#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 Jan 05, 2023
Hiring the Right Person, Right Seat, Right Stage with Dean Stoecker of Alteryx
Thursday Jan 05, 2023
Thursday Jan 05, 2023
We all understand the concept of right person, right seat. But as the company grows the demands of each seat change. What is required from zero to $5 Million will most likely shift on your journey to $10 million in revenue.
So hiring ahead of that curve becomes the biggest challenge.
It is important that, in the earliest stages of the company, everyone in the organization identifies as a “builder”. Builders are the people who have a deep desire to problem-solve issues that have not even become identified and create systems from scratch.
As the business grows, the need for “improvers” becomes critical as they are the people who can scale to each milestone and beyond.
Guest Bio:
Dean Stoecker is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Board. Dean founded Alteryx in 1997 and led the company as CEO through October 2020, achieving solid organic growth, and a successful IPO in March 2017.
Dean’s leadership and motivational skills, along with his ability to create, communicate, and realize a vision, were a driving force behind the company’s 20+ year success.
Dean serves as advisor to entrepreneurs, is an active philanthropist, and is passionate about humanizing the world of data science and analytics, which is evident in the company’s culture, extensive resources for continued education, and efforts to influence social change.
TODAY WE DISCUSS
- Right person, right seat, right stage
- How to ensure you have the right person at every growth stage
PROBLEM:
- Preparation for changing out key employees at different levels
- @ $10mil, $25mil,
- Get great alignment with the teams
- Strategically & tactically- align strategy with tactics
- Don't be afraid to switch your teams
Challenge?
- Alignment between strategy & tactics
- People have different ideas about what we need to do as a company
- Knockdown, drag-outs about who we wanted to be when we grow up
- KPI’s for each department
- People knowing why they were building things
Why is this important to the company?
- People need to be rowing in the same direction
- First hires need to be 9’s
- 9’s will never work for 6’s
Rick’s Nuggets:
- All about Positioning
- Value alignment, builder, passion for the mission
SOLUTION:
How do we solve the problem?
- Predicated on growth rates
- Team of 5 did a million in the first year
- Understanding if they are willing to accept tasks that they never signed up for
- Focus on the next milestone
- Build teams that can get you there
- Keep your 9’s
- Risk/Reward profile needs to match yours
- Play any position then go deep
- Legacy of promoting
- Leadership is about how many leaders you create
- Invest in training
- Who has the best skills at the cheapest price that can last you the longest
- Biggest worry, Middle management
- Take stock of your own skill sets
-
- Andre Geim- “grazing shallow”
- Fall in love and go deep
- Risk reward profile
- You want someone who can play any position then goes deep
- Longevity - meandered from generalist to specialist
- Risk reward profile needs to match yours
- Andre Geim- “grazing shallow”
Rick’s Nuggets:
- The first team
- It’s all about positioning
- Really desire what you are (ie: ground-level startup with no money)
- It’s all about positioning
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Make sure you have a time that provides strategic and tactical alignment(first 6 years)
- Be prepared to swap out the team many times. The team that got you to $5mil won't get you to $20m. Be aware of your markers
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-stoecker/
- Company: https://www.alteryx.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alteryx
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/alteryx
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alteryx/
- Other: https://www.siteminder.com/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Dec 08, 2022
Pre-vetting Candidates Before the Interview with Payman Taei of Visme
Thursday Dec 08, 2022
Thursday Dec 08, 2022
Over the past few years talent has been scarce. And when talent is scarce, fear leads hiring decisions. We don't want to lose (what we perceive to be) “good people”, so we shortcut the interview process.
Here's the thing, our perceptions are often wrong. Our gut is often wrong. And it is wrong because the data we input is either assumed or circumstantial. Resulting in marginal hiring that hurts your business.
So, what if every person that you hired thrived in your company? What would be the ROI if you operated at a hiring success rate over the 90th percentile? It would be pretty f-ing amazing, right?
A crucial part of why we get hiring wrong too often is that we don't invest the time to adequately vet people before we bring them in for an interview. This starts with your first call (phone screen). We miss the opportunity to gather true data as to whether a person is positioned well for the organization and their level of performance.
That's right, positioning and performance. The most crucial data that help you understand alignment before wasting anyone’s time in a formal interview process.
Evidence that is not present on a resume.
Guest Bio:
Payman Taei is the Founder of Visme, an all-in-one visual communication platform, and Co-Founder of Respona the link-building for SaaS and Agencies to improve google rankings.
Payman is an avid technologist who loves new trends and tries to keep up with the ever-evolving internet. His background in Biology has led him to truly believe in the art of evolution. Everything changes in time. You either follow or create new trends or you will be left behind.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- The challenges in today's pre-vetting of talent
- How to properly vet people before they enter your interview process
HIRING STORY:
- Hired a marketing person, a person who was known. Went on a whim and made the hire without involving
- Assumed that because the person worked for a certain company the person must be good
- Knew within a 45-day window, the wrong hire
- Missed clues: a bit of fluff, selling themselves more. Claimed to have done a lot. Exaggerations
- Marketers commonly take a lot of credit for a lot of company success
- My post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6999061564083380225/
PROBLEM:
- Pre-vetting people before they come in for an interview
Challenge?
- 100’s of resumes. More does not mean better
- Select a handful of people who are worth the time to interview
- Most of the roles the CEO is still involved with
- Create an efficient system without automation (Smaller companies)
- Highest quality with the least friction as possible
Why is this important to the company?
- Made some bad hires
- Time is a premium
- personality /cultural fit & skills
- We Sacrifice lower experience for a better cultural fit
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Judgement should not be made on a resume but on the phone screen/Discovery Call.
- Great resumes don't equal great people
- High performers are busy making an impact
- Great interviewers have had a lot of practice.
- Understand Pain, Desire & Impact
How do we solve the problem?
- Pick the needle from the haystack
- Prequalification process
- The application itself
- Manner in which the resume is submitted -spammer or researched
- Passionate - learn and know about the company
- Not job hopping
- Interested because of a,b & c
- Large pool of referrals
- HR interview
- Personality & brief technical experience
- Going through the resume and understanding career history.
- Gut check - authentic, a nice person, compassionate & caring, wanting to make a difference,
- Technical interview (2 step)
- Projects, role on projects
- Tech stack, where are you comfortable, specific technical questions
- Deep dive into the technical experience with the team lead
- Decision
- Yes- move into reference check
- 30, 60, 90 day review cycle on kpi and goals
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Operate from a position of abundance
- Discovery call
- Positioning
- Does the person have a good reason to make a move
- Does the person truly desire what your company is offering
- Positioning
- Impact
-
- High performers become passionate about what they have done
- Dig into the “HOW” and “WHY” to gather evidence
- Go deeper than 2 layers down to find the TRUTH
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Eliminate the noise
- Trust your intuition- What’s the gut feeling? does everything seems to check?
- Group Decision: How does everyone feel about the person- team assessment
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paymantaei/
- Company: https://www.visme.co/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/visme/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/vismeapp
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vismeapp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vismeapp
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/VismeApp
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Building an Advisory Ecosystem with Coco Brown of The Athena Alliance
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Let’s talk about building an advisory board.
I think we would all agree that having strong advisors and mentors in your corner brings huge benefits to every organization. Not just as sound advice in making business decisions but also providing introductions and bringing credibility to the business.
So when is the right time to build your advisory board? As soon as you find the right people who will help. This means before you hire your first employees.
Building an advisory board, much like building company values, is often an activity to do later. But guess what, later is too late!
It is like pouring a foundation after the house has been built.
Investing the time to build a board before things get too crazy, is the smartest way to ensure that the decisions you make are solid enough to bring the business to it’s full potential.
Guest Bio:
Coco Brown is the Founder and CEO of The Athena Alliance. Athena has helped thousands of leaders grow and advance in their executive careers, and has brought over 400 women to corporate boards from growth stage private companies to name brand public companies.
Coco has personally worked with hundreds of top leaders, CEOs and boards to evolve modern leadership. She’s served on ten commercial and non-profit boards and advisory boards, and has led two notable companies (Taos, acquired by IBM, and now Athena).
She is part of Nasdaq's Governance Insights Council, and is often called on to share guidance to the evolving focus and breadth of responsibility within the Modern Boardroom.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- When to build your board of advisors
- How to leverage your advisors through investment cycles
Challenge?
- Not having the right board in place when the company gets to funding
- Not building a structure, cadence
- End up with a board that is forced on you.
- Not being as strategic as you can be.
- In a formal advisory capacity
Why is this important to the company?
- If your are not thinking early about this, when funding comes you may not have a strong pool of potential independents for your board
- Becomes feeder for the formal board
- Need to balance the power of the board
- Even without that - maybe you never need a formal fiduciary board beyond the core founder/owners. But not having an ecosystem of advisors around you limits the competitive advantage you get by consulting outside your employee base.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Making decisions on your own,
- Gut without data
How do we solve the problem?
- Mindset
- Most of us oriented around the team under - the team we are building
- You need to orient as well to the team around you
- Framework -How the team evolves over time
- Close connections that best approximate the roles you will need to build
- Lesser known to you, but better known publicly - pool of people to draw on
- Formalized - work on issues of the business together over time, in a rhythm/ cadence
- Structure -
- Individual relationships
- Experts who are honest with you
- Think tank - bench for something formal in the future:
- Mixed group
- Diverse
- Formal Advisory to Board
- Mimic your C-Suite to get ahead of where you are now
- Give you choices
- Individual relationships
- Networking
- Beyond your usual network
- Who are the experts
- Groups like Athena ;)
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Identify “Who”
- Dream team
- Reach out- Go for it!
-
- Cold call or gain an introduction
- Ask for help
- Formalize the relationship quickly
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Think beyond your internal team
- Build in advance of your needs
- Consider the competitive advantage
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cocobrown/
- Company: https://athenaalliance.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-athena-alliance/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CocoBrown1020
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/athenaalliance
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Nov 24, 2022
The Characteristics of a Successful Hire with Allan Jones of Bambee
Thursday Nov 24, 2022
Thursday Nov 24, 2022
What are the common characteristics of every successful person at your company?
Think of those characteristics and write them down as standard operating procedures. This is critically important because when we operate under the same frequency, pace, and purpose… growth happens. But this can change instantly when a new person is added to the team.
Too often we hastily add a person to the mix without understanding how they really operate on a daily basis. Assuming that they will be the answer to all of our current challenges because of the skills they are bringing to the table.
There is nothing more critical to hiring success than aligning people first, and skills second. This means investing the time to dig deeper into your interview process. Understanding not just what a person accomplished but the details of exactly how it was done and why it was approached in that manner.
Guest Bio:
Allan Jones is at the helm of Bambee, a new type of business built on the innovative premise that every small business should have a dedicated HR Manager. This concept was derived from Jones’ previous experiences working with—and growing up around—small business owners.
In 2021, Goldman Sachs celebrated Allan Jones as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs at its Builders + Innovators Summit. For three years running, Forbes has named Bambee a top startup employer in the U.S., and in 2022 it announced Bambee as a Top 5 Company in Los Angeles.
TODAY WE DISCUSS
- Understanding your company's unique characteristics
- How to implement critical characteristics into your interviewing & hiring process
Challenge?
- Getting people who fit a special suite of characteristics
- Infinite characteristics that are valuable
- How do you narrow it down to 8?
- Being honest about who you are
- Characteristics of leadership values
- Mastery of communication
- Broad outcome objectivity: don't care where the right answer comes from
- Urgency & greatness in tandem
- Separate leadership & team values
- High potency friction
- Hired leader that doesn't fit,
- Courage to make a change
- Scoring system & scorecard
Why is this important to the company?
- Looking at blemishes before celebrating wins
- Continuous loop of how can we be better
- Continuous improvement is just part o the game
- 200+ employees
- Not afraid to say “not every person is right for the company”
- Companies are Olympic sports teams, not govt service agencies
Rick’s Nuggets:
- How people operate within your company
- Core values drive the operating characteristics
- Adding a player to the game, not an ass to a seat
How do we solve the problem?
- Identify that the problem exists
- Building leadership personas
- Hired multiple executives and 50% did not work out
- Right after fundraising
- Practices did not scale
- CEO can not make hiring decisions for the company
- He is not the only sign-off anymore.
- Interview Structure
- Hiring committees
- Only leaders sit on the committee
- Master of communication
- Cliff notes version of who you are personally & professionally
- Go to the resume
- Listening skills along with speaking
- Eliminated Leadership savior complex
- Problems would be solved by our next hire
- Company already had great people
- Never let a problem go unowned
- Realization that already had an A+ executive team
- From savior to draft pick
- 90% success rate
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Values drive characteristics
- Interviewing process
- Structured & designed to gather evidence to support the correct decision
- Assign interview questions for people alignment
- Follow up with what & how questions
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Offsite with sr leadership & build leadership personas’
- As a founder ask yourself “ your unique role in the hiring failure”
- Set up screening committees
- Make sure you are aligned
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allandjones/
- Company: https://www.bambee.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bambee/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheAllanJones
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BambeeHQ
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bambeeHQ/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzJhkTm7baY&t=1s
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Nov 17, 2022
Thursday Nov 17, 2022
Let’s talk about performance metrics for a minute.
Do you have performance metrics drawn out for every person before they are hired? Are they clear on the expectations for the first 90 days of employment?
If not, you are setting people up for failure because expectations are never in alignment. We're going to leave it to you to “figure it out”. Then we scratch our heads when the person fails, wondering what we missed in the interview.
What was missed was the work on defining the role and writing down the company’s expectations of what needed to be accomplished by the individual in the first 90-120 days of employment.
I have discovered that companies who just “wing it” have a much higher offer turn-down rate and employee failure rate than companies that invest the time to clearly define what success looks like.
Look this is not “too hard” because you don't know what will happen in the next few months of the business. If it is too hard, maybe you are in the wrong business.
Guest Bio:
Kurt Davis is a technology entrepreneur and author.
The first 20 years of his career were spent between Silicon Valley and Asia, working with technology startups in finance and business development roles.
Kurt is now focused on Biteline (a startup marketplace for dental professionals) & Recently published a book called Navigate to the Lighthouse: A Silicon Valley Guide to Executing Global Deals.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Performance metrics
- How to clearly define metrics
Challenge?
- The company is not successful because of people not knowing
- Gate of allocation of resources
- Deep analysis
- Gut & instinct drive the decisions
- Distrust the gut …. Until it is the last variable
- The team cannot hide now that we are under the microscope
- Setting expectations:
- The work is going to be hard
- Leadership needs to communicate
Why is this important to the company?
- Need to get it right the first time
- Want people to trust the strategy and thought process
- Need people to come on board the thinking & the strategy
- Getting people behind the way of thinking
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Not sure how to clearly define the metrics
- Out of the scope of their expertise
- Dont have the time
- Not sure
- We’ll let them tell us
- Hiring failures start with your preparation (or lack thereof)
How do we solve the problem?
- Look at the problem (analysis)
- Clearly define what you want each person to achieve
- Clear about what you are investing against
- Very clear on what you need each person to get done
- Do they fit the culture, values
- Measure twice, cut once
- Can the person get it done
- Resume checks off
- Fit value wise
- Deep details
- Look at the work, ask for deliverables
- Working exercise
Rick’s Nuggets:
- First Week, First 30, 60 & 90 days
- Have deliverables at each milestone
- Present to the team your findings on X
- Prepare a plan for Y
- Deliver first version of Z
- Put them in your Job description
- Here’s what you will be held accountable for in your first 30 days
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Take the time to do your homework. Do your strategy, planning.
- Know exactly what that person is going to do in the first 90 days.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtdavis1/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/KurtDavisNew
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kdalive/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kdalivetravel/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/kudavis
- Book: https://www.amazon.com/Navigate-Lighthouse-Silicon-Valley-Executing/dp/1544530331
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Nov 10, 2022
Aligning the “Why” in the Interview Process with Ted Bradshaw of EOS Worldwide
Thursday Nov 10, 2022
Thursday Nov 10, 2022
“People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. - Simon Sinek
How does this translate to your hiring? The simple answer is that your company's WHY is the one thing that differentiates whether a person joins for the paycheck or something bigger. Because it is important to them. It is the WIIFM (what's in it for me)
Right person, right seat needs to happen, every time. Your company depends on it!
When we hire solely for skills. We experience the Wrong person, Right seat more than 51% of the time.
When we hire for values first, and skills second, it moves us closer to a 75% success rate of Right Person, Right Seat.
In addition, when we are in alignment with the “WHY”, the probability of successful hiring skyrockets over the 95 percentile.
This is how everyone wins. Right person, right seat every time.
Guest Bio:
Ted Bradshaw is an Expert EOS Implementer™ & Community Leader at EOS Worldwide.
He served as an executive with Xerox and IBM, then left the Fortune 500 world to explore the thrills of entrepreneurship.
What he found was a long string of success that looked great on the surface. But underneath it all, he felt anxious, exhausted, and stressed, chasing money wherever it led and wondering why he never felt fulfilled. Along his journey, Ted gained valuable insight into how a person can achieve fulfillment in all aspects of life and he shares those insights with his best-selling book, Stop Chasing Squirrels.
Today, Ted lives his passion in helping others find theirs. A leading proponent of the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, Ted is a speaker, author, Expert EOS Implementer™, and the Community Leader for EOS Worldwide
TODAY WE DISCUSS
- The importance of aligning WHY
- How to hire the person that aligns most with your WHY
Challenge?
- Organizations need to change their frame
- Purpose alignment
- Company helps the person achieve their purpose
- Right people, right seat
- Understanding how to develop or bring in people to scale
- How does the mission complement their people
- Not selling on the company purpose
- Employee’s mission/purpose
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Core values are the foundation of your company WHY
- Values drive purpose (WHY) & mission
- Align with values, adopt the why as your own
- Align with purpose but not the values?
- Passionate about the “work”
- Disruptive to the organization
- Operate in a manner that is counter-productive to the rest of the organization?
- Wrong person, right seat
How do we solve the problem?
- Clear on Core Values
- Mission to mars exercise
- Culture of the organization
- Founder or exec team often generates
- Jim Collins - Built to Last
- This is the definition of right person for the company
- Right people on the bus
- Hard look a the company mission
- Look through the lens of the employee
- Why does this matter to them
- Understanding the employees purpose
- Leaders need to understand their why first
- Help theme to get there
- Or find it
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Core Values
- Define what they mean in terms of how we operate, make decisions and treat others
- Measurables to avoid being subjective
- Getting to the WHY
- Attract & repel people
- “Everything we do is to help entrepreneurs to build the strongest companies. Starting with the roots of effective interviewing to hire the strongest people”
- Proactive Interviewing
- Listen first
- Why open?
- What is desired (positioning)
- Listen first
- Candidate ownership of the process (do they WANT it?)
-
- “What would you like to do?”
