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Episodes
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
How does one evaluate a subject matter expert when you have limited knowledge or expertise in that discipline?
Most individual technical/skills based interviews last about an hour. Where time is wasted quizzing on subject matter that may or may not be relevant to the actual role itself. Scratching the surface on the level of depth that is brought to the table.
Consider another option. What I like to call a “working session”.
Invite the person to collaborate on a real problem that is relevant to the opportunity. This gives you unbridled insight into how a person thinks, communicates and solves problems within the context of real life.
This allows you to really drill down to gain evidence to support the hiring decision either way.
Today we’re going to discuss:
- Why should I care about a working session
- How to structure and execute a working session/ skills interview in your company
Challenge today?
- Skills not matching up to what someone claimed (faker)
- Or... Claimed to be able to handle more than capable (over exaggerator)
- Or… Just here for the perks & paycheck (freeloader)
- What's happening?
- Hiring Maintainers for builder or improver roles
- Testing
- Outdated concepts - learned in college
- Focusing on irreverent problems
- How many quarters can fit in a VW van
- Smart is good, smart with people is much better
- Going too shallow
- Not knowing what to ask
- Not digging deeper to discover the truth
Why is this important to the company?
- Too shallow conceals the truth
- Smart doesn't ensure success
- Relevant skills give evidence of alignment
How do we solve the problem?
- Build Interview Structure
- Only need one technical/skills based interview
- Timing
- 2 hours- ½ day
- Pay for their time (optional)
- Who’s involved?
- Co-workers, direct team, anyone in close interaction
- Define the problem to be solved
- A current problem that needs to be solved (reason to compensate $)
- 3 components (key hires)
- Goals review- understand expectations of KPI’s
- Data or Gap Analysis- how does the candidate interpret data/requirements/etc
- Collaboration- Review the details of the problem. Work to solve!
- Example
- Goals review - (5 minutes max)
- Data Analysis / Gap Analysis - (10 minutes max)
- Marketing Plan & Strategy (1: 45 minutes)
- Let’s discuss the marketing plan starting with what you feel is the best strategy
- Really try to dig into the "Why" How would you bring this plan to life? Based on what you know, what would be your recommendations for reaching the goals? Why? What other angles can we take? What would be the priority? Why?
- Preparation for Candidate & Team
- Candidate
- Let them prepare. Send details in advance
- Set expectations and discuss next steps
- Team
- Coach to be open minded and bias free
- Ignore opinions, praise evidence
- Work true - how they act daily
- Execute to core values
- Everyone should act as to the standards of the company values
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Build a working session for each role. Becomes really easy when you get used to doing it.
- Prepare the candidate for success
- Team collaboration & buy in based on evidence not “uncertain feelings” - bias
Host Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/ Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/ Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
How to Hire in Three Conversations with Nick Livingston of Honeit Software
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
10 business days is the optimal time to bring an interview process to a successful outcome.
The way to achieve this is to tighten timelines from stage to stage and cut down the number of people involved in the process. Now I know what you are thinking, that more people should be involved. Which is incorrect.
The reason we involve more people in the interview process is because we value their “opinion” or “input” on the individual. But opinion has no value when it comes to making a hiring decision. And opinion is what you get when your interview questions are not tied to gathering evidence.
Opinion breeds assumptions, bias & personal motives. Which do NOT serve the growth of the business.
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. We help Entrepreneurs and executives WIN-WIN the strongest hires.
By sharing insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, game-changers & industry leaders. Like our guest today: Nick Livingston
Nick is the Co-Founder & CEO of Honeit Software.
Formerly the Head of Recruiting at TubeMogul (Adobe), Nick and his team scaled the company from 60 to 360 employees through a successful IPO ($TUBE) in just over 26 months.
In the same two years, he attended business school at UC Berkeley, started a family (three daughters) and co-founded Honeit Software, which is the all-in-one interview platform designed by recruiters to schedule, record, transcribe, search and share interview answers for quick collaboration and higher quality hiring.
Today we discuss:
- Why anything more than 3 interviews it too much
- How to interview & hire in 3 meetings
In today’s market, a candidate doesn’t have time to speak with 8 different people in your organization.
Challenge today?
- Interview simplification
- Bad solutions that repel solid people
- Screening
- One way video interviews
Why is this important to the company?
- Interview data gets lost
- Transparency attracts talent
- Job seekers have become really savvy
- Humans have changed
Rick’s Nuggets
- Value of the discovery call is lost
- Reason why people are not showing up for a job interview
- Positioning
- What a person desires
- Are they an A-player
How do we solve the problem?
- Interview conversations as business intelligence conversations
- Competitive intelligence
- If you record business conversations, you can tag, search, and rewind the tape.
- Interview structure:
- Questions related to core values
- Questions related to the specific role/skill/need
- Who’s asking the questions? Who knows a good vs. great answer.
- Interview Collaboration
- role of the recruiter was to give ‘time back’ to hiring managers
- But recruiters are not SME…. where the phone screen falls flat..
- Coordinated questions
- Share interview data/answers/highlights.
- Record the interview
- Who are good interviewers
- What makes a good question, what makes a great answer.
- Better Interview experience
- Do we still need 8 separate 45-minute conversations for 8 people to be involved with the interview process? NO!
- Do we still need 8 separate 45-minute conversations for 8 people to be involved with the interview process? NO!
- Hiring kick off call…
Rick’s Nuggets
- Discovery call
- Interview #1 - Value alignment
- Interview #2 - Skills
- Working session
- Interview #3 - Value Alignment / offer
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Interviews are two-way conversation… Candidates are interviewing YOU and your team.
- Record interviews for - transparency, accountability, to rewind the tape, to protect your company (discrimination lawsuits).
Guest Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicklivingston/
Company: https://www.honeit.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/honeit/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/honeit/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/honeit
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 Mar 03, 2022
Today’s Hiring Complaints Solved with Ashish Rampal of All Imaging Systems
Thursday Mar 03, 2022
Thursday Mar 03, 2022
The two biggest complaints I hear today from entrepreneurs are “I can't find good people” and “when I hire people, the skills don’t match up”.
The first issue, not being able to “find good people” is an easy one to solve. You're fishing in the wrong ponds! Posting & praying may be working for some roles but the more crucial roles require that more creative tactics be deployed. Go to where your audience is interacting regularly. Hint: Not job boards.
The second issue, “skills not matching” with what a person represented in the interview, is a HUGE indicator of a poor interview process.
Too often we hear what we want to hear (confirmation bias) and we quickly move to get the person to accept the position. Never digging deeper to understand the what, when & how of a person’s work.
Remember the purpose of the interview is to understand the truth of the person across the desk from you.
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. We help Entrepreneurs and executives WIN-WIN the strongest hires.
By sharing insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, game-changers & industry leaders. Like our guest today: Ashish Rampal
Ashish serves as President and CEO of All Imaging Systems. He brings nearly 30 years of experience delivering high growth among, Service and Green Tech companies.
His passion for bringing strategy and innovation together has fueled a long list of leadership accomplishments. Ashish has risen to complex challenges where he has crafted growth strategies, tapped new emerging markets and energized global teams – with many successes coming within turnaround environments.
His leadership approach reflects his deep expertise in creating and leveraging teams that are driven to innovate and excel.
Today we discuss:
- How to find the right people outside of job boards
- How to dig deeper on skills to gain evidence of competency
Hiring Story
- Hire - skills did not match the skills for the job
- Kept on for 8 months moving from role to role
- Right person on the wrong bus
- Demonstrated Ashish being a weak leader
- Intention was one of care & empathy but it was misaligned with the goal of making high performance be their best
- Warning signs
- Pushbacks from key people not to have to interact with that person
- Cost 8 months of salary- $40k
- Impact to culture
- Impact the trust of his team
Challenge today?
- Finding people through social networks who are not on LinkedIn
- Resources are not digital natives
- No LinkedIn account
- Meetups
- Training programs alumni
Why is this important to the company?
- People are the path to which we scale
- To be a relevant business need to bring value over the OEM’s
- More cost effective option
- Reverse engineering to repair
Rick’s Nuggets
- Sources
- Passive referrals
- LinkedIn sourcing
- Professional groups /associations
- Meetups, repositories, college faculty
How do we solve the problem?
