#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
2 days ago
2 days ago
Having a need often clouds reason. Especially when it comes to hiring and the interview process. There is work to be done and no one is doing it.
So you prioritize filling the gap with a warm body, rather than focusing on the right person in the right seat. How’s that been working out for you??
Short-cutting the interview process is never a good idea because when you do, It will most often bite you in the ass!
Guest Bio:
Bill Snyder is the CEO of digital health startup Vivante Health, the employee benefit for GI care. Bill works with Fortune 500 companies and large health plans, including Walmart and Cigna's Evernorth, to reduce GI-related healthcare costs.
He secured a Series B fundraise in September 2023, which was led by high-profile VC firms Mercato Partners and Health Catalyst Capital. Bill’s success in various leadership roles has been a result of building strong teams and learning each day from those he is fortunate enough to work with.
Challenge today?
- Moving too fast on hiring and not following a detailed process leads to poor hiring.
- Anytime you negotiate against yourself it never works out well
- Deviation from the process does not end well either.
- Never skip steps
- Culture
- Clear about what they value and answer that they don't.
- What they are looking for and not looking for
- Mission-driven organization
- Why us?
- Does align with the mission, not a fit
Why is this important to the company?
- Culture is built by people at the company.
- Strong culture has been driven by the people
- Engagement (#)
Rick’s Nuggets
- Set people up for success even if it is outside
How do we solve the problem?
- Three things:
- 1) Put process in place early
- 2) Ensure there is transparency, collaboration, and accountability across the team for all hiring managers and all positions
- 3) Never settle
- Plan on recruiting, interviewing, and ongoing cultural engagement
- Having one
- Healthy Job description- core themes,
- Put together the interview panel
- Mission and Culture front and center
- Formal presentation- evidence of the work
- Feedback on the work
- Interview for coachability
- Holding each other accountable with the process
- Collaboration with co-workers
- Full visibility for everyone across the organization
- Same process.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Job description- focus on them (WIFM)
- Intense process - determined on what the business needs. Working session.
- Accountability- the process is a value chain for the candidate- attracts a
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today!
- Start the process early and adhere
- Always include culture early
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: Bill Snyder
- Company: Vivante Health
- Facebook: Vivante Health
- Instagram: Vivante Health
- X: Vivante Health
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: Rick Girard
- Company: Intertru, Inc.
- Podcast: Hire Power Radio Show & Podcast
- Book: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
This show is Powered by Intertru
Friday Apr 05, 2024
When HR Takes Away The Nerf Guns With Steven Freidkin
Friday Apr 05, 2024
Friday Apr 05, 2024
People like to join small organizations because they are challenging and fun. There are few rules to follow and very little red tape.
As the company grows, it becomes necessary to formalize business processes. With process comes rules and before you know it… Poof someone gets shot in the eye and the Nerf guns get taken away.
Some might view this as a good thing, but the high performers who built the business do not. Take away the fun and they will just go somewhere else.
Guest Bio:
Steven Freidkin is the Founder and CEO of Ntiva, Inc., a full-service technology firm offering managed IT services including cybersecurity, strategic consulting, cloud solutions, and business process automation. Founded in 2004, Ntiva now has over 450 employees who serve over 1400 clients.
Steven is an active member of a multitude of boards and organizations including Young Presidents Organization (YPO). He is a big believer in purpose-driven organizations and leads Ntiva with this in mind.
Problem:
Challenge?
- The employee was shot in the eye
- Solving the problem without taking the fun out of the workplace
- Out-of-the-box ways to keep things light, fun and enjoyable
- Create cultures and environments that make things fun
Why is this important to the company?
- The people team is to support and keep the company fun
- Rules cannot be the default-
- Manage issues as exceptions
- Decisions made understanding our purpose of growing people and our core values
- Care
- Ownership
- Responsiveness
- Excellence
- Original mistakes are okay if made under this framework
Rick’s Nuggets
- People appreciate the small things much more than work
- When fun is a core value, it must be protected!
How do we solve the problem?
- Existence is to grow people
- Core values are the framework
- Keeping the company fun
- Being intentional
- Being tolerate of only the outcome you want
- As you scale, naturally create more structure/rules to limit liability
- Limit the rock star talent because you are telling people they have to follow rules
- Other ways to solve the problem
- The best talent comes from company referrals 114 referrals in 2023
- Stories become things talked about and create referrals
- Retained longer
Rick’s Nuggets
- Retention is more important than compliance
- Attrition happens when people feel like they start feeling restricted and are no longer growing
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today!
- Question every requirement- what are the other
- You win talent by differentiating yourself from the competition
- Aligned motivations around the why & purpose
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: Steven Freidkin
- Company: Ntiva
- Facebook: Ntiva
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: Rick Girard
- Company: Intertru, Inc.
- Podcast: Hire Power Radio Show & Podcast
- Book: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
This show is Powered by Intertru, Inc.
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
Driving Culture Change with Jason Lippert
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
How do you change company culture when the values of the CEO evolve?
We all understand that to grow as a company, people need to embrace change. Yet a lot of us fear change because it requires us to work on ourselves. Which is uncomfortable.
But here is the truth, when you fear change the business will outgrow you and then change becomes inevitable!
Guest Bio: Jason Lippert, President & CEO of LCII
Jason has helped grow the company from $150 million in 2003 to over $5.1 billion with over 12,000 team members world-wide.
Jason has initiated a cultural transformation within the company known as Everyone Matters.
To stress a truly human culture in the business, he implemented a Culture and Leadership team who strives to grow the company’s team members through coaching and working on personal and professional development.
Problem:
- Changing culture Story
- Didn't realize there was a problem until he was enlightened by Bob Chapman's Ted Talk (Truly Human Leadership)
- allocating resources to culture development/change
- Hired someone to own culture
- 2013 - 5k people
Challenge today?
- A lot of tenured people resisted
- Produce good results, I don't need to change
- Front lines of the business
- Show up, get work done, and go home
- A lot more personal transformation
- One person was in a bad place in her life and was contemplating suicide.
- Leadership cared enough to start working with her and demonstrated that they cared.
Why is this important to the company?
- Main driver
- He was working in a different space, running fast and hard
- It felt empty
- Praying to god to discover his purpose.
- Mentored by the speaker
- Learned that there is a different way to win
- Business Impact
- More people decide to show up here tomorrow. Compelling to be here
- High retention
- Profitability from $1B-$5B over the 10-year span
Rick’s Nuggets
- Core values are driven by the CEO
- How you act filters down
How do we solve the problem?
- Push into change
- Required leaders to get evaluated behind core values
- Teaching becomes
- Attrition - terminations, resisting and bowing out.
- Had to exit some high-level leadership positions
- Didn't want to be coached or change
- 88% of people work for a company that feels that the company does not care about them
- It made sense to execute on culture that has an immediate impact
- A lot of people bowed out
- When they replaced the people who did not resonate with the culture did more damage than they realized
- Every time a person left the company, people rejoiced
- Fear of speaking up- They are always listening
- Surprised him
- Winning more than before but impacting people in the community, people's lives
- Transformation of people's family lives because they are treated better
- How devastating bad leadership has on people's family lives
Rick’s Nuggets
- Make the commitment no matter how much resistance
- It has to be REAL
- You have to live the values
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today!
- No matter how big, someone needs to own culture and leadership development. As serious as any other function of the business. Telling everyone that this is important to us
- Take time to goal set with every person in the business- front-line team members
- Brings passion and energy to the business - competitive advantage, people stay longer because they care more.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: Jason Lippert
- Company: Lippert Components
- Facebook: Lippert
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: Rick Girard
- Podcast: Hire Power Radio Show & Podcast
- Company: Intertru
- Book: Healing Career Wounds - with HireOS Method
Follow the Hire Power Radio Show on LinkedIn.
Guest referrals: andrea@stridesearch.com
Monday Jan 30, 2023
The 10 Disciplines with Gino Wickman
Monday Jan 30, 2023
Monday Jan 30, 2023
Being a startup entrepreneur is a struggle.
As some of you know, I recently joined the ranks of a startup founder. In November we launched Intertru and boy, my world has moved to light speed to a totally new dimension. It has become ridiculously exciting!
But there is one huge challenge… maintaining operational discipline.
My struggle comes from the need to put out fires and execute critical projects outside of my expertise. Making it difficult to stay disciplined in a workflow cadence that produces results.
Today we are going to key in on 10 Disciplines that you can implement today in your life to produce consistent results to the benefit of your company growth!
Guest Bio:
Gino Wickman is the Author of Traction & founder of EOS Worldwide, an organization that helps tens of thousands of businesses implement EOS with the aid of an international team of almost 600 professional and certified EOS Implementers and online support. There are over 180,000 companies using the EOS tools worldwide.