- “What value would you get from moving forward?”
- Working session (Capacity to do the work)
-
- Real-life working scenario
- Solving a real problem
- Understanding: technical skills, problem-solving abilities, communication style, presentation skills, team interaction, passion for the work
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Look at your own personal purpose. Ist it aligned with the company purpose
- Ask leaders what their purpose is and how does it align with the company
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedbradshaw/
- Website: https://www.tedbradshaw.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pura-vida-coaching/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ted_bradshaw?s=20&t=Ol9g6VgvRaF9UWRV0EpOpw
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tedbradshawco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tedbradshawco
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsors:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Nov 03, 2022
Maximizing VC Hiring Referrals with Rob Whalen of PTO Exchange
Thursday Nov 03, 2022
Thursday Nov 03, 2022
Referrals are most often your most potent source of talent for your organization.
So investor referrals must be the holy grail of all referrals. After all, there is a vested interest in your company's success so why shouldn't the referrals be outstanding?
Here’s the thing to consider. Yes, these referrals are gold but it is dangerous to assume that this person will automatically thrive in your unique company. We cannot forgo a formal interview process based on a strong voucher from a trusted source.
The only way we discover if they will in fact thrive, is to be diligent in the interview process to really understand if the person desires the value your organization brings to the table. .
The decision needs to be made through evidence and buy-in rather than confirmation bias and assumptions.
Guest Bio:
Robert Whalen is the Co-founder and CEO of PTO Exchange, the first benefits platform that allows employees to self-direct the value of their unused paid time off for other needs and causes.
He is a serial entrepreneur that has over 25 years selling and developing software and hardware products for the world.
Under his leadership, Rob and his co-founder, Todd Lucas led PTO Exchange to “Cool Vendor of the year” by Gartner in 2017 and awarded “Awesome New Technologies" at the Health and Benefits Leadership Conference in 2018.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Investor referrals: The value & challenges
- The importance of proper diligence in your interview process for referrals
HIRING STORY:
When we first started the business with 4 founders, 2 of us were working on the project constantly and the other 2 were not putting in the time so prior to vesting we bought the other two out.
We had to do this to keep a clean up the cap table so that we could raise capital.
Going through this process we realized having that right person at the right time joining the company is really important. So we put a simple process in place
- What the company needs or needs to know in our case.
- 3 things we are looking to have them accomplish - alignment
- 3 interviews at minimum
- Gut check - (culture, willingness to learn)
- Reference checks
PROBLEM:
Challenge?
When you raise capital you hope those investors will bring value and relationships. But investors aren’t there day in and day out managing the business and they sometimes associate a person's success at another of their other companies to the value that individual could bring to yours
Most of the time the investors' relationships are with the other executives and most of the time you aren’t looking for a high paid person.
An example is when we were hiring a VP of Sales as a small company.
- VC wanted them to hire a particular person
- Expensive
- No skin in the game
- Not a known entity to you - getting dirty
- Not the highest paying company
- Get to do things they wouldn't be able to do at a large company
- Mission-driven people - passionate about the mission
- Do they care about what we do
Why is this important to the company?
- People have to fit in with the culture
- They are a large % of the population
- They need to be able to learn, be curious, and take on responsibility
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Value in referrals
- Cannot rush or fast track the process.
- Work within your timeline
- No skipping steps
How do we solve the problem?
- Knowing when to say no to the investor
- This is sometimes tough to do when they are looking to help your business and they don’t see their input being considered
- When people try and help you, you need to understand that those suggestions or introductions come with emotions attached.
- Having a process that to hiring helps facilitate your decisions and reasoning. Which helps take the emotions out of the decision
- In an early-stage company where you might not have the money or benefits to attract the top-top tier individuals. we look for those candidates who are trying to grow into the role.
- Candidates that have the experience but do not have the title and maybe they are looking to have more responsibility because that comes with being in a small/agile company.
- They have the ability to solve problems and are open to new ways of thinking.
- Look for the hidden value in the person
- The individual needs to have the willingness to learn and take on responsibility
- Finding the intangibles that they can bring to the team.
- Usually this is in comes from their personal experiences and not their career experiences
- Personality fit
- We look for candidates that have similar passions but different problem-solving skills
- This brings diversity in developing our company’s ability to be more agile when confronted with roadblocks.
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Values fit first
- Does the person operate to the expectations of the rest of the organization?
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Create a process - simple is best but a process that works for the size of your company.
- I have made great hires and bad hires. The difference in those decisions was not following the process and being in a hurry to fill the role. Taking things slowly, stepping back, and following a process would have shed light on what later became an issue.
- Culture fit is the most important piece.
- I have a rule of thumb.
- When making a big purchase, walk away and reflect on how this purchase is going to impact your life. Because making a wrong purchase can have a very negative impact on you. I have found the same rule applies when hiring employees.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-whalen-1287077/
- Company: https://www.ptoexchange.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pto/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ptoexchange
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ptoexchange
- Blog: https://www.ptoexchange.com/blog
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Oct 27, 2022
Hiring the Right Person in the Wrong Seat with Thomas Brunskill of Forage
Thursday Oct 27, 2022
Thursday Oct 27, 2022
How often have you hired the right person for the wrong seat?
Here’s how that happens.
A person is identified and it is assumed that because of their background that they crush it for you. After all, they are already doing it for someone else.
Perfect logic, right? Nope!
The reason this logic is so dangerous for your company is that current skills are just a small part of success. As we have all experienced, by going above and beyond to land that “rockstar” from a name brand company. Only to have them crash and burn within the first 90 days.
To avoid this dilemma in the future, we simply need to understand the person’s desires and level of accomplishment first. Interviewing to understand, not to sell.
This produces much stronger evidence to predict of success of your new hire in your unique business.
Guest Bio:
Tom Brunskill is the co-founder and CEO of Forage which is changing the world of career discovery and skill building.
Before moving to San Francisco, Tom was a corporate lawyer at a multinational law firm in Australia. It was during his own career journey that Tom discovered that an education and a degree doesn’t necessarily translate to knowing how to do a specific job role. He also realized just how inequitable the education-to-workforce pathway is.
After observing the unfair advantage those with access to connections or educational opportunities had, Tom made it his mission to provide anyone the ability to learn skills through virtual job simulations produced by the world’s top companies,
By breaking down barriers to gaining workplace-specific skills.
Tom hopes to level the opportunity playing field and empower anyone to pursue their dream career.
TODAY WE DISCUSS
- Why your company might be the wrong seat for the right candidate
- How to avoid wrong seat hires
HIRING STORY
This isn’t a story about a hire we did make, but a hire we wanted to make and didn’t pull off.
We were building out our leadership team between our Series A and Series B. Obviously in an early-stage company, getting the right leaders into your organization is crucial. Leaders in early-stage environments have a disproportionate influence on the ultimate success or demise of a company so the stakes are high.
On this particular search for this VP role, I was finding it really tough. It was the middle of 2021 when start-ups were sitting on a record amount of capital and there was a real pinch finding exceptional talent...
Challenge?
- Too many people end up in the wrong seats.
- Education on what the roles look like
- Gap between the candidate's perspective and what the role really is
- Realistic depiction of what it is like to work in the company
- Attract the right people
- Le
- Companies use the wrong signals when they hire
- Schools, companies
- Don't predict future success
Why is this important to the company?
- High attrition 73% failure rate
- SHRM reports that the cost of replacing an employee is approximately 33% of that employee’s salary
- But that’s just the direct cost of having to find and replace that employee. It doesn’t take into account the indirect costs of a disengaged, non-aligned workforce.
- My broader take is that recruitment processes traditionally focus on getting bums on seats rather than the right bums on the right seats. Until you figure out how to design a process that gets the right people into the right roles for the long-term, employers will continue losing millions in direct costs and lost productivity.
Rick’s Nuggets:
- What a person desires needs to be discovered in the 1st conversation!
- Do they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it
How do we solve the problem?
- Educate the candidate pipeline
- The recruitment process has typically worked as a ‘hire then train’ model. I believe that in an age of software employers should be training their candidates first then hiring. And this needs to start at the top of the funnel.
- This is a great model for both candidates and employers. If you take the time to educate your candidate pipeline on who your company actually is and what the roles truly entail, you are going to attract the right type of candidates rather than a large pool of applicants who have no real idea whether they truly want to work for you or not.
- Volume has become the enemy of quality. Too many HR tech companies and employers have focused on removing friction from the recruitment process in the pursuit of getting the maximum number of candidates. That’s dumb. I would argue that it’s actually far better to introduce positive friction - and education or a ‘try before you buy’ model is a great example of positive friction.
- What does education actually look like?
- What are your values?
- Who are your people?
- What are you building? And why?
- What does this specific role look like?
- Be authentic and realistic. Don’t sell a candidate a lemon otherwise you will end up with lemons. You don’t want your hires to turn up on day 1 and realize they’ve signed up to something which didn’t fit their expectations. Employers and candidates don’t win in that situation.
- The other great consequence of spending time educating your candidate pipeline is that you’re more likely to attract candidates from broad and diverse audiences.
- Better hiring signals:
- So educating your candidate pipeline is the first crucial step towards getting the right person into the right seat. But then you have to look at the hiring signals you are using to hire candidates.
- My view is employers do a very poor job of what hiring signals they use to make a hire. I do a lot of work in early-talent recruitment where employers over-index your GPA, what school you went to, and other signals which statistically just don’t correlate to long-term success in a role. If they were indicative of success, you wouldn’t see 70% attrition.
- But even in start-up land I see this happen and I have fallen into the trap of this myself. The classic hiring signal trap in start-up land is over-indexing where someone was an early employee at a successful company. You will often hear a founder say ‘We just hired employee no #25 from Salesforce’. I have found out the hard way that the connection between being an early employee of a successful company and going to be a great hire at your company is tenuous at best.
- One of the most underrated hiring signals, especially for more junior employees, is intent. Does the candidate exhibit demonstrable intent that they are deeply interested in your work, your people, your values and your brand? My bet is that if you truly vetted for intent during the recruitment process, 9 out of 10 hires you made would become exceptional hires. And compared to the mean, that’s a pretty good strike rate.
- Simulations / case studies:
- So you’ve educated your candidate pipeline and vetted that candidate pool using better hiring signals. What’s the final step?
- I strongly believe in the use of simulations or case studies during the recruitment process.
- When you get down to your final few candidates, you want to give them an opportunity to road test working with your team and the problems your company is focused on solving. And vice versa, you want to be able to see the candidate in action before you commit to hiring them.
- This is undoubtedly the most interesting and illuminating part of any recruitment process. Understanding the way a candidate thinks, communicates, builds in a live setting can’t be replicated. It’s obviously crucially important for the employer to see them in action, but equally important for the candidate to see their new potential team and company in action. So any great case study or simulation requires active participation from both sides.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Values
- Own who you are & your environment
- Does the candidate “get” your values. If not, let them go
- Evidence over “feel”
-
- Train interviewers to extract evidence to support their decisions
- Discovery call & Interview
- Record and document the data
- Desire it
- Does the person want what you offer
- Is there value in your opportunity for the individual?
- Does the candidate recognize and feed back the value
- “ What's in it for me”
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Educate your candidate pipeline. Figure out how you can adopt a ‘train then hire’ model so that you’re attracting high-intent candidates who truly want to work at your company.
- Look for better hiring signals. Stop and think about whether the signals you are currently using truly connect to long-term success. Instead of pedigree, college, GPA, who they know, look for signals such as motivation, demonstrable intent and true capability.
- Use case studies and simulations for your very best candidates. It’s a super illuminating exercise for both you and the candidate to figure out if you are truly a good match.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombrunskill/
- Company: http://www.theforage.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theforage/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theforage1
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/theforage_
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theforage_/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS® inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
- www.intertru.ai
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
How Your Company Can Hire Like Amazon with Steve Anderson of Catalyit
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Amazon’s leadership principles (Core Values) have been the most critical element in their unprecedented success. Value alignment first, and skills second.
So why is this not a standard practice among all up-and-coming startups?
The reason I believe is that leaders then become accountable for their actions when they misbehave. Without values, it is easy to hide. It is easy to rationalize bad decisions and easier to deflect blame when the shit hits the fan.
This is why 9 out of 10 startups fail. Without the right people, your company will not be able to execute. And the right people are attracted to more than just money. They want growth, structure, and purpose.
When your company demonstrates that none of these elements are present, the A-players run! And what you are left with are the people who are willing to take the job.
Guest Bio:
Steve Anderson is the CEO of Catalyit. He has spent decades shaping the insurance industry through a deeper understanding of emerging technologies and how businesses today can best integrate and leverage them.
Steve is a sought-after speaker and influencer. He is also the author of the widely-anticipated book The Bezos Letters, where he reveals 14 principles for business growth based on the ideas and patterns that emerged when he examined Jeff Bezos’ 21 annual letters to Amazon shareholders.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Balancing need with patience to get the right hire
- How to put the right structure in place to land them
HIRING STORY:
- Hired an operations manager, who seemed like a good fit. Terminated after 3 months. Hired too fast! Pressure to move fast from start to offer in 3 days. The person already had an offer.
- He didn't follow his own advice.
Challenge?
- Balance need with hiring the right person
- Miscasting a hire
- Don't hire when you rushed to fill a position
- The interview process is not intentional.
- Not having a hiring process, hiring questions (winging it)
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Problem: Pacing is determined by the candidate
- Clue that the person just needs the money
- Mitigated by disclosing your hiring process & timeline
- Intention: purpose of the interview?
How do we solve the problem?
- Structure
- Have a good job description
- Have a good hiring & interview process
- Intentional interviews
- Amazon
- Will you admire this person?
- Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group
- Along what dimension might this person be a superstar
- Don't cave into the pressure
- Candidate pressure
- Own need pressure
- Find short term solutions while the interview process is moving along
- Be willing to fire fast
- Not fully committing or fully focused
- Not understanding urgency
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Evidence trumps assumptions
- Pacing determined by the process, not the person
- No need to fire, when you have hired the strongest person
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Process is key to success
- Need a place to start - Use Amazon’s hiring questions
- Culture fit might be more important than skills.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetn/
- Personal: https://thebezosletters.com/
- Company: https://catalyit.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/catalyit/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveTN
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveAndersonNetwork/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveanderson/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS™ inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.intertru.ai
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
The Hire, Fire, Hire, Fire Cycle with Jason Sherman of Spinnr
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
There is nothing more disappointing than a hire that does not work out.
Especially when the person hired was someone you were convinced, would be a great hire!
Conventional wisdom says “hire slow, fire fast” but this almost never happens. Because we are too concerned with filling the role fast. Triaging our pain.
Maybe if we really hired slowly, the interview would produce much stronger results.
To break the hire, fire cycle we must ignore our assumptions about the person's resume and start by gathering evidence. Evidence that supports a proper decision that ensures a successful hire.
Guest Bio:
Jason Sherman is a successful innovator, award-winning filmmaker, published author, tech startup expert, and the co-founder of the video friendship app Spinnr.
Jason’s methodologies on entrepreneurship and data-driven decisions are his main source of education for those he helps worldwide. His startup book Strap on your Boots is the culmination of his life’s work to help other entrepreneurs succeed with a podcast of the same name, and is the focus of a class he created called Startup Essentials.
Jason is fluent in Spanish, is a classically trained violinist, and was a featured speaker on FOX’s Emmy award-winning Futurist TV Show: Xploration Earth 2050.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Breaking the hire, fire cycle
Challenge?
- Finding people who are excited about the company vs just looking for a job
- Care about being part of something where your creative input matter
- Just there for the paycheck
- Uninterested, unenthusiastic, easy remote work paycheck
- A lot of time onboarding
- Time differences
Why is this important to the company?
- Bad hires impede growth
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Positioning
- Time
How do we solve the problem?
- Finding the excited people in the interview
- Install the app, try it out, and tell us what they think
- Give feedback
- website & social media content
- Smiling happy
- Have questions about the business
- Not focusing on payment/ paycheck
-
- Excited to learn they can earn stock options
- Ownership
- Get through the process to find the 4 people who worked
- What to do before the interview
- Share pitch deck to understand the company mission
- Have everything ready in a package for onboarding
- What have you done; share your work
- Filming content event
- Content creation hiring day
- Gig hiring
Rick’s Nuggets;
- Positioning
- Get it, want it, capacity to do it
- Do they really desire what you offer?
- A, B, or C player?
- Don't be the destination for a JOB (ie: paycheck)
- Interview with purpose
- Get to the truth
- Not sell
- Interview design
- Truth fast
- Empowered decision-making - Keep your people productive
- Evidence trumps gut
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Finding the excited people who want to do what you do.
- Fully read & understand what your business is. Come with questions
- Don't discount onsite parties to hire people. Compensate people who show up
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonsherman76/
- Personal: https://jasonsherman.org
- Company: https://spinnr.app/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/appspinnr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/appspinnr
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spinnr_app
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinnr_app
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- Startup: www.intertru.ai
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
Every interview that happens in your company needs to have a purpose.
There is a specific purpose for the phone screen, which is positioning & quality of the individual.
The onsite interview’s purpose, does this person align with our company values and finally, the skills interview’s purpose is to determine if the person has the capacity to thrive in the role.
Too often the directive is given to “have a conversation to find out if you would like to work with this person”. And it is in this non-structured format that bias and discrimination fester because the interviewers don’t understand the interview’s purpose.
Guest Bio:
Robert Hudock founded Hudock Employment Law Group in 2015 to deliver tailored legal services to California companies that thrive in vibrant, creative work environments. His clients are often companies looking at new markets and competitive opportunities, that want to recruit the best talent available while avoiding distracting workplace issues or lawsuits.
Robert is also a competitive triathlete, which requires careful planning, attention to detail, and dedication. He uses those characteristics in his professional life for his client's benefit.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Employment law issues in the hiring process you may not know–but should.
Challenge?
- The 3 most common recruiting and hiring functions in which employment-related issues can arise are: (1) job posting/advertisement, (2) interviewing, and (3) assessing fitness for a position (e.g., any criminal history, drug screening, physical capabilities, psychological health).
- California’s anti-discrimination laws explicitly apply not only to employees and termination of employment, but also to applicants and “refusing to hire” based on a characteristic protected under the applicable antidiscrimination laws (e.g., age, disability, gender, race, etc.).
Why is this important to the company?
- Consider a scenario where your company spends significant time and resources on employment law compliance and protecting itself from lawsuits, only to be subject to an employment-related claim that could have been prevented but for a gap in general knowledge and available preventative strategies relating to recruiting and hiring. Today we’re going to introduce you to the topic and some possible preventive measures.
How do we solve the problem?
