself
- Video Interviews (Same Day Ideal)
- Ideal to line up back to back
- Schedule back to back or split them up 2/2 or 3/1
- Build a knockout question for each interviewer
- Interview 1 - Cultural Value Alignment I
- Interview 2 - Skills Screen
- Live working session to evaluate skills/communication
- Interview 3 - Cultural Value Alignment II (optional) 24 hours from interview 2
- Final Interview - Cultural Confirmation III & Offer preparation (Decision Maker)
- Decision / Offer (24 hours max)
- Best to give immediate feedback
- Time kills hires, be decisive
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Remember that person who you really wanted to hire but they took a job somewhere else? Now is the time to reconnect. Through no fault of their own, great talent is being displaced due to the pandemic. Now is the time to proactively hire and raise the level of performance through opportunistic hiring! This crisis will pass. And when it does, emerge as a much stronger organization and be positioned to crush your competitors!
Our guest today: Jeff Erle, Former CEO of MobilityWare
Jeff has held numerous C-level positions throughout his career. His experience spans across start-ups, small privately-held and large public enterprises including ADP, Western Digital, MobilityWare and most recently as the COO at Blast.
Jeff focuses on building high-performing teams and evolving award-winning cultures focusing on multi-generational workforces, developing/coaching key executives, and helping companies develop strategies to scale for growth and/or exit.
Today we discuss
- Why it is a great opportunity to hire
- A-players: what are they?
- How to identify and elevate your company performance during this downturn
Why is this important evaluate and proactively hire now?
- Talent is your #1 asset
- You now have the opportunity to upgrade your talent
- Missing an amazing opportunity to settle for the first people to knock on your door
- Now you have the ability to find an abundance of a players
Obviously, the Covid-19 virus has changed the world’s landscape like never before in our lifetimes. In particular, for businesses of all sizes, the nature of the workforce has and will continue to evolve, especially given the looming changes to the large number of workers that will be looking for work. Whether already or soon to be unemployed, or working for a company whose business model has been adversely impacted, millions of people will be applying for open positions later this year unlike anything we have seen in a very long time.
What's an A-player?
- top 10% of experience, capability, for the compensation you are willing to pay for the role.
Given that, for most companies, people are their greatest assets, the challenge will be to retain your A-players. And the opportunity would be to use this historic dynamic to “upgrade” your team and your organization. We’ll focus today on the latter, using the talent either already available or soon to be to assure our businesses come out of this cycle stronger than ever before.
Rick’s Input
- SalesForce, CEO Marc Benioff (tweet- 2200 jobs open…… prioritizing referrals of friends & family who have lost jobs.
- A-player - right profile (builders/startups), cultural alignment
- Desire should be workable
How do we start?
First step is to develop a definition of what an A-player looks like for your organization.
- One who is among the top 10% “available” for the open (or too be upgraded) position
- “Available” means: they are willing to accept an offer given the compensation level offered, in a culture such as yours, in your particular industry and location, with the resources available to them, with specific accountabilities/responsibilities, and reporting to a specific person
- Discuss examples...
Second step is to take an inventory, or a snapshot of your people assets and the level of their quality on an individual basis:
- Identify the “Pioneers” (A-players), “vacationers” (maintainers), and the “prisoners” (those always complaining… but they never leave; they feel handcuffed...)
- Methods to accomplish this include: (1) performance management tools (reviews, feedback, etc.) commonly used at year end for merit increases, and/or (2) “force-ranking” individuals either within departments, or if small enough, across the entire organization. (NB: There are numerous views/debates of the efficacy of force-ranking… but I have used it successfully, especially in circumstances such as this, when economic times demand tough decisions around headcount.)
Last step is to assure your recruiting strategy, methodologies and capabilities can fulfill this goal
Be diligent
- Shift focus to finding the best; this may mean balancing identifying and vetting “passive” candidates with “active” candidates.
- This means you cant be lazy. Its easier/faster to work only with the myriad of resumes and candidates that will be applying to your company this year, but they may not represent the best pool of A-players available to you.
- Ways to assure this include:
- If you have internal recruiting teams, assure they are aligned with your remit of seeking passive candidates as well as active.
- Get a good third-party recruiting partner to find the passive A-players and focus on presenting those people to your hiring manager(s).
Embrace increased volumes and/or new modes of interviewing
- Phone screens
- Video interviews (zoom, skype, etc.)
- Learn best practices on how to do these; many do’s and dont’s lists now available
- Teach managers how to do an appropriate phone screen and video interview
- Pre interview prep and internal alignment amongst interviewing teams
- What are the top key capabilities you all want for the role?
- Who is vetting which ones?
- Who is determining cultural fit?
- Who is making the final decision? Is it unilateral, consultative, or consensus?
- Agree on Who is “buying”, who’s “selling” during the process?
Remember:
- The more time you spend up front the less time you spend in the interviews themselves
- Poor managers don't want to do the work up front to coordinate
- You need to stand out to be the memorable company to attract the A-player.
- People go to work for good leaders/managers (converse of that's what they quit), not just good companies.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Build a list and say Hi
Key Takeaways:
- Now is a great time to re-evaluate your talent, your greatest asset, and upgrade as necessary
- To do so, you will need to embrace new internal areas of focus and philosophies, and your org will need to embrace and/or learn new ways of defining, finding, vetting and attracting A-player candidates
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Secure Funding Through Your Hiring Process with John Yanyali of JuiceBot
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Fundraising is difficult especially when you are missing a hiring process! Understanding who you are and defining your process are critical in bringing confidence to your investors. It is NOT difficult to solidify a process! Bring confidence to your team and your investors by demonstrating that you understand the importance of getting the right people on the bus!
Today’s Quote:
"You must have confidence in your competence." - Elijah Cummings
Our guest today: John Yanyali, CEO of JuiceBot
John is an energetic entrepreneur who jumped into the business world by investing in the agriculture, education, construction, and technology industries.
He is the former COO of Elektronet, a digital technologies provider similarly focused on the Smart Industry. With John’s involvement, Elektronet became the largest manufacturer and developer of custom hardware and software systems in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2017, he joined Juicebot as an executive board member and last year, he was made the Chief Executive Officer of Juicebot. He builds and models a great company culture while providing inspired leadership
Today we are going to discuss
- Why having a hiring process is critical in raising funding
- How build your hiring process into your capital raise
Why does Your Hiring process affects fund raising
- Investors invest in the people more than the idea itself. A great team will turn a great idea into a great product or a service.
- The technical people who build the product are the key.
- Experienced, key players with a stake in the company will significantly contribute to the business.
- Besides creating a great product, they will help the management in creating new revenue streams.
- Technical due diligence is becoming more important for the investors. Where your product is from a technical stand-point will define its success. Therefore, the investors are spending a considerable amount of time trying to understand the technology behind your product so they can help you with the product-market fit.
- Technology companies need great technical people who own up to the mission of the company. We need to build not only a great company culture but also an authentic engineering culture.
- This will give investors the confidence to fund the company as the alignment of business and technical is necessary to succeed.
Why was it important to bring technical talent first?
- Technical people (engineers, designers, developers) are actually turning the idea into a product. They own the design process.
- We need to connect them with all aspects of the business whether it is marketing, sales, or investor relations.
- We need to create a platform where transparency is key to getting things done. We can not and should not compartmentalize. All the stakeholders of the company need to be aligned on the mission and the vision. That can only be achieved by being transparent and sincere.
Rick’s Input
- Highest failure rate is after seed funding
- Pressure from investors
- Most critical hiring happens after raising seed round
- Critical to have a process at this point!
- Sloppiness kills talent attraction, without talent no future capital raise
How to build hiring process to attract funding. Where do we start?
We need to surround ourselves with effective advisory board members to bring in the expertise we may not have. For many entrepreneurs, the decision to involve outsiders in their business may be a wrenching step. Some simply do not want to dilute their control by establishing a board of directors with formal responsibilities and authority. However, the introduction of an advisory board can help some come to terms with this decision, by enabling an entrepreneur to feel comfortable with the business of providing information to, and accepting advice from, an external group.
- Get the message out there to get help from the startup community
- You need a lot of help. Networking at events, forums… ask for help
- Figure out what you don't know. Then reach out to people with the problems you are facing and allow them to join you when the time is right
- If people are not joining, take a step back and ask why?
- We need to be open to working with other people and be open to feedback and criticism.
- Not isolating people to their lanes. Letting everyone involved contribute at all levels.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Outline your hiring process and timeline
- Phone screen, video/onsite interview, Decision/offer
Key Takeaways:
- The future of your business is dependent on your hiring practices. Every new employee will either contribute positively to customer satisfaction, growth and profitability, or contrasting have a negative impact on the business.
- By adopting a structured and comprehensive hiring process, you’re taking the first step in positioning your business for success by attracting the right talent. The type of talent that will help build the company culture, drive sales and ultimately position the company as a leader in the industry. Failing to instill the right hiring process will do the exact opposite, resulting in under-performing employees and wasting resources, time and money.
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
Conducting A Powerful Phone Interview with Christopher Wood of Rise Recruitment USA
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
One of the most powerful tools in your hiring process in the phone interview. The challenge that we have is that it is treated as a screen just to find out if someone has the skills needed. And this process takes on average 5-10 minutes.
It is such an opportunity loss because your first point of contact should be about establishing the connection with the person regardless of the outcome. Your phone interview sets the stage for how you are perceived and severely affects your ability to hire.
Today’s Quote:
"When it comes to success, there are no shortcuts." - Bo Bennett
Our guest today: Chris Wood, Director of Recruiting for RISE Recruitment USA & Managing Director of theRecruitmentCollective
Chris has spent the past 15 years in the Staffing industry utilizing his background in Recruitment and Account Management to help Fortune 500 companies solve their hiring problems by recruiting top talent within the Aerospace, Automotive, Medical Device, Healthcare, Finance & Consumer Goods industries.
In 2017, he took on the role of Managing Director at theRecruitingCollective, an organization of independent, specialized recruiters and boutique firms centered around providing new, custom talent programs. His primary focus today is attracting over and retaining top talent to the Cannabis, CBD & Natural Products industries.
He previously sat on the board for National Human Resources Association – Los Angeles and is currently on the program committees for DisruptHR Orange County and San Diego. In addition, he is an advisor to numerous Recruiting Technology platforms and emerging Cannabis and CBD companies and a member of the National Association of Cannabis Businesses.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why phone interviews are a critical part of the hiring process
- How to conduct an effective phone interview
Why are Phone interviews more important now than ever?
- Understand the person
- Goals, skills & interests - Career path/motivations
- Passive recruiting - building a constant stream of qualified candidates
- Due to the lack of face to face; with Covid-19 restrictions on in person meetings, this is the only way to hire talent during these times
- Sets the tone for process
Positioning of your phone interview
- Setting a clear objective of what you want to get from the call; feel for personality fit with team, explanation/knowledge of necessary experience, understanding of career path and long term intentions
- Asking specific questions that address strengths of candidate that fills a need with your team
- Identifying interest of candidate in role & joining your team
How to conduct a phone interview
- Self reflection- identifying the hole on the team
- Understand what is really needed
- Identify characteristics of the person so you can create questioning to reveal if candidates fulfills your teams need
- How are you going to find what you need
- Creating the profile of the ideal hire
- Establishing must haves vs nice to haves
- Contact
- Asking the questions that are centered around the key things you need to know
- Strategic questioning
Rick’s Nuggets
- Purpose of the phone interview is to understand the person first
- Identify their reason for hearing (pain), what they want to be doing (desire) and what they have accomplished
Key Takeaways:
- Don't just look at the resume, definitely talk to someone. Take the phone screen very seriously
- Really get to know what the person wants. Get to know them!
Wednesday Mar 18, 2020
Wednesday Mar 18, 2020
How to evaluate for good discretion in the hiring process. Discretion is defined by Merriam Webster as an “Ability to make responsible decisions”. This is a quality that all leaders expect from their people but as we know, this is not always the case. How do you interview to uncover good discretionary habits?