Today Gino focuses on helping entrepreneurs and leaders maximize their freedom, creativity, and Impact through his books:
Entrepreneurial Leap, Rocket Fuel, The EOS Life, and The 10 Disciplines for Managing And Maximizing Your Energy.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- What are the 10 disciplines
- Discuss the most relevant to startup entrepreneurs
PROBLEM:
- Discipline
- We are all balls of energy – some burn bright, some don’t
- You are racehorses (entrepreneurs/leaders) – harness energy
- Don’t have to motivate/teach basics – eat, sleep, exercise, work ethic
- Each stands on its own, fully customizable
- Fast, simple and powerful
Challenge?
- 10-year thinking
- Take time off
- Know thyself
- Be still
- Know your 100%
- Say no…often
- Don’t do $25 an hour work
- Prepare every night
- Put everything in one place
- 10. Be humble
How do we solve the problem?
- 10-year thinking
- Shift your mind from short-term thinking, to thinking in 10-year timeframes
- Every decision is a 10-year decision/thinking, not a goal
- Sam Cupp – 10-year business cycle
- When you do – time slows, a peace comes over you, make better decisions and
- get there faster
- Quote “Overestimate one year…”
- Les Brown “Good Decade”
- Shifts energy
- Action – write date 10 years from now, write age, write goal
- Other things are ok
- Now think about everything you are doing today
- See it every night
- Say no…often
- Say no to everything that doesn’t fit in the first 5 disciplines
- Warren Buffett quote/”No! No!”
- “…physical discomfort/guilt…” – Essentialism, Greg McKeown
- Eat a worm?
- If it doesn’t fit with the first 5 disciplines – say no
- Turn to person – say “No!”
- Action – say no to something in the next 7 days/cancel an appointment
- Prepare every night:
- Before your head hits the pillow every night, document the next day’s plan
- Go to bed knowing exactly tomorrow
- Sleep better
- Spontaneous – BS, come one, if you’re running a company, you don’t have the luxury
- Subconscious does the work
- Wake up with ideas/solutions
- Get more done
- As opposed to waking up and figuring it out
- Use any technology – I use a legal pad
- Action – do it tonight
- Put everything in one place
- Pick the one place you will capture every idea, commitment, thought, action item and promise
- Let people down/chaos/sticky notes
- The legal pad
- Throughout the day write down your commitments, promises, ideas, to-do’s
- Compartmentalize all at the end of the day
- Action – pick your “one place” and do it tomorrow
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginowickman/
- Website: https://ginowickman.com/
- Download a free copy of the 10 Disciplines eBook
- Visit the10disciplines.com to learn more
- Read a 10 Disciplines article written by Gino
- Contact Gino:
- gino@eosworldwide.com
- (248) 672-1192
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 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 22, 2022
Top 3 Offer Mistakes when Hiring with Rick Girard of Intertru Inc.
Thursday Sep 22, 2022
Thursday Sep 22, 2022
It has been decided that we want to hire a person who made it through our interview process. Yay!
Now we invest the time to have the “offer conversation” about what it is going to take for you to join us. Eagerly, we present our case, discuss our benefits & perks, and divulge our rationale behind what we would like to pay our hot new employee.
The only problem is, that having this conversation now, is too late.
When the stakes are low, people are the most open and truthful. And the stakes are lowest at the beginning of the relationship. The first conversation is the most important time to have the offer discussion.
Before the interview even happens!
Today we’re going to discuss:
- The 3 most common offer mistakes
- How to remedy them for offer acceptance
Challenges today?
- Gathering information too late
- The end of the interaction is the worst place to start developing the relationship with the person
- Candidates feel like they are being sold- which they are
- “Now that I passed your tests, you want to know me better”
- Candidate is now totally focused on the money
- Highest offer blinders
- Offers based on general assumptions
- Shallow focused interview
- I've demonstrated I can do what you need
- One sized-fits-all
- Shallow focused interview
- Offer acceptance
-
- Shop your offer to other suitors
- Time to think about the offer means:
- I don't believe what you are trying to sell me!
Why is this important to the company?
- Excessive interviewing & offer turndowns are a tremendous waste of time
How do we solve the problem?
- Gathering information too late
- Discovery call - First Contact
- Understanding the Pain, Desire (Positioning)
- Legitimate reason to move
- The type of company the person will thrive in
- Size, Role, Domain
- Understanding the Pain, Desire (Positioning)
- Impact
- A, B, or C player?
- Main Criteria for Decision
- Elements that NEED to be present for an offer acceptance
- Salary expectations
- What do you need?
- Discovery call - First Contact
- Offers based on general assumptions
- Everyone likes our benefits
- Benefits & perks do NOT attract or retain people
- Allow the individual to share what is important to them
- Discuss expectations
- What makes this important to you?
- Discuss expectations
- Everyone likes our benefits
- Offer Acceptance
- Feedback
- Engage in conversation about VALUE
- Are they sharing with you “why” they would like to join?
- Pacing
- Pacing too soon, too slow
- Only make an offer when there is obvious alignment
- They tell you: what your company offers is what I desire from my career
- Verbal acceptance
- Discuss and agree on terms
- Address anything that does not fit into desire
- Start date
- Formal written offer
- Autograph
- Start onboarding
- Feedback
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Gather information as soon as possible during the Discovery Call.
- Based on your first conversation, tailor exactly what's going to attract that person into your company to the content they gave you at the Discovery Call.
- Offer acceptance: make sure you pace it out, continuous feedback throughout the process, and get verbal acceptance first before you extend the written offer.
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 - Startup - Intertru Inc: www.Intertru.ai
- Technology: HireOS™
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 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:
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 Feb 17, 2022
Thursday Feb 17, 2022
When time is of the essence and work needs to be executed, we often forego formalities and hop right into execution. Hiring a contractor or friend to help you with the work.
This was the case with my friend Pat (name changed) who paid a friend to build a proprietary software product for her company. A lot of problems came up in the process and the relationship was terminated. Pat wanted the IP to finish the product but there was no formal agreement in place and Pat did not own the IP.
Long story short, the relationship went south and it ended up in litigation. The end result was an additional 7 figure payout to obtain the rights to the code so the company could finish & release the product. A very costly encounter for Pat that would have been circumvented with a written agreement.
Today we discuss:
- Why your IP needs to be protected before you hire
- How to best protect it with anyone who touches your product
Challenge today?
- Is your IP protected
- Freelancing platform
- Software / product Development contractors
- Website development
- Video creation
- Training manuals/courses
Why is this important to the company?
- Becomes a problem when…
- Changing the terms of the agreement (product development)
- Not having rights to the video content you paid for
Rick’s Nuggets
- Employment/ Co-Founder Agreements
- What happens when someone leaves
- Who owns what? Messy & difficult
- Without an operating agreement:
- You don't own and may have a non exclusive right to the IP
How do we solve the problem?
- Get this in place BEFORE you pay anyone!!!
- Components that protect you
- Outline the role/position
- Work for hire
- Fiver not protected
- CIAA
- Indicate when the relationship concludes
- Indicate that their role is either an employee or an independent contractor
- If they are employee, indicate the extent they can make decisions for the company or represent the company (or not), information they keep confidential, non-competes, etc.
- If they are an independent contractor, indicate that they are not an employee of the company, do not represent or make decisions on behalf of the company, the company doesn’t pay their insurance or taxes, they are a separate legal entity, shorter term arrangement, you don’t exert control of the contractor, etc.
- * Duty to assign the rights to you
- Whether they are an employee or an independent contractor, make sure to include a clause indicating that they have a duty to assign any materials, work product, patents, trademarks, copyrights, and so forth that they created. If they are an employee this includes any work product created during their employment and using any information or assets of the company. If they are an independent contractor, this includes any work product and intellectual property created while the independent contractor is working on the project.
- Whether they are an employee or an independent contractor, make sure to include a clause indicating that they have a duty to assign any materials, work product, patents, trademarks, copyrights, and so forth that they created. If they are an employee this includes any work product created during their employment and using any information or assets of the company. If they are an independent contractor, this includes any work product and intellectual property created while the independent contractor is working on the project.
- Exclusive rights
- To the extent that the employee or contractor maintains any rights to the intellectual property or other works, they give the business an exclusive license to the IP/works free of charge
Rick’s Nuggets
- Expectation Alignment
- Values Aligned (employee/founder)
- Clearly defined expectations
- timelines and deliverables
- Formal Service Agreement
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Get agreements in place
- Know what the agreements cover
- Review/update the agreements periodically so make sure they still cover what you are doing
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/millerip/
Company: https://milleripl.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/miller-ip-law/
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/
Thursday Feb 10, 2022
What Really Matters in Employee Branding Today with Bryan Adams of Ph.Creative
Thursday Feb 10, 2022
Thursday Feb 10, 2022
Those of you who have listened to the show, know that I am no big fan of “employer branding” because I believe it is generic and unrealistic. Often selling an image of unicorns & rainbows topped off with free lunch.