- Interviewing: any non-job-related inquiry that "expresses, directly or indirectly, any limitation, specification, or discrimination as to” any protected characteristic is prohibited
- Common implicated categories: age, disability, national origin
- Some examples may surprise you - you may have been asked such questions and you answered without a second thought, the questions are relatively common, or are common topics of conversation:
SUBJECT |
ACCEPTABLE |
UNACCEPTABLE |
Age |
Virtually nothing - but allowed when law requires it |
|
National Origin |
Inquiries re verification of legal right to work in US |
|
Marital Status/Family |
Virtually nothing |
|
Religion |
Statements re regular days, hours, or shifts of the position |
|
- Identify and define, BEFORE interviewing, any legal justification for discriminating with respect to a protected category
- As with job postings, antidiscrimination law does not categorically preclude any and all inquiries into matters relating to protected categories, or lawful discrimination. For example:
- AGE: When a law specifically requires a certain age for job, or requires keeping records re employees’ ages or related information
- RELIGION: When an inquiry directly or indirectly relates to any religious belief or practice does not have any “exclusionary effect”
- DISABILITY: An inquiry re physical capabilities legitimately related to ability to perform an essential job function
- Proper education and training of all interviewers
- How to respond when applicant volunteers information
- Let’s say an interviewer and interviewee are discussing where the interviewee obtained his/her undergraduate degree
- The interviewee, making friendly conversation, says tongue-in-cheek: “...that’s hard to remember for an old guy like me, but I’ll never forget these seemingly endless stairs going up to where I met with my “Campus Christians” group. It was like running a marathon once a month because of my knee injury” → just that short aside references three protected categories (age, religion, and disability)
- In these types of circumstances, the interviewer should (1) steer the discussion away from references to any protected category, and (2) and at some point identify the company’s commitment to equal opportunity
- E.g., “Interesting. That story makes me think about how this company supports equal opportunity and has a strong policy against discrimination.” Let’s move on to your work experience.”
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Teach your people the purpose of each stage
- What data are they expected to gather during the conversation
- Provide a script to each person
- Behavioral interviews
- Tell me about a time when…
- How did that work?
- Walk me through that…
- What steps did you take…
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Develop job descriptions and use them as a foundation for interviews; this can help interviewers remain focused on job qualifications and duties
- Education/training of anyone who will be conducting an interview; e.g., covering the topics we’ve been discussing today
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hudockemploymentlaw/
- Company: https://hudockemploymentlaw.com/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com | www.intertru.ai
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
Hiring Without Money with William Glass of Ostrich
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
How do you hire people when you have no money?
While this may seem like an impossible task, the truth is that it is not as difficult as you might think. It starts by understanding what is important to the individual. Then connecting their desire your the value of your opportunity.
Compensation comes in a lot of different forms and money is just one piece of the equation. Professional growth, challenging work, strong leadership, mission, purpose, mentorship, and equity are also forms of compensation.
The most powerful form of compensation you can offer is the one thing that is REALLY important to the individual that you need to hire.
William Glass is the Co-Founder & CEO of Ostrich, a financial habit-building app that uses community and social accountability to help people achieve their financial goals.
In addition, William is the host of the Silicon Alley Podcast which focuses on telling entrepreneurs’ stories & learning from their experiences. His background is in software sales leading sales teams at Gartner and opening up a new vertical for an AI startup, Remesh.
In 2014, Will was awarded a Fulbright scholarship through the U.S State Department where he taught English in rural Thailand. Glass has his B.A. in International Relations from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. Will is originally from Alabama and now resides in Queens, New York.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- How to hire strong people without money
- Outline steps to take to compensate with limited funds
Challenge?
- Not in the financial position to bring someone on full-time.
- Almost outsourced everything during the pandemic but would’ve spent all of the little money we had.
- Both wanted to work together but could not afford a salary
- Set financial metrics
- Funding challenge
- Found someone through referral
Why is this important to the company?
- No other way to build the MVP
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Take your time
- Really understand a person's desire
- Does your opportunity fill that desire?
Solution:
- No code
- Built using no-code and hacked along the first version of the app
- Couldn’t do all of the key functions so sought a full-stack dev familiar with the no-code tool
- Referral
- Found developer through a referral on the no-code forum.
- Brought them on to extend the no code version.
- Liked working together, but after the no code tasks were completed no budget to bring on full-time.
- Mission aligned and interested in working together.
- Neither of us is in a financial position to pay a salary nor to not take a salary with 5 kids.
- Created a unique way to solve both needs.
- Agreed to bring Stephen our developer on full-time when we were in a position to do so.
- In the interim:
- Banking hours
- Tracked hours worked as a contractor but rather than billing us, he banked them.
- Those hours are paid back on a revenue share basis.
- Equity vesting
- Equity vesting began when the engagement began.
- Revenue share
- A small percentage of revenues goes to paying off the banked hours.
- Triggering mechanism for salary
- Once the company hit certain financial milestones, Stephen to come on board full-time.
- Life changed
- Altered the agreement before hitting financial metrics.
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Resourceful
- Identify people you want to work with
- Reach out and have conversations
- Ooze Value
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- If there is alignment in mission & desire to work together, and you can find creative solutions that meet both the company's and individual’s needs.
- Ask the tough questions
- Only through strong communication were we able to determine the solution and it meant both parties sharing openly the financial situation.
- Transparency
- Transparent with the financials of the company, runway, and salary from the get-go.
- Buffer model of transparent salary.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampglass3/
- Company: https://getostrich.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theostrichapp/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/theostrichapp
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/williampglass
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theostrichapp
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theostrichapp/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrPUxyTASwW71P5ahxD5VzQ
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@intretru.ai
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
How to Hire a CMO with Matt Blumberg of Bolster
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
The reason why people think that hiring is “really hard” is because interviews are conducted without a defined set of criteria to which a person is being evaluated. This especially rings true when interviewing outside your personal competency level. Most often when hiring a CMO or CRO.
In order for any interview to be effective, there has to be two components by which a person is being judged. Skills & Value Alignment.
Focusing only on skills may solve your immediate problem but often creates more problems because the person disrupts your culture.
What I have learned is that culture is driven by value alignment. So, understanding how a person aligns with your values in an interview is the most important criteria that needs to be evaluated to make a strong hire.
Guest Bio:
Matt Blumberg is a technology entrepreneur, business builder, and CEO of Bolster, an on-demand executive talent marketplace that helps accelerate companies’ growth by connecting them with experienced, highly vetted executives.
Matt has been recognized as one of New York’s 100 most influential technology leaders by Business Insider, by Crain’s as one of New York’s Top Entrepreneurs, and by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.
Before Bolster, Matt built businesses and worked in marketing, consulting, and venture capital. He is the author of Startup CEO, Startup CXO, and Startup Boards.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- The challenge of hiring a CMO
- The playbook to hire a CMO
HIRING STORY:
- Over indexing on culture swinging to resume
- Balance of cultural fit and competencies
- Like dating…each one corrects the mistakes of the previous one
- Over-indexing on culture - “nice” - leave replacement
- Over-indexing on resume - “Vishnu” and “It/Out”
PROBLEM: Challenge?
- CMO at RP and Defense Against the Dark Arts
- I had been a CMO
- CMO is a hard role - expectations are all over the place, function has splintered (chart), marketing can become a dumping ground - french fry problem
- Marketing to marketers
- The myth of the playbook and Roth asking for headcount and budget - “plan to overspend and overdeliver”
Why is this important to the company?
- Disruption
- Cost
- Time
Rick’s Nuggets
- Positioning Problem
- Desire your opportunity
- A, B or C player
SOLUTION: How do we solve the problem?
The final playbook that worked for me for hiring CMOs - three “aha” moments
- Marketing can quickly be consumed by the “French Fry problem”
- Define the French Fry problem and marketing as a litany of tactics
- Moving marketing from the tail to the nose - what’s the real role of marketing? Brand and Audience, so start with strategy and ROI
- Making limited room for French Fries
- Producing the ability for others in the organization to make their own French Fries
- The realization that no one person can be the master of all channels
- Build list of competencies (channels, etc.)
- Build job roadmap to see how it evolves over time
- Make sure all critical competencies are covered somehow
- Focus on making sure the overall machine is optimized
- The critical nature of building a Leadership pipeline to grow CMOs
- Focus on making sure the leader is an intellectually curious orchestator
- Leadership development at the next level down
- Cross-training of all the channels and elements of the CMO role - orchestration, hiring/leading, ROI focus, customer service corner around French Fries
- The machine becomes something where the CMO is at the pyramid on top, not holding up an inverted pyramid and hoping it doesn’t topple
Rick’s Nuggets
- Values driven interview
- Do we operate from the same place?
- Are you REALLY proactive, rebellious, curious?
- Skills driven interview (working session)
- Transferable skills
- Growth
- Details
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Find that right balance between culture and values fit and technical competency
- Help your people architect their own career as if it is a jungle gym and not a ladder
- (a great way to retain people)
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blumbergmatt/
- Company: https://bolster.com/
- Resources: https://startupceo.com/ & Bolster.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bolstertalent/
- Facebook: /BolsterTalent
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bolstertalent
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattblumberg
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
When Hiring is Overwhelming with Karima Gulick of Innovent Law
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
Most good hires are a result of luck rather than skill. In fact, I would argue that very few hires are by design.
Throughout my career, I have never met a person who views interviewing and the hiring process as anything more than a chore that they loathe. In fact, the most common reaction to the subject usually results in a huge “uuuggghhhhh” or “I hate hiring”.
We dread the act of interviewing and hiring because it is unstructured and inconsistent and it produces mediocre results.
Here’s the good news: There is an easy fix! When we train our people how to interview it brings purpose to each and every interview question. Giving your people a basis for decision-making that results in extraordinary hiring results.
Guest Bio:
Karima Gulick is the CEO & principal patent attorney of Innovent Law.
She dedicated her career to counseling businesses within the tech and creative communities, combining her passion for engineering and the law. Karima is a polyglot and guides her clients through legal matters in French, English, Arabic, Spanish, and some Italian as well! She is also the former co-host of the Gen Y Lawyer podcast, a show where she interviewed innovative lawyers shaking things up in the legal industry.
Karima is building a next-generation law firm and is here to share her experience.
Today We Discuss:
- The overwhelming hurdles of hiring.
- How to interview to bring purpose to your interview questions
Challenge today?
- Overwhelmed & stuck in the business
- The idea of hiring was overwhelming
- So overwhelmed in my business, that adding one more task to my list, which is hiring to free me up seemed daunting
- Having had a bad experience with hiring in the past, it seemed as an even more daunting task
- No clear strategy on how to go about
- interviewing
- selecting candidates to interview
- Finding candidates.
- I could write what I thought was an amazing post but it might not be read or looked at by the right person
- Jaded on values because of corporate America
- Values area words splattered on the wall
- No one ever explained what the values stood for
- Never defined what it looked like.
- Defining what you stand for seems hokie
Why is this important to the company?
- A burned-out and overwhelmed leader is the worst thing that can happen to a company
- Even if you have the best team, without the right energizing and enthusiastic leadership,
- It’s just a matter of time before you stop caring, and the rest of your team starts seeing that
- We all have values,
- You have them as an employer
- Certain things that are intangible
- Employees have a reason to care. Buy in and bring more energy to the process
- Employees have taken more ownership
- When there is a change in the workforce, the chatter makes it more difficult find a fit. Buying into the negative ideas
Rick’s Nuggets
- Values First Strategy
- Makes evaluating people easier
How do we solve the problem?
- Realizing that I was stuck
- Knowing that I needed someone to step in and save me from myself
- Knowing myself, I knew I needed to bring on someone to help
- I had posted a couple of job posts but I was too exhausted to even call people
- Then I realized I was making the same mistake as I’ve made before
- I’m in pain doing all the work, so I pick someone who can do the work
- But there is so much more -
- That’s where Rick, you came in and opened my eyes on the hiring process
- It’s more than just a post and looking for someone who can do the work
- Values discussion - being jaded from the corporate world where values were meaningless
- A fresh new look at values
- Example: Caring, Competence, Trust
- Might not mean much to others, can come off as just buzzwords, but with this process, these values came to life.
- Example: Caring, Competence, Trust
- Holding conversations with candidates looking to learn more about them and their pain points
- Conducting interviews based on your values
- Conducting assessments and work sessions to see how you’d work with these people
- Reaffirming that I already have great people
- Believing that you deserve being able to grow the business
- Allowing the entity to grow
- Sitting down with intention
- Mindful & intentional on what you want/ the business needs
- Clarity on what you are hiring for & why?
- Being Systematic
- Bring life into the process - involve others
- Flexible on terms/needs
- Having a flow
- Discovery calls
- Having a process
- Behavioral questions to understand if people align with what the company really stands for
- Informed process
- The more thorough you are, the better the chances of bringing on the right people.
- Evolve
- Coming up with my own set of questions based on behavior I see around me
- Tell me about the first thing you do when you come home from a trip..
- Coming up with my own set of questions based on behavior I see around me
Rick’s Nuggets
- Discovery call
- Values
- Not aspirational
- Team input
- Working session
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- You don't know what you don't know. Bring on help to allow the business to grow
- If you’re serious about growing your business, you have to go through this exercise
- You can have the best gut feeling in the world, but having a systemized approach and one you can delegate to your team will help you scale.
- If you’re serious about growing your business, you have to go through this exercise
- Invest the time to get clarity on what you are looking for
- Be open to learning new things, including skills outside of your comfort zone.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thepatentlady/
- Company: https://kgulick.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innoventlaw/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepatentlady/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepatentlady/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepatentlawyer/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/innoventlaw
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Instilling Values into Your Hiring Process with Ken Babcock of Tango
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Do company values really matter? They do if you are looking to scale a business.
In order to scale you need the strongest people, but the strongest people don't need you…or your company.
What High performers need is to understand how your company brings value to their world, personally & professionally. And how we bring value through value alignment.
Value alignment is the catalyst for performance and retention. When a person is misaligned with the company values, they underperform and/or leave.
As a startup company, every person who is misaligned is a setback of 3-6 months of productivity. So, before you hire another person, incorporate your values into the interview to encourage the strongest people to join your company. Giving your business the fuel for success.
Guest Bio:
Ken Babcock is the Co-founder and CEO of Tango, which allows users to create beautiful step-by-step tutorials of any digital process without the performance art of video recordings.
Ken, along with his co-founders Brian Shultz and Dan Giovacchini, dropped out of Harvard Business School during the pandemic to start the company. Since then, the company has grown to over 150,000 users and 25 full-time team members.
Prior to HBS, Ken spent most of his career in the Bay Area at Uber, where he helped scale launch operations through playbooks and best practices.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Why building your interview around your values is so important
- How to build your interview to gain evidence of value alignment
Challenge today?
- Bringing values into the interview process
- Defining how to show up for an interview
- Principles of how we evaluate people
- Training people on how to interview
Why is this important to the company?
- Every hire is important
- Critical that the process was not shooting ourselves in the foot
- Great experience brings great people
Rick’s Nuggets
- Defocus on skills.
How do we solve the problem?
- Framework for Evaluating for Values
- Define Your Values
- Training
- Defining what a good/bad answer is
▶️ Take Action
Avoid indecision and move past points of uncertainty. Value speed.
🚀 Aim High
Set uncomfortably ambitious goals. Reject mediocrity.
🌎 Embrace Diversity
Bring our true selves to work each day. Seek unique perspectives.
🌱 Leave It Better
Be an owner, not a renter. Cultivate a growth mindset.
✨ Customer Love
Serve the end user and listen closely. Make magic.
🏆 Team First
Winning as a team beats winning alone. Lift up others.
Training
- Develop a recruiting process document
- Shadowing
- Hot to operate during an interview
- Time, opener,
Initial Phone Screen - 30 minutes
Purpose: Determine whether a candidate’s experience is relevant to the role. Understand whether the role matches what they hope to do next (scope, career path, salary expectations).
🚀 Aim High. Set uncomfortably ambitious goals. Reject mediocrity.
- Attributes: Passion, Champion’s mindset, Ambition, Optimism
- Sample Questions:
- How do you think this role fits in with your career goals?
- What are you most proud of in your career?
- What’s your underlying motivator? What’s your why?
- Do you think you're ready to make the jump?
Hiring Manager Phone Screen - 30 minutes
Purpose: Determine whether the candidate would thrive on this team and whether the team would be up-leveled by this candidate
🌱 Leave it Better. Be an owner, not a renter. Strive to improve 1% each day.
- Attributes: Growth mindset, Humility, Ownership, Feedback-oriented
- Sample Questions:
- What are your development areas? How are you working to address them?
- Tell me about a project that fell short of expectations. What happened and how did you fix it moving forward?
- Fast forward five years - assume Tango was a great experience. Describe what might have happened.
- What's a tough piece of feedback you received recently? How are you working on it?
Technical Screen - 60 minutes
Purpose: Determine whether the candidate can execute in the role at a high level.
▶️ Take Action. Avoid indecision and move past points of uncertainty. Value speed.
- Attributes: Resourceful, Decisive, Problem-solving, Truth-seeking
- Sample Questions:
- How do you approach projects where the scope is overwhelming?
- Tell me about a time where you had to act on incomplete information.
- What's the first thing you'd want to do if you started tomorrow?
- Tell me about a project where your hypothesis turned out to be wrong.
Virtual Onsite - 30-45 minutes each
🏆 Team First. Winning as a team beats winning alone. Lift up others.
- Attributes: Mentorship, Collaboration, Communication, Gratitude
- Sample Questions:
- Tell me about a colleague or manager you admire. What qualities do you try to emulate?
- Tell me about a team dynamic that just wasn't working for you and others. What did you learn from that?
- What do you need from your team members in order to be successful?
- How do you pay it forward in and out of the workplace?
✨ Customer Love. Serve the end user and listen closely. Make magic.
- Attributes: Listening, Perspective-shifting, Humble, Creative
- Sample Questions:
- In prior roles, what have you learned about your customers?
- How do you incorporate the customer’s perspective into your work?
- Tell me about a time at work you made a mistake.
- What does it mean to you to deliver an “Aha Moment” to a customer?
🌎 Embrace Diversity. Bring our true selves to work each day. Seek unique perspectives.
- Attributes: Unique, Conscientious, Self-aware, Inclusive
- Sample Questions:
- You've just been notified you have to give a Ted talk in 15 minutes. What's your topic?
- What have you changed your mind about recently?
- Tell me about a time at work where you really thrived. What contributed to that?
- How do you incorporate feedback into your work?
Closing Interview - 15-30 minutes
Purpose: Sell the candidate on the company’s vision and the quality of the team. Answer any remaining questions.
- Sample Questions:
- How did today’s interviews go? What excites you most about the opportunity?
- What hesitations do you have?
- What timelines or competing processes should we account for?
- Are there any other questions I can answer?