Today’s Quote:
"A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it." - Christian Nestell Bovee
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. We help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and providing proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Joseph Hopkins, Founder & Senior Managing Partner of The IPRESTIGE Emerge Fund, LLC
Joseph is a thought leader in AI, authentication and security technologies, He leads an innovative emerging technologies firm that serves as a proprietary first-mover advantage IP incubation model that concentrates on growth opportunities in digital identity protection, security and advance encryption technologies.
Prior to Joseph’s AI and digital identity security work, he served in key executive management roles for Fortune 500 companies, including Kaiser Permanente, 3M, GSK, Allergan, and KPMG. He has hired Hundreds of people throughout his career.
Which makes Joseph a perfect expert for today’s topic. Joseph, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to discuss
- Why it is important to Connect with people while adding value
- How to evaluate for good discretion in the hiring process
Connecting with people to add value
- Listening skills
- No one wants to hear about your problems
- Pick up on a person’s cadence
- What makes the person tick as a person
- Navigate how you engage as to their preference
- If you miss the connection, you’ll never get it back
- Pick up folks who miss the 9-5 mentality
Rick’s Input
- No one cares about the words coming out of your mouth
- While hiring it is critical to be more concerned about the other person than filling your role.
How to evaluate “good discretion”
- Trusting the gut, instincts
- Less tricky the older the person is
- More experience, the less risk
- Interest or passion in the work
- Experience
- Clear signs around eye contact, body language, smile while talking, taking themselves too seriously, jovial.
- Education - important to him.
- Live your life based on what you have learned rather than the exceptions
The ingredients that keep people engaged in an
- Balance of coolness and professionalism
- *Discretion - overly doing something can affect the relationship with the client
- The more the client is comfortable the successful the interaction will be.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Opener “open to hearing about something career advancing”
- Don’t pitch your job, company or yourself
- Find out what’s happening with you?
Key Takeaways:
- Empirical stuff- education, background & skills
- Interpretative- talk to people that have worked with you. Subjective perspective
- His Gut instinct- in conjunction with the other two
Thursday Feb 20, 2020
Interviewing for Skills is Today’s Coronavirus! with David Kinnear of Vistage
Thursday Feb 20, 2020
Thursday Feb 20, 2020
Everyone in a hiring capacity has made a wrong hire in their career. I believe that this is a direct result of hiring for skills first. Here’s the scoop, a person’s skills can change, but you can't change who they are. And technical abilities are not a clear indicator of passion in the work.
Today’s Quote:
“Values should underpin Vision, which dictates Mission, which determines Strategy, which surfaces Goals that frame Objectives, which in turn drives the Tactics that tell an organization what Resources, Infrastructure, and Processes are needed to support a certainty of Execution.” — Mike Myatt
Our guest today: David Kinnear, Executive Mentor & Group Chair of Vistage International.
Dave Kinnear is a Business Advisor, Mentor and Executive Leader Coach. Through his affiliation with Vistage Worldwide, Dave convenes and facilitates peer advisory boards of Business Owners, Company Presidents, General Managers and Chief Executives dedicated to becoming better leaders who make better decisions and achieve better results.
Dave is also an executive-to-executive mentor to Executive MBA students at the UCI Paul Merage School of Business and a coach for the Center for Entrepreneurship at CalState University, Fullerton.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why a skills-based interview is dangerous
- values alignment is critical
- The framework for a successful interview
Why do people interview for competency/skills?
- Competency is easy
- This is what people focus on
- Today's workers need mastery, purpose and autonomy
- Shared values aligns well with the way decisions are made within the company
- We all want to do what's right for the tribe
- The soft stuff is not easy.
- Most CEO’s don't know what the real values are
- Profitability is what is really valued
- Transparency on the financials are missing
- Management decisions are the values
- Culture is the way things get done around here
- The way things get done is by making decisions
- Decisions are made reflective of the values
How do we Hire for Values?
- Running, Knees, shoes analog
- Know what the real values
- Ask questions to determine the person’s values
- Uncover the person’s values
- How someone works with others and makes decisions
- Ask questions that validate the core values
- Let the silence do the heavy lifting!
- When they have the values
- Reveal the mismatch in what they have now and where you align
- Skills can be learned
- The person you want is not on the street
- Hire them
Rick’s Nuggets
- Design questions around the corporate values (Amazon's leadership principals)
- Ask behavioral questions and dig deep. This uncovers the truth about who the person is
- "Walk me through a time"... Then ask why, why, why?
- Do not ask leading questions
- Ask the question and shut up!
Key Takeaways
- · Values are the foundation of an organization's culture.
- · An organization’s leader has only one critical job, and that’s to actively manage the culture
- · The leadership team must believe in and live the values every day
Thursday Feb 06, 2020
Thursday Feb 06, 2020
Reference checking is so important... yet so underutilized. Why? Because it is too time-consuming! But when you fail to reference check you are dramatically increasing the likelihood of making the wrong hire. On top of that, you are missing out on a potential recruiting opportunity
Today’s Quote:
"References drive the industry." - Mark V. Hurd
Our guest today: Yves Lermusi, Co-Founder & CEO of Checkster
Checkster is powering talent decisions of organizations and providers of staffing and HR services. The company aims to improve the world's productivity and harmony by increasing job fit and work achievement, as well as personal career satisfaction and fulfillment.
Yves is a well-known public speaker and a Career and Talent industry commentator. He is often quoted in the leading business media worldwide, and has been named as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the Recruiting Industry”.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why checking references is important
- Voice reference checks vs digital reference checks
- The framework for a successful reference check
Reference checking, what’s the issue?
- People don't do
- Or they do totally wrong
Why are they doing references wrong?
- Only speaking to people that are given
- Talking to 2-3
- Talking to over the phone (filtered feedback)
Digital advantages
- Digitally people are more honest
- People pretend to be their own reference
- Consistency in the questions
Rick’s input
- Design references to evaluate against company culture
- Ability to dig deep on the answers
How to do references right
- Peers or managers recently. In direct contact
- Speak to at least 4 references - the measurement of success 80% in making a good hire vs. just 2 references
- Ask the right questions
- Relevant to the job and non-leading, (leading the witness)
- “Would you rehire?”
- Starting broad and going specific
- Do it digitally
- Saves time
Rick’s Nuggets
- How are you able to question deeper to understand the motivation of the answer?
- Written referrals don't give you the ability to recruit the person
Key Takeaways:
- Get at least feedback from 4 relevant colleagues (relevant:recent profesional close experience)
- Ask predictive questions
- Do it digitally
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
The Right Way to Advertise Your Jobs with Kelly Robinson of RedDot Media
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
Posting your jobs can be a very frustrating exercise. Especially when you receive little to no response. Or worse yet, you receive an onslaught of unqualified responses.
Today is all about how and where to post your jobs to attract the right people! So we are going to geek out on advertising and teach the right way to utilize postings in your recruitment strategy.
Today’s Quote:
“Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.” - Marshall McLuhan
Our guest today: Kelly Robinson, CEO of RedDot Media
20 years on the staffing recruitment and recruiting technology.
RedDot media is a recruitment ad agency with a particular skill in programmatic advertising and helping companies socialize their jobs with our Paiger platform. Prioir to RedDot Media, Kelly founded Broadbean.com Inc 2001, which he sold to DMGT in 2008, launched in the US 2009, and lead the strategic acquisition by CareerBuilder in 2014.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why Job postings fail
- Different ways to advertise
- Steps to take to implement programmatic job advertising
Where do people fail while posting jobs?
- Spray & Pray
- Pay no attention to the content
- Not thinking about what the person really looks like
- What is an important Mindset?
- Treating people who apply the same as a direct recruit.
- People who apply are just open, not sold on your company
What are the different ways to advertise?
Post & Pray - what most do now!
- Programmatic advertising
- Rule based job posting
- Only paying for results
- Click bidding to get your jobs on the top of the listOnly paying for results
Rick’s input
-
- Need understanding of what needs to be accomplished
- Performance metrics
- Content rarely touches the individual (never answers “what’s in it for me”)
How to implement programmatic job advertising
- 3 ways to do
- Use an agency to do it
- Buy a system and DYI & hire someone who is dedicated to doing it.
- Effective in duration based advertising.
- Cost per view or cost per applicant
- Best for 20+ jobs per month
Steps to maximize your job posting
- 20 or less
- Java engineer
- One-offs- start with Indeed
- Zip recruiter is good because of their advertising
- 65 mil lookers a month
- Identify 2 of 5 skills and talk to them.
- Write a good job description
- Have a lot of conversations
How to maximize relevancy
- Job descriptions: Talking to about emotional factors
- Dependent on what and where you are looking for it
- Forget the application process.
- *treat people not like an application but like they are part of the conversation
Key Takeaways:
- And as Jim Collins said it’s the Genius of the AND versus the Tyranny of the OR. and embrace the "Genius of the AND.
- Writing job ads is a skill - get better at it, AND have fun with it.
- Understand and qualify your job description ****A good question is what is NOT getting done while you don’t have this person.
- Job Applications are people who have given you permission to have a conversation with them. Your job is to figure out together if they should quit their job and come work from you.
- It’s not all about saving money a 3,6% unemployment rate!
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Interview Qualification is a Two-Way Street with Greg Toroosian of Elevate Hire
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Each individual brings a unique perspective to every interview conversation. Yet most interviews focus on “what you can do for me” almost entirely from a skills perspective. People want to know what’s in it for them before they choose to engage with you.
Today’s Quote:
"Though we may have desires or bold goals, for whatever reason, most of us don't think we can achieve something beyond what we're qualified to achieve." - Simon Sinek
Our guest today: Greg Toroosian, Founder & Managing Director of Elevate Hire
Greg Toroosian founded Elevate Hire after more than a decade in the Talent Acquisition space. Having previously worked for startups, globally recognized brands, and recruiting agencies, He believes that recruiting and retaining talent is key to having a successful company.
Greg is an expert at qualifying talent for organizations which has led to successful hires for many clients in a variety of industries.
Today we are going to discuss:
- Types of qualification
- Plan of attack on how to effectively qualify people
What is candidate qualification?
- Definition: A quality or accomplishment that makes someone suitable for a particular job or activity
- Two types of qualification
Checkbox
- Asking yes/no questions
- Requirements focused
- Doing the bare minimum
- Ineffective because you are lying to yourself
Thorough
- Have a clear understanding about what the person is actually looking for
- Clarify the likelihood of acceptance of the job
- Fit for the company
- Answer the question (Is this a good candidate)
What's important for qualification?
- Look at profile (linkedin, resume)
- Longevity, career trajectory, companies/industries, titles
- Recommendations (linkedin)
How do we avoid having a checkbox process
- Mindset of the call: don’t go into every call wanting or being hopeful that this person will work out. Ask the questions that unearth what you really need to know.
- Conversational qualification calls.
- Ask open questions, ask scenario-based questions, and ask questions that will determine if this person is a non-starter.
- Listen carefully. Be strict and be honest.
Framework for Effective Qualification
- Firstly, you need a clear understanding of the role you’re interviewing for, its scope, the immediate need, and the future possibilities.
- Be comfortable in leading the conversation so you can get the questions answered that you need.
- Conversational and open questions with enough space for the person to really say what you need to hear.
- Have a form of the questions to be asked, know what you need the answers to be, but don’t read a script.
Key Takeaways:
- Build your own qualification form to use as the foundation for every call.
- Questions that unearth a lot:
- Why are you open to a new role?
- What are you looking for from your next role?
- Talk me through your current role and responsibilities. You can tell a lot about someone's role, their involvement, and their overall understanding of their craft by hearing them speak freely about it. Take notes and then clarify any points you need to.
- After telling them about your open position, ask them how it sounds to them as a next step? What specifically appeals to them from what you shared? Get them to sell the role back to you and to sell themselves as a candidate.