- Bring complex challenges into the company
- Unique business - OEM agnostic, lot of learning opportunities and exposure to different technology
- Full exposure to business life cycle
- Solving a problem with minimal competitor
- Talent is recognized
- People Feel respected
- Have a voice - Let you know when a bad hire has been made
- Love the challenge
- Like who they work with
- Failure is accepted and celebrated
- Demonstrate Leadership
- Trust through empowerment
- Focus on Morale
- Self introspection
- Culture of win or affirm, working on today, need help
- Inject energy -”try to change the weather”
- Let the team connect emotionally
Rick’s Nuggets
- Competency digging
- First discussed on the Discovery call
- Impact made in the organization
- The exact steps taken to complete the project
- Interview- Working Session
- Solve a relevant problem together with the team
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! -Value:
- You are the custodian of the culture - you define
- In times of fear or uncertainty the best response is ACTION
- Teams prefer a leader who is REAL as opposed to one who is CORRECT
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishrampal/ Company: https://allimaging.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/all-imaging-systems/
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 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/
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 Dec 10, 2020
Hiring 250 Remote Employees in 2 Weeks with Brock Blake of Lendio
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Imagine having to staff 250 roles... just as many companies were laying off and scrambling to get their PPP loans approved.
Our guest today had 2 weeks to hire 250 people to handle the demand for PPP loans and is here to share his story.
Our guest today: Brock Blake, Co-Founder & CEO of Lendio
Brock spent the last nine years developing technology to get loans to more people, more quickly, and more efficiently than traditional lenders. Under his leadership, Lendio grew to be the largest online marketplace for small business loans in America. So when the coronavirus pandemic struck, he knew he was in a unique position to make a difference.
Today we discuss:
- Creative ways to bulk hire in a short period of time
- The hiring system to be able to crush a lot of hires in a very short time
Challenge today?
- We had committed to [a company] that we would hire 25+ of their people on a temporary basis to help with PPP and then they would return to their employment. It was a win/win. The painful part was realizing the people we hired through them were not skilled in computer software and systems. We ended up keeping only 8-9 people from [Company] which put us behind in getting resources to meet the demands we had.
- Being told “we are good, no more hires” next day “Let’s get 150 hired by next Monday” and we crushed those goals
Why is this important to the company?
- Getting to the bottom of the barrel in terms of Temp to hire resources for the last group that we hired. The incentive to stay home instead of work because of the unemployment benefits had kept a lot of people from applying for work. So those that were applying by the end of our hiring process were not the most employable people. The number of wage garnishments, failed background checks, etc. was much higher for this last group than our overall hiring experience.
- Having the opportunity to extend offers to people during the pandemic. Some people were experiencing the worst few weeks of their lives and were overcome with joy when they received offers. Truly an awesome experience!
- Candidates crying on the phone with us when we offered them the position because they were so grateful to be able to provide for their families or be helping w/PPP
How do we build a quick hiring structure into your company?
- Bulk interview process
- One interview, Decision
- Creating SOPs and generic equipment setup/login instructions - Getting 200+ new hires setup and logged into equipment was a massive undertaking. Staying up until 2 am helping new hires set up their computers for the next morning
- Trying to run new hire orientation with 50+ people in a Zoom meeting who have never used Zoom or their equipment before. No understanding of the mute button.
- Guy falling asleep for 2 hours during training. Snoring.
- Being responsible for retrieving equipment; traveling to unknown places (I’m from out of state), former TMs not cooperating, equipment not being left where they say it would be, thoughts of getting Covid from equipment boxes, equipment not being packed up properly and left outside in garbage bags.
- Cops involved (one emergency contact saying that the temp was MISSING and that us reporting her equipment as stolen might help the authorities find her!) - 4 total police reports
- One person saying “If you want your stuff back, come and get it. And BTW I have COVID”
- Driving all over the state
- Condition that equipment was returned in (garbage bags, shoe boxes, etc.)
- Russ and Kimberly stories of tracking down equipment after terminations
Rick’s Nuggets
- Do not get rid of your hiring process to rapid hire
- Scale the number of interviews
- Train 2-3 interview teams to allow scale
- Assigned interview questions
- Back to back video interviews
- Be aware if interviewer fatigue
Key Takeaways:
- Have a process in place
- Don't cut corners on culture fit, screening
- Get creative
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: Brock Blake
Twitter: BrockBlake
Instagram: Lendio
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp
Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
There is a flood of great talent on the market and the competition for those limited positions is heating up. With this rise in the talent pool the ability to properly access applications is a major challenge. The bar has been raised! Are you leaving good people on the table?
Our guest today: Shawn Sheikh, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Pivot CMO
Shawn is a Silicon Valley & Beach serial entrepreneur and Y Combinator alumni. His specialty is helping companies scale from $0 to multi-millions in revenue, through both conventional paid acquisition and non-conventional growth hacks.
Apart from Pivot CMO, Shawn loves to work with founders to find creative ways to scale their businesses and owns and invests in a portfolio of small to medium sized businesses
Today we are discussing
- The challenges in a heavy applicant reply market
- How to effectively screen applicants to avoid false positives
What are the issues you are finding in screening applicants
- Quality
- Response rate
- Don't want to do the case study
Right Approach?
- Reply with application (google form)
Phone Screening
- Report to person call screen
Rick’s Input
- Job description- performance metrics and call to action
- CTA: 3 questions for submittal - to be completed for all applications
- Timing of the event…. ie: when to do a test
- Phone screen for Purpose
Current process that works
- Application process does work (cuts from 3k to 300)
- 20-30 people are qualified (phone screen)
- 75-80% show up for phone screen
- 6-8 to interview
- 1-2 to offer
Referrals- from employees
- 4 all hires
- One referral from a person they
Process
- Applicant review/application
- Phone screen -50% technical/ 50% fit
- Walk through assignment
- Test
- Interview
- Offer
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview Structure & process tied to your Company values
- “What are you capable of achieving?”
- Make the call based on the person’s answers rather than the resume
Key Takeaways:
- Better screening questions during the process
- Addressing people’s needs before money
- Owning who you are!
Thursday May 07, 2020
IT Infrastructure in a Remote Work Environment with Greg Keller of JumpCloud
Thursday May 07, 2020
Thursday May 07, 2020
The remote work mandate is still proving to be challenging for a lot of companies. Work from home is here to stay and we have to embrace the changes - there’s more to it than just making sure your employees are getting the job done. Today we are discussing how to get your IT infrastructure dialed in to increase performance in your business.
Our guest today: Greg Keller, CTO of JumpCloud
Greg Keller is the Chief Technology Officer at JumpCloud. He was responsible for productizing and launching the company’s initial directory service product offering to market in 2014. Greg is a career product visionary and executive management leader with over two decades of product management, product marketing, and corporate development experience ranging from startups to global organizations.
Today we discuss
- The challenges of IT in our new ‘corporate’ normal
- Some of IT related Hiring challenges
- How you can get your company ahead of the curve
What are the IT challenges companies are facing right now?
- The brittle on prem It workforce is now forced to move to the cloud
- Security when outside the ‘brick and mortar’ offices
- For those that still *can* hire, interviewing and onboarding is challenging
IT challenges in the hiring process?
- Obvious - you’re not physically with them
- Video Interviewing
- Time demands required over Hangout/Zoom
- Panel, with follow up 1 on 1
- Typically done in 1 day in person
- COVID = smaller chunks over 2 or 3 days if needed
What IT structure needs to be in place?
- DIY
- A patchwork of tools and write own automation
- Access control- active directory
- Be able to manage remote machines
- Governess to maintain compliance- devices
- Remote to on prem servers (VPN)
- Get clients on the machines
- Jumpcloud - onboarding through productivity
- All in one access control software
Hiring process?
- Onboarding
- HR systems (bamboo, workday, etc)
- Manage access to systems relevant to your role
- Formats the computer direct from the vendor
Key Takeaways:
- For IT in the new normal: Think ‘forever remote’ - Consolidating vendors will be key, as will ensuring the tooling will provide an ability for the employee to have zero dependencies to a brick and mortar office.
- For hiring remotely: Think ‘Culture must shine through a Zoom meeting’ - Engineering managers and those responsible for engaging the candidate beyond ensuring their skills match or exceed the job need, must ensure they understand that employees motivations, behaviors, etc, in the context of not being physically near a team
- For the state of employee mental health: Think ‘We owe our workers latitude and empathy to balance their new realities’ - Two adults at home - screaming kids, at home schooling, work pressures all add up to a degraded and intense life experience. The place of employment should do its part to assist the employee with getting through this.
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Remember that person who you really wanted to hire but they took a job somewhere else? Now is the time to reconnect. Through no fault of their own, great talent is being displaced due to the pandemic. Now is the time to proactively hire and raise the level of performance through opportunistic hiring! This crisis will pass. And when it does, emerge as a much stronger organization and be positioned to crush your competitors!
Our guest today: Jeff Erle, Former CEO of MobilityWare
Jeff has held numerous C-level positions throughout his career. His experience spans across start-ups, small privately-held and large public enterprises including ADP, Western Digital, MobilityWare and most recently as the COO at Blast.
Jeff focuses on building high-performing teams and evolving award-winning cultures focusing on multi-generational workforces, developing/coaching key executives, and helping companies develop strategies to scale for growth and/or exit.