Answer Quality Rubric
Weak |
Average |
Strong |
|
|
|
Decision
- Thumbs up or down
- Do not require unanimous thumbs up
- Debrief, revote
- verdict
Rick’s Nuggets
- 4 to 6 values is all you need
- Phone screen
- Working session
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Integrate your core values into your hiring process and beyond! (performance management, operating cadence, etc.)
- For early-stage companies, you need to toe the line of “always be selling” and evaluating candidates
- Requiring unanimous decisions on candidates can actually force a regression to the mean and avoid taking risks on high-potential candidates.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
- Company: https://www.tango.us/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trytango/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jul 28, 2022
Thursday Jul 28, 2022
Doom & gloom is the impending economic forecast according to the media. Having flourished through two previous recessions, I have learned to look for the opportunity that comes with the adjustment.
And when it comes to hiring, the opportunities to thrive are bountiful!
One trend that I have personally observed throughout the years is that companies like Google & Facebook silently ramped up passive recruiting during those times and were able to come out of the adjustment even stronger.
Today I challenge you to recognize the opportunity that lies ahead and to commit to the growth of your people. This can and will only have positive results for them and the business.
Today’s Question:
- How do you build a stronger company in tough economic times?
Today we’re going to discuss:
- Why it is critical that you continue hiring activity
- How to hire effectively to increase the productivity & retention of your people
Challenge today?
- Keeping your High performers engaged
- Your best people are MORE valuable!
- They will be hunted by your competitors
- Hiring stronger people challenges & motivates the people you already have
- Your best people are MORE valuable!
- Growth through an economic downturn
- Look for the opportunity for your people
- People become fearful and move to more “stable” environments
- Recruiting remains a reactive activity
- We only hire when we feel the pain
- Hiring happens regardless if you chose to participate
- Participate
- Look for the opportunity for your people
Why is this important to the company?
- Downturns are opportunities for growth!
- The people onboard Fuel or Stifle growth
- Fear drives people to make poor decisions
- Poor decisions kill business
- Avoid being forced to hire anyone who is willing to accept your role… because they need a job
-
- Due to attrition
How do we solve the problem?
- Perspective
- Understand the value of continuously hiring
- Higher bar, less volume
- Opportunity to opportunistically hire
- Attract people who will elevate performance in the organization
- New ideas, new energy
- Understand the value of continuously hiring
- Increased Communication to retain your current people
-
- Career pathing
- Know the “What’s in it for me” for every one of your people
- Planned exits
- Promote purpose
- Engaging New People
- Dedicate 1-2 hours a week
- Passive talent engagement; NOT RECRUITING
- Reconnect with past talent
- Ask for new referrals
- “Get to know you for the future”
- Commit to 2 meetings a week with potential hires - Coffee ok
- Use Discovery Call script
- Purpose: positioning & value alignment
- Empower the hire
- Communicate timeframe and allow the person to be proactive
- Pull the trigger!
- Dedicate 1-2 hours a week
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Proactive hiring: Commit to 1 hour a week to expand your talent network
- Communication: Recognize the opportunity for your people and the business to thrive
- Action: When the opportunity arises to hire a high performer, embrace it. Allow the new person to fuel the energy of your team
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
- Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
How to Avoid Hiring a Bad Actor with Becky Wanta of Q5id
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
We have all become painfully aware that cybercrime is at all-time record highs. Now the bad actors have figured out how to hack your hiring process.
Stories have been surfacing about people accepting roles remotely that are different people from the ones attending the interview.
Let’s face it, hacking the interview process is probably the easiest way to infiltrate your company and ultimately your data. When the interviewers focus on the skills and do not dig deep enough into the truth about the other person the result can be the opportunity that puts your company in jeopardy.
Guest Bio:
Becky Wanta is the CTO of Q5id and a highly accomplished global senior executive with more than 30 years of success in applying extensive IT experience to guide companies in a wide variety of industries to achieve their goals.
She has proven her ability to improve market share and profitability while establishing long-term business relations and recruiting and developing cross-functional and high-performing teams.
She has also been profiled by various publications, including Profile magazine and Bloomberg News. She is the holder of two US patents.
Today We Discuss:
- How bad actors can infiltrate your company
- How to avoid hiring those who can decimate your company
Challenge today?
- Not a guarantee that the person who you are hiring is who they say they are
- No prevent identity
- Billions are lost every year because of data breach
- background check does not guarantee that the person is who they say they are
- References, credit score,
- Remote workforce is giving rise to fake personas & identities
Why is this important to the company?
- Cost the company Millions of dollars
- The FBI just issued a warning on June 28 about fraudulent candidates applying for WFH positions and using deep fakes to hide their true identity. We can be sure this activity will increase, and we can be sure that these are professional criminals and foreign-state actors who want to hijack a company’s data. (source: https://tinyurl.com/mvsnz7bs)
- Background checks are often perfunctory, particularly if a candidate has presented well and you really want to hire this person
- if a person has an apparently clean record, but is a member of a criminal gang or a malicious state actor. Professional criminals are way ahead of you here.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Targeted and focused search
- Totally negates the issue
How do we solve the problem?
- Tighten up and expand pre-employment and background check processes to include a proven identity process which includes:
- Biometrics/personal identifiers that your employees control. This needs to include liveness checks, biometric and AI-driven models to ensure individuals are who they say they are
- Government ID checks
- 15 se Face-to-face live view
- Be Systematic
- So, companies need to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive while building a distributed team, with everyone focused on the product. They must be systematic about finding specific skillsets and finding those skillsets in people who want to work with other people.
- prove their new employees are not working for someone who wants to break into your IT systems and steal everything they can.
- The FBI says cybercrime cost in the form of phishing and other scams and data breaches cost US businesses almost $7 billion last year. With more criminal organizations and state actors involved, and now deploying deep fakes, that number could go up exponentially if companies don’t address this problem urgently. (Source: https://tinyurl.com/yc7abcht)
- CEOs, C-suites, and Boards to implement a program that can combat deep fakes, I’d make sure my Board has at least one person who’s familiar with enterprise-grade security, and I’d make sure I have an A-team Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) on my team.
- Implement a proven identity method
- biometrics
Rick’s Nuggets
- Targeted hiring approach
- Identify & proactively develop a relationship with the person BEFORE you need to hire them.
- Referrals!!!
- Structured Interview process
- Behavioral Interview
- Train your interviewers!
- Evidence
- Values first, skills second
- BS meter
- References
- Verified Managers only
- Backdoor company references
- Behavioral Interview
- Decision Making
- “Hell Yes” or NO
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Never compromise on finding the best people with the best-fitted skills
- Never forget you’re building a product for a specific reason and customer.
- But never be lax in proving your exciting new employees are who they say they are.
- Never be lax in finding out if your new employees are working for a criminal organization or malicious state.
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccawanta/
- Company: https://q5id.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/q5id/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Q5idProvenID
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provenidentity/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor: www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jul 14, 2022
It’s Never Too Early to Lead through Core Values with Marc Reinfenrath of Spinutech
Thursday Jul 14, 2022
Thursday Jul 14, 2022
Last week I had a conversation with a CEO who thought it was too early to establish core values because his company was only 15 people. His thinking was that things would just change anyway and he would have to do them all over again as the company grows.
But here was the ginormous problem: Two of his people recently quit, the last 4 offers he made were turned down and the candidate pipeline was drying up.
… And he thought it was about the money.
Today, more than ever, people desire to be in alignment with the values of the organization. If they aren’t in alignment, they leave.
Here’s the truth: your company has values whether you like it or not. Solidifying your values and making them a decision-making tool can never happen too early and will only fuel company growth.
Guest Bio:
Marc Reifenrath is the CEO & Co-founder of Spinutech, a full-service digital marketing agency with 165+ team members across the U.S.
Marc has helped Spinutech grow from a college start-up to one of the premier full-service digital marketing agencies in the country. The secret ingredient? Company values that are truly lived, including a commitment to “Get Better Every Day”.
In that capacity, Marc understands firsthand how critical a company’s culture is to achieving and maintaining success.
Today We Discuss:
- When to implement your company values
- How to weave them into the fabric of your company
Challenge today?
- Had unwritten core values but were not formalized
- Had a miss on 2 or 10 or 20.
- Talent outweighs the cultural fit
- Drawn in by talent and weeded out by the environment
- 2 people hired that within 90 days were gone. Instant misalignment
- -realized culture pushed them out
Why is this important to the company?
- From a hiring perspective, it is a really quick filter
- Not too aspirational. You have to own what you really are
- We take too long to make the decision
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Formalization attracts the right people and repels those who do not
- Notion that you want to attract everyone is WRONG
- Time!
- Interviewing kills the production of your team
- Assumptions, bias & personal motives… oh my!
How do we solve the problem?
- Leadership team development
- People who understand the organization
- Doesn't need to be perfect
- Needs to be honest
- *** needs to be authentic, not aspirational
- Values need to be actionable
- We get better every day: better myself, team & clients
- Work into a daily routine
- Core values onboarding
- Slack channel language is communicated
- Natural part of how they do business
- Lived every single day
- Leaders need to show core values in Action!
- Weekly video “get better every day”
- In every part of the business
- Without core values, a lot more problems.
- Stronger the core values the more you are prepared for growth
- Every person who onboards becomes less of an attack
- Inject DNA into people as quickly as possible
- Feedback on how to enhance the value
Rick’s Nuggets
- Be realistic about who YOU are
- Aspirational values are worthless
- North star for how everyone operates within the organization
- Build interview questions around core values
- Evaluate against values
- Aligned = hire
- Build an interview question library
- Assign interview questions to each interviewer
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Honest about what your core values are, Lived not aspirational
- Actionable values -
- Stay patient in the hiring process. Don't just put a butt in a seat.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcreifenrath/
- Company: https://www.spinutech.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spinutech/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spinutech
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spinuser
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinutech.llc/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/spinutech
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
The Hiring 4-S: Strategy, Systems, Staff & Skills with Hilmon Sorey of CoachCRM
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Are Strategy and Systems missing in your hiring process?
The answer is most likely “Yes” as 99.9% of entrepreneurs approach hiring as a reactive activity based on a current need. This is dangerous because it perpetuates the transactional mindset that sets you up for failure.
Strategy is not about “how do I turn on the funnel”. Strategy is about how you identify, contact & engage with the person who will thrive in your business. This means being able to articulate your value to align with each individual.
But, strategy is not enough to get an A-player to join your company. The structure of your interview process is the System that demonstrates excellence within the organization. And excellence is what every high performer strives for in their next company.
Guest Bio:
Hilmon Sorey is Co-Founder of CoachCRM sales coaching software for managers; Co-Founder of ClozeLoop, a sales strategy, training, and enablement firm with offices in New York, Houston, Silicon Valley, and Johannesburg; Partner in 2.12 Angels as a seed-stage venture capital firm; and author of 8 top-selling books on sales, sales management, and coaching.
He has helped build teams in companies that range from early-stage startups to Salesforce, Box, SurveyMonkey, Bill.com, and some of the fastest-growing companies in the world totaling over $600B in valuation and market cap.
He’s an award-winning trainer who has trained over 15,000 salespeople and over 5,000 executives. He is a sought-after speaker around the globe and a Forbes contributor.
Today We Discuss:
- The 4 S’s: Strategy, Systems, Staff & Skills
- How to implement the missing pieces into your organization
Challenge Today?
- Ensuring that you are hiring the right people who will have impact
- Understanding go-to-market strategy in how you hire
- Strategy and Systems absent in most hiring process
- How Companies Scale and How to Use Hiring as Competitive Advantage
Why is this important to the company?
- Ask any CEO of a Unicorn what they consider to be their competitive advantage. They’ll say their people.
- Tech eventually equals out, Markets change, Investors are wonderful - but even they invest in people.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Strategy absent:
- No time to do it
- Feel it’s not important
- It’s all bullshit anyways
- System
- No time to set up or train
- The results you get are the fruits of the effort of the work put.
How do we solve the problem?
- Strategy
- Understanding GTM strategy
- Competitive Differentiation (direct, indirect)
- Winning Zone
- Messaging and Channels
- Systems
- Agile Tech Stack
- Sales & Marketing Playbooks
- Feedback Loop and Ecosystem
- Staff
- Sales Strategy
- Competency Matrix
- Methodology for Alignment (proof)
- Culture
- Skills
- Training
- Coaching
- Margin Gains
Rick’s Nuggets
- Strategy:
- Only hire people who align with company values!
- Learn early
- Understand YOU first
- Only meet people who “lean in”
- System
- Interview process
- Documented, and communicated,
- Interview process
- Skills
- Train your people
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Focus on Strategy and Systems to create scale.
- Hiring is as critical as identifying customers
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilmonsorey/
- Company: https://www.coachcrm.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coachcrm/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/hilmonsorey
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Why is the phone screen is the most underutilized tool in hiring today?
There is this perception or fear that the person making the call will say the wrong thing and screw up the chances that the person will show up. So the phone screen is treated like a used car sale.
Tell people all the great things about our company, gather some basic information and invite the person in to interview. And because we like them because look good on paper, we assume they will want to work for us.
Here’s the truth: High performing people do not want to work for your company based on your sales pitch. What people want is to be understood and to be positioned where they can deliver the greatest impact.
How do I get better with phone screens?
Today we’re going to discuss:
- Why Phone screens (Discovery calls) are critical to hiring A-players
- The most important question you need answered before you bring ANYONE in for an interview
Challenge today?
- Phone Screen! - Discovery call
- Often skipped
- Viewed as a time waster
- Real time waster is the interview
- 90% of the people that get interview will position themselves out
- The most important question:
- “What are 3 or 4 main criteria you need to see in an opportunity for you to accept an offer with a company”
Why is this important to the company?
- First impression of your company
- You need people to show up to your interview
- Understand how to close the person at the end of the proces
How do we solve the problem?
- Value the Discovery call
- Prioritize time
- Make the decision to call EVERYONE
- Basic screening eliminates the bottom 10% but also the top 10%
- A-players often hide
- Positioning before skills
- Pain, Desire & Impact
- Common info (skills, commute, interviewing, compensation expectations)
- Wrap up
- Main Criteria Question
- “3 or 4 main criteria you need to see in an opportunity for you to accept an offer with a company”
- Confirm if they desire what you offer
- How you can get me to join your company!
- Connect the dots
- Allows them to take ownership
- They show up, ready to succeed
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Prioritize the phone screen/discovery call
- Look for alignment of positioning for EVERY person you talk to BEFORE they are brought in for an interview
- Let the person ask for the interview
Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
- Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Necessary Interview Intelligence for Hiring with Raphael Danilo of Yobs
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Two people pop into a room together for an interview. What happens next?
No one knows!
This is the eternal mystery that most companies have faced for decades. And the single point of failure in hiring!
Because we assume that everyone knows how to interview. But the truth is, they do not as most interviewers have only been trained on what NOT to say. There is no insight as to what is being said, the questions that are asked or personal motives that drive a person’s opinion on a hiring decision.
So today we are going to help to give you insight into how you can gain valuable interviewing data to empower your people to make stronger hiring decisions for your company!
Guest Bio:
Raphael Danilo is a French entrepreneur and investor based in New York. He's the CEO and founder of Yobs, an Interview Intelligence platform that sits on top of Zoom and the ATS and enables every interviewer to feel prepared and be more efficient in hiring top talent.
Raphael has helped 100+ high-growth organizations up level their recruiting organization with Interview Intelligence through Yobs and Evening Fund, the VC fund he runs on nights and weekends.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- The importance of interview intelligence
- How to gain data to secure accurate hiring decisions
Challenge today?
- Recruiting is incredibility opinion spaced
- Opinions about what we remember about the conversation
- Not evidence based
- High vs low quality question
- Work about work
- Labor intensive tasks - ie: interview plan, taking notes
- Pre-interview
- During interview
- Post interview- scorecard
- Recruiting teams misaligned
- Not having a shared view of reality
- Not offering enough benefits, equity, pto
- Opinions drive decision rather than data
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview is riddled with fail
- Interviewers are not trained
- Company values
- Bias, assumptions & personal motives
- To understand how good the person is across the desk
How do we solve the problem (solution)?
- Capture reality
- capture all candidate interactions - across web conferencing, dialers, phone, and email.
- Invest in interviewer training and coaching
- Analyze Interview them and surfaces key moments automatically to...
- Deliver insights to level-up your organization by better understanding your candidates, your teams and your hiring process.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview intelligence
- Start with the company values
- Decision making language throughout the organization
- Interviewers champions of the values
- Protectors of realm
- Everyone buy’s in!
- Assigned Interview questions
-
- Behavioral interview questions
- Questions tied to a measurable of the core value
- Train your interviewers
- Assumptions allow bias & motives to fester
- Listening skills - digging under the hood
- Take diligent notes-
- what they said, not what you translated
- Record & review the conversations
- Video (zoom, teams, etc…)
- Review until you achieve consistent quality data
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Capture reality- record your calls
- Invest in coaching/training
- Reduce bias in process
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphael-danilo-481b41b2/
- Company: https://www.yobstech.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yobs/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Leveling the Interviewing Playing Field with Lee Rubin of Confetti
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Friday Jun 10, 2022
One big thing that we have learned over the past year is that employers no longer have control over the people they hire. The balance of power has shifted with the majority of people willing to walk away from an opportunity that does not align with their personal beliefs or values.
Many companies are left scratching their heads as to why. So, the thinking has evolved into “it must be the money” so let’s increase compensation & benefits. Hoping this will solve the problem. But it hasn’t.
The interviewees today are the one’s making the selection, not the company.
The interviewees are the ones evaluating the company for more than just the paycheck.
And the interviewees are the people who have a lot of options, not the companies.
So to get people to choose your company to join you simply need to level the playing field by understanding “what’s in it for them”.
Guest Bio:
Lee Rubin is the Founder and CEO of Confetti. A platform that helps companies build stronger culture by providing shared experiences for a distributed workplace. Their holistic tool empowers HR and other team leads to quickly discover, plan and book from a catalog of exclusive experiences that optimize corporate culture and employee’s professional growth.
Lee is a visionary culture leader with a decade of experience in B2B sales. She's one of the world's experts on remote event planning and has built her company from 0 to 60 employees in just 3 years!
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- What the field really looks like today
- How to stand out as an employer of choice through your interview process
Challenge today?
- Differentiate the company
- Higher chance of closing the person
- Taste of the culture
- Demonstrating a healthier dynamic
- Not posting salary to optimized offer
- Win-win scenario
- Interests here aren’t aligned obviously (one wants the higher and one wants the lower). I once heard the phrase “Good deals can’t happen with bad people” and have kept hold of it. Brings me back to leveling the playing field…
Why is this important to the company?
- You don’t want your people to feel under-valued monetarily
- People feel respected because they get what they ask for
- Not over spending on talent
- We close 80-90% of the people we really want join
Rick’s Nuggets
- Optimize for remote vs. onsite
Authenticity - As you know from your book “healing career wounds” people are literally traumatized from their job and don’t want to make the mistake again of joining a company they don’t like. So how do you get to know them authentically, make them feel comfortable and close the deal better?