Thursday Jan 16, 2020
Thursday Jan 16, 2020
Making a strong hire starts with attracting the right people. Knowing who the right hire is the first step. But in order to attract the right people there needs to be a message that resonates with the individual and motivates them to respond.
Today we are talking about hacking your hiring through the use of communication profiles.
Today’s Quote:
"Hacking involves a different way of looking at problems that no one's thought of." - Walter O'Brien
CEO of Scorpion Computer Services and executive producer of the TV series Scorpion
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. Our mission is to help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and provide proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Christopher Hadnagy, CEO of Social-Engineer, Inc.
Chris Hadnagy is a professional social engineer, author of 4 books, and keynote speaker. He’s the CEO of Social‐Engineer, LLC, a company who serves some of the globe’s largest organizations. Additionally, Chris provides free resources, including the world’s first Social Engineering Framework, via Social-Engineer.Org, and heads the Innocent Lives Foundation, a non-profit that unmasks anonymous child predators.
So Christopher knows hacking! Which makes Christopher a perfect expert for today’s topic.
Christopher, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to discuss:
- Identifying the right person
- Crafting the right messaging to attract
- Logical steps to weed out the obvious
Problem
- Really bad hires!
- People look great on the surface
- Not showing up for work
- Quitting fast
Why am I having an issue getting good employees?
- *** realize how much time you spend on the back end when you hire with the wrong people
- Aftermath
- Lost over 100 hours and thousands of dollars
- Killed company morale
- Outline the type of person you want before you start interviewing
- Thinking about the work that needs to be accomplished
- Defining expectations up front
- Managing your own expectations- avoid unreasonable tasks
- Experience expected to have
Rick’s input
-
- Create messaging around the personality profile of a successful hire
- Pain, Desire & Impact
How do we fix it?
- Determine the best communications profile first
- Write the job description with keywords that attract the right people
- Describe the words and language to attract the right person.
- Detract the wrong people.
- Logic steps to weed out the obvious
- A list of questions to determine the right fit, video interview to whittle down to 3
- Give the disc test - confirm communication style
- Weed out the wrong cultural fit
- Confirm what is really needed with who the person is
How does one determine the right messaging?
- Disc profiling roles (general)
- D- management, leadership, - Aware D - understands how they communicate
- I- Sales, public speaking, Training
- S- HR, support role,
- C- Accounting, office management - detail & organization
Rick’s Nuggets:
- One size fits all messaging does not work
- Create messaging with a call to action to minimize
- Performance metrics attract the right people
- Plan and put process in place
Key Takeaways:
- Time invested in the prework saves thousands of dollars for the company
- Define what it is that a person must have
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Hiring People Who Are Outside Your Comfort Zone! with Aaron Elder of Crelate
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Friday Jan 03, 2020
It is all too common to look for the person who brings the skills you deem necessary for your role. But the person who brings all the skills may not be the best person in the role. There are a lot of people who are in adjacent industries or sitting on the sidelines who are open to an opportunity like yours.
What does it take to find great people? Looking past the skills for evidence of success that will be transferable to your company. As we all know, past performance is a key indicator of future performance.
Today’s Quote:
“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.”
- Dale Carnegie
Our guest today: Aaron Elder, Co-Founder & CEO of Crelate
Aaron is a serial entrepreneur with 4 successful products, 3 companies and 2 exits under his belt. He is a designer, turned coder, turned CTO, turned CEO who is passionate about creating products people love and make the world better.
Crelate exists to help businesses continuously align people with opportunities. Aaron has a passion for taking a chance on people who are changing careers - giving people a shot
Today we discuss:
- Hiring outside the norm to combat the talent shortage
- a recipe to successfully hire
Solution to the talent shortage
- Taking an age blind approach
- Considering the skills level
- Not just a blind hire
Challenges?
- Casting a wider net- seeing through things
- Opening the holes in the net
- Look past skills to the ancillary skills
- Career shows you as a non-fact (switching careers-coming in as a jr person). Measure people based on risk rather than
- A propensity for learning new things, being innovative and growing, you will probably be able to bring that to the table
Issue of Compensation
- Is a pay cut really realistic? Taking a shot
- Until you talk to them, you don’t really know.
- *** Training and investment need to be real. The organization needs to be all in on people development
Rick’s input
- Look for transferable skills
- Adjacent industries
- Evidence of success
How do we fix it?
- Finding the people who are performers and not just seat fillers
- indicator of career changes,
- Tenacity & grit, raw materials
- Look for evidence of past success
- Hide Easter egg’s in the job post.
- Questionnaires
- Invest in Recruiters- matchmakers
- Have more conversations with people and look past the resume
- Internal training programs
- The long game is the only solution he knows.
- Short term road bumps but long term it is an investment in an approach.
- Be self-aware of the game
- optimize for the long game (bring investors on board)
- Looking to solve a long term problem - at least a 2-year problem
- Education & training which require intense focus and investment upfront.
- Benefit? -the path for retention, earned loyalty, path for mutual benefit
- If you are not growing, you will have a hard time keeping people who want to be growing
- Take more chances on people who do not have ALL the skills
- Creating training, review process that career ladder, reviews, culture for people to enjoy
- Invest in systems to automate points 1 & 2 more possible
Key Takeaways:
- Solve the talent gap/shortage by being able to take chances on people, give them a chance to tell their story and see if it fits. Look past skills to underlying achievements, velocity, grit, etc.
- Invest in the long haul - internal learning, time, training, the culture of personal growth and achievement.
- Do what you can to make #1 and #2 more efficient. That means the right tools and processes that fit those goals. Not work against them.
Thursday Dec 05, 2019
How to Pipeline Talent Without a Talent Brand with Jack Copeland of Staffing Future
Thursday Dec 05, 2019
Thursday Dec 05, 2019
How are you going to attract the strongest talent for your company when people have no idea who you are? The truth is, you are not! Passive talent and those who are not on the open job market will just ignore you because you are just another me-too company.
This is why you will rely on the “I know someone” method to hire Your best source for talent is referrals. What if you can gain awareness before you reach out to someone
Today we are talking about How to pipeline talent when you don’t have a talent brand
Today’s Quote:
“Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.” - Elon Musk
Our guest today: Jack Copeland, Founder & CEO of Staffing Future
Staffing Future, a website development, and technology stack consultancy, with expertise in building, developing and managing technology solutions. The team has built over 600 staffing Agency websites and deployed innovative technology solutions with a multitude of third-party apps to create a holistic sum of their parts.
Jack has worked and consulted with dozens of recruiting software providers who are inclined to augment and develop the industry, they include top tier originations like CareerBuilder, and Tracker RMS.
Today we are going to cover
- What is a talent brand & why it is important
- Framework to build your talent brand
What is a talent Brand:
The message you want to provide to potential talent about who you are, what it’s like to work for you and why they should work for your company.
What’s the difference between a proactive and reactive Talent Brand?
Most small and medium companies don’t even think about what their Talent Brand is but a proactive Talent Brand is taking the time to understand your message, providing a platform for potential hires to engage before speaking to you and pipe lining potential hires.
Problem
- What is a reactive talent brand:
- Persuade people why you are the right company to join
- You are selling to them
- Happens late in the game
- Spend money to get people through the door
- Eliminated access to Heavily sought after talent
- Not responding, applying or know you
- No idea who you are or your value
- You have no perceived value
Rick’s input
- Talent brand is not as important as answering “what’s in it for me”
- About solving an individual problem
How do we fix it?
- Optimizing the website to maximize attraction offering a place to engage for potential candidates
- Solidify your message around who you are, what it's like to work for you and the ethics and values of your business, make sure your management team and business goals align with these internally
- Identify your target ‘finite’ talent and implement strategies to engage and nurture proactively
What are three practical things I can do:
- Understand who you are? Take the time to evaluate your business. Why would I want to work here? Why would I want to stay here? What kind of people are your looking to engage and fit with your culture? How can you retain and attract them. What kind of people are not a good fit? What is our culture and what do i want out culture to be. Summarize this
- Provide a platform for people to engage on your social and website, allow a place for people to understand your business without talking to you and your team. You have no idea who isn't taking your call, applying to your jobs or responding to your recruiters. It’s a marketing exercise to engage potential buyers just like the product you sell. If you have this is can help your convert taken to the top of the funnel if you don't have this it's a red fag.
- 3. Be proactive. For most SMB companies there is a finite resource of available talent in their location and market. E,G Python developers in Portland. How can you get them to understand you exist? Connect with potential hires on LinkedIn before you ate hiring at a C-level and have an open door policy, push out social content but focusing on working for your company and it’s values, attend or host career fairs and speak to relevant colleges. Find a meaningful way to tap into your employees network.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Perks, benefits and free lunch are not attractors
- Companies rely way too much on perks to retain people
- People development needs to be the focus
- Humanize the messaging
Key Takeaways:
- Understand who you are what your message is
- Provide a platform for highly sort after talent to understand who you are
- Be proactive in pipe lining and reaching your core talent in most cases it;s a finite resource.
Friday Nov 29, 2019
Referrals Vs Applicants with Ladan Davia of Beeya
Friday Nov 29, 2019
Friday Nov 29, 2019
According to Linkedin, the #1 way to discover a new job is through a referral… and referrals are the top source of quality hires.
Look, there are good people responding to posted jobs but most likely, they are being passed over. Why?
Our guest today says “The answer is serving up less to maintain more” when looking for talent. Using AI and machine learning can help target the right applicants to diversify your talent pool to find the right hire.
Today’s Quote:
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” - Milton Berle
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. Our mission is to help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and provide proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Ladan Davia, Founder & CEO for Beeya
Beeya, is a meta-search engine for jobs that hosts all jobs on the internet, in one place. It is the only platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to accurately match candidates to jobs they are qualified for, solving the faulty keyword issue other online platforms serve users.
Ladan has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Fox Business, and The Wall Street Journal, and is using her influence to help young entrepreneurs, especially women, break through the tech industry.
Which makes Ladan a perfect expert for today’s topic.
Ladan, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to cover
- Referrals vs. applicants -benefits to each
- Other options for hiring
- How to level the playing field and bring the right talent forward regardless of where they came
Why it is wrong to focus on referral candidates?
- Unfair advantage to people who are connected
- Not based on merit
Why employers are losing good people?
- Just because someone is in transition does not mean they are bad
- Referrals are not necessarily the best hire
Why it costs employers more?
- They are not hiring the right people
- Taking the easy out by hiring the easy way.
Rick’s input
- Time is the big factor here
- Referrals take less time and are partially vetted
- Not putting the right amount of diligence in the interview process
- Other options
- 3rd option - targeted recruiting
- More time-intensive, allows you to stack the deck with A-players
How do we fix this hiring issue?
- Different ways of filtering applicants
- Keyword filtering does not work (no buzzwords)
- Needs to go
- What do we focus on then if not keywords??
Time issue?
- How to replace the keyword with AI & ML
- Challenges: the AI can become bias
- Need to eliminate name, age & gender
Rick’s Nuggets
- Applicant Filtering
- Performance metrics in the job description
- Eliminate buzzwords
- Call to Action in the JD to self filter… answer to 3 questions
- Time issue
- Utilize the phone screen
- 30-45 minutes will save hours in the long run
Key Takeaways:
- Look for alternative ways to hire and stay away from a keyword match
- Don’t be so open to referrals. Open your mind to other people
Thursday Nov 14, 2019
How to Really Evaluate & Hire Technical Talent with Aaron Cooley of Kunai
Thursday Nov 14, 2019
Thursday Nov 14, 2019
We’ve all done it, hired the person who looked great on paper because they seemed to possess the skills we needed. Only to have the hire turn out to be a major disaster.
Here is the truth: Technical resources have a high failure rate because of how they are interviewed. I am going to argue that Assumptions and expectations alignment is where we fail.
Today is about how to evaluate and hire strong technical talent by uncovering the Truth.
Today’s Quote:
"Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backward, or sideways." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. Our mission is to help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and provide proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Aaron Cooley, Lead Consultant - Security & Mobility for Kunai.