Today we discuss
- Why it is a great opportunity to hire
- A-players: what are they?
- How to identify and elevate your company performance during this downturn
Why is this important evaluate and proactively hire now?
- Talent is your #1 asset
- You now have the opportunity to upgrade your talent
- Missing an amazing opportunity to settle for the first people to knock on your door
- Now you have the ability to find an abundance of a players
Obviously, the Covid-19 virus has changed the world’s landscape like never before in our lifetimes. In particular, for businesses of all sizes, the nature of the workforce has and will continue to evolve, especially given the looming changes to the large number of workers that will be looking for work. Whether already or soon to be unemployed, or working for a company whose business model has been adversely impacted, millions of people will be applying for open positions later this year unlike anything we have seen in a very long time.
What's an A-player?
- top 10% of experience, capability, for the compensation you are willing to pay for the role.
Given that, for most companies, people are their greatest assets, the challenge will be to retain your A-players. And the opportunity would be to use this historic dynamic to “upgrade” your team and your organization. We’ll focus today on the latter, using the talent either already available or soon to be to assure our businesses come out of this cycle stronger than ever before.
Rick’s Input
- SalesForce, CEO Marc Benioff (tweet- 2200 jobs open…… prioritizing referrals of friends & family who have lost jobs.
- A-player - right profile (builders/startups), cultural alignment
- Desire should be workable
How do we start?
First step is to develop a definition of what an A-player looks like for your organization.
- One who is among the top 10% “available” for the open (or too be upgraded) position
- “Available” means: they are willing to accept an offer given the compensation level offered, in a culture such as yours, in your particular industry and location, with the resources available to them, with specific accountabilities/responsibilities, and reporting to a specific person
- Discuss examples...
Second step is to take an inventory, or a snapshot of your people assets and the level of their quality on an individual basis:
- Identify the “Pioneers” (A-players), “vacationers” (maintainers), and the “prisoners” (those always complaining… but they never leave; they feel handcuffed...)
- Methods to accomplish this include: (1) performance management tools (reviews, feedback, etc.) commonly used at year end for merit increases, and/or (2) “force-ranking” individuals either within departments, or if small enough, across the entire organization. (NB: There are numerous views/debates of the efficacy of force-ranking… but I have used it successfully, especially in circumstances such as this, when economic times demand tough decisions around headcount.)
Last step is to assure your recruiting strategy, methodologies and capabilities can fulfill this goal
Be diligent
- Shift focus to finding the best; this may mean balancing identifying and vetting “passive” candidates with “active” candidates.
- This means you cant be lazy. Its easier/faster to work only with the myriad of resumes and candidates that will be applying to your company this year, but they may not represent the best pool of A-players available to you.
- Ways to assure this include:
- If you have internal recruiting teams, assure they are aligned with your remit of seeking passive candidates as well as active.
- Get a good third-party recruiting partner to find the passive A-players and focus on presenting those people to your hiring manager(s).
Embrace increased volumes and/or new modes of interviewing
- Phone screens
- Video interviews (zoom, skype, etc.)
- Learn best practices on how to do these; many do’s and dont’s lists now available
- Teach managers how to do an appropriate phone screen and video interview
- Pre interview prep and internal alignment amongst interviewing teams
- What are the top key capabilities you all want for the role?
- Who is vetting which ones?
- Who is determining cultural fit?
- Who is making the final decision? Is it unilateral, consultative, or consensus?
- Agree on Who is “buying”, who’s “selling” during the process?
Remember:
- The more time you spend up front the less time you spend in the interviews themselves
- Poor managers don't want to do the work up front to coordinate
- You need to stand out to be the memorable company to attract the A-player.
- People go to work for good leaders/managers (converse of that's what they quit), not just good companies.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Build a list and say Hi
Key Takeaways:
- Now is a great time to re-evaluate your talent, your greatest asset, and upgrade as necessary
- To do so, you will need to embrace new internal areas of focus and philosophies, and your org will need to embrace and/or learn new ways of defining, finding, vetting and attracting A-player candidates
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Secure Funding Through Your Hiring Process with John Yanyali of JuiceBot
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Fundraising is difficult especially when you are missing a hiring process! Understanding who you are and defining your process are critical in bringing confidence to your investors. It is NOT difficult to solidify a process! Bring confidence to your team and your investors by demonstrating that you understand the importance of getting the right people on the bus!
Today’s Quote:
"You must have confidence in your competence." - Elijah Cummings
Our guest today: John Yanyali, CEO of JuiceBot
John is an energetic entrepreneur who jumped into the business world by investing in the agriculture, education, construction, and technology industries.
He is the former COO of Elektronet, a digital technologies provider similarly focused on the Smart Industry. With John’s involvement, Elektronet became the largest manufacturer and developer of custom hardware and software systems in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2017, he joined Juicebot as an executive board member and last year, he was made the Chief Executive Officer of Juicebot. He builds and models a great company culture while providing inspired leadership
Today we are going to discuss
- Why having a hiring process is critical in raising funding
- How build your hiring process into your capital raise
Why does Your Hiring process affects fund raising
- Investors invest in the people more than the idea itself. A great team will turn a great idea into a great product or a service.
- The technical people who build the product are the key.
- Experienced, key players with a stake in the company will significantly contribute to the business.
- Besides creating a great product, they will help the management in creating new revenue streams.
- Technical due diligence is becoming more important for the investors. Where your product is from a technical stand-point will define its success. Therefore, the investors are spending a considerable amount of time trying to understand the technology behind your product so they can help you with the product-market fit.
- Technology companies need great technical people who own up to the mission of the company. We need to build not only a great company culture but also an authentic engineering culture.
- This will give investors the confidence to fund the company as the alignment of business and technical is necessary to succeed.
Why was it important to bring technical talent first?
- Technical people (engineers, designers, developers) are actually turning the idea into a product. They own the design process.
- We need to connect them with all aspects of the business whether it is marketing, sales, or investor relations.
- We need to create a platform where transparency is key to getting things done. We can not and should not compartmentalize. All the stakeholders of the company need to be aligned on the mission and the vision. That can only be achieved by being transparent and sincere.
Rick’s Input
- Highest failure rate is after seed funding
- Pressure from investors
- Most critical hiring happens after raising seed round
- Critical to have a process at this point!
- Sloppiness kills talent attraction, without talent no future capital raise
How to build hiring process to attract funding. Where do we start?
We need to surround ourselves with effective advisory board members to bring in the expertise we may not have. For many entrepreneurs, the decision to involve outsiders in their business may be a wrenching step. Some simply do not want to dilute their control by establishing a board of directors with formal responsibilities and authority. However, the introduction of an advisory board can help some come to terms with this decision, by enabling an entrepreneur to feel comfortable with the business of providing information to, and accepting advice from, an external group.
- Get the message out there to get help from the startup community
- You need a lot of help. Networking at events, forums… ask for help
- Figure out what you don't know. Then reach out to people with the problems you are facing and allow them to join you when the time is right
- If people are not joining, take a step back and ask why?
- We need to be open to working with other people and be open to feedback and criticism.
- Not isolating people to their lanes. Letting everyone involved contribute at all levels.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Outline your hiring process and timeline
- Phone screen, video/onsite interview, Decision/offer
Key Takeaways:
- The future of your business is dependent on your hiring practices. Every new employee will either contribute positively to customer satisfaction, growth and profitability, or contrasting have a negative impact on the business.
- By adopting a structured and comprehensive hiring process, you’re taking the first step in positioning your business for success by attracting the right talent. The type of talent that will help build the company culture, drive sales and ultimately position the company as a leader in the industry. Failing to instill the right hiring process will do the exact opposite, resulting in under-performing employees and wasting resources, time and money.
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
Conducting A Powerful Phone Interview with Christopher Wood of Rise Recruitment USA
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
One of the most powerful tools in your hiring process in the phone interview. The challenge that we have is that it is treated as a screen just to find out if someone has the skills needed. And this process takes on average 5-10 minutes.
It is such an opportunity loss because your first point of contact should be about establishing the connection with the person regardless of the outcome. Your phone interview sets the stage for how you are perceived and severely affects your ability to hire.
Today’s Quote:
"When it comes to success, there are no shortcuts." - Bo Bennett
Our guest today: Chris Wood, Director of Recruiting for RISE Recruitment USA & Managing Director of theRecruitmentCollective
Chris has spent the past 15 years in the Staffing industry utilizing his background in Recruitment and Account Management to help Fortune 500 companies solve their hiring problems by recruiting top talent within the Aerospace, Automotive, Medical Device, Healthcare, Finance & Consumer Goods industries.
In 2017, he took on the role of Managing Director at theRecruitingCollective, an organization of independent, specialized recruiters and boutique firms centered around providing new, custom talent programs. His primary focus today is attracting over and retaining top talent to the Cannabis, CBD & Natural Products industries.