How do we solve the problem?
- Getting people to feel comfortable
- Body language, casual talk: friendly
- Excited to speak to you! casual conversation
- Vibe fit
- Learn about our culture
- Showing respect
- One of their core values
- 2 Minute Intro
- About you, improvised
- Listen for concise,
- Pay attention to the time in the presentation
- Coherent
- Able to express their resume in the form of a story?
- What did they learn? brother/sister, primarily professional
- Assignment
- Prepared with job posting
- Each job has a different assignment
- Core elements of the job
- Ie: Customer success- create a customer response email
- Negotiation
- Negotiate respectfully
- How much are you “hoping” to make
- Tap into a person's dreams = context
Rick’s Nuggets
- Values driven experience
- Get them to talk first
- After emotional engagement
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Optimize for people you want to go through the shit with
- Optimize for those who share your same values
- Academia is overrated
- Loyalty is the #1 currency
Confetti Offer: *This special promo expires on July 9th
Redeem a $150 discount on your first event by sending an email (see below) to plan@withconfetti.com with the Subject line: HIRE POWER Confetti Discount
----------
Hello!
I'm a listener of HIRE POWER and am looking to redeem the exclusive HP150 discount to run my first team building experience with Confetti!
I’ve signed up to Confetti with the following email: USEREMAIL.
Could you please let me know once the discount has been applied?
Thank you!
----------
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubinl/
- Company: https://www.withconfetti.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/withconfetti/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/withconfetti
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withconfetti
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/with_confetti/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday May 12, 2022
How Hiring the Wrong Person Eats Profits with Rocky Lalvani of Profit Comes First
Thursday May 12, 2022
Thursday May 12, 2022
We often hear data on how much bad hire costs you and your company. About 3x the person’s annual salary.
But how much did the interview process itself cost?
For a startup to make a hire, the company spends about 73 total hours interviewing. With the most significant cost being 30 hours of the production team's combined time. And this is assuming that 6 people make it through a full interview to get to the hire.
We have to ask ourselves, can we really afford to lose almost 4 days of productive activity to interview? Roughly $9,855 per role, not including candidate marketing or recruiting fees.
As a small business, the answer is NO!
Guest Bio:
Rocky Lalvani of Profit Comes First, serves as Chief Profitability Adviser for business owners. He teaches them how to ensure they get paid and make profit a priority! As a certified Profit First Professional he implements Mike Michalowicz's Profit First System.
Rocky started with nothing when his parents immigrated to the United States when he was two years old, and his parents were in their 40's. It was his parents' second time starting over in life as they moved here to experience the American dream.
In spite of a lot of struggles and his mom passing away when Rocky was 7, he has been able to achieve financial and life success. Rocky loves to share his journey and inspire others to achieve their dreams even faster.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is critical to understand what interviewing costs
- How to maximize your team's time with structure
Challenges today?
- Employees are the major cost for the business
- Employee should provide a return for the business
- Return of Cost of person (taxes, unemployment)
- Inefficiency does not show up anywhere on the p&l
- Wealth is built on the balance sheet!
Why is this important to the company?
- Costs to the company hiring
- Reduces morale
- Loose customer
- Nobody is tracking interview or training costs
- Hard costs that are very difficult to figure out
- As a client- doesn't want to do business with a company that hires wrong
- (leadership issue)
Rick’s Nuggets
- Team time waste!
- People who meet the team must be positioned properly
- Demonstrate strong leadership in protecting time
How do we solve the problem?
- Mission values purpose
- This is the step most business owners skip!
- Or in their head, but no one else knows
- Hire to it
- Have to live it
- Hire in alignment with mission, values, purpose
- Not who you like
- Having a interview process
- Understanding the real cost
- Bad Hire- Employee does not provide any value
- Mistakes
- Morale for everyone else
- Lose clients/ client trust
- Example Costco vs. Sam's
- Bad Hire- Employee does not provide any value
- Gross profit / Total payroll including taxes
- For every $1 in payroll returns x$ in gross profit
- Measure & Know
- Need to be making at least 2X payroll
- It all comes back to leadership!
We change the accounting formula of Sales - Expenses = Profit to Sales - Profit = Expenses. This ensures Profit comes first! (PS. It's not about money at all costs, people come before money!)
Rick’s Nuggets
- Values - most important
- Protect time costs
- Structure interview
- Each step is a decision
- Only progress value aligned, well positioned & accomplished people
- Decisions must have evidence to back
- Eliminate uncertainty
- Assign interview questions
- Prepare all for success
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Is mission vision purpose written down & do your employees know it?
- Cost of a bad hire for you?
- How much profit do your employees bring you?
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rocky-lalvani/
- Company: https://profitcomesfirst.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/profit-comes-first/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rockylalvani
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richersoul/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richer.soul/?hl=en
- Blog: http://richersoul.com/
- Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/profit-answer-man-implementing-the-profit-first-system/id1508245322
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ/featured
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rick.girard.5
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rick_girard?lang=en
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickgirard1/?hl=en
Show Sponsor:
Thursday May 05, 2022
The Blind Spots of Hiring Managers & Candidates with Varun Puri of Yoodli
Thursday May 05, 2022
Thursday May 05, 2022
Let's face it, a lot of people are BAD at interviewing on both sides of the table.
It is easy to understand that candidates or job seekers are bad for numerous reasons. Being nervous, out of practice, and under pressure to do well because of NEED, create a large margin for error. For seasoned interviewers, it becomes easier to perform because the person has a lot of practice interviewing. That practice is what eventually makes it easier to land a job.
On the company side, interviewers get a lot of practice asking the same questions as everyone else, but the lack of structure & coordination does very little to uncover evidence to support the decision. The problem with that is that only surface information is gathered and at the end of the day, the hiring decision is made on circumstantial evidence, assumptions, and bias.
Guest Bio:
Varun Puri is the Founder of Yoodli and an Entrepreneur in Residence at Paul Allen's AI Institute. Yoodli uses AI to help people improve their public speaking and interviewing skills without the pressure of an audience.
Prior to Yoodli, Varun worked on a GoogleX project to bring high speed internet to unconnected regions using invisible lasers. He also ran special projects for Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is important to practice your interview (or any presentation)
- How to practice effectively for an interview
HIRING STORY:
- Struggle getting someone to hire him…
- Now getting people to hire for his startup
- The key to getting people to bet on you is how you communicate with them
PROBLEM:
- Smart people on both sides of the fence (interviewers and candidates) who miss dream job and miss dream candidate
- Outcome: Missed hiring on both sides
- Hiring managers may not represent companies in the best way
Challenges today?
- Communication skills are an amorphous training concept. No clear way of measuring progress or diagnosing issues (we’re dealing with peoples’ deep insecurities). We practice in front of the mirror, camera, and stopwatch. Or worse, avoid it altogether
Why is this important to the company?
- Individual:
- Land your dream job. Get access to the opportunities you deserve and don’t miss out on them because of how you speak
- Corporation:
- Get your dream candidate
- Ensure your team is aligned
- Help people become more confident communicators and leaders
Rick’s Nuggets
- We don’t set Expectations
- Allow people to prepare
- Makes interviewers seem unimpressive - demonstrate
- Unable to
How do we solve the problem?
- 3 pronged solution needed:
- Be aware of your biases/ way you communicate
- Collaborate with your team to ensure you’re all saying the same story
- Diagnose the issues and work on them
- Solution:
- Practice interviewing skills for hiring managers:
- Be aware of your biases/ way you communicate
- Stay on company brand
- Collaborate with your team to ensure you’re all saying the same story
- Don’t say the wrong thing (non inclusive language, berate competition)
- Diagnose the issues and work on them
- Time stamped feedback
- Convey energy
- Be aware of your biases/ way you communicate
- Practice for candidates
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview Structure- expectations
- Repeatable & predictable process
- Timing and Steps in process
- Interview question scripts
- Feedback loop
- Interview training
- Documentation habits
- Interview preparation
- How to prepare the candidate
- How the interviewer prepares
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Align with your team with a set of interview questions you want to ask and follow up with the Why questions to dig deeper.
- Conduct the work as a team
- Watch the post-game highlight reel & critique
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varun-puri001/
- Company: https://www.yoodli.ai/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yoodli/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/yoodli
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Friday Apr 29, 2022
Friday Apr 29, 2022
Sometimes an innocent conversation during an interview can have horrific consequences, especially if you end up not hiring a person.
The biggest problem every company faces during the hiring process is the interview.
Two people go into a room together for a conversation and no one knows what transpires. Conversations flow and curiosity carries the conversation.
As we all know, curiosity killed the cat… and possibly your company.
Let’s replace curiosity with consistency.
Because the lack of consistency is what breeds unfair interviewing practices by promoting assumptions and cultivating bias. By simply eliminating assumptions & bias from the interview, we can create a process where evidence is gathered that supports the decision.
Minimizing your exposure to future litigation.
Guest Bio:
Victor Xu is attorney extraordinaire in the Fisher Phillips Irvine office where he represents companies in all aspects of labor and employment litigation, from inception through trial, in state and federal courts throughout California.
Victor also has significant experience in conducting internal investigations into alleged employee/supervisor misconduct, including harassment and discrimination, and has provided recommendations for remedial measures, including preparation of new company policies.
Today we discuss:
- Ways your interview might be harming your company
- How to set a process that minimizes potential litigation
Challenges today?
What gets you in trouble when interviewing
- Telling people “you are a perfect candidate”
- California is pro-plaintiff
- People grasp on to certain words
Having a standard in place where interviewers are not just shooting from the hip in the interview
- Mitigate risk
- What kind of music do you like?
- Fishing questions
- Trying to be personal but it is going too far
- Too much feedback
Why is this important to the company?
- Serial interviewees who doesn't get the job claiming discrimination
- Going after tech companies
- Puts handcuffs on the company to settle
- People catch wind of who was hired
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interviews tend to be shallow and decisions are made on assumptions & bias
How do we solve the problem?
Train people to interview and use trained people exclusively
- Select interview team
- All people trained
- Stick to the interview outline and consider a list of no-go questions.
- Training limits the liability of what is said/asked (extra layer of protection)
Create an interview guide of objective questions
- Consistent & fair process
- Questions for everyone & role specific questions
- Questions vetted to mitigate risk
- Off-handed comments
- “Your a perfect candidate”
- “Youthful culture”
- Religious assumptions - questions about drinking, etc.
- “What's your ethnic background?”
- Relating to the candidate can get you in trouble
Honest response for hiring choice
- We are going to pass at this time: Thank you for applying, but we have decided to pursue other applicants. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Values cannot be discriminatory, Legitimate business reason- values
- Information to disclose
- We decided to go with another person
Rick’s Nuggets
Tie your interview questions to values
- Assign the questions to a specific interview position (ie: interview #1)
- Remove opinion from the decision making process
- Score card ranking - highly subjective
- Weigh values alignment above skills
- Evaluate skills based on performance metrics for the role
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Brewery of the perks that you offer candidates and understand their consequences.
- Ensure employees are properly classified even where both sides agree.
- Train and prepare your team on appropriate interview questions.
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-xu-b43bba25/
- Company: https://www.fisherphillips.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fisher-&-phillips-llp/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/labor_attorneys
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fisherphillipsllp/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHCDdUXOnEjfOtUYu6OqTxA
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
How does one evaluate a subject matter expert when you have limited knowledge or expertise in that discipline?
Most individual technical/skills based interviews last about an hour. Where time is wasted quizzing on subject matter that may or may not be relevant to the actual role itself. Scratching the surface on the level of depth that is brought to the table.
Consider another option. What I like to call a “working session”.
Invite the person to collaborate on a real problem that is relevant to the opportunity. This gives you unbridled insight into how a person thinks, communicates and solves problems within the context of real life.
This allows you to really drill down to gain evidence to support the hiring decision either way.
Today we’re going to discuss:
- Why should I care about a working session
- How to structure and execute a working session/ skills interview in your company
Challenge today?
- Skills not matching up to what someone claimed (faker)
- Or... Claimed to be able to handle more than capable (over exaggerator)
- Or… Just here for the perks & paycheck (freeloader)
- What's happening?
- Hiring Maintainers for builder or improver roles
- Testing
- Outdated concepts - learned in college
- Focusing on irreverent problems
- How many quarters can fit in a VW van
- Smart is good, smart with people is much better
- Going too shallow
- Not knowing what to ask
- Not digging deeper to discover the truth
Why is this important to the company?
- Too shallow conceals the truth
- Smart doesn't ensure success
- Relevant skills give evidence of alignment
How do we solve the problem?
- Build Interview Structure
- Only need one technical/skills based interview
- Timing
- 2 hours- ½ day
- Pay for their time (optional)
- Who’s involved?
- Co-workers, direct team, anyone in close interaction
- Define the problem to be solved
- A current problem that needs to be solved (reason to compensate $)
- 3 components (key hires)
- Goals review- understand expectations of KPI’s
- Data or Gap Analysis- how does the candidate interpret data/requirements/etc
- Collaboration- Review the details of the problem. Work to solve!
- Example
- Goals review - (5 minutes max)
- Data Analysis / Gap Analysis - (10 minutes max)
- Marketing Plan & Strategy (1: 45 minutes)
- Let’s discuss the marketing plan starting with what you feel is the best strategy
- Really try to dig into the "Why" How would you bring this plan to life? Based on what you know, what would be your recommendations for reaching the goals? Why? What other angles can we take? What would be the priority? Why?
- Preparation for Candidate & Team
- Candidate
- Let them prepare. Send details in advance
- Set expectations and discuss next steps
- Team
- Coach to be open minded and bias free
- Ignore opinions, praise evidence
- Work true - how they act daily
- Execute to core values
- Everyone should act as to the standards of the company values
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Build a working session for each role. Becomes really easy when you get used to doing it.
- Prepare the candidate for success
- Team collaboration & buy in based on evidence not “uncertain feelings” - bias
Host Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/ Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/ Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Friday Jan 28, 2022
Friday Jan 28, 2022
We hear a lot about culture today as being the most important aspect of growth. Yet product development & sales are too often prioritized over people.
Let’s break this down for a quick minute. Your company's success and/or failure is determined by your people and the relationship you have with their growth. What this means as an entrepreneur is that you are responsible for creating an environment where communication and failure is embraced and celebrated.
It is only when people feel safe & important that they take ownership of their role and allow themselves to thrive.
Guest Today: Justin Erdtsieck, President of Trencore & Brix
In 2016, Justin started to focus the business on hard work, perseverance, determination, resilience, compassion, and trust, and then began relaying these core values to his team through servant leadership.
Each individual employee knows they’re valued and respected and in turn, they care for the company and the final product.
As a result of this mindset shift, Justin has grown the company from $10M in revenue to over $60M in just a few years.
Today we discuss:
- Why you must adopt the mindset shift from product to people
- Justin’s mission to put culture at the forefront of the business & the results of that work
Challenge today?
- Story:
- Stagen: coaching
- Culture was a shit show!
- Inspired by a tour of Zappos. Allowed everyone to create their own space
- Bio -
- History of the company
- Who we are as a company
- People come in with understanding the purpose
- Training
Why is this important to the company?
- 2016 - now- grew from $10M to $60M in revenue. 600 people
- People want to stay- no one has quit in 4 years
- Proactive communication has saved the company over $1M a year
How do we solve the problem?
- Review Core Values
- Weekly Standup
- Check In meetings in the field (fostering company health)
- Culture
- Creating a purpose, helping everyone understand the why
- Living by core values
- Innovative on spreading the word on purpose,
- “A place where people feel safe & enjoy the experience we call work”
- Hiring process
- Eliminate the cancer
- Starting people from the bottom and growing them
- No formal interview process
- Moved people up internally!
- Understand the culture
- Teach
- Trial by fire first… didn't work
- Stagen program for leadership
- Personal development is key
- Motivated
- Creating daily habits to hold people accountable
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Document your purpose so the people who work with you understand the “WHY”
- Success comes when you stop worrying about how much money you are going to make
- Treat people well, take care of yourself & create a good support syste
Guest Links:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-erdtsieck-a20716105/
Company: https://trencoreandbrix.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trencore-brix/
Host Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre HireOS
inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor: Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
We are neck-deep into a highly competitive job seeker’s market. What this means is that the feeding frenzy for talent has created a perfect storm for people to ask for a lot… and get it. The interview process has been plagued with bait and switch tactics, ridiculous compensation renegotiations (after the offer has been accepted), and outright ghosting once an offer is accepted.
The root of the issue is the transactional way your interview is being run. Evolving your phone screen into an in-depth “Discovery Call” is the first step to eliminate the huge time sink that results in a turned-down offer.
Today we are going to discuss the pivot that must take place in your hiring practice to align with what people really want. And it all starts with your first interaction.
Today we discuss:
- The changes in candidate attitude and positioning
- How to eliminate the frustration & engage people at a more human level
- Approach evolution
- Here's what I am hearing from a lot of entrepreneurs
- A lot of dishonesty
- People are being unreasonable when it comes to their demands
Challenge today?
- People are lying on phone screens
- Not showing up for interviews
- people asking for ridiculous stuff
- Problem:
- We still approach people with an “About us first”
- Educational approach with selling
- Needs to be done at the end of the phone screen
- Practice of not negotiating
- Negotiating mitigated when people want it
Why is this important to the company?
- Losing great talent
- It keeps you awake at night
Rick’s Nuggets
- I believe that a lot of the challenges are coming from two places:
- Speed
- Not taking the time to understand before selling
- Need
- Need to get this filled / off my plate
- Speed
How do we solve the problem?
- Your phone screen (aka: discovery call) sets the tone for the relationship
- If your transactional, expect that from the relationship
- If your adding value, expect that from the relationship
- Adding value:
- Seek to understand a person’s WHY (Career Wounds)
- What's broken in their career that you can fix
- What does this person want? (besides a job)
- Environment in which they will thrive
- Can they make an impact?
- Past performance is a key indicator of future performance
- Do they align with your opportunity?
- Where do they fit, where they do NOT fit
- How you solve their career wounds
- Let them connect the dots for you
- Seek to understand a person’s WHY (Career Wounds)
Host Links:
LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/dEWWWEq
Company: https://lnkd.in/dG5aMUxY
Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gyG9YDuD
Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor: Criteria Corp: https://lnkd.in/g8YbdsH
Thursday Jan 06, 2022
Juggling Fundraising While Building a Strong Team with Bruce Watanabe of PowerBuy
Thursday Jan 06, 2022
Thursday Jan 06, 2022
People will only do something when it is in their own best interest AND aligns with our values.
This was a key takeaway for me from the book “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith.
We talk a lot about aligning with values when hiring on this show. And almost everyone recognizes the importance but it is so often missed. Why?