To me, job advertisements feel like the car dealer who advertises a low price just to get you in the door only to sell you a lemon at the end of the day.
We all understand that every company has its challenges. So why not paint an accurate picture of what the company REALLY is once you start working there?
Simply sharing the good, bad & the ugly of your company is the first step to eliminating bad hires. It attracts the right people, repels those who don’t align with the company values and eliminates the surprises that cause people to question their decision to join your company.
Today we discuss:
- Employer branding: why & when
- How to brand in the most effective way
Challenge today?
- Employer branding:
- Marketing and branding are not the same thing
- Purpose to employer brand strategy is different than consumer brand strategy
- Talent was the commodity and technology was differentiator
- That has switched
- People leaving companies in droves
- Not connecting with the right people
- Differentiation and purpose
- Career decision is transactional
- Operating tactically
Why is this important to the company?
- C-suite are talking about employer branding
- Approach without strategy causes more problems than it solves
Rick’s Nuggets
- Employer branding is strictly a top of funnel activity
- Convinced ourselves that EVERYONE need to be attracted to the brand
- Does nothing to ensure that the right person is being hired
- Top of funnel is a vanity metric
How do we solve the problem?
- Understand the organization
- Gaps are?
- Foundation of the culture
- What the people strategy needs to align to
- Culture you have rather than the culture you need
- Strategy
- Reputation (what & why)
- Specific & tangible that aligns with the business
- Career catalyst (career path) , culture (sense of belonging, great place to work) & citizenship (impact you have on society, doing good)
- Expectation (how)
- Give & Get
- What the organization wants & needs in return
- Comfortable with what you have to give
- Adds more value, more authentic enables greater appreciation
- Uncover a clear proposition
- Things that repel most people attract the right people!
- Polarize your audience
- Reputation (what & why)
- Experience
- Validate the claim & the experience
- Navy seals- Hell week. It has a specific reason in the experience
- Employee experience is more important than candidate experience
- Know exactly where to spend your time & resource
- Job Advertisement
- Story right
- Needs to be a true preview on what to expect
- What keeps people
- “Dissuade people not to join” and you couldn't lie, what would you say?
Rick’s Nuggets
- Only need to see one person to fill one role
- Less candidate flow is the new badge of honor!
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Get specific - Be clear on the talent you need to grow your company and what it takes to really thrive. This helps define the reputation you need as an employer and the proposition you have to offer to make it all worthwhile.
- Show Vulnerability - Tell a refreshingly honest story of where you are, where you’re going, what’s missing and left to build .. show people a very real picture where they can add value and find purpose in their work.
- Own the truth - Include the harsh realities and adversities of your employee experience - 99% of people may run for the hills, but the 1% of people who lean in will likely be the best candidates & employees for your company. Plus it’ll save you a ton of admin and distraction from a blizzard of unqualified candidates.
- Finally word :- this strategic view of building and defining culture with a simple employer brand can never come too soon. Do it immediately. It’s easy, free and can make all the difference especially within a scrappy startup
Guest Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanadams1/
Company: https://www.ph-creative.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ph.creative/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/phcreative
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ph.Headquarters
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ph.creativelife/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/PhCreativeVideo
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/
Thursday Feb 03, 2022
Hire Faster by Interviewing Deeper with Kison Patel of MAScience & DealRoom
Thursday Feb 03, 2022
Thursday Feb 03, 2022
As an entrepreneur, we all share one thing in common. Every single one of us has made a bad hire.
Let’s define what a bad hire is. A bad hire is what happens when our need to fill something quickly overrides our logic. The interview process gets rushed, red flags get overlooked, and… Just like that, you have hired a person who is nothing more than a seat filler. We all hope that the person will work out but we know deep down we just made a bad hire.
Here’s the truth: You can still hire quickly when you slow down your interview process. Less steps, more quality time. Going deep is the only way to uncover the fit of the individual into the culture of the organization.
Today we discuss:
- Why we continually make bad hires & when to break the cycle
- How to go deeper while moving faster
Kison’s Hiring Story:
- Hired the first 5 people who responded to his craigslist ad
- Flannel shirt, BO guy who sent video rants.
- Went through a year and a half of harassment.
Challenge today?
- Hiring across functions
- Organic vs outside leaders
- Be proactive about letting people go
- Talent you need with goals your trying to achieve
- 1 of 8 hires was a bad hire in 2021
- Development function & Marketing is really mature, low attrition
Why is this important to the company?
- Learning
- When to take a passive hiring approach
- Knowing key roles, CFO, Demand Gen… get to know those people and courting
- Centralizing the hiring
Rick’s Nuggets
- My bad hire story
- Friend no more - The relationship ending was on me!
- Expectations Alignment document (write it down!)
- Friend no more - The relationship ending was on me!
- Root of the issue: expectation alignment
- Not sharing the same values
- Process allows people to take you seriously
- Interview: less questions, more depth
How do we solve the problem?
- Accountability
- Shifted from founder hiring to leaders
- Stepping back and optimizing leads
- One person that didn't work out came through a search firm
- Being systematic
- Pragmatic in having a comprehensive scope
- Do more passive recruiting
- Test project 24 hours
- Closing people
- Ended to end in 10 days
- Keeping things compressed
- *** Write the offer letter on the phone with the person
Rick’s Nuggets
For critical hires:
- Create an expectations document (Positioning & Accountability)
- Why (pain)
- Desire (do we both want the same thing?- positioning)
- “Positioning is the single largest influence on the buying decision.” -Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm
- Impact (growth plan)
- Outline & communicate your process
- People check out with time & poor communication
- Provide active feedback
- Timing
-
- Time + communication + feedback = Hire
- Less time, more depth
- Empower each person to be a decision maker
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Identify and build your company's core values
- Utilize your referrals and be proactive with recruiting
Guest Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kisonpatel/
Company: https://www.mascience.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mascience/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dealroominc?lang=en
Website: https://kisonpatel.com/
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
Episode Sponsor: 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/
Thursday Jan 20, 2022
Thursday Jan 20, 2022
Sourcing talented people is a HUGE challenge right now. Over 38 million people quit their jobs in 2021. And a lot of them are not coming back.
Then we have the divide over pandemic policies that has driven people away from corporate America. Making it more difficult to retain good people.
But sourcing is not the biggest challenge in today’s hiring landscape. Engagement is. It is important that we utilize every viable avenue (ie: boards, postings & direct recruiting) with the objective of just starting intentional conversations. By intentional, I mean, not selling. But understanding the desires of the person first… Because It's not about you. Intentional conversations lead to engagement. Engagement leads to the hire!
About the Guest: Kelly Robinson, CEO of RedDotMedia
Kelly founded Broadbean.com Inc 2001, which was acquired by CareerBuilder in 2014. Now he leads RedDot Media, a recruitment advertising agency with a particular skill in programmatic advertising campaigns.
Kelly has spent the last 25 years in recruitment and recruitment technology, during which time he has grown, integrated, bought, and sold businesses in both the UK and US. Kelly is the goto industry expert in all things job posting
Today we discuss:
- The current job posting landscape
- How to best utilize the tools available to maximize your hiring outcome
Challenge today?
- Everyone is having a staffing crisis
- Not about the job posting.
- It is about making a connection
- 14k recruiter jobs got added Friday!
- 100% more jobs available,
- 3 % of the workforce has just … quit in just one month!
- Meaningful work!
Rick’s Nuggets
- Structure is winning over $$
- What no one is talking about
- vaccination policy of the company
How do we solve the problem?
- Posting
- Depends on the position
- Indeed
- Ziprecruiter
- Linkedin-sourcing/outreach
- Sales people, marketing, recruiters
- Dice, Angel list
- Write a great ad
- Nothing’s Free - It’s all paid
- Algorithm distributes jobs equally
- PPC has gone away. Can't define what you pay per click
- Need to spend at least $250
- Should translate to 10 applications
Rick’s Nuggets
- Active Reach Out!
- 1 hour a week
- Discovery call- where the magic happens
- Buy in/opt out
- Referrals - HUGE VALUE
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Yesterdays ideas dont work today
- Cant do things cheeper
Guest Links:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyjrobinson/
Company: https://reddotmedia.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reddotmedia/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reddotmedia.co
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellyjrobinson
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 Dec 16, 2021
The Reality of Recruiting for Your New Startup with Craig Conlee of Braid Theory
Thursday Dec 16, 2021
Thursday Dec 16, 2021
Finding the right people for your ground level startup is really hard!
As every startup founder can attest, there is just no playbook to getting the right people to join your team. It is about just getting anyone with the right skills to join the team. Often resulting in an unsuccessful endeavor.