He previously sat on the board for National Human Resources Association – Los Angeles and is currently on the program committees for DisruptHR Orange County and San Diego. In addition, he is an advisor to numerous Recruiting Technology platforms and emerging Cannabis and CBD companies and a member of the National Association of Cannabis Businesses.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why phone interviews are a critical part of the hiring process
- How to conduct an effective phone interview
Why are Phone interviews more important now than ever?
- Understand the person
- Goals, skills & interests - Career path/motivations
- Passive recruiting - building a constant stream of qualified candidates
- Due to the lack of face to face; with Covid-19 restrictions on in person meetings, this is the only way to hire talent during these times
- Sets the tone for process
Positioning of your phone interview
- Setting a clear objective of what you want to get from the call; feel for personality fit with team, explanation/knowledge of necessary experience, understanding of career path and long term intentions
- Asking specific questions that address strengths of candidate that fills a need with your team
- Identifying interest of candidate in role & joining your team
How to conduct a phone interview
- Self reflection- identifying the hole on the team
- Understand what is really needed
- Identify characteristics of the person so you can create questioning to reveal if candidates fulfills your teams need
- How are you going to find what you need
- Creating the profile of the ideal hire
- Establishing must haves vs nice to haves
- Contact
- Asking the questions that are centered around the key things you need to know
- Strategic questioning
Rick’s Nuggets
- Purpose of the phone interview is to understand the person first
- Identify their reason for hearing (pain), what they want to be doing (desire) and what they have accomplished
Key Takeaways:
- Don't just look at the resume, definitely talk to someone. Take the phone screen very seriously
- Really get to know what the person wants. Get to know them!
Thursday Feb 13, 2020
Thursday Feb 13, 2020
The truth is most of the good players are on the sidelines. Great people are inundated with mindless spam therefore most messaging is getting ignored. Here is the good news, Gallup reports that 7 of 10 people are open to something stronger.
Today’s Quote:
“Great people want to work on things that matter. Inevitably, a great person working on imaginary work will turn into an unsatisfied person.” - Jason Fried
Our guest today: Marc Hutto, Founder & CEO of Reveal Global Intelligence
Marc is the chief architect of Purpose-Driven Recruitment . This methodology focuses the talent acquisition process on the people who are hiring and being hired - as it should be. Revealing hidden and highly-valued talent in this way also aligns to Marc's stated vision for the company of delivering evidential value to every life we touch.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why you believe you can't find people
- The truth behind the myth (79 % of people on LinkedIn, polled, will not see a posting)
- A script to successfully find the people you need - A “pattern interrupt”
Why is the view that company’s can’t find people wrong?
- You can easily believe this because most people are not responding to job postings.
- Mindset - most people need to be approached.
- A lot of people approaching them
- A lot of noise, people not responding
- Only 21% of people are looking at a job posting
Reach out
- Outreach and response is the main challenge
- A lot of the same messages
- Get rid of the hooks and talk to the person
- Pitching the job is the wrong mentality
- Get into career coaching mode as quickly as possible
Rick’s Input
- Treat people all the same, regardless of where they came
- Hit people at their pain point first.
- What could be better?
How to recruit passive talent?
Mindset
- Approach people who did not come to you
- You have to be proactive
- Business owners and leaders take great care when investing in hard assets (equipment, supplies, inventory, etc.) - should we not have the same mindset when investing in a new colleague?
Reach out
- Don't pitch the job (it’s presumptuous)
- Digital video job description (digi-me.com) 1 minute
- Polite, professional, persistent - it differentiates
Coaching call
- Talk to people about them- their career/career drivers
- Look for the opportunity to provide career coaching
- Start a conversation around career drivers
Incumbent interview - document
- Why did you come here?
- Why do you stay?
- Challenges you encounter?
- Want someone to understand what it is like to work for your company?
Reasons why people stay (career drivers)
- Compensation & benefits
- Impact of the work
- Environment - culture, people, space,
- Personal & professional growth
- Leadership or management
Rick’s Nuggets
- On average 7-10 calls to get in touch a person today
- Write 5 email sequences
- Top Desires: Growth, Content of Work, Leadership
Key Takeaways:
- Hiring and being hired are big deals. Keep them humanized. Focus on Career Drivers.
- If you are an employer, you are in sales mode for top talent.
- Post and Pray has to give way to Polite, Professional Persistence.
- Purpose Driven Recruitment Toolkit: revealglobal.com/hirepower
Thursday Feb 06, 2020
Thursday Feb 06, 2020
Reference checking is so important... yet so underutilized. Why? Because it is too time-consuming! But when you fail to reference check you are dramatically increasing the likelihood of making the wrong hire. On top of that, you are missing out on a potential recruiting opportunity
Today’s Quote:
"References drive the industry." - Mark V. Hurd
Our guest today: Yves Lermusi, Co-Founder & CEO of Checkster
Checkster is powering talent decisions of organizations and providers of staffing and HR services. The company aims to improve the world's productivity and harmony by increasing job fit and work achievement, as well as personal career satisfaction and fulfillment.
Yves is a well-known public speaker and a Career and Talent industry commentator. He is often quoted in the leading business media worldwide, and has been named as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the Recruiting Industry”.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why checking references is important
- Voice reference checks vs digital reference checks
- The framework for a successful reference check
Reference checking, what’s the issue?
- People don't do
- Or they do totally wrong
Why are they doing references wrong?
- Only speaking to people that are given
- Talking to 2-3
- Talking to over the phone (filtered feedback)
Digital advantages
- Digitally people are more honest
- People pretend to be their own reference
- Consistency in the questions
Rick’s input
- Design references to evaluate against company culture
- Ability to dig deep on the answers
How to do references right
- Peers or managers recently. In direct contact
- Speak to at least 4 references - the measurement of success 80% in making a good hire vs. just 2 references
- Ask the right questions
- Relevant to the job and non-leading, (leading the witness)
- “Would you rehire?”
- Starting broad and going specific
- Do it digitally
- Saves time
Rick’s Nuggets
- How are you able to question deeper to understand the motivation of the answer?
- Written referrals don't give you the ability to recruit the person
Key Takeaways:
- Get at least feedback from 4 relevant colleagues (relevant:recent profesional close experience)
- Ask predictive questions
- Do it digitally
Monday Jan 27, 2020
Hiring for Intellectual Value Over Spec! with Scott Hamilton of ENPI
Monday Jan 27, 2020
Monday Jan 27, 2020
Today’s show is all about challenging your past behavior. What has worked in the past will not work in the future and this is especially true in hiring! Hire people who think beyond the job you are hiring for and give them runway to grow. This is the only way to spark innovation and propel the growth of your business.
Today’s Quote:
"None of us is as smart as all of us." - Ken Blanchard
Our guest today: Scott Hamilton, President & CEO of Executive Next Practices Institute
Scott is a well-known thought leader & speaker in the field of “next practices” improvement of executive and workforce performance for global “Fortune 5000” through emerging companies.
He is also the Managing Director of NextWORKS Strategy, a premier provider of strategy development, alignment, innovation, board effectiveness, and executive performance programs to middle-market companies. Both of these entities have been recognized by Forbes and the Orange County Business Journal as leaders in fields of innovation, INtrepreneurship and strategic transformation.
Today we are going to discuss
- Intellectual Value vs Skills
- Your talent innovation ecosystem
- 4 step process to maximize your
What are the blinders that entrepreneurs have
- Past behavior
- Curiosity about what is coming next
- Bigger picture
- Different domains other than your own domain
Why is it important that we hire people who can think above and beyond?
- The organization needs to remain nimble and adaptable
- Give the flexibility to innovate and grow
- Allow for managed risk
- Learning opportunities
How do we fix it?
- Stop hiring for the current problem. Why?
- Boxing yourself in
- Engaging the collective intelligence of the organization
4 Step Process
- First Question
- How have things been done in the past?
- What no longer makes sense?
- What can change?
- Reduce
- Eliminate or reduce the activity
- What Practices, processes or services can be eliminated in the organization?
- Raise
- What can be done to rise above the competition?
- Build it to a better service model
- Re-onboarding
- See what it is really like
- Create
- What can you create that is totally new
- Elevating value propositions
- Start doing ROI, customer/employee satisfaction, overall effectiveness
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Interview Qualification is a Two-Way Street with Greg Toroosian of Elevate Hire
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Each individual brings a unique perspective to every interview conversation. Yet most interviews focus on “what you can do for me” almost entirely from a skills perspective. People want to know what’s in it for them before they choose to engage with you.