First, the disdain that most of us share for hiring. Very few entrepreneurs enjoy the process of interviewing & hiring. But it is the single most important activity that YOU can get good at that will make the biggest impact in your organization.
Second, the path of least resistance is easy… But it is almost always the wrong path. We must remember that the purpose of the interview is to get to the TRUTH about the person no matter the source. And the truth you need to know is not in skills. It is in positioning and value alignment.
Bruce Watanabe is a serial entrepreneur whom has co-founded a number of technology and Internet ventures including, PowerBuy, MassGenie, SIRE Mobile (SMS Solutions), and SETA International (Global Systems Integrator & Solution Provider).
With over 20+ years of leadership experience ranging from start-ups to Fortune 10 companies, Bruce is proficient in corporate strategy, business development, sales, and channel development. He is actively building Powerset from the ashes of a pivot and is here to share his wisdom
Today we discuss:
- Why it is important to prioritize the thing you hate most (interviewing)
- How to balance raising capital while building a stellar team.
Challenge today?
- People are the most important aspect of a company
- As an early stage startup
- Balancing generating revenue while getting financing
- Need capital to hire the right people
- Pivot the business to powerbyte
- Lack of funding, resources
- Have the grit to power through the pivot
Why is this important to the company?
- Only a handful of people stayed
- Believed in the vision- disrupting social commerce
- CTO- grit / determination to power through
- Relaunched the company
- Second raise
- Balance the valuation
Rick’s Nuggets
- First recognize/admit that you have no idea how to hire (admit to your problem)
- Prioritize getting good at Interviewing
- Values
- Process
- Evidence
How do we solve the problem?
- Bringing the right team in place
- Referrals- all interconnected
- Advisors- only way to hire people
- Vouch for someone
- Advisors must be strong
- Prefer a strong
- At the end of the day, you can buy talent, you can't buy grit
- Would love to get good at interviewing but …
- Really hard to gauge if someone
Rick’s Nuggets
- Take an active role in interviewing
- Seek to understand- filters down through the organization.
- Poke holes & dig deep
- Understanding positioning
- What does the person really want to do?
- Desire = Passion
- Does their desire align with my goal
- Don't be just a paycheck
- Everyone gets the same interview
- Often the best person for the business is the least like you
- Evidence supports strong decision making
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Make sure you know who you are getting into bed with- have a great team
- Know who your co-founders are
- If you are friends, be prepared to lose them. Rarely a happy ending
- Don’t hire on a resume/linkedin profile
Host Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Guest Links
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-watanabe-5a661a4/
Company: https://linktr.ee/powerbuyapp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ppowerbuy/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/powerbuyapp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/powerbuyapp
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerbuyapp/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDjcG5dHXE282FGzfaf2Jjw
Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/powerbuyapp/_saved/
TikToK: https://www.tiktok.com/@powerbuy.app?
Show Sponsor:
Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Tuesday Dec 28, 2021
Tuesday Dec 28, 2021
Most of us have a tendency to fast track anyone who comes through an internal referral. The rationalization is that we automatically trust the referral source so the person will be a great hire. Add time pressure to fill the role and we are ready to extend an offer before the interview takes place.
Yes there is an increased likelihood that the person will work out. But there is danger too.
Because a person is a referral, is the exact reason why they need to be impressed with your thoroughness in your interview process. This does not dissuade the A-players from joining you. It gives them the impression of excellence expected from everyone within the organization.
Our guest today: Todd Ausherman, CEO of Notaroo
Todd is an attorney and entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in building high growth companies in the financial services space. Having successfully exited multiple companies, while personally hiring hundreds of employees along the way, he is currently building Notaroo, a lending software platform for the mortgage industry.
Todd is here to share his experience with hiring internal referrals.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is critical to thoroughly vet internal referrals
- How to ensure the the referral fits
Challenge today?
- The internal hire from the company that acquired the company
- Build from 19-250 people in 3 years
- Went into default and took two people
- Got a hero and a zero
- The zero - had his own way
- Created a lot of barriers
- Nothing got done
- First hire power bred discontent among his tribe
- Led to a mutiny
- Unreasonable belief in his ability
- Project fell flat
Why is this important to the company?
- The team of malcontents poisoned the culture
- Ultimately the CEO unloaded a bad employee on him
Rick’s Nuggets
- Must do diligence for everyone, especially referrals
- Why is this person being referred to me?
- Do they align with our values?
How do we solve the problem?
- Culture first
- Create a lot of events
- Break down the communication barriers
- Humanize himself as a leader
- Open a channel for people to be heard, raise your hand
- Spread out the balance of power
- Minimize the possibility of a mutiny
- Team leads responsible for smaller teams
- Decentralized hiring control to the team leads
- Process that multiple people decided on the hire
- Recruiting - intro calls
- Interview conducted in groups of 2- accountability partner
- Leader final interview
- Penguin question
- Hired a person who didn't like penguins(company mascot), it didn't work out.
- Knockout question: stick to it
- Fire Fast
- Eliminate the cancer as soon as you learn of it
Rick’s Nuggets
- Values are what form your culture
- Hiring process!
- Knockout question!
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Sticking to your knockout question
- Mindful of your key lieutenants and what their motivations are
- Confront the uncomfortable truth of seeing a person who is a performer but the agenda is self driven. Don't hide behind a person’s performance- cowardly
Host Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Guest Links:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddausherman/
Company: :https://www.getnotaroo.com/
Show Sponsor:
Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Oct 14, 2021
Hiring Your First 10 People with Jeremy Parker of Swag.com
Thursday Oct 14, 2021
Thursday Oct 14, 2021
Growing your company from 2 to 10 people is the most critical time in your company's life cycle. The reason for this is every single hire that is made can make or break the company.
Every founder I meet has a story of “we hired a person that we thought was going to be a rockstar and it turned out to be a disaster”.
So where do things go wrong when a bad hire is made?
The interview was run from a position of need; where we focus on selling the opportunity. So excited to get this new rockstar on board that we totally forget to take the time to understand if the person aligns with the values of the organization.
The good news is there is a solution to avoid these sometimes deadly mistakes and it just requires structure and developing your listening muscle.
Our guest today: Jeremy Parker, Co-Founder and CEO of Swag.com
Swag.com is the best place for companies to buy and distribute quality swag that people will actually want to keep. We work with 5,000+ companies including Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify and Tik Tok.
Jeremy was named to Crain's NY 40 under 40 (Class of 2020) and Swag is #218 on the Inc 500 (2020) and #368 (2021)- Fastest growing private companies
Today we discuss:
- The importance of the first 10 hires
- Process to avoid making the wrong hire
Challenge today?
- Hiring for the resume
- People who have done it in the past
- Not about the skills but the culture
- One bad hire can destroy a business
Why is this important to the company?
Story: First 2 years just the founders. Then scaled quickly to 14 people
- Who you hire in the early days is super important. Need to be the right fit, for the right time. They could be a great person and extremely talented but if they are not the right fit for the time it can go sideways.
- Up to 70 people now and everyone is ability is important, skills not as important, as culture
How do we solve the problem?
- Stop micromanaging
- Guide & teach & trust that people will get it
- Allow people who are hiring to do the job
- Right mentality & Right focus (embracing failure)
- Failure is ok
- Embrace it!
- 4 rounds of interviews
- First meet with Department Head. If that goes well, meet with someone who is currently in that same position in the company, to make sure they feel this person can do the job well.
- If that goes well, meet with the COO,
- if that goes well, meet with CEO.
- If the candidate gets through all rounds and everyone feels they could be a good fit, we get at least two reference checks. Someone who they worked under and someone who they worked alongside.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Evaluate everyone around your values
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Being ok with failure! Nothing can go wrong when you are ok with it. Failure will get you where you need to go.
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyianparker/
Company: https://swag.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/swag.com/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/promotewithswag?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/promotewithswag/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swagdotcom/?fbclid=IwAR1TnFCOQ8kv-chtsiP5wKexliw55YISu2rESPCLGUu86tEynikmspBy9xc
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
Thursday Oct 07, 2021
Thursday Oct 07, 2021
4 Million Americans quit their jobs in July of 2021 , according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. What this means is that you have a tremendous opportunity to upgrade your talent base in your organization.
The pandemic has magnified people’s career wounds in a way that every business will be impacted.
While many reasons are given as to the cause of this mass exodus, the root of the fall out is that the people leaving are no longer in alignment with the company’s values.
Value alignment is now more critical than ever to attract and hire people. Because when people align with the actual company values, they find meaning & discover their purpose.
And their purpose is far more important to them than your profits.
Today is a special episode due to the massive number of requests from our audience about this little problem called the great resignation
We discuss:
- Why it is critical to own your company values
- How to prosper in Hiring - TODAY!
Challenge today?
- My people are getting poached!
- We have come to a point where people want meaning & purpose in their lives.
- Perks, compensation & benefits no longer matter
- People are questioning their “why”
- Imbalance
- Stress & heartache
- More flexibility is not the real issue
- Inc Article https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/great-resignation-work-meaning-esther-perel.html
- Demonstrating meaning & the company cares about them as “human beings”
Why is this important to the company?
- Who’s leaving?
- Mid- career employees have the highest resignation rates! (30-45)
- You are positioned to heal a person's career wounds.
- When you align with values and provide a solution to heal, both parties WIN
- People are expecting win-win relationships with their employers
- The Great Opportunity!
- Easiest time in history to engage A-Players!
- Raise the performance bar in your organization
4 Steps to Win-Win Talent in this Great Resignation
Get solid on your Values
- Key to attracting top performers
- Who you are
- how you lead
- how people act
Understand your Recruiting Process
- Recruiting is how you identify people & get people to talk to you.
- Just because you recruited someone great, doesn't mean you should hire them
- Or that they will even accept your job offer
- What is working today
- Target and Contact & Reconnect
- Do not sell, listen
Understand your Hiring Process
- Start with an in depth Discovery call (phone screen)
- Does this person’s desires align with the company (correctly positioned)
- Not skills
- Vision for the environment in which they will excel
- Timed & structured Interview
- Values alignment first
- Skills second (working session)
- Nurture a proactive flow - allow the person to have a voice in what happens next
- What would you like to do next?
Heal the Career Wound
- Growth, Content of work, Management
- Value Alignment
- Progression, learning, flexibility
- If you cannot provide a path to the individual, don't hire
- Someone else will thrive in the role
- You will be just a paycheck (if the person joins)
Key Takeaways -Value:
- The “Great Resignation” is real and you need to be capitalizing on the opportunity that has been presented to us!
- Get tight on the company values… They are the key to a successful hire
- Don't confuse a recruiting process as a hiring process. They are two separate activities.
Rick's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
Book: Healing Career Wounds - https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Career-Wounds-Ridiculously-Successful/dp/173580360X
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Sep 23, 2021
How to Stop Sucking at Hiring Sales People with Joseph Fung of Uvaro
Thursday Sep 23, 2021
Thursday Sep 23, 2021
Hire slow, fire fast is a motto we have all heard as startup founders. It makes logical sense but what really happens is quite the opposite. As entrepreneurs we shift into panic mode when we have a need and move quickly to fill the role. Completely missing all the evidence that this person will be a bad hire.
Once the person is in the seat, the dread of having to refill a role often leads to concessions made to the detriment of the business.
Hiring Slow means investing the time to really make sure the person will be a strong hire. Therefore there should be no need to fire fast. Especially if you really understand who the person is and gain evidence of the value they add to the company.
Think of each person you hire as being worth $2 million dollars to the company. Changes your perspective, right?
A lot more care and a higher talent bar would be prioritized over just “filling the seat”.
Our guest today: Joseph Fung, Founder & CEO of Uvaro
A tech sales career accelerator, and of Kiite, a sales enablement platform purpose-built to provide sales teams with the information they need when they need it. Joseph’s a repeat Founder & CEO, and with multiple successful exits, and speaks frequently on the topics of sales leadership, diversity, and corporate social responsibility.
Joseph is an expert in sales, startups and building scalable culture.
Today we discuss:
- Our mentality around hiring sales people
- How to effectively attract & hire high performers
Challenge today?
- Hiring for software skills rather than problem solving skills
- No internal training- want someone who already doing what you need done
- Rely on stereotypes and gut
- Need people who can speak to a bigger variety of customers
Why is this important to the company?
- Fix the problem, you can triple the production of 1st year sales reps
- 8 months to ramp, average sales rep only achieves 60% of quota
- Ramp in ⅓ time and drive production to 80% - Training
- Churn & burn kills morale
- Cash costs are immense on the back end
How do we solve the problem and hire the strongest people every time?
- Throw out your job description
- Translate ideal customer to sales job description
- Ideal Customer Profile- go granular
- Choosing what & who to hire
- Invest in Revops & sales enablement
- 50:1 ratio Rep to SE is a start => move to 20:1
- Mindset
- Treating the organization with respect
- Thinking is you solve the problem by hiring more people
- Interview
- Culture fit interview - “Is this someone I want to have a beer with?” not
- Turn it into a behavioral interview - what behaviors demonstrate values alignment
Rick’s Nuggets
- Performance metrics are most critical component today for job descriptions today
- Accountability up front
- Understanding a person’s positioning
- Transactional Sale VS. Enterprise/Solutions Sale
- Resources available
- Builder, Improver, Maintainer
- Uncovering the impact that has been made in their current/former position
- Save time, increase revenue
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Throw out your job description . Copying others is just propagating bad habits
- Stop asking people to sell like the founders - it won’t work
- Re-think your culture fit interviews...write behavioral questions
Guest Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephfung/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/josephfung
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephfung/
Company: https://uvaro.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/uvarolife/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/uvarolife
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uvaro.life
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uvaro.life/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/uvaro
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
Why You Need to Interview Like Amazon Now! with Rick Girard of Stride Search Inc.
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
Answer: Linking Corporate Values into Your Interview Questions eliminates bias
I posed the question to a room of over 400 corporate executives and the results shocked me when I first asked it. Now when I ask the question, the results just make me …. Sad.
“Please raise your hand if you have had any formal interview training at any time in your career, other than what not to say in an interview”. Three hands were raised. 3 out of over 400 people!
And we wonder why hiring is “hard”. Guess what, It is not so hard for companies like Amazon who, from the beginning, have structured and trained their people HOW to effectively interview people. This is why they have always been a talent magnet, and not because they pay well.
3 out of 400 people! This was a major a-ha moment for me and it should be one for you!
Imagine the impact your company will have on this planet when you and your people get really good at hiring.
Today we discuss:
- The importance of linking values to interviewing
- How to set up and execute a values driven interview
Challenge today?
- Talk about bias elimination
- cannot happen until interview questions are designed to extract evidence
- The content of the interview cannot be left up to chance
- The fate of each interviewee is determined in the first 15 minutes at most. Sometimes in the first 5 minutes….. All based on bias
- 51% chance that your decision is wrong
- Unchallenging, unimpressive interviews only attract people who are there for the paycheck
- Talented people (A-players, change makers & high performers) do NOT want to work for yahoos!
- Informal, unstructured & unprepared interviews make you look like a yahoo.
- Offer turn downs are at an all time high
Why is this important to the company?
- One word: AMAZON
- Leadership principles (company values) are what drives decision making
- Customer Obsession
- Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
- Hire and Develop the Best
- Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
- https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
- Talent is drawn toward excellence
How do we implement values driven interviewing?
- Clearly write down your company values
- Founders- this is you & your values
- As you ad people, reassess at least bi annual- especially before hiring ANYONE
- Develop Values
- Clear definition of what the values means to the company
- What attributes characterize each value
- Measurables (how does a person live the value in their day to day life?
- Sample exercise
Value #1 Dignity
Definition: Treating yourself and others with respect & courtesy
Attributes:
CEO |
Co-founder |
Dept Head |
acceptance |
Self-respect |
self-confidence |
Non judgemental |
equality |
Respect for others |
Self esteem- elevation |
decency |
Stands tall |
empowered |
Treat as equals |
Measurables:
*** Empowering others
*** Respect for others
*** Non-Judgemental
- Build interview Question Library
- Behavioral questions designed to bring evidence of how people “show up”
- "Tell me about a time...." or “Describe a time when….” or “Outline a time where….” or "Give me an example of..."
- Questions must be Indirect & not obvious to the interviewee
- Evidence to support Attributes
- Support / follow up question flow
Value #1 Dignity
Attributes:
*** Empowering others
*** Respect for others
*** Non-Judgmental
- Tell me about a time you helped elevate the performance of one of your teammates (Empowering Others)
- How did you learn of the issue?
- What were the events that led to this performance being important to you?
- How much time do you dedicate to the cause?
- How do you feel you could make more of a difference?
- What makes this important to you?
- What was the outcome?
- Give me an example of a time you stood up for a person you didn't know (Respect)
- What steps did you take?
- How did this affect the other person?
- What made this action important to you?
- Describe a really uncomfortable work situation that needed to be addressed that was personal to the other person? (Non-Judgmental)
- What were you asked to do?
- How did it make you feel?
- Reinforcement & Training
- Live your values
- Make it a language by which decisions are made (like Amazon)
- Teach everyone who interviews, how to extract evidence
- Capture data - training & compliance purposes
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Invest the time to build out your corporate values - the Payoff will be HUGE
- Take the next step and connect them to your interviewing
- Train your people! Part of their job is to other high performers so give them the tools to do so
Rick's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
Book:https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Career-Wounds-Ridiculously-Successful/dp/173580360X
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
Listening is the most critical interview tool you have. Not listening to respond (which we all do) but listening to understand.
Think of the interview as an opportunity to gather evidence to support your decision and when you understand a person’s pain & desire first, you can accurately position your opportunity as the answer to their problems.
Why do you need to understand the person before you hire them? Isn’t it enough that you know that they have the skills that are needed?
Because not understanding the values of the individual is what ultimately results in bad hiring decisions.
Our guest today: Casey Welch, Co-Founder & CEO of Tallo.
A digital platform and app that connects 1.3 million+ students and professionals to opportunities offered by colleges, companies, and organizations. Since its inception, Tallo has pioneered early talent engagement, facilitating career discovery and guidance for a diverse talent pool.
Under Casey’s leadership, Tallo serves as a virtual ecosystem leveling the playing field for all students and job seekers, regardless of traditional geographic and economic barriers. Casey is a leading expert on Generation Z in higher education and the workforce, and his insights have been featured in Forbes, FastCompany, ZDNet, and SHRM.
Today we discuss:
- The importance of proper positioning when hiring
- How to build understanding into your interview process
Challenge today? (Reactive hiring and approach to talent)
- People want to find careers that are purposeful
- After more than a year of grinding stress, workers are increasingly looking to find new jobs. In fact, according to research by Monster, 95% of workers are thinking about finding a new job, and 92% would consider switching industries for a new position.