So what’s missing? …. Positioning & expectations alignment.
Positioning is rooted in what the person you are considering, really DESIRES their professional growth. Are they a builder? A Improver? Or a maintainer?
Expectation alignment is how well the person aligns with your company values and what your expectations are for performance:
Step 1. Document your values and share them with each person. Allow them to lean in or bow out.
Step 2. Document how both parties view the responsibilities & performance standards.
Step 3. Then come to an agreement on how to keep each other accountable.
Our guest today: Craig Conlee, Executive Advisor & Former Founder & CEO of Zealr
Craig Conlee has over 25 years of selling enterprise software for giants like IBM and HP with over $110M in total software sales. In 2015, Craig decided to startup a ML/AI B2B SaaS company to solve a problem he faced as a sales person. Craig graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a major in Political Science. As a student athlete, Craig is still the shortest rower in the 150 year history of CAL Crew.
Craig Conlee grew up in Newport Beach, CA where he met his wife. Currently, he is living in Orange County with his family.
Today we discuss:
- Why alignment is so critical when hiring
- How to align with people so they lean in to your opportunity
Challenge today?
Getting people that understand the work involved with a startup
- Around location, mindset
- Maybe a social thing?
- A lot of people want to join a startup but want to be paid
- Don’t understand equity
- Right mindset,
- Easy to check out
- Your not paying them
- Let people join the team that don't fit the values
- All equity based
- Guilt for asking them to do work because you are asking a lot
Why is this important to the company?
- Gravitate toward people who understand
- A lot of education of the reality
- You have to be very upfront as to where you are in the stage of my startup.
- Which allowed me to clearly understand if they want to join or not.
How do we solve the problem?
- Process in which you get to know people better
- Repeatable & consistent way of interviewing
- Every conversation was different
- The good hires were just “lucky”
- Remove the luck from hiring
- Worst gambler, yet a startup founder
- Understanding what they want and what to expect
- What they want
- Avoid
- Leading the witness
- Selling rather than listening ***
- Expectations
- High risk of not succeeding
- Equity as compensation
- People getting offended by perceived value
- Want a mix of cash & equity
- Hire slow, fire really fast. Have knowledge base centralized for quick transition
- What they want
- Don't let yourself be held hostage
- Avoid paying salary & equity balance- if they leave you have to start all over again
- Balance keeping them from leaving
- Conflict of interest in terms of valuation
- Equity only
- If it doesn't work out, it wasn't meant to be
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Have a sound, repeatable process of interview hiring
- Hire slow, fire really fast.
- Don't be held hostage!
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/craigconlee/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/velocitydata
Show Sponsor:
Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Dec 09, 2021
Messaging to Personality Wins Positive Response with Greg Skloot of Crystal Knows
Thursday Dec 09, 2021
Thursday Dec 09, 2021
I sent out 63 inmails through linkedin a few weeks back and received only 2 responses.
My mistake… I did not tailor my message to the individual. Now, 8 months ago those same messages were getting on average a 52% response rate, so what happened?
With all the noise fighting to get people's attention, It is easier than ever to get ignored. When the messaging you send seems way too common or anything at all like a templated message, you will fail.
Now, more than ever, the language you use when reaching out to prospective employees matters. And thoughtful messaging designed to align with a person's personality style is the most effective way to win-win a response!
Our guest today: Greg Skloot, Co-Founder & CEO of Crystal Knows.
Crystal is the app that tells you anyone’s personality. Using Artificial Intelligence, Crystal accurately identifies a person’s motivations, communication style, and other behavioral traits.
Greg and his company have been featured in Inc, Fortune, CNN, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, Wired, and the Guardian. He is the co-author of a book published by Wiley in 2019, Predicting Personality: Using AI to understand people and win more business. He was recognized by Forbes as 30 Under 30 in enterprise technology.
Today we discuss:
- Why people are NOT responding to your outreach
- How to get people to pay attention to you when you reach out to them
Challenge today?
- Tough to get people top of the funnel
- Cold writing, how to get someone to respond.
- Information overload
- Email not personalized
- Does Not speak to who they are
- Does Not communicate how they like to communicate
- Passive- no incentive to take action if the email feels like a templated email.
- Cold emails are really easy to disregard right now
- The same role needs to be marketed differently for different people
Why is this important to the company?
- More important now due to the tightness of the labor market
- Difficult to get people into the top of the funnel
Rick’s Nuggets
- Messaging from 6 months ago is really not working right now
- Way too much noise
- “What’s the opportunity?”
How do we solve the problem?
- Learn DISC
- Dominance, Influence, Compliance, Steadiness
- Free reading online
- Integrating disc within your culture
- Theory , knowledge & practice
- Behavior & characteristics that are most important for a role
- Know the Disc type of person you reaching out to
- Expectations for the role
- What the candidate's DISC profile is.
- Personality fit percentage
- Not supposed to be a disqualifier
- Adjust your communication style
- Communicate how the other person WANTS to be communicated with
Rick’s Nuggets
- Hit someone with the PAIN first
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Use personality insights to break through the noise when emailing candidates cold
- Adjust how you pitch a role based on the candidate’s personality
- Consider integrating DISC into how your organization thinks about communication in hiring, team building and selling
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/gregskloot/
Company: https://www.crystalknows.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/crystal_knows/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystalknowsme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregskloot
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystalknowsme/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9BjRz6BlFNdQE1WRpFGIDQ/videos
----------
Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Dec 02, 2021
Thursday Dec 02, 2021
We all have bought into the belief that following hiring best practices will ensure that we make the correct hiring decisions. Yet those best practices really do not produce consistent results. Why?
First, “best practices” are guidelines that trickle down from the big name-brand companies who all have the advantage of a much fatter wallet… And they are Transactional!
Second, what works for large companies does not work for startups. The truth is that you are needing to hire totally different people. Startup companies need “builders” to fuel company growth. And builders are not all about the $$money. They are about personal & professional growth.
This requires that you approach these people in a way that is counterintuitive to “best practices” and centered upon answering the question, “what’s in it for me”.
For those of you who are new to the show or don’t know me yet:
- Cut my teeth as an Executive Recruiter for Tech Startups in the Silicon Valley
- Coached leaders, candidates & helped to build over 200 tech companies
- Black belt in BJJ, F1 aficionado & adrenaline junkie
Today we discuss:
- Why it is critical to break away from hiring best practices
- Process to create your Own “best practices” that crush your competitors
Challenge today?
Beliefs
- There really is NO right way to hire
- Hiring Fails are acceptable (50% success rate)
- Cost of doing business
- Copy those who are already successful
- Google today is much different than Google at your stage.
- Evaluate for cultural fit… you evaluate for skills
- People from name brand companies are great hires
- They may be…. If they are builders
- Most people that are willing to leave big companies are not high performers
- High performers have “golden handcuffs” - best to rent
- More candidates give me a greater chance of success
-
- More candidates = time loss
- Target
- 1-3 people per position into the Interview process
Focus
- Top of funnel
- Reliance on job boards
Execution
- Interview training
How do we solve the problem?
What to believe
- Strong hires come from someone in your network
- Positioning before Skills
- Positioning is in a person’s DNA
- Builder, Improver, Maintainer
- Only builders will help you grow the company
Focus on the interview, not the funnel
- The Interview process is what wins hires, not the number of candidates
- Current best practices are:
- 10-15 minutes on a “screening call”
- Selling the company
- Selling the job
- Gather requirements
- Schedule an interview
- 10-15 minutes on a “screening call”
- Importance of the Discovery call
-
- Biggest time investment is to be made
- Determines a person's positioning (builder, improver, maintainer)
- Invaluable insight into a person’s pain, what they desire
- Impact they have brought into their current organization (key indicator of a builder)
Make Interviewing your strongest talent
- Solidify your process
- Timing
- from first contact to offer acceptance
- Timing of each interview (45-1 hour)
- Rules
- Interviews start and end on time!
- No meandering
- Timing
- Steps - Discovery call, Interview (video, onsite) -number of interviewers
- Content- pre determine & assign interview questions
- Questions must be designed to surface evidence of value alignment
- Not about asking questions but having conversations
- Broadcast your process
- Make it known that the interview is challenging
- Hire for Value Alignment first!
- Make it known that you foster growth for “builders”
- No Evidence, no vote
-
- Interviewers need to be trained!
- Roleplaying
- Recording conversations
- Bias has no merit
- Either a “Hell Yes” or a no
- Decision must be supported by evidence
- Interviewers need to be trained!
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
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 Nov 26, 2021
Friday Nov 26, 2021
Emotional Intelligence is defined as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.
Over the past year, EQ has become less important to companies because of the NEED for someone to fill the seat. This is just creating more problems, as less care is invested into uncovering the fit into the organization.