Today’s Quote:
"Though we may have desires or bold goals, for whatever reason, most of us don't think we can achieve something beyond what we're qualified to achieve." - Simon Sinek
Our guest today: Greg Toroosian, Founder & Managing Director of Elevate Hire
Greg Toroosian founded Elevate Hire after more than a decade in the Talent Acquisition space. Having previously worked for startups, globally recognized brands, and recruiting agencies, He believes that recruiting and retaining talent is key to having a successful company.
Greg is an expert at qualifying talent for organizations which has led to successful hires for many clients in a variety of industries.
Today we are going to discuss:
- Types of qualification
- Plan of attack on how to effectively qualify people
What is candidate qualification?
- Definition: A quality or accomplishment that makes someone suitable for a particular job or activity
- Two types of qualification
Checkbox
- Asking yes/no questions
- Requirements focused
- Doing the bare minimum
- Ineffective because you are lying to yourself
Thorough
- Have a clear understanding about what the person is actually looking for
- Clarify the likelihood of acceptance of the job
- Fit for the company
- Answer the question (Is this a good candidate)
What's important for qualification?
- Look at profile (linkedin, resume)
- Longevity, career trajectory, companies/industries, titles
- Recommendations (linkedin)
How do we avoid having a checkbox process
- Mindset of the call: don’t go into every call wanting or being hopeful that this person will work out. Ask the questions that unearth what you really need to know.
- Conversational qualification calls.
- Ask open questions, ask scenario-based questions, and ask questions that will determine if this person is a non-starter.
- Listen carefully. Be strict and be honest.
Framework for Effective Qualification
- Firstly, you need a clear understanding of the role you’re interviewing for, its scope, the immediate need, and the future possibilities.
- Be comfortable in leading the conversation so you can get the questions answered that you need.
- Conversational and open questions with enough space for the person to really say what you need to hear.
- Have a form of the questions to be asked, know what you need the answers to be, but don’t read a script.
Key Takeaways:
- Build your own qualification form to use as the foundation for every call.
- Questions that unearth a lot:
- Why are you open to a new role?
- What are you looking for from your next role?
- Talk me through your current role and responsibilities. You can tell a lot about someone's role, their involvement, and their overall understanding of their craft by hearing them speak freely about it. Take notes and then clarify any points you need to.
- After telling them about your open position, ask them how it sounds to them as a next step? What specifically appeals to them from what you shared? Get them to sell the role back to you and to sell themselves as a candidate.
Thursday Jan 16, 2020
Thursday Jan 16, 2020
Making a strong hire starts with attracting the right people. Knowing who the right hire is the first step. But in order to attract the right people there needs to be a message that resonates with the individual and motivates them to respond.
Today we are talking about hacking your hiring through the use of communication profiles.
Today’s Quote:
"Hacking involves a different way of looking at problems that no one's thought of." - Walter O'Brien
CEO of Scorpion Computer Services and executive producer of the TV series Scorpion
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. Our mission is to help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and provide proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Christopher Hadnagy, CEO of Social-Engineer, Inc.
Chris Hadnagy is a professional social engineer, author of 4 books, and keynote speaker. He’s the CEO of Social‐Engineer, LLC, a company who serves some of the globe’s largest organizations. Additionally, Chris provides free resources, including the world’s first Social Engineering Framework, via Social-Engineer.Org, and heads the Innocent Lives Foundation, a non-profit that unmasks anonymous child predators.
So Christopher knows hacking! Which makes Christopher a perfect expert for today’s topic.
Christopher, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to discuss:
- Identifying the right person
- Crafting the right messaging to attract
- Logical steps to weed out the obvious
Problem
- Really bad hires!
- People look great on the surface
- Not showing up for work
- Quitting fast
Why am I having an issue getting good employees?
- *** realize how much time you spend on the back end when you hire with the wrong people
- Aftermath
- Lost over 100 hours and thousands of dollars
- Killed company morale
- Outline the type of person you want before you start interviewing
- Thinking about the work that needs to be accomplished
- Defining expectations up front
- Managing your own expectations- avoid unreasonable tasks
- Experience expected to have
Rick’s input
-
- Create messaging around the personality profile of a successful hire
- Pain, Desire & Impact
How do we fix it?
- Determine the best communications profile first
- Write the job description with keywords that attract the right people
- Describe the words and language to attract the right person.
- Detract the wrong people.
- Logic steps to weed out the obvious
- A list of questions to determine the right fit, video interview to whittle down to 3
- Give the disc test - confirm communication style
- Weed out the wrong cultural fit
- Confirm what is really needed with who the person is
How does one determine the right messaging?
- Disc profiling roles (general)
- D- management, leadership, - Aware D - understands how they communicate
- I- Sales, public speaking, Training
- S- HR, support role,
- C- Accounting, office management - detail & organization
Rick’s Nuggets:
- One size fits all messaging does not work
- Create messaging with a call to action to minimize
- Performance metrics attract the right people
- Plan and put process in place
Key Takeaways:
- Time invested in the prework saves thousands of dollars for the company
- Define what it is that a person must have
Thursday Jan 09, 2020
Business Aligned Hiring Roadmap with Kelly OConnell & Shelley Iocona of ON ITS AXIS
Thursday Jan 09, 2020
Thursday Jan 09, 2020
We all get how impressive the hire from a name brand company might be. However, more often than not, making the vanity hire turns out disastrous for both parties. Why?
Too often hires are made based on a particular set of skills or a person’s pedigree. Not taking into account the importance of cultural alignment or the objectives of the business. Your hires should be made on the basis of what is best for the company backed by evidence of performance.
Today we are talking about how to Accelerate Company Growth with a Business Aligned Hiring Roadmap.
Today’s Quote:
"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often."
- Brian Tracy
Our guests today: Kelly OConnell, Executive Vice President & Shelley Iocona, Founder & Principal of ON ITS AXIS.
ON ITS AXIS is a Product and People firm. We help organizations validate new digital product ideas and build the teams that allow them to successfully take them to market.
They have found that just as the launch of a successful product begins with a customer-centric roadmap, Talent Acquisition that is grounded in understanding how a company can most efficiently deliver client satisfaction and adapt to changing client needs is critical to a company's ability to efficiently scale.
Today we are going to discuss:
- The common mindset and the problems that are created
- The importance of building a business objective roadmap
- How to create your own roadmap
Why is this important?
The strength of the company is the people delivering the product in the marketplace. The winning company will have the strongest team. When managers struggle to hire it directly impacts team productivity and company growth potential.
It is important for organizations to approach hiring with a business objective roadmap rather than focusing exclusively on skills and perceived fit.
What challenges Hiring Managers face?
The most common challenges we observe in the market are:
- adhoc hiring: where a manager is under pressure to make a hire in response to an urgent perceived team need
- confirmation hiring: where a manager tries to identify a replica of their own profile or the profile of a successful team contributor
- cultural fit exclusion: where a manager rules out a candidate based on their subjective perception that they won't fit into a current team culture.
Although understandable, particularly for high growth teams, hiring to a standardized and generic target profile is problematic because too much of a focus on matching skills and current team fit can lead to uniformity in the workforce that can unintentionally limit both the potential candidate pool and the potential for innovation in the workplace.
These challenges can result in several problems including
- Endless interview cycle with no hires
- Offer turn downs
- High Company Turnover Rates
- The incorrect perception that a company needs A LOT more developers or Sales People etc. to achieve goals which can adversely impact profitability and growth
Additionally, there is often a corresponding negative impact to the existing team culture when organizations approach hiring in this way:
- Internal Team Conflict
- The current team is overworked and under pressure.
- Existing people feel they are doing more than their fair share of work
- Poor Team Productivity and Missed Deadlines
- Perception that the current team members are the “wrong fit” for the company
What needs to be in Place?
A structured, and efficient interview process.
Align hiring triggers to business model objectives, structure team OKR’s to directly correlate to key company goals and at each hire to modify the generic role job description and interview scoring rubric to address the most essential team gap at that given point in time.
This doesn’t mean that companies should ignore skills and culture. They are important but we see them as part of the larger talent acquisition and internal performance management plan.
Companies that most rapidly grow, are capable of executing nimble pivots in response to changing customer expectations.
Team members must be able to grow and evolve within the company. Rather than hiring for proficiency in a laundry list of current skills, instead, we encourage companies to establish predictive hiring indexes that will help them to assess a hires potential to learn and evolve to changing expectations within the company.
How do we fix it?
- Define the core success factors that allow you to best serve your users
- Identify the key technical and soft-skill gaps in your core team
- Leverage a Data-driven approach to both team composition and hiring capacity (Swarmvision- profiling to predict innovation capacity for teams- this is not personality profiling
- Create a regular cadence for review of your talent acquisition roadmap
- Provide all employees with a clear path to career development & professional growth
We encourage clients to Hire to fill the most impactful skill-gaps on your existing team and be willing to transfer internal team members into new roles that better serve them and your business objectives.