Aaron Cooley is senior technical consultant at Kunai. His specialties include high security backend applications, mobile applications, and applications that leverage video. Over his nearly 30 year career in Silicon Valley he’s worked at companies both large and small, to build teams and deliver everything from the first Java enabled handset, to Yahoo’s video player, to secure data processing for the world’s largest accounting firms. Aaron has hired hundreds of engineers throughout his career which makes Aaron a perfect expert for today’s topic.
Aaron, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to cover
- How to identify & evaluate strong technical talent
- How to interview and Hire the person you company needs
Why do we fail in hiring technical talent?
- Arbitrary requirements… pass the technical coding test but failed miserably when they were hired.
- %of false positives
- & false negatives
What to be looking for?
- Desire is way more important than initial skillset!
- Really want the job, you have to jump on that
- In 3 weeks they will know what they need to know for the job
What to Avoid
- Do you know what I know? You want people who know things that you don’t know.
- Don’t do coding quizzes … it is about you, not the other person
- Don’t hire an ‘Architect’ that doesn’t write code every day. A good technical lead is 100% hands on every time, but many ‘Architects’ are actually technical product owners. They only understand technology from the perspective of a customer. They are great at making diagrams, and requirements, not great at leading technical teams to implement solutions.
Rick’s Input:
-
- Resume Bias
- Assumptions!
- Look for transferable skills, not skill lists
- Years of experience doesn't really matter
- Impact- What have they REALLY accomplished?
- Resume Bias
How do we fix it?
- Start with the resume
- What did they do
- Progression
- Are the things they have done relevant to you
- Looking for the pattern of starting & delivering
- Interview
- Skip the coding quizzes
- Make the interview about them
- What exactly did YOU do?
- Day to day work… detail it out! Dig deep
- Individual contributor vs. lead engineer
- IC focus on tasks that someone else defined. Great at delivering but not the best person to drive things. Documentation not important to this person.
- Lead Engineer: will see the need for documentation and they’ll encourage others to do the same. Comments on the code, write the new code and will see opportunities to write new code through documentation.
- All engineering like writing new code!
Two sides to the interview
- You selling to the person
- Ego in the room
- Finding out if the person is a match
- Leave your ego out of the room
- Find out what the person has really done
- If your interview process it that broken, I don't want to work for your company
Rick’s Nuggets
- Resume
- Work history
- What was accomplished. Evidence of impact
- What did you do?
- How did you do it?
- What were the results?
- Interview
- Utilize the phone screen!
Key Takeaways:
- Skip coding quizzes
- Architects and technical leadership NEED to write code!
- Make the interview about the person and dig deep with questions based on experience. What someone has done before is the best predictor of the future
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Startups suck at choosing recruiting partners!
There is no magic button to push to have candidates pop out for your roles. Before you hire, put the same thought and care into your recruiting strategy as you would into every other aspect of your business. Just having a strategy will dramatically increase your chances of landing great talent as opposed to just hiring those who are ok.
Today’s Quote:
"It is rare to find a business partner who is selfless. If you are lucky it happens once in a lifetime." - Michael Eisner
Our guest today: Amy Arenz, Founder & CEO of Concero Search Partners, LLC
Amy has been in the search and placement industry for more than 25 years. Due to the high demand for her services, Amy founded Concero in 2010 to increase resources and improve the capacity to better accommodate her many clients. Concero specializes in recruiting sales, technical and go to market talent for high-growth, private and publicly listed technology companies.
Show highlights:
- Why picking the right partner is so crucial to your business’s success
- Different types of recruiting options & What to look for your particular situation
- How to uncover if the recruiting partner is right for you
Why is it important to choose a recruiting partner?
Time Savings:
- Too much on your plate
- Recruiting is kinda done
- Not really knowing what is needed
- Grouping too much profile into one person… people that don’t actually exist.
- Create more work when you use multiple firms.
- Confusing and burning the market
- Internal recruiters become process babysitters
What are the options?
- Hire multiple firms, Hire an FTE, Hire a contractor, Hire a single partner
- How to determine your needs
Challenges in
- Single Partner vs Multiple Partners
- Single Partner Advantages:
- Learns Company Brand
- Works with the leadership team that they probably hired
- Develop processes that can then be utilized
- Broad # of roles - can you fill lots of different positions or just one specialty
- Leveraging historical experience
Rick’s Input:
-
- More is better is wrong
- Retained vs Contingent
- Dependent on the level of engagement required
- Higher touch and value in a retained partner
What to ask to determine the right fit for your company
Reporting & Data
- Question: How will we know what effort has been put into our search(s)?
- Transparency of Process
- 3-4X pipeline
- Weekly reporting
- What’s in it for me?
Experience and expertise in the space
- Question: What experience do you have in our space? What recruiting tools do you use?
- Not educating the firm on the basics of what you do
- Have a network
- Come in and ramp quickly because of industry niche
It’s not just hiring
- Question: Do you have experience in helping a company set up a recruitment process?
- Job description
- Interview process / candidate experience
- branding/messaging
Rick’s Nuggets
Additional questions to ask
- What problems do you best solve?
- What does your ideal client look like? (independent of our company)
- What are the metrics to best define our expectations
- What is your Interview to placement ratio- Every good recruiter knows this!
Key Takeaways:
- Find a recruiting partner that provides transparency and gains your trust!
- Don’t fall into the trap of the more recruiters the better
- Dig into a recruiting partner’s expertise functioning in non-hiring support roles such as recruiting process design and setting up post-offer onboarding
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
In honor of Halloween, we are sharing interview horror stories. We all have heard campfire stories of a crazy interview or even a scary hire. Today we are going to help you identify crazy on both sides of the coin to help you avoid a tragic nightmare.
How not to get hired or have someone accept your job offer
Today’s Quote:
"If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it." - Ray Bradbury
Our guest today: LeiLani Quiray, Founder & CEO of bethechangeHR
LeiLani has a fiery passion for both Human Resources and philanthropy. She believes people are a company’s most valuable asset and they should be cared for as such but no only on a level where the business truly cares but a quantifiable basis where we measure the effectiveness of the programs we put in place to foster a healthy work environment.
be the change HR, Inc., a conscious company and social enterprise, provides fractional HR executive support, strategy and service to businesses in any facet of HR from pre-hire to post-term and everything else that happens in between.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Ghandi
Yup...she's doing just that!
- Scary Things people do in interviews
- What scares People from your company
- Avoiding your own horror stories
Warning signs of an upcoming bad interview
- Showing up late, without a phone call
- Typos in the resume- the devil is in the details
- customer experience
- fast paste environment
- Heavy Perfume
Two Stories
- Schwane Schwiley
- Rejection Letter & his response (I have one of the emails!)
- “My Truck was Stolen (and hit by a train) - A case of a negligent hire
Rick’s Input:
Company Fails
- Lack of clarity & setting performance metrics
- Constant re-scheduling
- Unstructured interview process
- Arrogant interview process
- Setting the environment to maximize a person’s performance in the interview
- Group whiteboard test designed to make you crack
- Adversarial
- Erase work while answering questions
Two Story Conclusion
- Schwane Schwiley
- Swifter involvement to protect employees (myself)
- Crazy is out there and you can’t control it
- “My Truck was Stolen (and hit by a train) - A case of a negligent hire
- Background checks are key
- Overlooking criminal history = negligent hiring
What do we need to pay attention to?
- The frame of mind (desperation, urgency)
- Over aggressiveness
Rick’s Nuggets
- Diligence in the phone screen
- Uncover the truth & the crazy
- Focus on the person, not the skills
- Skills-based hires breed horror stories
- Pain, Desire & Impact
- 3 behavioral-based questions designed to get under the hood
- Beware: taking credit, playing well with others & the blame game
Key Takeaways:
- Watch out for warning signs in the very beginning
- Sometimes sh!t just happens but you MUST take action quickly
- Background checks are important!
Thursday Oct 24, 2019
Thursday Oct 24, 2019
The purpose of the interview is to get the truth of who a person is and how they can bring value to the business. Common or conventional tactics do very little to do more than scratch the surface of the individual and so we still make hiring decisions based on likability and bias. Which is why we make bad hires!
The questions that you ask, are the questions that hurt you. Because they are unimpressive and do very little to showcase your organization as outstanding.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
“Experienced managers interview to qualify. Inexperienced managers interview to disqualify” - Mark W Boyer
Guest Bio:
Robert Davis is the CEO of Communities for Cause. He is a seasoned CEO and entrepreneur who enjoys the challenges involved in trying to run and scale companies. Building the structure and creating the company culture required to commercialize a company's passion and grow business by turning great ideas into concrete, actionable steps that yield revenue, repeat customers, and increased cash flow.
I’ve always been a transparent person who doesn't shy away from conflict. I find great satisfaction in working with teams to identify what may be missing and addressing those challenges head-on to effect positive change and rapid evolution.
Show Highlights:
- Preparing for the interview
- Conducting the interview
Why is it important?
- Interviews are riddled with assumptions - king of all F-ups!
- Creating a judgment by the assumption
- Bias
Interview preparation
Create questions on the front end and determine “why” you are asking that question
- Filter down to the questions the most applicable
- Taylor the questions specific to the position
- Wants don’t count in the interview process
Qualifications
- Personality- can be a qualification
- Make sure there is a fit
- Skills/experience
- View of where you want someone to go from and to.
- Growth, mutual path and where the person will fit
- Remove likability from the ultimate decision
Preparation
- What does the business need?
- Align with company values
- Prepare questions designed to understand WHO the person is
- Amazon Behavioral method
- Do not use the resume as your guide!
- Prepare the interviewee on what to expect in the conversation!
Conducting the Interview
- Don’t treat interview casually
- (no cup of coffee at Starbucks), or meet for dinner alone.
- The Start and the stop need to be formal
- Perpetuate bad interview practices unknowingly
- Group meals are fine
- Personal questions- don’t ask (anything about personal lives) If they share, fine
Rick's Nuggets
Interview
- Be organized!
- Put into practice a formal structure, stick to the time, provide feedback
- Structure
- 3-5 people for onsite, 45 minutes per person
- Predetermined questions 3-4 max
- Challenging & Take out of comfort zone
- Eliminate questions that elicit canned response
- Behavioral questions are the most revealing… follow up with why, why, why?
- Amazon does it!
- Sample Behavioral question
*Do you consider yourself to be Lucky? (Positive or Negative outlook on life)
- Explain
- Or Why?
Key Takeaways:
- Be clear and concise with yourself on the information you need to extract
- Don't make it very personal from your perspective
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
The Challenges & Benefits of Hiring Refugees with Chris Chancey of Amplio Recruiting
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
We are in a negative unemployment market and there are just not enough workers on the open job market. The solution might be taking a different avenue... Hiring Refugees.
There is great value to expanding beyond your scope of the limited talent pool into unfamiliar waters. Consider people who are motivated, engaged and reliable to elevate company performance.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"We must find a way to balance our tradition as a state welcoming of refugees while ensuring the safety and security of our citizens." Bruce Rauner - Former Governor of Illinois
Guest Bio:
Amplio Recruiting is a staffing agency placing refugees into jobs across the US. Chris Chancey launched Amplio in 2014 after moving into a refugee community outside of Atlanta, GA and now leads a team that has placed over 5000 refugees from 40 different countries into full-time employment at over 300 US companies.
As a social entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author of Refugee Workforce, a book articulating the economic impact of refugees in America, Chris believes in leveraging business to create greater stability for the 70M displaced people around the globe.
Show Highlights:
- Why refugees make great hires
- Dispel some of the beliefs
- Provide a How-to guide to locate and hire
Why is this a good pool of talent?
- Legal to work
- High retention (80% @ 3 months & 70% after 1 year)
- Drug-free- zero
- Increase of productivity - high growth mindset
- Company's reporting back double quota
- Mostly Congo, Burma, middle east
What does a company need to know about hiring refugees?