We need to understand that high performers are taking their time to find the right opportunity. So this is your wake up call to SLOW down!
Now, more than ever, it is critical to cultivate our own emotional intelligence & implement intelligent hiring practices into your organization.
Our guest today: Nada Nasserdeen, Founder of Rise Up For You
With over 10 years of experience as a college professor and former top executive for an education corporation, Nada understands the importance of fusing education, empowerment, and leadership together as she works with her clients and speaks to audiences worldwide.
Her company, Rise Up For You has been featured and worked with brands such as CBS, Google Next 19, and various Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses.
Nada has been awarded 40 under 40 professionals in Orange County, California, and Women of Influence for Entrepreneurship in 2021.
She is a #1 Best Selling Author on Amazon, Leadership and Career Confidence Coach, and 2x TEDx Motivational Speaker.
Today we discuss:
- Emotional Intelligence and Why it needs to be front and center
- How to activate emotional intelligence into your hiring process
Challenge today?
- Building technology at such a fast rate
- Learning is not catching up
- Result: Huge gap in human skills
- Most values are human skills
- Not looking as values as a benchmark to hire
- Fostering the culture of human skills in the company so you can embrace
- Social skills are creating problems for the organization
- Active values
Why is this important to the company?
- Result
- Executives who implement Emotional intelligence in hiring
- Practicing EI- when things opened up 87% of her team, others were at 12%
- Sales increase of 325%
Rick’s Nuggets
- Feeding frenzy from the company end
- NOW is the time to SLOW down.
- Candidates are taking their time
- Easy to manage the timeline through communication
- Must progress through to conclusion
How do we solve the problem?
- Vales need to be activated around EQ
- Take each value 1 by 1 and figure out how to activate it in the culture.
- Steps to put values into action plan
- Create a value campaign
- Plan to execute the value
- Coach, train and provide development on these skills
- On going, not a 90 minute
- Enough training to be able to trainer, you no longer need a consulting company
- 6 month engagement
- Skills don't grow overnight
- Accurate company analysis
- Gauge on where the company is as far as strengths and weaknesses
- Can not make an impact unless you know the truth
- Survey to uncover where the work needs to be done
- Looking for evidence
Rick’s Nuggets
- Making the values a language
- Decisions made by the north star
- Emotional intelligence needs to be tied directly to your values
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Do an assessment - understand who and where your company is
- Reevaluate the values and create a strategic map around implementation Ongoing training around soft skills to build the muscles within your team
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadalena/
Company: https://www.riseupforyou.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/riseupforyou/about/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RiseUpForYou/
Twitter: :https://twitter.com/riseupforyou?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riseupforyou/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RiseUpForYou/featured
FREEBIE: https://calendly.com/riseupforyou/freetraining
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Rick’s Book - Healing Career Wounds:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Thursday Nov 18, 2021
How to Compete & Win-Win Against a Huge Salary with Michael Downing of MDSV Funds
Thursday Nov 18, 2021
Thursday Nov 18, 2021
How do you compete against a huge company like Amazon or even a really well funded startup?
If you are competing checkbook to checkbook, you will lose… Every time!
The only way to tilt the odds in your favor today is to really understand the career wounds of the person and to be able to connect the dots as to how your opportunity fulfills their desires.
This requires you to listen. Stop selling and start understanding what is important to the individual. This will allow you to stand out from the competition and allow the person you need to hire to see value above and beyond the paycheck.
Our guest today: Michael Downing, Founding Partner of MDSV Fund
Michael is a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, has co-founded 6 software companies over a 28 year career, 3 of his companies were acquired and one had an IPO in 2006.
For the last 3 years, Downing has focused on investing in promising early-stage tech companies via his venture capital fund MDSV. Michael has recruited, hired and managed hundreds of employees over the span of his career.
Today we discuss:
- Why leading with the checkbook is a very bad idea
- How to win talent by NOT leading with the money
Challenge today?
- People are getting paid crazy numbers
- People need to have a major passion of belief in the company
- Now this is a requirement
- Conviction & belief are the new requirement
- wild/ disruptive concepts draw in talent
- Without a big/bold vision you struggle- pirate ship opportunity- highly disruptive company
Why is this important to the company?
- Key positions are being filled by people doing side hustles
- Full Time at companies like facebook
- Necessity for side hustles
Rick’s Nuggets
- People are jumping ship because they no longer align with the company values
- Too often big salaries = lot’s of problems (attrition, toxic culture, bad leadership, undefined work)
- If someone turns you down for a higher offer, you blew your hiring process.
- “Rent gold before buying silver” - Steve Newcomb
How do we solve the problem?
- Be new, bold, unique, disruptive concept- big vision
- A new way to solve a problem, product in a totally different way
- Investor pitch- ½ people say “that's crazy”- your onto something
- Make believers in what you are doing
- Build an advisory board first
-
- Thoughtful about who the members are
- Translates to 6-12 contacts that can be team members
- Credibility
- Positioning
- Funding
Rick’s Nuggets
- Have a interviewing process (you are being judged too)
- People to take you seriously
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Set Yourself Up For Hiring Success: It's got to be a Big, Bold, Kickass Vision
- Plant Your Roots Early: Your advisory board can be the single most valuable hiring resource in the earliest of days
- Don't Conform: Adapt Your Policies & Benefits to people's changing lifestyles
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldowning/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.downing.7161953
Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaeldowning
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Nov 11, 2021
The Need for Entrepreneurs to Ask for Help with Vincent Kimura of Smart Yields
Thursday Nov 11, 2021
Thursday Nov 11, 2021
Asking for help as an entrepreneur is often a difficult thing to do. But it is the one thing you MUST do if you want to succeed.
I learned this from my friend, Lori Torres, the founder of Parcel Pending. Lori was able to grow the company from $0 to a $100M exit in six years … and the reason it was such a success is because she asked for help… a lot!
Asking for help gets people engaged. It allows them to gain insight into the business and is critical in getting over the business humps. It also sets the stage to hire outstanding people.
And guess what, people will do it because they want to help.
Our guest today: Vincent Kimura, Co-Founder of Smart Yields.
A Hawaii-based and globally recognized agriculture technology company that is revolutionizing the way small- and medium-scale farms operate.
Vincent was named the 2016 Clean Tech/Ag Entrepreneur by the Hawaii Venture Capital Association and a 2016 finalist in the Pacific Business News Business Leadership Awards.
He was also named to the Pacific Business News 2016 40 Under 40 cohort, which recognizes outstanding young business professionals in Hawaii. He lives in Honolulu with his wife Lisa and their three children.
Vincent faces the daily challenges of start-up life and is here to share his learnings.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is important to ask for help
- How to get the help you need when hiring
Challenge today?
Asking for help to support your hiring process as a startup founder?
- Understanding how a person is positioned
- How willing to take on risk
- Introductions- changing the dynamics to leverage more mentorship
- Passion for the mission of the company
- Concerned about the perception from the outside
- We end up hiring to fill a need vs. what the business needs
Why is this important to the company?
- Wasn't able to grow in a natural way
- Fully driven by the CEO
- Passion might be there but
- Less emphasis on trying people out vs. All in
- The team is the make or break
Rick’s Nuggets
- Big difference between people who want to do the work and those who do the work for the paycheck.
- Eliminate the Assumptions
Hey Subscribers! Keep an eye out for our newsletter as we are giving away 10 signed copies of Healing Career Wounds! Simply complete the linked survey and your name will be entered in the drawing. You'll also be able to download a free chapter of the book just for participating!
How do we solve the problem?
- Define what the business needs
- Core values
- The business strategy & model
- What needs to be done & when
- Understand the person's desire
- Go Slow
- Identify builders… and Improvers
- Discovery call
- Builders will tell you they need to build (bored with the work)
- Eliminate the Assumptions
- Hire what the business needs
- Your ego, wants and assumptions
- Start with contractors
- Barter
- Letting go
- Stop doing everything yourself!
Rick’s Nuggets
- Help someone else's business while they help you build yours
- Expectations alignment document- will solidify a fit for your leadership team
- Business needs - support to grow
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Don’t wing it….
- Get help and plan it out…. Do your homework
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincentkimura/
Company: https://smartyields.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smartyields/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smartyields
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smartyields
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smartyields/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Rick's book - Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
Thursday Nov 04, 2021
Hiring 101: A Lesson in Peer Learning with Darrian Mikell of Qualifi
Thursday Nov 04, 2021
Thursday Nov 04, 2021
The reason we do this show every week is to dispel the commonly held belief that “there is no right way to hire”. Most entrepreneurs & investors believe that you just have to find the right skills and “trust your gut”. Hoping that the person works out.
The consequences of this thinking results in countless sleepless nights, missing project deadlines, unstable mental health, increased capital burn and ultimately company failure. Which is NOT good for investors, leaders or the people who follow us.