Creating a business aligned hiring roadmap not only helps organizations avoid several of the pitfalls previously shared but it also has the added benefit of helping organizations attract and retain both gen Z and gen Y employees.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Structured Hiring process wins hires!
Key Takeaways:
- Embrace a structured interview process that is based on a strategic hiring roadmap to avoid pressured hiring decisions and confirmation bias
- Just as you evaluate your company business plan at a regular cadence, develop a regular cadence for review of your organization's talent acquisition plan
- Rather than matching employees to a current team profile, view each hire as an opportunity to complement the strengths of your existing team and to support your most critical team business objectives. This will allow your organization to evolve to changing customer sentiment.
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Hiring People Who Are Outside Your Comfort Zone! with Aaron Elder of Crelate
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Friday Jan 03, 2020
It is all too common to look for the person who brings the skills you deem necessary for your role. But the person who brings all the skills may not be the best person in the role. There are a lot of people who are in adjacent industries or sitting on the sidelines who are open to an opportunity like yours.
What does it take to find great people? Looking past the skills for evidence of success that will be transferable to your company. As we all know, past performance is a key indicator of future performance.
Today’s Quote:
“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.”
- Dale Carnegie
Our guest today: Aaron Elder, Co-Founder & CEO of Crelate
Aaron is a serial entrepreneur with 4 successful products, 3 companies and 2 exits under his belt. He is a designer, turned coder, turned CTO, turned CEO who is passionate about creating products people love and make the world better.
Crelate exists to help businesses continuously align people with opportunities. Aaron has a passion for taking a chance on people who are changing careers - giving people a shot
Today we discuss:
- Hiring outside the norm to combat the talent shortage
- a recipe to successfully hire
Solution to the talent shortage
- Taking an age blind approach
- Considering the skills level
- Not just a blind hire
Challenges?
- Casting a wider net- seeing through things
- Opening the holes in the net
- Look past skills to the ancillary skills
- Career shows you as a non-fact (switching careers-coming in as a jr person). Measure people based on risk rather than
- A propensity for learning new things, being innovative and growing, you will probably be able to bring that to the table
Issue of Compensation
- Is a pay cut really realistic? Taking a shot
- Until you talk to them, you don’t really know.
- *** Training and investment need to be real. The organization needs to be all in on people development
Rick’s input
- Look for transferable skills
- Adjacent industries
- Evidence of success
How do we fix it?
- Finding the people who are performers and not just seat fillers
- indicator of career changes,
- Tenacity & grit, raw materials
- Look for evidence of past success
- Hide Easter egg’s in the job post.
- Questionnaires
- Invest in Recruiters- matchmakers
- Have more conversations with people and look past the resume
- Internal training programs
- The long game is the only solution he knows.
- Short term road bumps but long term it is an investment in an approach.
- Be self-aware of the game
- optimize for the long game (bring investors on board)
- Looking to solve a long term problem - at least a 2-year problem
- Education & training which require intense focus and investment upfront.
- Benefit? -the path for retention, earned loyalty, path for mutual benefit
- If you are not growing, you will have a hard time keeping people who want to be growing
- Take more chances on people who do not have ALL the skills
- Creating training, review process that career ladder, reviews, culture for people to enjoy
- Invest in systems to automate points 1 & 2 more possible
Key Takeaways:
- Solve the talent gap/shortage by being able to take chances on people, give them a chance to tell their story and see if it fits. Look past skills to underlying achievements, velocity, grit, etc.
- Invest in the long haul - internal learning, time, training, the culture of personal growth and achievement.
- Do what you can to make #1 and #2 more efficient. That means the right tools and processes that fit those goals. Not work against them.
Friday Nov 29, 2019
Referrals Vs Applicants with Ladan Davia of Beeya
Friday Nov 29, 2019
Friday Nov 29, 2019
According to Linkedin, the #1 way to discover a new job is through a referral… and referrals are the top source of quality hires.
Look, there are good people responding to posted jobs but most likely, they are being passed over. Why?
Our guest today says “The answer is serving up less to maintain more” when looking for talent. Using AI and machine learning can help target the right applicants to diversify your talent pool to find the right hire.
Today’s Quote:
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” - Milton Berle
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. Our mission is to help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and provide proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Ladan Davia, Founder & CEO for Beeya
Beeya, is a meta-search engine for jobs that hosts all jobs on the internet, in one place. It is the only platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to accurately match candidates to jobs they are qualified for, solving the faulty keyword issue other online platforms serve users.
Ladan has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Fox Business, and The Wall Street Journal, and is using her influence to help young entrepreneurs, especially women, break through the tech industry.
Which makes Ladan a perfect expert for today’s topic.
Ladan, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to cover
- Referrals vs. applicants -benefits to each
- Other options for hiring
- How to level the playing field and bring the right talent forward regardless of where they came
Why it is wrong to focus on referral candidates?
- Unfair advantage to people who are connected
- Not based on merit
Why employers are losing good people?
- Just because someone is in transition does not mean they are bad
- Referrals are not necessarily the best hire
Why it costs employers more?
- They are not hiring the right people
- Taking the easy out by hiring the easy way.
Rick’s input
- Time is the big factor here
- Referrals take less time and are partially vetted
- Not putting the right amount of diligence in the interview process
- Other options
- 3rd option - targeted recruiting
- More time-intensive, allows you to stack the deck with A-players
How do we fix this hiring issue?
- Different ways of filtering applicants
- Keyword filtering does not work (no buzzwords)
- Needs to go
- What do we focus on then if not keywords??
Time issue?
- How to replace the keyword with AI & ML
- Challenges: the AI can become bias
- Need to eliminate name, age & gender
Rick’s Nuggets
- Applicant Filtering
- Performance metrics in the job description
- Eliminate buzzwords
- Call to Action in the JD to self filter… answer to 3 questions
- Time issue
- Utilize the phone screen
- 30-45 minutes will save hours in the long run
Key Takeaways:
- Look for alternative ways to hire and stay away from a keyword match
- Don’t be so open to referrals. Open your mind to other people
Thursday Nov 21, 2019
Thursday Nov 21, 2019
Telling a story is the quickest way to gain a person’s attention. The challenge in recruiting is telling a story that is compelling to the person you need to hire. And to top it off your story is just like everyone else and it is all about you!
What if we wrote each story differently than everyone else. Would we get better results? Damn right you will, and today my guest and I are out to prove it!
Today’s Quote:
"Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is." - Tim O'Brien
Our guest today: Michael Goldberg, Founder & CEO of Hiring Transformed
Recruiting Strategist, Talent Finder, and Hiring Manager Whisperer all describe Michael who advises and coaches Talent Acquisition Leaders through roadblocks. The biggest obstacle is the ability of both recruiters and Hiring Managers to tell stories that are authentic and engaging. Michael also assists talent organizations with strategies to increase productivity, create strong recruiter/hiring manager partnerships, and lead change management initiatives.
Today we are going to cover
- The importance of storytelling in recruiting
- How to tell a better story and the framework for recruiting success
Why is storytelling important?
- Give me people now, make sure they are qualified and let’s just get them in the door and we will be able to close them.
- Don’t take the time to engage, just jump in and let’s go
- Don’t know how to kick off relationships.
- Jump right into it about the position
- Most people are not responded
People don’t respond to your messages... Why?
- Very overwhelming
- 4-5 times a day
- Information overload
- The same exact message
- Timing
- Area of interest
- Miss-targeting, misinformed
Rick’s Input
- Text, email, social feeds (paid media)
How do we do it?
- Start with a Story
- The story is told voice to voice!
- Humanize it
- Don’t run the story at 30,000 feet
- Capture their attention in a job posting or messaging
- Could be done as a video or as a blog
- Goal is to get to a phone call
Structure of the story
- Create the Hero- someone within the company
- A successful employee
- Should be a peer
- Makes it more relatable
- Mission or goal and share the obstacles are/were (targeting)
- Immediate and concrete to create rapport to create a connection
- “Have you been in a situation like this before?”
- Resolution (get over the obstacles & hit goals… or it didn’t work out, what would you do differently
- About showing, not just telling
- “Imaging yourself just completing X. You have worked with Sally and Joe and were able to overcome these major obstacles. You were able to deliver X with your team....Like selling a car “Imagine yourself behind the wheel of…”
Rick’s Nuggets
- The story should not be about you
- Try to make the person you are trying to recruit the hero
- Design the story to a specific pain that the person may have
- Make it relatable to that specific person
- Tool for crafting messaging
- Crystal Knows- messaging
Key Takeaways:
- Build trust through strategically crafted stories and will help recruiters differentiate themselves from others.
- Storytelling can take different forms depending on where the storyteller plans on sharing info. Videos, Blogs, & Social Media posts but videos prevail because it is the best way to create trust between the recruiter and the candidates.