- Gen Z agrees with this overall sentiment. According to Tallo’s recent survey of over 1000+ Gen Z individuals, 69% of Gen Z said over the past year it's become more important to find a job that is personally fulfilling.
- Products that will help people, change peoples lives
- Gen Z wants a career that brings them purpose and meaning, not just a job. They also want to make a social impact with their career, not just work the 9-5. Tallo data found that one of the three most important factors for Gen Z when thinking about their future work environment includes making an impact socially and economically (47%)
- In order to attract members of Gen Z, employers need to show prospective new employees will bring a positive change from a social and economic standpoint. This is an opposite mindset from their predecessors Millennials, who focused more on company name recognition
- Finding the workforce that is going to stay
- The top three most important factors for Gen Z when thinking about their current or future work environment include:
- Having a fair and ethical boss (72%)
- The ability to be heard (61%)
- Making an impact socially and economically (47%)
- Hybrid work environments are key: 63% of Gen Z is interested in working in a hybrid setting, while 27% want to work in the office full time and 8% want to work remotely full time.
- The top three most important factors for Gen Z when thinking about their current or future work environment include:
- Pandemic changed people's views
- More than one out of every three Gen Zers reported in a Tallo survey that they are reconsidering their career choice due to certain industries being negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Culture & environment are far more important
- The three biggest factors that motivate Gen Z to take a job include salary (78%) interest in work (70%) and work life balance (58%).
- Addressing social issues + diversity equity and inclusion in the workplace is vital. Tallo data found that Gen Z listed the following as the most important DEI initiatives they look for in an employer:
- Women in leadership (59%)
- Training and discussions (58%)
- People of color in leadership positions (53%)
Why is this important to the company?
- Understanding what the modern employees wants and needs are, and then meeting those needs is critical to improve retention and reduce turnover.
- People are leaving their companies faster than the employers can fill, which is why there’s a high demand for jobs but no supply of experienced candidates. In order to fill these positions, employers must begin a double-pronged approach of employee retention and employee outreach – and focus their efforts on Gen Z.
- When asked about future workplace settings, only 8% of Gen Z want to be fully remote. 63% want hybrid and 27% would want to be in the office full time
Rick’s Nuggets
- Understanding leads to truth
- Every person has a different set of values
- Evidence eliminates
- Assumptions
- Bias
How do we solve the problem? (Creating a proactive approach and system to hiring)
- Mindshift
- Away from transactional relationship (Two people can want to get married, doesn’t mean they want to get married to each other)
- Care more about experience and about people
- Using tools for measurement
- Purpose & Meaning - what they like and want to do
- Skills - What they CAN do
- A focus on reskilling, upskilling and learning & development (L&D) opportunities:
- Employers need to provide all their employees with new and innovative ways to reskill and upskill – especially when it comes to soft skills.
- 74% of Gen Z think soft skills (such as critical thinking, analysis, problem solving, leadership, and communication) are more critical for success in our current economy.
- Some different L&D opportunities employers can explore include:
- Technical (science, technology, engineering, software development, and design);
- Leadership (communication, management, and critical thinking);
- Learning new languages; and
- Agile (collaboration, user experience, experimentation, and continuous learning).
Rick’s Nuggets
- Mindset : who are you really?
- Blind conversations are the most fruitful & eliminate bias
- Interview questions that surface value alignment
- Behavioral Interview that is tied to values!
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Employers must place a heightened focus on recruiting the next generation of leaders into the workplace: Gen Z
- The most important factors to drives people to come work for you include considering a hybrid work environment, addressing and emphasizing the important of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and providing a means for employees to reskill + upskill
- Employers must fully understand what today’s modern employee wants – from salary to benefits to work environment – and meet those expectations
Guest Links:
Casey Welch: LinkedIn
Company: Tallo Facebook Twitter Instagram
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop
Thursday Apr 29, 2021
Thursday Apr 29, 2021
“But I have managed to hire two rockstars without having any formalized hiring structure” Said my friend Anthony. To which I quickly replied back “I’d rather be lucky than good”!
It is great to have a few “superstars” in your organization but it is outstanding to have an organization built entirely of well positioned, highly productive people, A-players.
Having a system for hiring is the only way to make the leap from average to extraordinary.
Our guest today: Robert Glazer, Founder & CEO of Acceleration Partners.
A global partner marketing agency, and the co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. A serial entrepreneur, he has a passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to Elevate.
Robert was twice named to Glassdoor’s list of Top Small & Medium Companies CEO's (#2) and was selected as a Top 22 Conscious Business Leaders of 2019 by Conscious Company.
He speaks to companies and organizations around the world on topics related to business growth, culture, capacity-building and performance.
Today we discuss:
- Why systems, especially in hiring, to win!
- Robert’s process for hiring
Why are business leaders reluctant to follow a hiring system?
- Moving from a superstar hiring culture to a systematic process
- Getting everyone to do work up front
- Agreeing on what success looks like in the role
- Clarity in the scorecard
- Everyone to follow the process
- Being thorough to meet objectives
Why is this important to the company?
- Process pushes the responsibility of building great teams to the teams
- Scalable in removing leadership from the process quickly
- Scientific process and repeatable
Rick’s Nuggets
- Process & systems win
- “I’m too busy and don't have time to sit down and develop a process” - You
- Hiring process needs to be driven by leadership
- Hiring the strongest people, needs to be your strongest talent
How do we solve the problem?
- Collect process from other firms
- Layout - read Who
- Developing the playbook as a team
- Eliminating the bias & urgency
- Clear on qualities & outcomes
- Making everything behavioral based
- Training the playbook
- Train & certify on the process
- No interviewing unless you are and expert on the process itself
- Evaluate interviews
- Following the process
- Look at the data and scorecards, not gut
- Improving the playbook based on mistakes
- Debriefed on mid hires and find the holes in the system
- Get uncomfortable and figure it out now
Rick’s Nuggets
- Read Healing Career Wounds (Available May 20 - Preorder on Amazon)
- HireOS interview process -
- Role playing - best training!
- Scorecard = performance metrics - measurable / timeline
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Your current hiring process is probably no better than 50/50
- Based on individuals not a repeatable process
- A good process also really helps with remote hiring
- This is the #1 way to improve your culture
Links
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/glazer/
Websites:https://www.accelerationpartners.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AccelerationPartners/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/accelerationpar
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/accelerationpar/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Accelerationpartners/featured
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Apr 15, 2021
Thursday Apr 15, 2021
It’s no secret that I feel that employer branding is bullshit. Mostly because it is focused on perks and selling a “utopian” environment that is not what the company really is at all.
Messaging is focused on being the greatest place to work. But we all know that if you are a small to mid sized business, you are at best, a “hot mess”.
Clarity in who you REALLY are as an organization is the one thing that will propel your business forward and attract the strongest people to your company.
Our guest today: Eric Morley, Co-Founder & COO for Blue C Advertising
Eric has been helping companies across both B2B and B2C segments create brand strategies, campaign development, strategic design, content creation, and digital marketing strategies with a goal of outperforming the competition.
Eric and the Blue C team have been honored to work with some truly innovative and impactful brands that keep them constantly pushing and evolving their exclusive BrandPWR Platform.
Today we discuss:
- The truth about what branding is
- The elements for a true branding initiative
According to Wikipedia: Employer brand describes an employer's reputation as a place to work, and their employee value proposition
- EVP-a set of associations and offerings provided by an organization in return for the skills, capabilities and experiences an employee brings to the organization
Challenge today?
- Not having your messaging down
- Retooling messaging for a covid friendly world
- The world has changed in the last year
- Equally important to communicate to your customers as well has your future employees
Why is this important to the company?
- A players have seen it all before and can smell a skunk a mile away
- Laser focused messaging creates massive clarity
- Sales side, it affects revenue
- Employees- will view you as the same as…. Just getting by
Rick’s Nuggets
- Branding is not perks, puffing your chest (ego) or the product
- Today’s employer branding focus on transactional components
- Not about “what’s in it for me”
How do we solve the problem?
A 360 degree process- brand clarity
- Discovery
- Pull everything apart
- Question
- Verbal Messaging
-12 point process
- Vision
- Mission
- Positioning
- Brand pillars
- Brand promise
- Values
- Brand personality
- Voice & tone
- Mantra
- Tagline
- Visual Messaging- Recognition
- Website, social media, external marketing, inbound marketing
- Transcend from written to visual
Rick’s Nuggets
Pain
- Why
- Desire (what’s in it for you)
- Problems to be solved
- Performance metrics
Impact
- How you grow
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Strategy first - roadmap to the promise land
- Create laser focused messaging
- Massive clarity in the minds of your employees, future employees
Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmorleybluec/
Websites: https://bluecusa.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlueCAdvertising/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blue_c_usa/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
We can all agree that the only way to 10 or 100x your company is to hire the strongest people. So, what are the strongest people?
The strongest person for your company is a person who aligns with your values first. They understand the mission and they have a strong desire to impact the business because it benefits them first.
Understanding the person across the table does not happen by chance but by a systematic approach to your interview that is designed to gather concrete evidence.
The smartest companies know that cultural alignment is far more critical to a successful hire than merely a person’s skills.
Today we discuss:
- The value & pitfalls of a hiring system
- How to implement a hiring operating system into your company
What is a hiring operating system? The step by step process by which your company successfully hires.
Challenge today?
- In any market, care needs to be taken when hiring
- Right person, Right seat … Jim Collins - Good to Great
- Time pressure
- Hiring is a guessing game
- Likability/commonality
- Skills
- Bias - educational background, company history (assumed success)
- People hired are not properly positioned for your unique company
- Builder, Improver, Maintainer
- Hiring Process is common, weak or unorganized - Key indicator of how the business is run
- People are systems resistant.
- Systems are the key to success
Why is this important to the company?
Operating Systems
- Save time & money
- provide structure & clarity
- Build accountability
- Build effective practices
- Attract talent
- A- players are drawn to successful opportunities
- Systems Win
- Business operating systems (EOS, scaling up, Strategic Coach, MAP)
- IDC: Companies lose 20-30 percent of revenue each year due to ineffective business practices
- https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286084
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2016/11/01/5-ways-your-business-processes-could-be-hurting-your-business/?sh=6b39e50452e9
How do you build your hiring operating system?
Foundation
- Values first
- Own it- embrace the truth
- Be transparent about the Good & Bad
- No one believes your company is perfect
- Build Interview Question Library
- Craft Behavioral questions (2-3)
- Determine **Knockouts
- Agree on questions
- Establish Interview Structure
- Timeline Commitment
- Define Format
- Outreach / Application
- Intake Process - discovery call
- Interview
- Assessments/Tests (not too soon)
- Decision
- Build Job Description Template
- Understand Performance Metrics
- Build Call to Action Questions
- Assign Questions
- to Interviewer position (order of importance)
- Assemble Interview Team
- 3 teams of X
Execution
Rules of engagement
- Discovery/Screening call
- Assessment over Resume
- Time up front saves pain in the end
- non-transactional
TRAINING!!!
- Behavioral Interview
- Bias annihilation
- Knock Out’s
- Role playing exercise
- Interview question tweaking
- Iteration of follow up questions
- Solidify questions
- Logging data
- Wrapping up interview & Handoff
- Gather feedback
- Dismissal
- Role Playing wrap up
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Systems -breed success and eliminate all the things that keep you up at night
- Prioritize owning a hiring operating system that attracts the strongest people to your business
- Train your people how to interview to gather evidence to support the hire
Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Websites:
https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
https://www.stridesearch.com/rick-girard
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HirePowerRadio/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Mar 25, 2021
Thursday Mar 25, 2021
If hiring right is so critical to the organization, why is interviewing the one action that is entirely left up to chance? It has been my experience that virtually zero small companies invest in training their people how to interview.
This was the experience of an extremely successful executive, Jeff. Who at the C-level had only attended a one hour session of interview training in his whole career…. 10 years ago.
It is assumed that most leaders already know how to interview but the truth is that they don't. Most of us know how to talk skills and look for likable traits. But the process is riddled with bias and assumptions. Missing the evidence that is so critical in hiring the strongest person for the role.
Our guest today: Adam Stonehocker, Head of Sales at Gemini
Adam is the head of Sales at Gemini, a data visualization company that helps executives make key decisions involving their most important asset, their people. He has led sales teams for Peek, Google, Twitter, Pandora Radio, and AdRoll, EBay.
Adam has hired over 500 salespeople throughout his career and trained his leaders to interview with purpose.
Today we discuss:
- Why you need to invest in training your people how to interview
- How to train your people to interview effectively
There is a belief that there is no right way to interview and in the end it all comes down to “trusting your gut” and pulling the trigger... So wrong in every way!
Why don't companies invest in interview training?
- Attrition was 20% per month with poor hiring
- Team only hit 85% of goal for the year
- Culture was terrible
- Top performers said “your hiring anyone who can breathe”
Why is this important to the company?
- Without recognition & change top performers would have left
- Interview team has no idea how to identify the right people,
- You have to get the right people on the bus
- Upper management not happy
- Costs a lot of money when you have a leaky bucket
Rick’s Nuggets
- Every company should prioritize training everyone who interviews for the company
- Systems put in place maximize productivity & efficiency of your employees
How do we solve the problem?
- Identifying core values & culture that you want to hire for
- Make sure everyone is on the same page
- Hiring managers, recruiters,
- Structuring the Interview guide
- Gauging the competencies in the interview guide
- Coachable: Role play exercise to implement feedback from prior interviewer
- Training
- Values we’re looking for
- Interview guide gauges those values or competencies
- Role playing with each other
- Using the interview guide as a script
- Feedback loop and discussion from the group
- Reps/future managers take part in calibration and interviews
- Quarterly calibration
- Continually updating the interview guide
- Have your needs changed?
- Are there questions that aren’t pulling the right competency
- Problem questions that most people stumble on?
- Feel of the interview, is it intense or laid back and fun? Your interview feel should match your culture
Rick’s Nuggets
- Write behavioral questions that uncover evidence to support your company values
- Write follow up questions for deeper digging
- Assign to each team member
- Role play
- Practice makes proficient
- How did that work?
Key Takeaways :
- Define your values/culture
-
- Everyone on the same page, looking for the right types of talent
- Only then can you ABR (Always Be Recruiting)
- Structure your interview guide to gauge value competencies
- Set up quarterly calibrations to refine interview guide, interview skills,
- This is where your team continually sharpens the saw,
- Feedback loop on interview process
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamstonehocker/
Websites: https://gogemini.com/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Mar 11, 2021
When to Hire Freelancers vs Full Time Talent with Shahar Erez of Stoke Talent
Thursday Mar 11, 2021
Thursday Mar 11, 2021
Do you really need a person full time or will a freelancer suffice? Often the need to get work done clouds our vision who we really need.
Ask yourself, “what does the business need?” and what is the timing in which the work needs to be done. When you need something quick, you most likely need a freelancer. But know that your explicit communication is the key to successful project completion.
Just don’t shortcut the selection process and hire those who get it, want it and can deliver results.
Our guest today: Shahar Erez, Co-Founder & CEO of Stoke Talent.
An experienced executive with solid engineering, product and marketing leadership backgrounds backed up by sound results. He has more than 15 years of experience in various management positions in a wide range of organizations building stellar teams and leading them to new levels of success in highly competitive markets.
Shahar has hired hundreds of Freelancers throughout his career and is here to share his expertise.
Today we discuss:
- When to hire freelancers vs full time talent
- Roadmap to how to most effectively hire freelancers
I struggle with the notion of hiring freelancers as I have time challenges in communication of expectations
Challenge today?
- There was no flood in the market of talent
- Cultural challenge
- Mental barrier
- Freelancers
- Compliance & back office challenges
Why is this important to the company?
- Get the right talent
- Agility to move fast
- Flexibility & budget control
- Quick time to hire
- Try before you buy
Rick’s Nuggets
- Even freelancers need to align with your company values
- They are part of the culture
- When values align & expectations are clearly defined the quality of work skyrockets
What is the process for hiring freelancers?
- Open to the possibility of freelancers
- No strings attached
- Budget flexibility to get work done quickly
- Training managers on what it is to manage & hire freelancers
- No need for a full interview
- Lower Expectations
- Very clear on deliverables- what to happen & when
- Start with a 2 week project
- Define deliverables
- How to operate in the two weeks
- Clear communication- more important than full time employees
Rick’s Nuggets
Interviewing Freelancers
- Must have a strong Discovery / Screening call - do not shortcut!
- Understand the person’s pain, desire & impact
- Why do they want the work??
- Every person you add has an influence on culture
- Do they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do the work? - Gino Wickman
- Do not hire if they are just there for the paycheck
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Number of independent contractors are growing and will make more than 50% of workforce within the next 5 years
- Prepare your organization and leaders to operate within this new workforce composition model
- You should treat this as strategic shift and get a platform to assure you are managing this correctly
Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaharer/
Websites: https://www.stoketalent.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stoketalent
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shaharer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stoketalent
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Feb 25, 2021
Beating The Job Description Dead Horse with Mark Herschberg of The Career Toolkit
Thursday Feb 25, 2021
Thursday Feb 25, 2021
Why do I need to waste my time writing a job description? You might ask.
The answer is: To save Time … & be able to Sleep
The Job Description is there to evaluate how successful the person you hired is in the role they were hired for. Consider it the essential evaluation tool to manage expectations... A syllabus for success.
Investing the time up front will allow you to set the performance metrics the person needs to achieve in the critical first 90 days. Thus cementing quantifiable data to ensure a successful hire.
And that just helps all parties sleep better at night!
Our guest today: Mark Herschberg, MIT instructor, CTO, & Author of The Career Toolkit
From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia.
He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools. He also works with many non-profits, including Techie Youth and Plant A Million Corals.
He was one of the top-ranked ballroom dancers in the country and now lives in New York City, where he is known for his social gatherings, including his annual Halloween party, as well as his diverse cufflink collection.
Today we discuss:
- Why Job descriptions are critical to the success of your company
- How to craft job descriptions that positively impact the organization
Challenge today with Job Descriptions?
- Vague
- Too much redundant information
- Missing information
- Break down what the tasks are ie:% of time
- Understanding the skills
- Defining soft skills
- Technical knowledge- not digging deeper
- Throwing up barriers
- Unclear job description leads to unclear evaluation of the interviewee
Why is this important to the company?
- We waste a lot of time interviewing the wrong people
- We hire for the wrong reasons
- Breeds a underperforming team
- Infects the culture
- Domino effect downgrading the business
- No compensation for a good teammate
Rick’s Nuggets
- A job description is not a wishlist of skills
- Job description and job advertisement should be the same document
How do we solve the problem?