- Language barrier
- They learn English faster when they have a job
- Software to help train
- Transportation
- Rely on public trans
- Mostly blue-collar
- Only 10-20% have advanced skills
- Cultural Awareness
- Diversity welcome
How does a company tap into the Refugee pool?
- First, open the culture to diversity thinking
- Are safety and other relevant signs posted in the native languages of employees to assure a full understanding of a safe environment?
- Do you have an intra-company multicultural calendar to avoid scheduling important events or meetings on major cultural holidays?
- In the onboarding process, are materials offered in both English and the employee’s native language?
- Are meet-and-greets, building tours, team lunches, and other activities in place to ease the new employee into a comfortable atmosphere?
- Are training materials or presentations reviewed before introducing them to employees of different cultures to see if anything needs to be modified or explained in a different way?
- Top-down approach
- Promote inclusivity: the focus is not diversity, the focus is inclusivity
- Specific examples:
- Systems in place to accommodate onboarding:
- Slow onboarding time: What you would typically cover in two days, with a traditional employee, spread it out over a week or so. It’s better to over-communicate on the front-end than have to make amends for lost time, resources and relationships on the back-end.
- Don’t leave anything to chance: Communicate, communicate, communicate. Be direct with instruction and don’t assume the other person immediately understands. Overstate tasks and ask questions to assess comprehension. Avoid demeaning tones and be patient with questions, and don’t assume employees understand even the most basic cultural norms.
- Second, search “refugee organizations near me” on google to connect with local non-profit refugee agencies. They will be willing to educate you on the community and can invite you to local community events. If you share a job description with them, they can help refer to potential candidates.
Key Takeaways:
- Recognize the value of refugee community (buy the book)
- Connect with your local refugee community
- Consider ways you can employ refugees at your company
Thursday Oct 03, 2019
Stacking the Deck with A-Player Talent with Kevin Lawrence of Lawrence & Co.
Thursday Oct 03, 2019
Thursday Oct 03, 2019
Today we are making a commitment to hiring excellence! To do this you must change your mindset, your expectations and your hiring method. The transition away from “best practices”, what everyone else is doing, is necessary to stand out.
Fill your staff with A-players! Develop your B-players into A-players and significantly increase the likelihood that your company will crush it. Today’s insight is the spark to set your standard in building an amazing company.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. " - Vince Lombardi
Guest Bio:
Kevin Lawrence is the CEO of Lawrence & Co. CEOs typically place their first call to Coach Kevin with a crisis to solve. They stay because of his business acumen and no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is style. Kevin’s worked with hundreds of CEOs and executives, helping them to break through business challenges, grow their companies and find personal success along the way.
These experiences inspired Kevin’s book, Your Oxygen Mask First, in which he reveals the 17 habits every leader must know to transcend the perils of success and achieve even more.
Today we are going to cover:
- The philosophy behind poor hiring practices (attitude)
- What A, B & C players look like
- Implementing a methodology to fill every position with A-Players
The all too common Philosophy of most startups
- Aspirations are equivalent of a beer league hockey team with NHL aspirations
- Entrepreneurs drag mediocre people with them and they wonder why they don't win
- In your own business, you don't think it applies to them, yet if they were able to take
- Founding entrepreneurs
- Don't have good mentors that they
Understanding what the Hiring perspective should be
- Most leaders don't scrutinize hires enough
- Discipline and rigor around the hiring
- The result from hiring quickly in the beginning
- As they become a bigger business they use the same methodology
- Insanely critical all of the time. Each hire can make you or break you… especially you as a leader
You Must understand this
- True A-players are being taken care of…. It is a lot of work to dislodge them. A-players never get laid off.
- Patterns of A-players
Rick’s Input:
- Treat every hire like it is a Million dollar hire, changes your perspective on time investment to the hiring process
- Keep raising the bar!
How do we make the transition to hiring excellence?
- You Have to believe that you deserve and NHL caliber team
- The belief puts you into a different trajectory
- Review each of the key people in the business:
- A, B or C player - Philosophy is A to stay
- Strive for excellence. With a quarterly portfolio review
- Calibrating talent every 90 days. Take action, give feedback, support, development,
- -treat your review like an investment portfolio
How to Identify the A player
- Crystal clear on what you are looking for- a mathematical job description
- Get to know who they are… before the offer. It may take 3-4 hours to dig deep
- Understanding character, patterns
- Being able to rate someone accurately during the interview
- Steps Implementation
- Have an expert in the methodology
- Require key hire diligence & review the summary report before the hire.
- Reference checks- Talk to the managers only…. A-players easily give references and the managers will talk to you
- *mediocrity cant find their bosses
- *** Default to having an amazing team
- Find the smartest people who have built systems and follow them
- Earn the right to tweak a system. Systems work when you follow them completely, Humans screw it up.
- Relentless execution of the basic principles
Rick’s two cents:
- Deep behavioral discussion
- Gathering evidence of success
- Situational / Hypothetical interviews are a waste of your time!
Key Takeaways:
- Need amazing people to create amazing performing company
- Deep scrutinization is critical for all hires and promotions - these are million-dollar decisions.
- You have to focus on your own strength & Resilience to have sustainable success
Thursday Sep 19, 2019
Thursday Sep 19, 2019
Today we are taking an honest look at your hiring record. Data does not lie!
The success or failure of your hiring is a direct result of your interview process. Everything from the messaging, the experience of the first contact through to the way the interview is conducted determines your hiring outcome. It is NOT money!!
A shift in mindset is needed to understand that people have options and your company is not as special as you think. You need to stand out. You can do this by providing growth.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold." - William Hurt
Guest Bio:
David Patterson is the Founder and Managing Director of The Kineta Group and TheSAPRecruiter.com, and also a member of Sanford Rose, a top-10 ranked world-wide retained search firm (Executive Search Review).
He is The SAP Recruiter, and helps CIOs, IT Execs, and Talent Acquisition Pros hire and retain the best SAP talent in the known Universe. In his 15 years as an SAP Recruiter, David estimated that he personally interviewed between 5,000-6,000 candidates for all levels to include Architect up through the C-Suite.
Show Highlights:
- Why it is important to really dissect your hiring record
- Understanding what success should look like
- Evolve your own unique process into an experience that attracts the right people
Why is it important that you take an honest look at your hiring record
Your Hiring record is the result of your interview process.
What data should be measured?
- Number of people interviewed to get to an offer
- How many people turned down your offer
- Last 10-20 hires
What a record should look like?
- Where people fell out… timing issues. The truth about taking too long, dropping the ball, the impressions you are leaving
- Self-actualization- following the pack,
- Different interview process- repel as much as it attracts. How can I scare people off? (the anti-sell) - The Crossfit sell
Rick’s Input:
- Retraction: Video interview is all good … one way video interviews- Bad Idea!
- Past performance is a key indicator of future performance
- TRUTH: Money is not the reason someone turned down your offer
- Data
- First Interview to Placement ratio
- Offers extended
- Accepted / Rejected
How do we fix a broken Hiring record?
Use the strategy to drive the message.
- Be polarizing to attract the people who love you
- The majority of people don't get what you do, the ones that do become believers
- Finding that career wound…the pain that they have become habituated too. That’s where you pivot!
- (but you need to first find those common pains that most candidates in your industry have, as well as develop the skill to elegantly bring that out in people during interviews)
Create a “Special Sauce” where you attract the people you want.
- Cult-like following. Special tribe
- Don't be afraid to repel the wrong people.
- People who are attracted to the mavericks
Assessment of why you hire the way you do.
- Not seeing all the right people out there
- Based on the job descriptions
- View on the JD flows into how to recruit
- How you onboard/retain them
Rick’s two cents:
- Understand your Candidate
- Accept that you are one of many
- Fill the gap in the person’s career
- Provide a growth road map
- Target specific people and nurture
- 4:1 Interview to placement ratio
Key Takeaways:
If you don’t want to be just another commodity employer, you need to:
- Be willing to take a step back and figure out, fundamentally, the pains, fears, and dreams that drive the people you want to hire (and recognize that you are selling a product that solves a pain)
- Be willing to draw pain and dreams out of the people you are interviewing (to see what makes them tick, in their heart)
- Be willing to be polarizing and repel as much as you attract, if not more so!
Friday Sep 13, 2019
Tapping into Veteran Talent Pools! with Brian Erickson of Vidoori
Friday Sep 13, 2019
Friday Sep 13, 2019
A lot of companies shy away from hiring veterans because they don’t understand the value that they may bring to the table.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Cisco & Walgreens have programs in full force but the majority of startups have yet to really get on board. The diversity in thought that comes from hiring a vet may be the competitive edge that your startup needs to propel your business ahead of your competition.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"We hire military veterans because they make great employees. They bring proven technical and leadership skills. They understand teamwork, and they're adaptable. Bottom line, hiring veterans is good for business."
Randall L. Stephenson - CEO of AT&T
Guest Bio:
Brian Erickson serves as the Vice President, Strategy and Solutions at Vidoori, Inc. He leads company expansion strategies bringing the Vidoori brand to the west coast. Brian has over 26 years of experience in Naval Aviation, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Information Operations, Strategic Programs and sourcing/acquisition. Brian is a retired Senior Naval Officer (Captain/O6) with proven experience and expertise across numerous technical domains bringing a warfighters perspective to Vidoori’s mission of delivering excellence.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from San Diego State University, a Master of Business Administration (Financial Management) from the Naval Postgraduate School, a Master of Science (Information Technology) from the Naval Postgraduate School and an Executive Management Certification from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Additionally, Brian holds numerous defense and industry related certifications to include: CISSP, GSLC, CISSO, CISSM, DAWIA Level 3 PM, DAWIA Level 3 IT, CKM, ITIL.
Show Highlights:
- The benefits of hiring veterans
- Challenges in the crossover
- What is needed to hire veterans today
Why hire veterans?
- Advantages of hiring veterans
- Hard workers
- Trained
- All the same, competencies that civilians do +1
- Life experience
- Much harder workers, disciplined
Why do companies not hire veterans?
- Language Translation - understanding of Military terminology
- Skills Mismatch -
- Negative Stereotypes / Bias - too rigid, formal, chain of command
- “Alpha” mentality
- Aggression / PTSD / disability fears
- Cultural Fit
- Fear of future deployments
Rick’s Input:
- Military ranking & conditioning
- Diversity in thought
- Requires a shift in mindset
- Impactful behavior transfers
How to Successfully hire Veterans
Preparation is Key!
- Process & Structure
- Checklist oriented
- Understand rigidity in the government process
- Outline the Framework, Training & Direction
Rick’s two cents
- Embrace the differences in Mindset
- Seek to understand the mindset
- More important to have a structured interview process
Key Takeaways:
- Have an established interviewing team that works well together; bring in a technical “ringer” as required to round out the depth and breadth of conversation.
- Hire military...highly technical, lots of experience, trustworthy, bang for your buck
- Transactional vs relational (stick with relational)
Thursday Sep 05, 2019
Thursday Sep 05, 2019
Have you ever looked at a resume and thought this person is perfect! Only to find out after you have hired them that the person is a total mismatch to your organization. This is the result of being “Shopping Hungry” for the hire.
This is totally avoidable! By keeping the interview process consistent regardless of who the person is, where they came from you will serve you well!
NEEDING to fill a seat is not enough evidence to warrant making a hire!
Today’s Quote:
"If you take shortcuts, you get cut short." - Gary Busey
Guest Bio:
Kevin Castle is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of Technossus. He is responsible for motivating and leading an organization of technology experts who are laser-focused on exceptional client outcomes.
A highly engaged entrepreneur, Kevin has driven the Company’s strategy and supported the expansion of Technossus’ footprint from one office in Irvine to three worldwide. The firm has been recognized three times by the Orange County Business Journal (“OCBJ”) as one of the best places to work and four times by INC 5000 as one of the fastest-growing companies in America.