- Storytelling should be told throughout the recruiting process. Not only by recruiters but by hiring managers and would-be peers
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
In honor of Halloween, we are sharing interview horror stories. We all have heard campfire stories of a crazy interview or even a scary hire. Today we are going to help you identify crazy on both sides of the coin to help you avoid a tragic nightmare.
How not to get hired or have someone accept your job offer
Today’s Quote:
"If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it." - Ray Bradbury
Our guest today: LeiLani Quiray, Founder & CEO of bethechangeHR
LeiLani has a fiery passion for both Human Resources and philanthropy. She believes people are a company’s most valuable asset and they should be cared for as such but no only on a level where the business truly cares but a quantifiable basis where we measure the effectiveness of the programs we put in place to foster a healthy work environment.
be the change HR, Inc., a conscious company and social enterprise, provides fractional HR executive support, strategy and service to businesses in any facet of HR from pre-hire to post-term and everything else that happens in between.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Ghandi
Yup...she's doing just that!
- Scary Things people do in interviews
- What scares People from your company
- Avoiding your own horror stories
Warning signs of an upcoming bad interview
- Showing up late, without a phone call
- Typos in the resume- the devil is in the details
- customer experience
- fast paste environment
- Heavy Perfume
Two Stories
- Schwane Schwiley
- Rejection Letter & his response (I have one of the emails!)
- “My Truck was Stolen (and hit by a train) - A case of a negligent hire
Rick’s Input:
Company Fails
- Lack of clarity & setting performance metrics
- Constant re-scheduling
- Unstructured interview process
- Arrogant interview process
- Setting the environment to maximize a person’s performance in the interview
- Group whiteboard test designed to make you crack
- Adversarial
- Erase work while answering questions
Two Story Conclusion
- Schwane Schwiley
- Swifter involvement to protect employees (myself)
- Crazy is out there and you can’t control it
- “My Truck was Stolen (and hit by a train) - A case of a negligent hire
- Background checks are key
- Overlooking criminal history = negligent hiring
What do we need to pay attention to?
- The frame of mind (desperation, urgency)
- Over aggressiveness
Rick’s Nuggets
- Diligence in the phone screen
- Uncover the truth & the crazy
- Focus on the person, not the skills
- Skills-based hires breed horror stories
- Pain, Desire & Impact
- 3 behavioral-based questions designed to get under the hood
- Beware: taking credit, playing well with others & the blame game
Key Takeaways:
- Watch out for warning signs in the very beginning
- Sometimes sh!t just happens but you MUST take action quickly
- Background checks are important!
Thursday Oct 17, 2019
Thursday Oct 17, 2019
Founders, the quickest way to attract investment is to already have a team in place and the wheels in motion. People will join your startup prior to raising capital when they are committed to you as a leader and the mission of the company.
You do not need money to hire exceptional talent. You need to know who the business needs first. Then bring value to them personally and/or professionally based on their pains & desires.
Today’s Quote:
"Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team."
- John C. Maxwell
Our guest today: Carey Ransom, President of the newly formed OC4 Venture Studio & Host of Accelerate OC
Carey is an entrepreneurial thrill seeker and company builder, serving team members and customers along the way. He has a founder attitude, even when he joins a business already underway, or take over the reins of a company. Carey excels in business and corporate development, technology and product strategy, marketing, sales, and channel partner development, and has led many startup-to-growth companies to successfully pursue breakthrough business opportunities. He’s done millions of dollars of business via LinkedIn as well!
Today we are going to cover:
- Why you should build your team BEFORE you try to raise capital
- How to recruit people when you have no money to pay them
Why is it important to build your team before you start to raise capital?
- -Sell the idea, gets people excited about it.
- Convince people to join, but the employee experience on the inside suck
Where do Entrepreneurs get stuck?
- Pretending you have it all figured out is really dangerous
- -the opposite of the strong figurehead, being vulnerable
- -we are looking for help and we are willing to listen
Rick’s Input:
- Best way to prove your company has legs is to have a team
- Allow people who are involved to become invested by active participation
- Utilize their talent and keep engaged
- “Once I get the Money” syndrome
Mindset:
- High ego to start,
- Be selfless as you can and give it away.
- Want everyone to be a founder in their mind
- Being transparent & vulnerable
- Not having to make every decision
- Not always having to be right
How does one build a team without having the Money?
- Create a Safe Environment for people to take risks without penalization
- Encouraging risk - leader fails first- set the example
Rick’s two cents:
- Network
- Get to know your teammates before you approach to hire
- Understand their career pains & desires
- Look for alignment (do not force it…. Nurture Campaign)
- Plant seeds
- Seize the Opportunity
- Ask for help!
- Gain involvement (advisory to start)
- Communicate and keep involved
- Allow the relationship to grow & evolve
- Create the ecosystem for each person lean in
- Give what you can
- Equity
- Title
- *maintain high integrity
Key Takeaways:
- Look at every single person as an investor. Be open to different types of arrangements
- Be careful to not oversell/overstate your advisor involvement
- Find people who will be really real to keep you grounded. Ultimately the best team wins!
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
The Challenges & Benefits of Hiring Refugees with Chris Chancey of Amplio Recruiting
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
We are in a negative unemployment market and there are just not enough workers on the open job market. The solution might be taking a different avenue... Hiring Refugees.
There is great value to expanding beyond your scope of the limited talent pool into unfamiliar waters. Consider people who are motivated, engaged and reliable to elevate company performance.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"We must find a way to balance our tradition as a state welcoming of refugees while ensuring the safety and security of our citizens." Bruce Rauner - Former Governor of Illinois
Guest Bio:
Amplio Recruiting is a staffing agency placing refugees into jobs across the US. Chris Chancey launched Amplio in 2014 after moving into a refugee community outside of Atlanta, GA and now leads a team that has placed over 5000 refugees from 40 different countries into full-time employment at over 300 US companies.
As a social entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author of Refugee Workforce, a book articulating the economic impact of refugees in America, Chris believes in leveraging business to create greater stability for the 70M displaced people around the globe.
Show Highlights:
- Why refugees make great hires
- Dispel some of the beliefs
- Provide a How-to guide to locate and hire
Why is this a good pool of talent?
- Legal to work
- High retention (80% @ 3 months & 70% after 1 year)
- Drug-free- zero
- Increase of productivity - high growth mindset
- Company's reporting back double quota
- Mostly Congo, Burma, middle east
What does a company need to know about hiring refugees?
- Language barrier
- They learn English faster when they have a job
- Software to help train
- Transportation
- Rely on public trans
- Mostly blue-collar
- Only 10-20% have advanced skills
- Cultural Awareness
- Diversity welcome
How does a company tap into the Refugee pool?
- First, open the culture to diversity thinking
- Are safety and other relevant signs posted in the native languages of employees to assure a full understanding of a safe environment?
- Do you have an intra-company multicultural calendar to avoid scheduling important events or meetings on major cultural holidays?
- In the onboarding process, are materials offered in both English and the employee’s native language?
- Are meet-and-greets, building tours, team lunches, and other activities in place to ease the new employee into a comfortable atmosphere?
- Are training materials or presentations reviewed before introducing them to employees of different cultures to see if anything needs to be modified or explained in a different way?
- Top-down approach
- Promote inclusivity: the focus is not diversity, the focus is inclusivity
- Specific examples:
- Systems in place to accommodate onboarding:
- Slow onboarding time: What you would typically cover in two days, with a traditional employee, spread it out over a week or so. It’s better to over-communicate on the front-end than have to make amends for lost time, resources and relationships on the back-end.
- Don’t leave anything to chance: Communicate, communicate, communicate. Be direct with instruction and don’t assume the other person immediately understands. Overstate tasks and ask questions to assess comprehension. Avoid demeaning tones and be patient with questions, and don’t assume employees understand even the most basic cultural norms.
- Second, search “refugee organizations near me” on google to connect with local non-profit refugee agencies. They will be willing to educate you on the community and can invite you to local community events. If you share a job description with them, they can help refer to potential candidates.
Key Takeaways:
- Recognize the value of refugee community (buy the book)
- Connect with your local refugee community
- Consider ways you can employ refugees at your company
Thursday Sep 19, 2019
Thursday Sep 19, 2019
Today we are taking an honest look at your hiring record. Data does not lie!
The success or failure of your hiring is a direct result of your interview process. Everything from the messaging, the experience of the first contact through to the way the interview is conducted determines your hiring outcome. It is NOT money!!
A shift in mindset is needed to understand that people have options and your company is not as special as you think. You need to stand out. You can do this by providing growth.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold." - William Hurt
Guest Bio:
David Patterson is the Founder and Managing Director of The Kineta Group and TheSAPRecruiter.com, and also a member of Sanford Rose, a top-10 ranked world-wide retained search firm (Executive Search Review).