-
- Working backwards
- Define the specific attributes that are wanted
- Uncover the why
- Similar mentality bread into the person
- Industry
- Write the job description
- Start with a selling point
- Getting everyone on the same page
- Define the interview questions
- uncover how the person fits the company
- Working backwards
Rick’s Nuggets
- What’s in it for me? (pain)
- Problems solved
- 90 day performance metrics
- Includes hard & soft skills
- About us
- Call to Action
- Homework before resume submittal
Key Takeaways:
- Step 1 of hiring: define the role, including the qualities you’re looking for, beyond just knowledge and experience
- Step 2: make sure everyone on the hiring team is clear
- Step 3: make sure the questions you ask align to evaluating on what you’re looking for
Links:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hershey/
Websites: https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCareerToolkitBook
Twitter: https://twitter.com/markaherschberg
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CareerToolkitBk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecareertoolkit/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Friday Feb 12, 2021
Friday Feb 12, 2021
Think what you may about the military but the truth is they hire better than you!
They developed and refined a process that, over time, has ultimately uncovered those individuals who exemplify the core values that are critical to the success of the organization and the mission.
A strong commitment to We, before Me! …which is what your company needs
Today is about lessons learned from Special Forces that you can apply to your company, to ensure that you are hiring the people who also share your company's core values.
Our guests today: Michael Sarraille, Founder & CEO of EF Overwatch, & George Randle, managing partner at EF Overwatch & Head of Global Talent Acquisition of Forcepoint.
Mike Sarraille is a former Recon Marine and retired US Navy SEAL officer with twenty years of experience in Special Operations, including the elite Joint Special Operations Command.
George Randle is a former US Army officer, and Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at Forcepoint, a human-centric cybersecurity company. George has more than two decades of experience in talent acquisition at Fortune 100 and Fortune 1000 firms.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is critical for values to align with the mission
- How to Model Military Special Forces in Hiring Talent
Can we all agree almost every core business problem can be traced back to a people problems?
Knowing this, why do we set ourselves up for failure by hiring the wrong people?
Challenge today?
- Companies are terrible at hiring
- Not the best leading recruiting
- Actions don't reflect people importance
- Wrong people leading people
Why is this important to the company?
- If you don't achieve strategic competitive advantage over people, you will fail
- Weak HR function- CEO’s need to empower HR to breed success
- Every business function starts with people
- Costs are 213-1500% for a senior executive bad hire
- Direct cost- 2-15x the person's salary ($3400 per every 10k in salary)
- Indirect cost- disengaged employees
- Run out your A-players
Rick’s Nuggets
- Disengaged employees are easier to pluck out of your company when leadership is compromised
How do we deploy into your company?
- Focus in talent management solutions
- Talent diagnostics
- Leading in talent management first
- Starts at the top
- Investing into your people
- Constant Training (less than 1% of companies do this)
Key Takeaways:
- Look in the mirror
- Treating your human capital as discipline, rigor & focus as you do on your financial?
Links:
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsarraillemba/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgelrandle/
Websites:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/efoverwatch/
https://www.facebook.com/talentwargroup/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MJSarraille
https://twitter.com/EfOverwatch
https://twitter.com/talentwargroup
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/efoverwatch/
https://www.instagram.com/talentwargroup/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Feb 04, 2021
Remote Interviewing Done Right with Brenna Loury of Doist
Thursday Feb 04, 2021
Thursday Feb 04, 2021
The remote interview is still a HUGE challenge for a lot of companies. Especially for those of you who are lacking a formalized process.
Simply evaluating skills and heavily relying on “vibe” to influence decisions is producing even worse results in this work from home environment.
Too much is able to remain hidden because video is limiting on the non-verbal cues that happen in the interaction.
Assumptions, bias and misinformation have become the new plague in today’s interview.
Today is about nailing your video interviews to ensure the strongest hire!
Our guest today: Brenna Loury, Head of Marketing for Doist.
Brenna Loury knows that the road to success isn’t a path you find — it’s a trail you blaze.
Fueled by her unorthodox marketing efforts, Brenna left her PR firm and joined Doist full-time in 2014. She handles everything from overall marketing strategy, to HR duties, to writing website copy. She’s helped expand Doist’s remote-first team from 5 to 92 employees in over 30 countries, and her grassroots marketing strategies have helped bring the company over 25 million users globally.…And everyone is remote!
Today we discuss:
- Why the Video Interview is so challenging today
- How to master the video interview
Challenge today?
- Not meeting in person
- Touch points have gone away
- Video interviews - change in format
- Onboarding
- Hire based on core values
Why is this important to the company?
- 98% employee retention rate
- Benefited the business
- People are happy and the quality of work
- Willingness to go above and beyond
Rick’s Nuggets
- Limited view of subject
- Uncomfortable/unnatural interaction
- Breeding ground for assumptions & unconscious bias
How do we build into your company?
- Same interview process across the company
- Structure
- Hiring committee (3 people)
- 1 hour interview
- Add insight question for people who submit a resume
Cultural Interview - team manager
- What are the challenges that Doist’s products are trying to solve that most excite you? (did they do their homework?)
- How might you improve our landing pages/XYZ? (can they be radically candid?)
- Tell me about a time in your personal life or at work when you had to be very detail oriented.
- Tell me about a time when you completed a project 100% on your own. How did you get started and what was the outcome? (can they work autonomously?)
- What’s the last good book that you read? (interests/life outside of work)
- Favorite apps on your phone? (interests/life outside of work)
Technical- person assigned (senior people)
- Judging the skills
- Can you tell me about a company that you think does a great job at product marketing?
- What are the advantages/disadvantages of using CSS preprocessors?
Test Project
- Pay people to do the work
- Examples:
- Create a week-long social media plan
- Write a blog post about a product update
- Create a Hacker News style reader
Cultural Final - leader/executive
- Covers 5 core values: Mastery, Independence, Communication, Ambition & Balance, Impact
- Behavioral questions:
- What’s the difference between someone who’s good in your field versus someone who’s outstanding?
- Tell me about a time when you disagreed with a team member. How did you approach that situation?
- Tell me about a time that you went above and beyond what was expected? What motivated you to do so?
- Behavioral questions:
Rick’s Nuggets
- Phone Screen / Discovery Call
- Pain, Desire, Impact
Key Takeaways:
- Prioritize hiring for cultural fit – some technical skills can be learned later on the job
- Do everything you can to cultivate an environment that values trust over tracking
Links:
Website: https://doist.com/
Blog: https://blog.doist.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/doist, https://twitter.com/brennakL
Relevant blog posts:
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Jan 28, 2021
Thursday Jan 28, 2021
High performance teams don't just happen by chance. They are artfully built with an impenetrable culture at its heart.
The people who join are in alignment with the values and purpose of the organization. The result is unrivaled performance above and beyond your expectations.
Our guest today: Greg Besner, Founder and Vice Chairman of CultureIQ
A global company that helps organizations create high-performance cultures. He and his firm have assisted more than one thousand organizations and millions of employees strengthen their company culture.
Greg was an early investor in Zappos which inspired his commitment to organizational culture. In 2018, he was ranked in USA Today as the 8th best CEO in the United States among a pool of 50,000 companies. He was also named the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year®.
Today we discuss:
- Why, if you are serious about your business, you need to prioritize your company values as the heart of your hiring decisions
- How to deploy a process to enable your company to hire people who continually raise the bar for performance
I find that often the phrase “not a good cultural fit” is an easy cop out line for a company to pass on people. When asked “HOW” the conversation quickly disintegrates.
How can someone not really make that conclusion when they lack clarity on what their culture/purpose is?
Challenge today?
- Recruiting for purpose/ culture alignment
- Zoom interview
- Body language/ energy
- Human interaction
- Interact in the environment around them
- Fumbling with this new interview process
- Onboarding
- Energy of the office not really happening
- Interpersonal mingling
- Because the human interaction is missing
- Elevates chance of bias
- People are uncomfortable in a video interview setting
Why is this important to the company?
- Culture alignment
- Diversity of experience, perspective
- Recruiting process is opposite of what it is today
- Expensive to recruit & train
- Turnover is expensive
- Employees who are not aligned with the purpose are expensive
Rick’s Nuggets
- Bias is a two way street
How do we build into your company?
- First interaction is a 2 sided conversation- human interaction
- Experience of working in the organization
- Company go first
- Let the person give their elevator pitch
- What would allow them to be successful at the company
- Having a framework
- Notes should be taken, structured, & details on their values
- Mutual agreement on moving forward
- Letting the person know the next steps
- Transparency
- Closure
- Interviews
- Teammate or HR first
- Try not to replicate the interview!
- Multi-step process
- Split up to cover different roles
- values from skills
- No need to cover the same questions
- hire bar raisers
Rick’s Nuggets
- First interaction: Discovery call
- Understand Pain, Desire, Impact
- Listen to understand first
- Buy in through connecting the dots
- Presenting back what fits, & what does not
Key Takeaways:
- Bar Raisers-
- Structured Interview Process
- Transparency in Hiring Process
Links
Email: greg@cultureiq.com
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbesner/
Websites:
http://theculturequotient.com/
http://getsunflow.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CultureIQ/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cultureiq
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSECYe1wg_KxMi_yNi7KQbA?view_as=subscriber
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/cultureiq/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
One bad hire in your startup negatively affects your balance sheet and is the fuel to future boardroom conflict.
Often, we entrepreneurs feel the pressure to fill our roles at the expense of elevating our people's performance. This disintegrates the company values and results in the exit of your strongest players.
Today is about hiring “gravitators” and avoiding the “disintegrators” that will surely be the subject of boardroom conflict.
Our guest today: Rod Robertson, Founder & Managing Partner of Briggs Capital.
Rod is an international entrepreneur and co-author of the book The Human Vector. He has conducted business in over 15 countries while focusing on developing small-to-medium-sized businesses and taking them to market worldwide.
Robertson’s career in transaction experience and entrepreneurship includes guest lecturing around the globe at institutions such as Harvard Business School and other top-flight MBA schools as well as business forums and news outlets worldwide. He sits on numerous boards, guiding firms to streamline operations and make businesses more profitable before selling.
Today we discuss:
- The difference between hiring a gravitator vs a disintegrator
- Why this is important to your board of directors
- How to gain evidence to support hiring the right person - a Gravitator
Challenge today?
- Companies have no room for error in hiring
- Hiring folks that can contribute to increased value of the firm
- Boards are looking at the income statements & balance sheet
- Are they cohesive with growth strategies?
- How to assess quickly to unload non performing employees
Why is this important to the company
- In 2021 the PPP bailouts have run their course - no margin for error
- Your hires must stick - no “numbers game” in hiring
- The co culture equal to individual go
Rick’s Nuggets
- A speedy hire often results in a miss hire
How do we fix this issue in your company?
- Bring on more outside Board of Advisors (not traditional Boards) to analyze and share the responsibility of hiring and layoffs
- Human Vector
- Systematic approach to maximizing employee performance
- GRAVITORS can change employees “angle” to the” Vector”
- INTEGRATOR -manager who accelerates integration of employees
- FUNNEL OF VECTORS acceptable deviation of employees from company values
- DISINTEGRATORS a disruptive employee
- Attributes as they relate to the goals of the company
- Management hiring and termination based more then ever on cash flow
- Quantitative analysis trumps culture for now
- $1.9B stimulus will prop up economy for six months then economic slide predicted for balance of 2021 thru 2022
- Small to medium size businesses must pivot quicker then ever
- Using outside Board members or advisors to make quantitative decisions should be utilized
Rick’s Nuggets
- Behavioral Interview
- Tie interview questions to your company values
*Knockout:
- Tell me about your most difficult Customer interaction (give wow)
- What were the circumstances that led to the difficulty?
- Break down the steps you took to resolve the problem
- What was the root of the customer issue?
- What solutions did you come up with?
- How were you able to calm them down?
- How were you able to deliver beyond their expectations?
- How did the interaction end?
- Why was their view important to you?
Key Takeaways:
- During these difficult times, systematic hiring and termination most adhere to a firm’s financial
- Outside Advisory input can bring clarity to growth and/or scaling back strategies
- It’s a perfect time to shake up your roster!
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickrobertson/
Website:www.briggscapital.com
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Jan 14, 2021
Thursday Jan 14, 2021
There needs to be a deliberate cadence to your interview process.
Just like a first date, you wouldn't say “hi, I'm Rick. before we start the date, I’d like you to complete this sexual survey and if I like your answers, we can continue the date.”
Now it may work on some people. But the question you need to ask yourself is who exactly are you weeding out? Answer… A-Players!
Today we are talking about the pros and cons of screening mechanisms and the proper order to deploy them to keep people engaged.
Our guest today: Joel Patterson, Founder of The Vested Group
A business technology consulting firm in the Dallas, Texas area, and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation. In 2011, Patterson founded The Vested Group, which focuses on bringing comprehensive cloud-based business management solutions to start-ups and well-established businesses alike.
Joel has hired hundreds of engineers & consultants and has learned a lot about what works in an interview process.
Today we discuss:
- Why a proper cadence is so critical in keeping top talent engaged
- How to set the correct sequence to avoid triggering “fight or flight” in top talent
Challenge today?
- Saving your time with a video screen first
- Wasting a lot of time with interviews of unqualified people
- Need to be efficient with people's time- billable resources
- Elevated the quality of the people hired
- Not as many bad hires
- Missing out on good talent?
- Do people want to jump through hoops?
Why is this important to the company?
- Cost to replace a person
- 100-150k loss per person lost
- Culture impact of people coming and going
- Sunday test- call on a sunday
Rick’s Nuggets
- Are you losing the top 20% in your screening efforts
- Transactional
- Value driven
How do we build into your company?
- Video - one way
- Phone screen
- Video Interview
- 2 sessions
- Job score card
- Core value
- Case Study to do
Rick’s Nuggets
- Discovery call (Positioning)
- PDI (Pain, Desire, Impact)
- Interview
- Culture, skills, culture, combo
- Behavioral questions
- Assessments/Assignments/Skills test
- Prefer working session to determine skills
- Connect the dots
Key Takeaways:
- Core values drive hiring/firing decisions
- Interviewers represent cross section of experience and skills levels (AMA)
- Providing purpose quickly is critical to long term hiring success
Guest Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonvested/
Website: http://www.thevested.com/netsuite-provider-the-vested-group
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VestedGroup/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheVestedGroup
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHDBLjRuMtER5yUrPhZYKkw
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Jan 07, 2021
Lessons Learned from Hiring Friends & Family with Wing Lam of Wahoo’s Fish Tacos
Thursday Jan 07, 2021
Thursday Jan 07, 2021
CEO campfire horror stories often start with “In the beginning, I hired a few friends of mine”... then the story digresses from there. Sometimes the situation works out but most of the time it is a disaster resulting in a severed relationship.
Today we are discussing lessons learned in hiring from your inner circle and how hiring for growth lands great talent.
Our guest today: Wing Lam, Owner of Wahoo’s Fish Tacos
Wing Lam is the eldest of the three founding brothers and the enigmatic character widely recognized as the face of the iconic Wahoo’s Fish Taco brand. A 30-plus-year restaurant industry veteran, he is often in the public eye participating as a panelist and speaker at global events such as the IEG Conference and guest lecturing for MBA programs at Yale, UCLA and USC.
Wing is Prolific & “rich in the currency of social good”!
Today we discuss:
- The pitfalls & benefits of hiring friends & family
- Two key components to hire successfully
Challenge in hiring friends & family?
- Setting precedence
- People did not take it seriously
- Stealing
- Can't allow people to take advantage of your generosity
- Corporate hires-
- Hired from headhunters for store managers (⅖ stayed over a year)
- Moved to growing from within
Why is this important to the company?
- Mistakes cost the company money, time & morale
Rick’s Nuggets
- Expectation Alignment
- Where we fail is in agreeing on expectations up front
How do we build into your company?
- Understand culture first
- Fit is more important than skills
- Up Hire
- Too much experience is good
- Opportunity to allow the person to do what they want to do
- Others intimidated by credentials
- Didn't feel like the person would take the job
- Personality, integrity, passion
- Translates to a good hire
Rick’s Nuggets
- Positioning determines the cultural fit
- Cultivating growth is what captures & retains talent
- People want to learn, grow and tackle new challenges
Key Takeaways:
- Referrals & dig deeper
- Really understand your culture & what fits
Links:
LinkedIn: Wing Lam
Website: Wahoo’s Fish Tacos
Organization: California Love Drop
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
TAGS : #californialovedrop #wingdash #wahooswing #giving
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
The Pivot to a Remote Interview Process with Vince Thompson of MELT
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Please, please, please wear pants during your video interview! Both parties, not just the person being interviewed.
Just yesterday, Jessie filled me in on the horror story of her last interview. The interviewer spilled his coffee, jumped up really quickly to reveal he was in his holiday boxers. While it makes for a hilarious story, it did not win the hire for the company...
Our guest today: Vince Thompson, Founder & CEO of MELT
One of America’s most successful sports marketing and branding agencies, and author of Build Brand You .
Vince has been named one of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Most Admired CEOs,” among the “500 Most Influential Atlantans” by Atlanta Magazine, the American Diabetes Association’s “Father of the Year,” one of Sports Business Journal’s “Power Players,” and was listed by BizBash as one of the top 1,000 people in the event industry.
Today we discuss:
- An impressive Pivoting story doing
- Building a virtual hiring process
Challenge today?
- Business collapsed overnight on March 16th
- Overnight NCAA canceled everything
- Nobody knew what was going to happen
- Had to furlough dozens of employees within weeks
- Breakdown in demographics
- Fear & unrest
- Pandemic, unrest, election …. Oh my
- Made the shift to 100% remote
- The liability gap is HUGE
- Mitigating the litigation dream
Silver linings
- Positive forward facing manner
- Reposition the company - opportunity to showcase what they are doing
- Career development
Why is this important to the company?
- Shifted /evolved the company into a multimedia & event company
- Overnight the market shifted to buyers market
- It will kill the “bounce” mentality
- Prepare for the next evolution
- Good will is good business!
How do we build into your company?
- Building a virtual hiring process
- Bring the heat (first impression)
- Wear something nice
- Know everything about the company, job & the person you are interviewing
- Get a good feeling for the chemistry before diving in
- Trust your gut
- Cease the opportunity to really have a more thorough vetting process
- Improve the process
- What did they do for themselves & others during Covid?
- What did you do to enhance yourself?
*during this time, if nothing was done for self or others…. Not something you want to hire
- Look at the big picture of “Who” the person really is
- A whole different set of ways in which you can
- Can't coach desire & attitude!
- Put something out that is positive, and
- No bad ideas to pitch in the marketplace
- Go from crazy to genius overnight
Key Takeaways:
- Pursue any crazy idea that might have been shelved
- Use a lot more discretion in hing as it is now a buyers market
- Shift in hiring for chemistry & culture to allow us to make more value based decisions
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: Vince Thompson
Website: MELT
Email: vince@meltatl.co
Twitter: vinnyinc
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
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