Show Highlights:
- The pitfalls of being “shopping hungry”
- How to avoid this pitfall
- A process to cure being shopping hungry
What is “Shopping Hungry” for last-minute hire? Why does this happen?
- Challenge - at the time you need to hire someone, you scramble to find them, make a hasty decision and do not go through all the of the checks and rigor to make sure they are the true long term fit and strategic hire for you
- Short cut the interview process
Why is it important not to shortcut the interview process when hiring?
- Hiring the right culture Fit
- Challenge - you hire someone who has the skills, knowledge, experience - but fails to make sure that they are the right culture fit. Hard to deal with, hard to get them out, and often can have a lasting impact of damage made with internal and with external people who interact with your company.
- Personal - hired someone that was not rooted in the same values - meaningful relationships, trust, sincere kindness.
Rick’s Input
- The purpose of the interview… The Truth!
- Short cuts get cut short … like the quote
How do we solve this problem?
- Acknowledge that you were the culprit of the mistakes made
- Solution - spend 5-10% of your week passively recruiting. Meet key persons, spend time networking and reaching out to people to learn more about background, desires. When you need to bring someone in, then a couple of friendly calls can get you moving quickly. Networking with people who may know other people like you may hire is a key strategy to get some great referrals
- Side benefit - a great way to get market aware (can teach you a lot). Also helps to give you a broader breadth of the skills in the market for the position.
- Solution - be clear
- Important - to only hire people that represent your values
- Trust your gut
- Incident - several years back. Hired someone that I just knew was not going to work well. Did not click with me, and could not get through and understand why. I could not articulate what it was that made us not connect. The team was ecstatic in interviewing this person, all thumbs-up, and ultimately hired this person.
- What happened - It completely did not work out. Had to let them go and nobody was happy in the end. Did not get the job completed, trust was an issue from the start, had to let them go.
- Important - to click with the people who work for you. To start off with a genuine interest in someone is critical for them to be successful.
Having to let someone go who is loved by all - but is not performing
- Solution - having metrics-based performance tracking - we have this @ every single level in our organization - where goal setting, outcome, performance can be quantified - at times this ends up having to trump likability which is very difficult for people, companies, for us all.
- Have specific questions around the culture.
Rick’s two cents
- Performance-based metrics.
Key Takeaways:
- Passive recruiting- Network 5-10% of your time
- Cultural alignment matters
- Trust your gut
Thursday Aug 29, 2019
Thursday Aug 29, 2019
We have all experienced it….Trying to coordinate calendars to accommodate an interview. It is a BIG time suck from someone’s day!
How to eliminate some of the administrative tasks and shift into more productive work that moves your business forward.
Today’s Quote:
"There's a lot of automation that can happen that isn't a replacement of humans but of mind-numbing behavior." - Stewart Butterfield
Guest Bio:
Olivia Melman leads DigitalOcean’s Recruiting Operations team, having joined the company as the People team’s first Program Manager in March 2017. In addition to managing the Recruiting Coordinators, Olivia is focused on automation and collaboration within the full-cycle recruitment process, and owns all data and tooling associated with recruitment strategy. She also manages DigitalOcean's external partnerships with talent acquisition and branding vendors, and runs point internally on headcount planning alongside the FP&A team. Olivia started her career in Financial Services as an HR Management Analyst, and most recently, was a Customer Success Manager for LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions business.
Show Highlights:
- The issues around Calendar management
- The challenges with just coordinating & scheduling interviews
- Solution to optimize your interview calendaring issues
What are the challenges in scheduling interviews today?
My team’s responsible for coordinating interviews -- at a really high volume (averaging 200 hires a year), but the challenge we’ve run into is really how to maximize time in meaningful ways.
- Limited interviewer availability and limited candidate availability -- coordinating calendars effectively becomes really difficult
- 70% of my team’s days are spent browsing Google calendars to schedule interviews (more specifically, onsite interviews where we are bringing candidates in to meet several people from our hiring teams)
- Interview scheduling ties to candidate experience, employee experience (hiring teams) and the experience of those on my team (it’s frustrating staring at Google Calendar all day!)
Why is it important?
- Time spent where people are not contributing their maximum potential/value to the team -- once you’ve mastered how to schedule, you don’t learn from each instance
- At this kind of junior level role, it’s important to me that my teams gaining relevant experience beyond the task at hand (scheduling) -- and is in fact as an operations leader, I need them to gain system implementation experience -- program management and change management experience so that I can effectively delegate down the road
- (personally, I want to make sure that everything my team is doing is contributing to their individual growth and development).
- Navigate gaps- communication upfront
Rick’s Input:
- Always one person- have an alternate
- A bench of back-up dancers (interviewers)
How do we solve this problem?
- Using a new technology platform to automate interview scheduling and eliminate the “calendar Tetris” of trying to schedule onsite interview panels / back to back interviews.
- The tool essentially enables the user to build the interview panel or team (select interviewers, interview duration, format, location -- set times) and then the tool does the work for us by using AI to pull in Google Calendars and find time slots where the selected interviewers are available back to back and for the assigned formats/durations.
- Cut to 40% of the time using system administration skills rather than scheduling role (30% time savings)
How did we go about finding a solution?
- Discovery and assessment -- figuring out exactly what the workflow looks like now (in terms of people, process, and systems)
- People -- do we have the right people executing? Who are the stakeholders? Is that who they should be?
- What activities are these individuals working on that isn’t adding value? For example, what is being executed that doesn’t bring 1) learning 2) development or maybe 3) revenue or however YOU define value for your org
- Let’s break out those individual activities we identified and first, look internally to solve with automation (an example where we did leverage internal resources was with a web-based candidate resource library -- so that we could stop attaching docs to every email and updating links in a zillion place, just have one link do.co/candidates)
- If nothing internally available, then go to market to see what external vendors or technology partners exist
- Vendor selection: Speak to DO philosophy on vendor selection (simple and elegant, ability to inform product design, contribute to vendor success) → this led us to Interview Schedule!
Rick’s two cents:
- Standardize a process where anyone can step in
- Assign questions to each person in the process
- Evaluate based on the company values
- Pre-schedule days for interviews
Key Takeaways:
- People, process, then systems -- nothing will work if you don’t have the right people in place
- Implementation -- making sure you think through user adoption and change management
- Metrics for success -- any time you are investing in automation ($$), making sure you have a clear vision for what success looks like
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Cracking the Bootstrapped Startup Hiring Code with Meetul Shah of DemandMatrix Inc.
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Why is raising capital more celebrated than building a business that is actually profitable? It may be a smarter play to join an actual business rather than a "concept company".
A bootstrapped company should be more attractive to people but for some reason, it is not. Today we are out to prove that driving a good business does not require venture capital and You do not need VC money to attract and hire the right talent.
Today’s Quote:
"Bootstrapping is a way to do something about the problems you have without letting someone else give you permission to do them."
- Tom Preson-Werner, co-founder of Github
Guest Bio:
Meetul Shah CEO of DemandMatrix, Inc., is a tech entrepreneur, having successfully built 3 companies prior to starting Demand Matrix. His “entrepreneurial” vision and inspiration comes from his desire to create and bring products to the marketplace that can help solve problems he himself has faced in his career. The combination of his years as a successful entrepreneur combined with his tenure at Microsoft has given a strong shape to his business acumen and technical expertise.
Meetul has been featured in several major publications, like CIO, NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Venture Beat, and more.
If you were to ask him to introduce himself in less than 5 seconds, he’d probably just say he’s an idea machine, health freak, and wine lover! He is deeply passionate about Sales and Marketing Productivity given his time working for and selling to enterprise companies like Microsoft, DocuSign, Google, Cisco.
Show Highlights:
- Bootstraping! What is it?
- Challenges & benefits to hiring in this type of organization
- A Process to hire when you do not have money to burn
What is Bootstrapping?
- A bootstrap is a business launched by an entrepreneur with little or no outside cash or other support.
Why Bootstrap your company?
- When you take the capital, you take more risks in hiring. You make bad hires under the pressure of VC money.
- The pressure to hire outweighs common sense.
Challenges faced while hiring
- Viewed like you don't have money
- May not be able to afford people because salaries are supported by the business.
- Lowering standards because people are not biting.
- Desperation takes over and you hire whoever you can.
- Hiring is misunderstood in startups
- False perception- you have money, you hiring
- Early-stage it costs the company a lot when you make a bad hire!
Rick’s Input:
- VC money opens doors but it
- Attracting people who are brainwashed by funding yet you will probably won't get a dime when the company exits
Solutions (what you learned):
As an Entrepreneur, where to Start?
- Understanding yourself, who you are
- Supplement & compliment people to support core values.
- Hiring community understand and can divide and conquer
Structure your process to allow for successful hiring
- Hire a really good TA person
- Build a recruiting process.
- -find a recruiting process, glassdoor
- Don't be desperation and be non-bias and do not ignore the warning signs
- Badmouthing employer, blaming others, sharing things they should not share (internal information), bad culture, bad boss
Rick's Process:
- Determine what the business needs, set performance metrics
- Build interview questions to gauge with company value alignment
- Formalize an interview structure for “Purpose”
- predetermined questions
- Timed
- Behavioral-based interviewing (like Amazon)
- Communication/Feedback channel
Key Takeaways:
- 1. Know yourself, and the values you care about
- 2. Pay attention to the warning signs
- 3. Build a solid business foundation so you can use VC money "as a fuel in the fire" to align incentives/goals
Wednesday Jul 31, 2019
Ryan Malone: Building a High Scale, High Performing Remote Company!
Wednesday Jul 31, 2019
Wednesday Jul 31, 2019
Today we are talking about building a high scale remote company. Try this on for size, a 75-person company without an office! The advantages are different than you might think yet you really must be mindful of who you are hiring.
A remote workforce is a time to talent advantage not a save money advantage
Today’s Quote:
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” — Stephen Covey
Guest Bio:
Ryan Malone is the CEO of SmartBug Media, which he founded to give clients amazing results and employees a lifetime of memories. Before SmartBug, Ryan ran marketing at several venture-backed and public companies. Ryan enjoys the gym, live music, people watching, and playing terrible guitar. He lives in Orange County with his wife and two amazing daughters.
Show Highlights:
- Challenges & benefits of a remote organization
- The importance of cultural fit
- Interview structure for hiring remote employees
Challenges:
Why??
Building a business is hard enough. Why make it more difficult by building a remote business?
- Be part of the team and be part of the family
- Hire better and faster by being able to hire talent from around the country
- Only option to build the tribe
Talent Strategy:
- Recruit ahead- create a waiting list. Always interviewing.
Building a Marketing culture:
- People are bought in when they join
- Structure work culture
- Deep challenging relationships
- First people hired should be a marketing/pr person. Attract people who are already qualified to the process.
- Peer-based reference reviews prior to the interview. Inbound recruiting, skill survey
- Video submissions
Benefits of building a remote workforce:
- The talent pool is vast
- Work/ life integration-
- Flexibility
- The world will not end if you are not at your desk
Interview process:
- Inbound resume flow (into ATS)
- No headhunting
- ATS- kicks out instructions to make a video to submit
- Schedule an interview
- All video interviews, mix of behavioral interviewing
- One person focuses on skills, values, tools, cultural
- Look for Clean work environment, evidence of value, perseverance, curiosity
- Are you an additive to the culture?
Interview structure:
- A 30-minute call with everyone on the team
- Flexible work model
- Psychological permission be available for your customers/ team but the schedule
Key Takeaways:
- Hire marketing & pr first
- Use video as a screening tool
- Reference peer review early in the process
- Designate people to be experts in the interview process
- Always be interviewing
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Martin Herrington: I'm Down With H1B... Yea, You Know Me!
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Going old school with the title, don't judge!
STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) hiring today is brutal as there are just not enough people to support the demand. Without bringing policy into the conversation we are going to tackle the challenge of how to hire around the limitations.