Here’s the truth... There is a right way to hire! It just requires that you learn from your peers who come on to share their hiring success. They all have developed a structure and a process that allows them to stand out from their competitors.
Lead a person through an impressive process that allows you to gain evidence of impact and you will build an amazing team.
Our guest today: Darrian Mikell, Co-Founder & CEO of Qualifi, A SaaS platform that powers the fastest phone interview experience in the world and helps recruiting teams hire great candidates faster than ever before.
Darrian graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2013 with a Bachelor's Degree in Entrepreneurship and Finance. Darrian was a 2-sport athlete in both Basketball and Track & Field and was a national champion in the Long Jump. He is based in the Indianapolis area and is a dedicated husband and father of 3.
Darrian is building a ridiculously successful business because he already conquered his hiring challenges.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is important to care about your interview structure
- Two Components you need to successfully hire and sleep better at night
Challenge today?
- Candidates have options
- Options are unlimited - a lot of remote options
- Workforce has expanded from local to global competition
Why is this important to the company?
- Not hiring the right people limits growth
- Hiring the wrong people -
- Wrong people take you down the wrong path
- When people doesn't work out - back to the drawing board
- Case study- grew to 73, hired over 100 people and is now 21 people.
- $7mm wasted!
- Major money waste
- 25% hiring success rate
- Wrong leaders, wrong investors
Rick’s Nuggets
- You must stand out to draw people in
How do we solve the problem?
- Planning out hiring
- Proactive to get someone in the seat on time
- Gap analysis- Knowing the gaps on the team
- Problems that need to be solved
- Structured approach to the hiring process
- Pre-planning your process and mechanics
- Use the Qualifi tool for screening
- Phone interviews
- Automated phone screen
- Pre-recorded, audio-based questions
- Every candidate gets same exact experience (makes the review process more consistent)
- Time is a huge factor in recruitment and efficiency can be an advantage
- First to candidate can be important factor
- Pre-scripted live interviews
- Assigned interview questions (round robin)
- Each person takes notes throughout the interview
- Real time feedback with the team to make a decision quickly
Rick’s Nuggets
- Phone screen (discovery call) is the biggest missed opportunity
- Opportunity to understand the person.
- Critical - positioning (what the person desires)
- Interview- eliminate bias
- Consistent plug n play- same questions for every person
- Decisions made based on evidence, not opinion
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Proactively plan
- Understand who you need to hire, when you need to hire them, and how long it will take
- Plan your strategy and what each step looks like
- Plan your interviews
- Create an interview script and get agreement on it with your team before the interview starts. Be prepared to iterate.
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrianmikell/
Company: https://www.qualifi.hr/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/qualifihr/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/qualifihr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarrianMikell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darrianmikell/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
Why Employees are REALLY Leaving Your Company with Leilani Quiray of bethechangeHR
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
We are in full swing of this “Great Resignation” and a record 4.3 million people quit their jobs in August.
If you are one of the business leaders who have been losing people, please realize that it is not them, It is YOU! People are quitting because they no longer align themselves with your company values … especially the mandated policies in and around the pandemic.
Right now, there are much better options in the form of growth and career satisfaction. Which is why people are taking their time in locating the opportunity that they really want.
So, if you want to stop the attrition and be able to hire strong people, get solid on your values and focus on what each individual is desiring in terms of their personal career growth.
Today we are discussing exactly what you need to do to become an employer of choice to start winning great people!
Our guest today: Leilani Quiray, Founder & CEO of Be The Change HR
A conscious company and social enterprise, providing HR support for small-to-medium sized businesses in any facet of HR from pre-hire to post-term and everything else that happens in between. Her and her team also teach free job readiness courses and provide free coaching to individuals who’ve been trafficked, homeless and veterans in transition. Her team is not only HR Pros, they are Life Changers.
Today we discuss:
- What people really want today from their careers in this great resignation
- The elements you need implemented in your company to successfully hire the strongest people
Challenge today?
- Why employees REALLY are choosing new employers?
- How to become the employer of choice today?
- People think they know what people want, but they don't know
- Money
- Benefits
- Perks
- Unrealistic vision (modeling google)
- What the owner wants (I like X so they’ll like X)
- What is it that people REALLY want?
- “Experts stress that people are leaving their jobs as workers across the country are demanding higher pay, better employment conditions and critical support in their daily lives.”
Why is this important to the company?
- Companies need humans
- ethics/moral duty to have a healthy workforce
- ROI
- More engagement = more profitable of a company
Rick’s Nuggets
- Flexibility: Personal freedom is a real issue!
- Attrition is happening due to continued company vaccine policies
- Both for and against
- “Don't want to be micromanaged”
- What does not matter … as much
- Compensation
- Benefits & Perks
How do we solve the problem?
- Ask your people
- Needs are different
- Use buckets core values & data on why people choose companies/stay at companies
- Survey your people unanimously
- Use data to make decisions
- Communicate back - low morale and distrust if you do not
- Job requirements reasonable? (also think DEI and diverse hires)
- Education and where (Harvard?) - biggest hurdle
- Opens the hiring pool to disadvantaged candidates
- Compensation Analysis
- Market Value
- Free tools BLS
- By demographics too
- Market Value
- Employer branding
- What do you look like publicly?
- Core values shine?
- How awesome you are should show!
- Evil Glassdoor (aka the Yelp for employers)
- Get ahead of the bad reviews by getting good ones
- Damage control and a look at ones own org if you already have bads ones
- Take a look at who you are hiring
- Core Value Work
- Do you have them?
- Assess them
- Tool?
- Book?
- Live them
- Weave them into everything
- We ask “are we living our core values?”
- Language within the company and how decisions are made
Rick’s Nuggets
- Are your values real?
- Job requirements need to be eliminated and replaced with performance metrics
- Form of conscious bias
- Performance Metrics = Accountability
- Interview for core value alignment
- Value alignment is the only true measure to ensure performance and tenure
- No reason to move when you provide everything a person desires
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- Do Pulse Check Surveys!
- Rethink your recruiting strategy: job requirements, your online presence, comp analysis
- LIVE your core values!
Guest Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leilaniquiray/
Company: https://bethechangehr.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bethechangehr/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethechangehumanresources/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bethechangehr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethechangehr/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqsQa5CXid2I0xQwiVyE2nw/featured
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Oct 21, 2021
The Hidden Pools of Sales Talent with Chris Beall of ConnectAndSell
Thursday Oct 21, 2021
Thursday Oct 21, 2021
While everyone is chasing the same people, ie: those who work for competitors or the 3-7 year up-and-comers, there is a huge pool of talent that are on the sidelines waiting for a well positioned opportunity to present itself.
I’d like to challenge you to think about the concept that outstanding talent comes from the most unlikely places.
Last week we heard the story of a top sales performer at Swag.com who had no sales experience at all. But the Desire alignment was through the roof and now this person is absolutely thriving in their organization. The creativity & outside the box thinking is what sets the stage for success!
Today is all about hiring outstanding sales people in an environment that is ridiculously competitive.
Our guest today: Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell
For 30 years Chris Beall has led software start-ups as a founder or early-stage developer. He believes the most powerful part of a software system is the human being, and that the value key is to let the computer do what it does well — go fast without getting bored — in order to free up human potential.
Chris and his team provide a SaaS solution for sales teams to talk to more prospects, and hosts a podcast, Market Dominance Guys.
Today we discuss:
- Why you are looking in the WRONG places for sales talent
- How to adapt your hiring model to uncover high performing sales people
Challenge today in hiring sales people?
- Can't find people
- Everyone is chasing the same (wrong) people
- Get bid up (too expensive)
- Takes forever to train
- They bounce
- Not interested in the job
- Huge untapped pool of talent (over 40)
Why is this important to the company?
- Adopting a 2 tier model you
- Flow rate of meetings is a bottleneck of almost every company
- Always invest in the bottleneck
Rick’s Nuggets
- Value alignment within the organization is more important than ever before
- Connecting the dots between values & desire avoids bidding wars
- Creating value above and beyond the paycheck
- People do not leave when they are in alignment
How do we solve the problem?
- Change your model
- Make SDR as a real professional job
- Look at different age demographics
- Identify people who come from the industry you sell to
- Huge untapped pool of talent (over 40)
- Interview like you mean it
- Test people. Have them do some work
- Have 10 conversations
- Good voice
- Can you make people laugh
- Modulating your voice
- Listen to the conversation
- Coachable
- Length of time you keep people on a call
- Good voice
Rick’s Nuggets
- “Walk me through the process how you closed your last deal”
- Scripts are king!
- Align your interview process with your company values
- To properly assess people you need to be able to evaluate them for alignment
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Take the SDR role seriously and not just as a stepping stone. (your company’s bottleneck
- Embrace real management for sales- pay attention to process
- The only thing a SDR needs to do is sell a meeting… not the product.
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-beall-7859a4/#
Company: https://connectandsell.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chris8649
Blog: http://blog.connectandsell.com/
Podcast: https://www.marketdominanceguys.com/
This show is proudly sponsored by 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 30, 2021
Time Kills Hires with Andrew Bartlow of Series B Consulting
Thursday Sep 30, 2021
Thursday Sep 30, 2021
Time and People are the most precious asset your company has on the road to success or failure.
As leaders, It is our responsibility to protect the time of our team to ensure that projects are delivered on time. It is also our responsibility to put processes in place that ensure that the strongest people are in the right seat!
Shouldn't each step of the interview process have a purpose and save time for everyone involved?
Yet Interviewing is the single point of failure in almost every company.
Too long.
Too short.
No clear direction.
Or riddled with boobytraps that repel strong people from even engaging with your company!
Our guest today: Andrew Bartlow, Founder & Managing Partner of Series B Consulting.
Which helps businesses to articulate their people strategy and accelerate their growth while navigating rapid change. He also founded the People Leader Accelerator, which is the foremost development program for HR leaders at startups.
Andrew Bartlow has 25 years of Human Resources and Talent Management experience at organizations across a wide spectrum of sizes, maturity stages, and industries. He is the co-author of “Scaling for Success: People Priorities for High Growth Organizations,”
Andrew has worked with clients like MasterClass and many others to help them overcome obstacles in a hyper-growth phase.
Today we discuss:
- Why your timing kills hires
- How to Time out your process in the most effective manner
Challenge today?
Filling roles with good people with less of an internal organization tax
Too many interviews, too much time - I’m out
- Over emphasis on consensus, 10-12 people over multiple rounds
- Giant time drag on a company
- People fall out
- Offer to close rate 60% is not good!
Why is this important to the company?
- Time - interview time takes away from productivity
- Rapid growth is usually essential. Time burns cash runway, employee time and goodwill, and competitors keep coming.
- Efficiency matters - particularly at the early growth stages
- Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Should be able to make rapid hire / no-hire decisions, and fair/reasonable separation decisions without months of agony.
- “Hire slow and fire fast?” I’d suggest looking for a goldilocks zone on both. Take the time necessary, but not one minute more than what is net value-adding to do both.
Rick’s Nuggets
- All that is needed is:
- Discovery Call
- Value Alignment Interviews
- Working Session (skills)
- 10 business days max
How do we solve the problem?
- Start by clearly defining the roles that you want to fill
- Source candidates in a scalable way
- Expand the pool
- Employer branding
- @ Series A should get beyond friends & family network
- Hire a dedicated recruiter
- Need a screen / filter before the manager sees the candidate
- Passive candidate magnet
- Check for compensation expectations & role interest; initial assessment of required skills, knowledge, and experiences
- Goal is that ZERO candidates make it to the hiring manager who have out-of-bounds pay or role expectations, and all of those candidates moving forward have experiences that reasonably match the role
- Manager vetting before meeting the team
- One and done interview process ~30 minutes 1on1 via video
- Confirm that the candidate is interested in the role and the comp budgeted - preclose the candidate
- Ask for references here!
- A candidate shouldn’t come meet with a team until / unless the hiring manager is a strong advocate to hire them. Don’t waste the broader team’s time.
- Work Product Sample (optional - often good for technical roles, but rarely for G&A)
- Give a real problem - don’t spend a lot of time coming up with hypotheticals, too many variations which will change
- Faster / easier / more accurate to work on a real problem. Just get an NDA.
- Related alternatives - Can review Github rather than request a project. Can conduct a live shared-screen working session. Can ask for examples of prior work that demonstrates a good fit for the role.
- LOTS of candidates drop out at the project stage. Don’t let this become a barrier!
- Team Screen
- One and done over video, with multiple people involved
- Cultural (watermelon @ Gusto) interviews have a risk of being counterproductive. To be effective it should be structured, interviews have good training, and the traits assessed should be really clear AND ALIGNED with the future needs of the org. Danger of holding onto the past - what got you here, won’t get you there.
- Decision
- After the team screen, there should be a hire / no-hire decision. Lots of organizations get hung up comparing candidates, not sure what they are looking for. You need to fill jobs with good people and KEEP MOVING. A hiring manager / hiring team which isn’t sure what they are looking for is the single largest waste of time and energy in the company-building process.
- Can have a calibration meeting. Maybe the recruiter supports it, but really, the hiring manager should own the decision and have the most energy around moving forward.
- Offer & Candidate Closing
Rick’s Nuggets
- Reverse engineer the time to hire and set timelines for each stage
- Set process before you define roles
- Train your people on “how you hire”
- Gain commitment from interviewers for excellence
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Streamline your process. Fill jobs with less time from the team. May or may not fill the role in fewer days, but can reduce total hours committed by the group from 100+ to closer to 10. Yes, this requires a bit more ownership and potentially a little more time (per candidate) from the HM, but should dramatically reduce the overall time by the team.
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartlow/
Company: https://www.seriesbconsulting.com/
Speak On Podcasts: https://speakonpodcasts.com/andrew-bartlow/
People Leader Accelerator: https://www.peopleleaderaccelerator.com/
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 16, 2021
Hiring for Talent Optimization with Mike Zani of The Predictive Index
Thursday Sep 16, 2021
Thursday Sep 16, 2021
“There is work that needs to be done and I just need someone good to do the work”
*** sigh ***
This is what we tell ourselves when we decide to hire someone. But it is so much deeper than just getting a butt in the seat!
Growth is the most important factor here. So, we must start with the end in mind to avoid making HUGE hiring mistakes!
Yes, we need to get the work done but will this person really help your company grow? And more importantly, can your company provide the growth that the person you want to hire desperately desires?
Our guest today: Mike Zani, CEO of The Predictive Index.
Mike Zani, the Wall Street Journal best selling author of The Science of Dream Teams, is CEO of The Predictive Index, the leader in talent optimization. Prior to The Predictive Index, Mike served as president of LEDCO, a manufacturer of rugged computer peripherals. It was at LEDCO where Mike, a customer of The Predictive Index, developed his passion for the company’s vital management tools.
An avid sailor, Mike began his career in marketing and sales with Vanguard Sailboats and was a coach for the 1996 U.S. Olympic Sailing Team. He holds a B.S. from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard.
Today we discuss:
Hiring for Talent optimization
- What is talent optimization
- How to hire for it
Challenge today?
How to you hire well within the context of time & risk
- What risk are you willing to take on bad hires?
- Systems in place to support the risk
- 30, 60, 90 day check ins to support
- Do you just want t body in a seat
- Persona
- A talent optimized system allows you to train & develop
- Need to develop the programs to support
Why is this important to the company?
- We are 30 years behind sport in bringing analytics for hiring
- What is sport doing now?
- TA is the single most important function in the organization
- Need to take a maniacal approach to hiring.
- Fantasy league hiring takes more time than hiring to companies
- Data drives success
- Performance measurement
Rick’s Nuggets
- Getting the right person the the bus is FAR more important than getting work done
- If the work is that important, hire a contractor
- The mistake made is the optimism of the founder
- Assumptions
- Hire on their potential (assumed), bias (assumed) & need (get it off my plate)
- Zero time is taken to understand what the other person desires, other than a paycheck
- Consider this: The cost for every bad hire is $2M
How do we solve the problem?
- Top of funnel strategy
- Clear mission
- Hiring brand that attracts talent
- Palpable culture - Strong enough that it disqualifies people
- Great referral strategy - cash after 6 months,
- Bottom of funnel strategy
- Hiring systems
- Strong assessments -behavioral , cognitive, analytics
- Hiring process, structured interviewing
- Training- especially on cultural interview aspects
- interviewer grading, scoring, developing
- Remove people who are bad interviewers
- Post hire Strategy
- Benchmarks
- Performance systems - 30,60,90 day
- Hire for buoyancy!
Rick’s Nuggets
Mid Funnel Strategy
- The Interview
- Structured & timed
- Values aligned
- Challenging
- Does the interview produce evidence to support the decision
- Is the evidence supported by the assessment?
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Need a post-hire system!
- Can take more risk
- Need to have a feedback loop to add/subtract people from the interviewing process.
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikezani/
Company: https://www.predictiveindex.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/predictiveindex?lang=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/predictiveindex/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepredictiveindex/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCexehrVsBrP9SiNeBm4pY7Q
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Sep 09, 2021
How to Terminate an Employee with Dignity - Lori Torres of Parcel Pending
Thursday Sep 09, 2021
Thursday Sep 09, 2021
The first time I was fired was when I was 16 years old and working at Numero Uno Pizza. It happened really strangely, I went in to pick up my paycheck and the manager let me know that this paycheck would be my last one as I was no longer employed there.