Today’s Quote:
"To maintain their own competitiveness, workers need to attain and stay current on the qualifications needed to advance in a constantly evolving economy." - Elaine Chao - Secretary of Transportation
Guest Bio:
An avid entrepreneur from University onward, Martin Herrington established a service industry business before graduation, partnered a real estate development company, and co-founded The Herrington Teddy Bear Company to move to the United States, creating a multinational sensation. As Chief Financial Officer and Managing General Partner, Martin was responsible for all aspects of the business including Sales, Production, HR, IT, and operations of the corporation before seeking additional challenges. Mr. Herrington holds a very distinguished record of service in non-profit organizations in Canada and the U.S. with his most recent focus growing the Youth Motivation Task Force of Orange County. An entrepreneurial graduate of the prestigious Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Commerce, Martin also advanced his education credentials into the Series 7 and Series 66 US Securities Licenses and held the Wealth Advisory Associate role with Morgan Stanley before becoming a Financial Advisor as part of his creation strategies.
Martin is currently a founding partner and Vice-President with TEKCORUS Consulting, a Recruiting & RPO Agency based in Orange County, California specializing in recruiting high tech talent Recruitment Process Outsourcing Services. Martin has been a Toastmasters International member for many years, and speaks regularly at community events, business meetings, and consistently competes in Toastmasters International speaking contests.
Show Highlights:
- What an H1 is
- The benefits & challenges to hiring
- How to effectively hire someone under H1 status
Problem:
What is an H1?
- Long Term but not permanent work authorization / visa that is sponsored by employer.
Benefits of Hiring an H1
- Already has an h1b-
- wider pool of talent
- 3rd party intervention
- Better technical skills/expertise
- Better rate
Things to be Aware?
- Beware of agents
- Lying
- Different people showing up for different parts of the interview
- H1B is looking for a path to Green Card only
Quirks of Engineers - Knowing the individual to prepare for the interview
- Biggest challenge
- -Technically sound
- -asking basic questions
- -build a database of technical questions
How to sniff out the quirks, personality & culture fit
- Problem lies where
- Creating the right environment for an interview
- Knowing enough about your clients to be able to properly prepare candidates for interviews
Rick’s Input:
- Hire people who are already holding an H1b- Transfer
- Timing is S L O W - elimination of premium processing
Steps to Hire H1’s
First step - Go over resumes
- Watch for duplication - some resumes look too “familiar” or even identical!
- Look for excessively long resumes - ie. filled with same info. at each job experience
Second Step - initial phone call - screening for good communication skills - can be a challenge and if you cannot understand them, then your client or the team will likely not be able to either
- Go over each job experience by asking what they did and what technologies were used - making sure that it matches the resume, dates, etc.
- Listen for delays or background talking; candidate should know all details her/himself
- Confirm relocation details - do they have friends/family in New City; what is the likelihood that they will actually show up in New City? (ie. verify “Relocation Anywhere” and vet out tire kickers.
Third step - in-person or Skype interview
- Making sure the same person from phone call shows up for the in-person/Skype
- If by Skype - Watch for lip syncing, other people in the room speaking or signalling;
- Screening for communication,
Fourth step - get commitment for duration of contract;
- If necessary, contact Agency holding Visa to confirm
Rick’s two cents
- Communicate!
- No assumptions
Key Takeaways:
- Be diligent in your communications
- Find out Visa details; request copies of Visa/paperwork; allow extra time!
- Coach candidates through interview process
Friday Jul 05, 2019
Lorraine Ladd: Learning Your ABC's. Always Be reCruiting!
Friday Jul 05, 2019
Friday Jul 05, 2019
That's right people, today we are talking about our ABC’s!
The reality of the talent market. Creativity and Contact are the keys to winning talent. We are going to clue you in on where the gold nuggets are and why you are missing out on great people.
Today’s Quote:
"Great vision without great people is irrelevant." - Jim Collins - Author: Good to Great, Built to Last
Guest Bio:
Lorraine Ladd is the Associate Director of Talent Acquisition for alliantgroup.
She is an experienced sales and Talent Acquisition executive with a demonstrated history of working in the staffing and recruiting industry. Strong professional skilled in Customer Acquisition, Sales, Executive Search, Customer Relationship and Executive Coaching. Lorraine started her career while in college in radio and was a successful radio morning show personality before deciding to go into the world of staffing and recruiting.
Show Highlights:
- Why you should always be recruiting
- The Truth about responding to your job postings
- Where to find great people now!
Problem:
Bold Statement: Recruiting is easier today than it ever has been!
Why is it important to be continuously recruiting?
Creative ways to recruit talent
- Not enough talent - Why?
- Low unemployment, not tapping into the right pools
- Active candidates
The Truth: where you are missing people … about responding to Ads
- There really is enough talent, people are just not tapping into it
- A lot of people that are out of work 50-65 can't really find a job as a white male.
- Perception: Less flexible , set in their ways
Rick’s Input:
- Requirements are FLEXIBLE
- Look for reasons to screen people IN
- My experiment…. Sent out resumes
Solutions:
Where to find good people now?
- Unexpected places to recruit talent
- Retail, cold calling, conferences
- Using every tactic you can
- Pick off the 50-65 talent pool
Rick’s Answer
- You are missing the people closest to you
- Applicants, former applicants, former employees
- Target Passive Talent
- Requires different positioning
- All about “what’s in it for them”
Key Takeaways:
- Always be Recruiting
- Hire people, not roles
- Network
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Engagement!
Well, not the type of engagement you might be thinking of.
Engagement in the business sense. Employee engagement is the one critical element that leads to the success of your business! Which I believe starts from the first point of contact with your organization… yes before someone is hired!
Today’s Quote:
“Not what you say, not what you do but how you make people feel.” - Maya Angelou
Guest Bio:
Steve Higginbotham is the Branch Manager of Volt Workforce Solutions. As an executive business partner and inclusive leader, Steve brings two decades’ of experience leading organizational transformations with leading companies. Changing the way Staffing Companies engage with their customers is vital. Having a deep connection with your business and an inclusive approach will continue to add value through a Total Talent Management partnership. Steve has expertise in Technical Recruiting, Business Development, Technology Consulting and Human Capital Solutions. He continues to deliver immense value to companies and business leaders through his strategic partnerships. Steve believes in a customer service approach for business success.
Steve has experience leading multiple types of organizations from Fortune 100, mid-market, private equity, & VC backed start-ups. In addition, Steve has developed 15 different divisions within eight different businesses while managing large business units & increasing enterprise accounts. His track record includes leading, coaching, mentoring and developing people into highly successful business leaders.
Steve has spent his career aligning business professionals with career opportunities. The value that he brings to companies identify with their strengths and opportunities for growth. Steve's experience coaching individuals helps improve communication. He has also conducted numerous presentations to board members and C-Level professionals with highly respected clients and industry associations.
A people oriented leader who drives business collaborative to maximize team performance while mentoring & coaching individuals through aligned approaches to achieve desired results.
Show Highlights:
- What Engagement is, what it isn’t
- Why engagement is critical today
- How to engage people to create emotional attachment!
What is engagement and why is it important? Engagement
- How you communicate with your company
Hiring managers - I want to hire the best talent, retain top talent
- What happens in the middle from what you want vs what you are getting
The company gave 3 hours of training, no orientation, on the job training.
- Employees responsibility - Who owns engagement??
Problem
3 sides of the engagement - Who’s responsibility is it these days
- If a person is not engaged correctly, they are going to bounce quickly… first 30 days.
- The company needs to train leaders to be better leaders
- The dual partnership between the company's & managers
People leave quickly or they stay and are just there because of the paycheck
Belief in mission, vision values.
Outlining issues that you cannot control
- Employee: losing engagement with the job… nothing more that is being contributed
Rick’s Thoughts
- Engagement starts with your job posting, email or phone call
- Critical in attraction & retention
- When you care, you win
Human Contact is the key
- 1:75 people call back.
- There has to be a personal approach.
Steps to maximize engagement
- Sources are not recruiters…
- Everyone with at least relevant experience NEED to be called
- train recruiters on what needs to be asked
- Discuss career worth
- Poor career planning. No mentoring, support or growth
Once they start:
- Not scaling back on your onboarding process
- Social media posts are not onboarding
- Clearly, have a process
Train your recruiters
- What information to gather
- The importance of a conversation
- Reward finding gold nuggets!
- Create a hiring bonus for people who were passed over because of a resume but are actually good
Pick up the phone and call people!
Key Takeaways:
- Differentiate yourself from the standard hiring process
- Create a structured and standardized interview process
- Train your employees to be Talent minded
Remember in engagement – how you make the candidate feel is more important – please be genuine in your approach, efforts and ensure timely and responsive feedback – always
Thursday Jun 20, 2019
Dr Deena Brown: The Hiring Power of Relationship Capital! Or You’ve Been Cat-fished
Thursday Jun 20, 2019
Thursday Jun 20, 2019
Offers do not get turned down because of the MONEY… They are turned down because you failed to Understand who the person is and then demonstrate a mutual alignment of career & personal goals to your organization.
The Truth is People turn you down because of the lack of care!
Today’s Quote:
"Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candor." - Tom Hanks
Guest Bio:
Dr. Deena C. Brown is the founder and CEO of DC Brown International, a leadership and growth company created to pioneer innovative strategies that transform organizations into culturally diverse ecosystems.
Dr. Brown’s trademark C3 Blueprint for Success provides a strategic roadmap for organizational leaders to communicate and connect across a multi-generational workforce. Dr. Brown’s body of work includes identifying and remediating leadership gaps that are barriers to innovation and growth.
After identifying a significant deficit of women in key leadership roles, Dr. Brown founded The Leadhershift Movement. The Leadhershift Movement is designed to help women shift the way they think about themselves as women and how they develop and respond as leaders. The Leadhershift Movement provides a safe-space for professional women to get clear about their Why, confident about the What, and consistent about the How.
Show Highlights:
- Our approach
- How we humanize the process to gain greater engagement
- Process to Engage
Approach to talent
What is the problem?
- Ignoring the root of hiring. The human factor, the relationship capital
- Mindset
- Ignore the obvious
- Organizational view- transaction
- We need to fill the hole
- Disconnect on the level of importance for the person they are hiring.
- Simple things are ignored…
- Dealing with a new population of employees that are looking for more than just a paycheck
Why Offers are really Accepted or Turned Down
- We lie
- Arrogance & Ignorance
Rick’s Input
Our approach is Selfish
- We have become conditioned to believe that the company is the PRIZE
- Not the case in this market
- Positioning is a one size fits all …. Centered around perks & benefits
- Listen to understand, not to respond
Solutions
- Being aware
- transparent
What have we done about this?
- Training
- Using the data to support the discussion
- Awareness
- Brought to the attention & proper training
- Learning to remove ignorance
- Identify the gaps (pain)
- Education shift in mindset
The 3 C’s
- Clarity in Vision, Mission, and Organizational Values that paint a clear picture for potential hires.
- Consciousness about what today's workforce values such as authenticity and relatability which is more influential than a paycheck.
- Consistency in regards to expectations and responsibilities of your workforce.
Rick’s Contribution
- Engagement starts before the hire is made
- Too much focus on the money & perks
- What a person desires is far more powerful
Key Takeaways:
- Care about the Human relationship
- Having clear values … are you who you say you are
- Provide growth opportunities to augment or improve a person’s life
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Ken Middleton: Thank You for Ghosting Me During Your Interview Process
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Ghosting has come full circle now that it is a talent-driven market! There is no excuse for ghosting someone on either end of the hiring spectrum. It is a vicious circle that just breeds ill will.
Frankly, as a recruiter, company ghosting helps us to lure your best people out of your company.
Why do companies engage in such behavior? We are going to figure that out today!
Today’s Quote:
Your brand is your public identity, what you're trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear.
Lisa Gansky
- She was the co-founder and CEO of Global Network Navigator, the first commercial website, which was acquired by America Online
Our guest today: Ken Middleton, DevOps Recruiter of yourdevopsrecruiter.com
Ken M. Middleton spent 10 years working for the largest IT staffing company in the world before deciding it was time to bet on himself. He started YOUR DevOps Recruiter to focus on connecting the best DevOps candidates to the best DevOps companies while evangelizing DevOps to the masses.