No warning and no explanation.
Bewildered, I simply walked out the door, walked across the street and was hired by their competitor.
The way in which the whole experience went down, left me feeling embarrassed & resentful.
Never again did I eat at that restaurant because of the way they made me feel.
Our guest today: Lori Torres, Founder & Former CEO of Parcel Pending
The nation’s leading provider of innovative package management solutions. Prior to Parcel Pending, Lori was SVP of property operations at The Irvine Company.
She has been recognized on multiple occasions for her leadership, including being named 2017 “Innovator of the Year” by the Orange County Business Journal and chosen as one of 13 entrepreneurs admitted into the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ 2017 North America class.
Lori worked to build a world class organization and is going to share her wisdom.
Today we discuss:
- Making the difficult decision to part ways
- How to fire a person in a way that leaves everyone feeling good about themselves
Challenge today?
- When is the right time to make a change and terminate someone?
- Can you afford to do it, do you have the bandwidth
- Taking the time to really understand
- Have an intervention- performance improvement plan, use to be successful
- Articulate to really improve the person's performance
- Everything possible to make sure they are successful
- Accountability tool &
Why is this important to the company?
- Benefits: often find someone better
- Help the person you are terminating to the world,
- Embrace the people management side of the business
- Termination is part of the evolution of the company
- Change needs to happen,
- This is the game we are playing, these are the rules, here’s how we move forward
- What you need at $3mil is different at $10M
Rick’s Nuggets
- Be proactive in your hiring
- Hiring for growth first - start with the end in mind
- “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
How do we solve the problem?
- Identify performance issues first
- Candid open, specific conversation
- Time frame to meet the expectations
- Check in: not meeting expectations,
- Provide a performance improvement plan
- Whatree performance is now, when they are not meeting expectations, when we are going to convenience to review
- Termination
- Reason for termination:
- Labor attorney- worth the money to handle things properly
- Quick conversation : next step, it is not working
- Part ways with dignity!
- Severance with a legal document release of liability & non-disparagement
- Walk them out the door and wish them well
- Offer help to help them move forward
- Sample Termination
- Rick gets Fired!
Rick’s Nuggets
- Really take seriously the performance metrics that were set for your people in the job description
- Evidence to support the hire first!
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Really spend the time to hire correct people. It's like dating, Interview a lot
- When the person is not performing, invest the time to
- Have non-confrontational conversations with people
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loritorres/
Company: https://www.parcelpending.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParcelPending
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parcelpending
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parcelpending/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFj7yh4kDC7Jx5CDUYnar7A
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 Aug 26, 2021
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
You are at the point in your business where the company is ready to hire the first person to head up a department (i.e.: sales, marketing, engineering). You are excited and terrified at the same time. You’re thinking “I have to get this right”... and you are right, you do!
How do you evaluate a person with an area of expertise that you are NOT familiar with?
The answer, my friends, is being prepared, digging deep and really listening! Step outside of your first impression and be aware of your tendency of confirmation bias.
Shift your focus on gathering concrete evidence and the outcome will be the correct decision every time.
Our guest today: Liam Rose, Founder of Catalina Seven Ventures.
Liam is the founder of Catalina Seven Ventures, a Southern California consumer software startup. Before forming C7V, he managed the sales team for an Orange County-based entertainment startup. As a result of his own challenges trying to juggle health, academic obligations, and personal relationships while attending the University of Richmond, Liam created a new approach to life scheduling built to enable better balance. During his time at the Robins School of Business, he was selected as a 2019 Innovator Under 25.
Catalina Seven Ventures' first product, HORUS Life Schedule, is now available for Beta testing on iOS and Android (access available through the company website)."
Today we discuss:
- How to effectively make your first departmental hire
Challenge today?
Hiring the first person within a department
- How do you make that hire
- How do we know if the person is good
- What's the barometer
- First tech person, marketing, HR or finance person
How do you know if the person is the best person do the job at the current stage
- Culture & environment fit
- Metrics & deliverables
- How well they can make the connections between metrics and the outcome
Why is this important to the company?
- They will be the departmental cultural lead
- Top quality people hiring more top quality people
- The greatest impression people get is from the interview process itself
- Set the tone on how you are going to manage the person based on the interview process itself
- Improved interview process results in a higher level of talent
- Demonstrates the ability to understand the individual
- Ignorance of the process
Rick’s Nuggets
- Every hire is critical at every stage of your start up!
- Hire slow, fire slower-er-er
- Firing fast is negligence & kills culture (reduces trust, increases anxiety)
- Cult creation- Steve Newcomb (https://medium.com/cult-creation/cult-creation-a44303564f21)
- Firing fast “kills innovation, ownership and trust”
How do we solve the problem?
- Signaling - feel a unique attraction to our company
- Job Advertisement
- Distributed via word of mouth/referrals first
- The step beyond who we are. Bold- unapologetically ourselves
- Demonstration of understanding
-
- Interview process
- Realistic expectations
- Show that people can succeed
- Difficult but not impossible
- Show professional empathy
- What is going to make you most happy?
- What does the individual want?
- Communication preference, invest in every core operation of the company
- Calling the Hotline
- Advisor de-risk
- Outside influence to identify the obvious
Rick’s Nuggets
- Prepare yourself by adopting process, engage in interview training & experience
- Process: must have a flow and timing- Start on time, end on time
- Discovery call (45 minutes)
- Interview #1 Cultural (60 minutes)
- Deeply tied to corporate values/principles/culture
- Interview #2 Working Session - judge skills (60 minutes - ½ day)
- Live example of how we work together, problem solve, communicate
- Process: must have a flow and timing- Start on time, end on time
- Interview Training
- Behavioral interviews produce EVIDENCE to uncover the TRUTH
- Assign interview questions to the individual interviewers
- Prepare the candidate for what to expect
- Experience (not yours, theirs)
- A-players are attracted to excellence
- Leave everyone feeling good about their time investment
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Their language, not your language
- Gets you the people you want rather than the people you can get
- Use experience to de risk: everyone in your network. What you should avoid with absolute certainty
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamwrose/
Company: http://catalina7ventures.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/c7vinc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catalina7ventures/
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
The Great Resignation & Struggle Learning with Sam Caucci of 1Huddle
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
The key to retention is growth. With looming fears of “the great resignation” company’s are unsure as to how to structure the organization. Forcing a state of flux that is not healthy for the business.
The poles tell us that at least 40% of people will quit if forced to go back into the office full time. Will your company have a mass exodus? If you have not put your people first…. Most likely.
Companies who have been fostering personal & professional growth through leadership will experience far less separation because they have put their people in front of the transaction.
Our guest today: Sam Caucci , Founder & CEO of 1Huddle
A workforce tech company that upskills, trains, and motivates employees through science-backed, quick-burst mobile games.
Sam founded 1Huddle on the belief that every worker deserves access to the job training, support, and coaching needed to win on the job. Put simply, 1Huddle is making training more fun, effective, and accessible for the entire workforce.
Sam is also the author of the #1 bestseller, Not Our Job: How College has Destroyed a Generation of Workers and How to Fix it. Sam is an expert in workforce engagement and development.
Today we discuss:
- Why struggle based learning is the key to retention
- How to build learning into your culture
Challenge today?
- Training
- Do unto others as it was done to you
- Struggle is important to learning
- Leverage technology to increase outcomes
Why is this important to the company?
- Middle management job function is more important than ever
- How do we arm them to be better coaches to the front line
- 55% of workers are Millennials & GenZ
- They like structure
- Coaching up and development
- Struggle based learning
- Game based learning 45% faster!
- “Make it Stick” -Peter Brown
- "It's the Manager” Only 15% or workers are engaged (before pandemic)- Gallop
- #1 driver to engagement is having a coach
How do we solve the problem?
Struggle based learning
- Content Audit
- What do you have now?
- Gaps - Where are the business problems?
- Finding content: buy vs. build
- Selecting Technology (learning management system)
- Accessibility, Outcomes &
- Authoring
- What kind of staff is required to manage it
- Wrap learning in a game format
- Mobile first
- 52 week calendar (never ending game)
- Continual development
- Up-skilling (stop siloing workers)
- Reskill & re-onboard
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Workforce technology is making it easy to more effectively onboard every worker from frontline to full time
- Effective skill building and retention requires struggle
- Managers need better tools and strategies to onboard, develop and engage workers.
Guest Links:
Sam Caucci:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samcaucci/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/samcaucci
Company:
1Huddle: https://1huddle.co/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/1huddle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1huddle/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1huddle/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SalesHuddleAcademy
Author of the #1 bestseller: Not Our Job: How College has Destroyed a Generation of Workers and How to Fix it (Amazon)
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop: https://www.criteriacorp.com/