One way he accomplishes this is through his YouTube channel, The Dhub Repository, in which he posts weekly DevOps career tips, rants on what bugs him about the recruiting industry, and interviews DevOps SME's on different DevOps topic, in a segment known as DevOps Defined.
I have heard Ken rant about ghosting which is what makes him a perfect guest for today’s show!
Today we are going to cover
- What Causes Ghosting?
- How to Stop Ghosting
What is the problem?
- Clients ghosting candidates.
- No feedback or super slow feedback after long extended amounts of time with no updates along the way.
Why might companies’ ghost?
- Litigation fears
- Running too fast to pay attention
- Just lazy, inconsiderate or Arrogant …
What are the causes?
- HR representatives being overworked with numerous positions.
- Not considering quick and timely feedback is important to the candidate experience.
- Not have a clean process in place to follow up with ALL candidates, not just the ones they want to hire.
- Not giving a sh*t about candidates who they don't want to hire and just letting it fall by the wayside b/c of a feeling of superiority and snootiness towards candidates that apply to them. (i.e. they came to us for a job, right?)
Rick’s Two Cents
- Communication
- Ghosting occurs on the company side when companies are unsure about a person.
- Interviewers do not know the right questions to ask, how to dig so they did not gather enough evidence to make a decision.
- The key indicator of a bad hiring process.
- No clear structure on the information that needs to be extracted
- Without direction, people fall back on what they know.
Side Note: Your Bad Glassdoor reviews are a recruiter's best friend… How to treat people interviewing at your company
Solutions
- Stop having your HR representative work on so many positions at one time - Prioritize what's important...not what you MIGHT need down the road or later.
- Create an automated process to respond to applicants - There are CRM's that have this functionality where you can send multiple emails to candidates. Avionte, what I use, is able to do this.
- Create a better follow up process for quick feedback - Schedule the feedback meeting within 24 hours of the interview. Don't let it happen by chance. It needs to be planned and everyone has to understand the importance of it.
- Create standards for feedback to all candidates and an update process/rhythm - Just because you don't have an answer doesn't mean you shouldn't communicate with your candidates. At least once a week is a good rhythm that will keep them engaged and protect your company's brand to not be a "ghoster."
- Give a sh*t - Not Just because it's the right thing to do but because it protects/helps your company's brand and ability to recruit in the future. Understand that feedback is part of the candidate experience (some would argue the most important since primacy and recency (first and last) is often what people remember about most experiences)
Rick’s Process to eliminate ghosting
- Eliminate the transactional mentality
- Protect your company brand
- Understand the Reality of the Talent Market
- Breed the right culture
- Communication, gather feedback quickly *** Realtime Feedback!!
- Process for quick decision making & feedback
- Lead person monitoring the interview (founder, HR, Recruiter, Admin)
- Build in Knock-Out questions
- Debrief each interviewer as they exit the interview. (Max 10 minutes) - add that to the managers calendar
- Evidence to support a “No”
- If they dont pass the knockout, let them go
Key Takeaways
- Feedback (good or bad) is super important to candidates and if you want to attract the best talent and protect your company brand you need to get great at delivering this in a timely manner.
- This doesn't happen unless you make it a priority as part of your candidate experience process, and if you don't think you have a process, you actually do and I'm pretty sure it's BAD.
- We all need to CARE more. Looking for a job is sometimes one of the hardest and most difficult times in someone's life, and we need to treat people with that in mind in relations to our interactions, as opposed to just focusing on fill another job for your company.
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Anderee Berengian: Hiring Good People is Hard....Not if You Hire for Culture First
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Here’s a shocker for you guys today… Hiring Good People is Hard! Or is it? Maybe we just make it hard on ourselves because we make compromises based on need.
Today we are going to take you on the hiring journey of one startup who have managed to beat the odds to build amazing teams.
Today’s Quote:
“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” - Winston Churchill
Guest Bio:
Anderee Berengian is Co-Founder & CEO at Cie Digital Labs, an interactive development firm and Managing Partner at RezVen Partners.
With more than 20 years of experience steering corporate and product strategy, Anderee is an accomplished entrepreneur, technologist, and investor passionate about driving progress through digital innovation. At Cie, Berengian is responsible for building a world-class execution-focused team and growing Cie’s digital transformation ideas into sustainable, profitable companies.
Show highlights:
- What really makes hiring hard
- How to make hiring easier
Problem:
“Organism rejects the thing that doesn't belong”
- So why do we hire people that are wrong for our companies?
- Used to screen - look at Skills first
- Are we truly interviewing and hiring for culture?
- *** Biggest pain point is time- Interview 10-12 to get a hire.
- Streamlining the process to save time
*The top dictates the culture
- Check for cultural & skills fit
- Make people comfortable .. Casual setting, get a much better sense of who they are and how they will fit.
- *** Bring back for social interaction
- Foster a lot of team-based interactions
- -heavy screening for culture
- Promoting people who propagate the way they think and execute
Rick’s Input
- Difference between Culture & Perks
- Culture is what happens when no one is looking- how people interact, treat others
- The icky stuff
Solutions:
What needs to happen in the interview process?
- The shift in recruiting to tell the story very clearly.
- The person can self select very quickly if they want to join.
- A structured process, lead drives the process
- The interview process for onsite
- Technical- screened, test-
- Artistic-
- Recruiting team-
- Bring in to interact with people.
- Meet with people in their department, adjacent teams,
- Offer stage-
- Had one candidate they really wanted, lost to another offer
Rick’s Input:
- A deeper level of understanding/vetting on the front end… ie: phone screen, recruiting call, introduction
- Target no more than 3-5 people to bring onsite for an interview. If #1 is a fit, hire! no need to comparison shop
Key Takeaways
- Build right so the organism rejects what doesn’t belong. Look for the cultural fit first
- Take your time hiring. Hire slow and then if you need to make staffing changes, do it quickly.
Thursday May 30, 2019
Thursday May 30, 2019
Attention comparison shoppers... waiting to see a “few more people” to compare before deciding to hire? Bad Idea, Time kills hires!
Riddling your interviews with randomly placed hurdles is just madness. Making the interview process challenging is essential but there is a correct order to the journey you create. Each step in your interviewing process must be intentional.
Today we are going to help you bring order to your interview process.
Today’s Quote:
"Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But it's even more than that - Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody - or your soul."
- Ann Voskamp
Guest Bio:
With the resurgence of Big Data and AI, Shane Bernstein realized the tools needed to scale the effective outreach approach were finally available! His C-level customers were continuously frustrated with no viable and consistent solution, and unable to build the teams they needed in order to have the global impact each of their businesses required. So Shane founded Rolebot.
Utilizing the power of AI, he and his team have developed software enabling companies and staffing firms to reach their goals and measure ROI. As a result, Rolebot eliminates the way in which we traditionally pre-qualify talent, from days/weeks to seconds, and increases recruitment output and engagement results by 10x.
Show Highlights:
- What is making it impossible to hire Great people
- Over Interviewing- How much is too much
- Efficient Solution to come to a decision quickly
Problem:
Over interviewing is a direct result of Not having a solid hiring Structure
- Clarity of Intention
- Clarity of Values, Cultural & Skills Alignment
- Not Knowing how to ask the RIGHT Questions to gather clear evidence to support a decision
Where are the Obstacles?
Over interviewing makes it harder to get the hire.
- Timing (time kills placements)
- Too much time kills interest.
- Time allows time for competitors to steal… not an if, but a when
- Feedback channel
HR prescreens
- HR assesses for culture fit.
- The Team should screen for culture, not HR
- Take home assignments- Give BEFORE you get… mentality
- Pre-screen is a big waste of time.
What is Over Interviewing?
Reality vs. Perception
- Comparison Shopping
- Hurdles - Mindset Issue (You are not the only pretty girl in the bar)
- Demonstrates weak leadership
- Feedback channel. Is slow when the process is slow
****people hire on gut feeling…
Rick’s Input
- Why? Company does NOT have a strong interview structure
- Treat each person as though they are your Only option!
Solutions
The Set Up
- Recruiter - recruit & ask questions
- Is the recruiter/hiring manager bringing value?
- Manipulate time to gain accepted offers
- Someone needs to own the process
Interview Process
Two step process
Phone interview - lead, manager (not recruiter or HR)
- Credentials
- Technical skills assessment
- Skills-based conversation run by a team member
Onsite
- Get it done in 1 day… do not bring them back
- Has to be vesting on both sides.
- Have a hiring team & a process in play
- Put the decision makers and the people who will have to work closely with them
- Make sure the people can sell the position & the company
- Be able to sell: Why should I take this role?
Rick’s Input
- What’s in it for me???
- Phone Interview Establish -Why, Cultural Alignment, Impact
- Point person (CEO, Founder, Recruiter (not a farmer)
- Onsite
- Timed
- Structured (3-5 person Interview team)
- Challenging
- Knock Out Questions- aligned with Core Values
- A decision in 24 hours!
Key Takeaways:
- Assess the current process, does it align with the current marketplace, what ROI does each component bring, what is % of rejected offers, etc…
- Figure out what must stay, what can be omitted, or moved around and integrated
- The goal is to strike the right balance for your organization
Thursday May 23, 2019
Marinela Gombosev: An Alternate Route for a Startup to Hire Salespeople
Thursday May 23, 2019
Thursday May 23, 2019
Alternative ways to hire salespeople when your company is getting started. Sales are the lifeblood of a company but what do you do when you need to grow revenue but have a limited budget? You get creative. Today we are talking about an interesting alternative to driving sales in the form of Independent sales reps.
Today’s Quote:
"Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, 'Make me feel important.' Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life." - Mary Kay Ash
Guest Bio:
Marinela Gombosev is the President & COO of Evoke Neuroscience, a commercial-stage diagnostic company focusing on early detection of Alzheimer’s and other dementias with a vision of ultimately eradicating dementia. Marinela is a roll up the sleeves leader who strives to work across all levels of the organization, lead from a place of authenticity, and effectively represent the company to its clients, partners and investors.
Over 50,000 patients have been assessed using Evoke’s technology and under Marinela’s leadership, the company has twice been ranked in the Inc. 500|5000 fastest-growing private companies.
Show Highlights:
- The good bad & ugly of hiring independent sales reps
- How to hire them in the most efficient manner
Problem:
Why hire Independent sales reps?
Independent manufactures reps?
- Upside
- No money to spend, a great way to get growth
- Don't pay anything until they close a deal
- Fast
- Rephuner.net
- Downside
- Control or visibility
- Way to monitor, don't want to be managed
- Misunderstand the product, regulations, Get burned a lot
- Can put you in a legal liability
- Misrepresentation of contacts & skills
Solutions
How do you hire them?
- Dirty secret: You are buying their relationships
- Hiring because they are trained. Many are pretty bad. Where she has been successful are the ones with relationships. Once they sell their relationships.
- Similar types of products.
- Who are your call points? Personal network? Other reps that work with you?
- Place an ad and make sure profile is written for reps
- Who are you selling to, what are you selling, how much $ am I going to make
Schedule call
- Evaluate call points
- Level of interest
- Product Understanding
- Amount of time they can invest
- How many other clients they have
- Where am I on the priority scale
Hire
- Sign NDA
- Disclose comp plan
- Sales rep agreement
Comprehensive Training Plan
- On boarding program & test
- Access to all the training materials
Rules
- No exclusive territories
- Lead registration program / lead protection
- Demo product
- Short term play once the network is exhausted they usually burn out
- Internal expertise helps to close leads
- *One to Two phone call hire
- 3-4 hour time investment per person
- Product margins to support it
- A revolving door of recruiting. Have to constantly recruit
- Need 50 because most of them are not selling
- 80/20 rule
- *** Prepare for a love/hate relationship