He is The SAP Recruiter, and helps CIOs, IT Execs, and Talent Acquisition Pros hire and retain the best SAP talent in the known Universe. In his 15 years as an SAP Recruiter, David estimated that he personally interviewed between 5,000-6,000 candidates for all levels to include Architect up through the C-Suite.
Show Highlights:
- Why it is important to really dissect your hiring record
- Understanding what success should look like
- Evolve your own unique process into an experience that attracts the right people
Why is it important that you take an honest look at your hiring record
Your Hiring record is the result of your interview process.
What data should be measured?
- Number of people interviewed to get to an offer
- How many people turned down your offer
- Last 10-20 hires
What a record should look like?
- Where people fell out… timing issues. The truth about taking too long, dropping the ball, the impressions you are leaving
- Self-actualization- following the pack,
- Different interview process- repel as much as it attracts. How can I scare people off? (the anti-sell) - The Crossfit sell
Rick’s Input:
- Retraction: Video interview is all good … one way video interviews- Bad Idea!
- Past performance is a key indicator of future performance
- TRUTH: Money is not the reason someone turned down your offer
- Data
- First Interview to Placement ratio
- Offers extended
- Accepted / Rejected
How do we fix a broken Hiring record?
Use the strategy to drive the message.
- Be polarizing to attract the people who love you
- The majority of people don't get what you do, the ones that do become believers
- Finding that career wound…the pain that they have become habituated too. That’s where you pivot!
- (but you need to first find those common pains that most candidates in your industry have, as well as develop the skill to elegantly bring that out in people during interviews)
Create a “Special Sauce” where you attract the people you want.
- Cult-like following. Special tribe
- Don't be afraid to repel the wrong people.
- People who are attracted to the mavericks
Assessment of why you hire the way you do.
- Not seeing all the right people out there
- Based on the job descriptions
- View on the JD flows into how to recruit
- How you onboard/retain them
Rick’s two cents:
- Understand your Candidate
- Accept that you are one of many
- Fill the gap in the person’s career
- Provide a growth road map
- Target specific people and nurture
- 4:1 Interview to placement ratio
Key Takeaways:
If you don’t want to be just another commodity employer, you need to:
- Be willing to take a step back and figure out, fundamentally, the pains, fears, and dreams that drive the people you want to hire (and recognize that you are selling a product that solves a pain)
- Be willing to draw pain and dreams out of the people you are interviewing (to see what makes them tick, in their heart)
- Be willing to be polarizing and repel as much as you attract, if not more so!
Friday Sep 13, 2019
Tapping into Veteran Talent Pools! with Brian Erickson of Vidoori
Friday Sep 13, 2019
Friday Sep 13, 2019
A lot of companies shy away from hiring veterans because they don’t understand the value that they may bring to the table.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Cisco & Walgreens have programs in full force but the majority of startups have yet to really get on board. The diversity in thought that comes from hiring a vet may be the competitive edge that your startup needs to propel your business ahead of your competition.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"We hire military veterans because they make great employees. They bring proven technical and leadership skills. They understand teamwork, and they're adaptable. Bottom line, hiring veterans is good for business."
Randall L. Stephenson - CEO of AT&T
Guest Bio:
Brian Erickson serves as the Vice President, Strategy and Solutions at Vidoori, Inc. He leads company expansion strategies bringing the Vidoori brand to the west coast. Brian has over 26 years of experience in Naval Aviation, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Information Operations, Strategic Programs and sourcing/acquisition. Brian is a retired Senior Naval Officer (Captain/O6) with proven experience and expertise across numerous technical domains bringing a warfighters perspective to Vidoori’s mission of delivering excellence.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from San Diego State University, a Master of Business Administration (Financial Management) from the Naval Postgraduate School, a Master of Science (Information Technology) from the Naval Postgraduate School and an Executive Management Certification from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Additionally, Brian holds numerous defense and industry related certifications to include: CISSP, GSLC, CISSO, CISSM, DAWIA Level 3 PM, DAWIA Level 3 IT, CKM, ITIL.
Show Highlights:
- The benefits of hiring veterans
- Challenges in the crossover
- What is needed to hire veterans today
Why hire veterans?
- Advantages of hiring veterans
- Hard workers
- Trained
- All the same, competencies that civilians do +1
- Life experience
- Much harder workers, disciplined
Why do companies not hire veterans?
- Language Translation - understanding of Military terminology
- Skills Mismatch -
- Negative Stereotypes / Bias - too rigid, formal, chain of command
- “Alpha” mentality
- Aggression / PTSD / disability fears
- Cultural Fit
- Fear of future deployments
Rick’s Input:
- Military ranking & conditioning
- Diversity in thought
- Requires a shift in mindset
- Impactful behavior transfers
How to Successfully hire Veterans
Preparation is Key!
- Process & Structure
- Checklist oriented
- Understand rigidity in the government process
- Outline the Framework, Training & Direction
Rick’s two cents
- Embrace the differences in Mindset
- Seek to understand the mindset
- More important to have a structured interview process
Key Takeaways:
- Have an established interviewing team that works well together; bring in a technical “ringer” as required to round out the depth and breadth of conversation.
- Hire military...highly technical, lots of experience, trustworthy, bang for your buck
- Transactional vs relational (stick with relational)
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Friday Jul 19, 2019
The usefulness or uselessness of AI & Employment branding in Recruiting.
Today’s Quote:
"This is what Steve Jobs understood: Brands are defined not by the best thing on the product but by the worst thing."
- Robert Scoble
Guest Bio:
MJ Shores is a Chief Marketing Strategist and technology trends analyst. With a rich and diverse professional background in public policy, business, and technology, she is sought out for her far-reaching, cross-industry and cultural insights. MJ has been a panelist and keynote speaker at industry and special interest events around the globe. She has been featured in Business Week, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, China Post, and other media.
MJ developed her expertise through a career that spans working as a policy analyst at a think tank, serving in leadership roles at top global business schools (e.g., Wharton School of Business, UCLA, University of Moscow – Russia), and leading marketing efforts at technology firms (e.g., SaaS software, digital streaming or OTT), and others. She is involved in the local business community, where she is an acting Senior Strategic Advisor for Executive Next Practices (ENP).
Show Highlights:
- The role AI plays in employment branding & hiring
- What works & what doesn’t
- A road map of where & how to invest your time
Problem:
Challenges:
What is the relationship between AI & employment branding?
- Your brand is created by the experience people have with your brand. AI helps you determine the truth between your perspective and what the market thinks.
- How you brand your company and serve your prospects.
Where is it working?
- Routine functions *** open up time for HR to engage with People ***
- Extracting data
- Automated process for scheduling & auto response
- Monitoring your brand for good/bad feedback
Where does it now work?
- Tasks that require judgement
- Inferences between intent and keywords
- Still really in beta, not quite ready for primetime
Rick’s Input:
- Administrative tasks
- Resume screening- Both fail here
- Does not engage people
Solutions:
How to best use AI
Roadmap
- Spend $ on Training HR to identify and use technology.
- Rely on IT to identify and recommend tools. But IT does not understand Recruiting problems
- Start with a simple chatbot to automate scheduling and response to website querrys/candidate questions
- Social listening tools- candidate identification/sourcing
- Red flag/background check piece as a final step
- ethics & morality of this step
Rick’s two cents
- AI cannot replace human interaction!
- You still need to pick up the phone and find out the truth
- Do NOT rely on tools or resumes to filter people in our out!
Key Takeaways:
- Brands are No Longer Owned by Companies (in an era of skepticism of companies and traditional marketing, the voice of potential candidates and the public are central to your brand)
- AI Enhances the Candidate Experience & Talent Acquisition
- AI Will Enable HR to Become Human Again
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Engagement!
Well, not the type of engagement you might be thinking of.
Engagement in the business sense. Employee engagement is the one critical element that leads to the success of your business! Which I believe starts from the first point of contact with your organization… yes before someone is hired!
Today’s Quote:
“Not what you say, not what you do but how you make people feel.” - Maya Angelou
Guest Bio:
Steve Higginbotham is the Branch Manager of Volt Workforce Solutions. As an executive business partner and inclusive leader, Steve brings two decades’ of experience leading organizational transformations with leading companies. Changing the way Staffing Companies engage with their customers is vital. Having a deep connection with your business and an inclusive approach will continue to add value through a Total Talent Management partnership. Steve has expertise in Technical Recruiting, Business Development, Technology Consulting and Human Capital Solutions. He continues to deliver immense value to companies and business leaders through his strategic partnerships. Steve believes in a customer service approach for business success.
Steve has experience leading multiple types of organizations from Fortune 100, mid-market, private equity, & VC backed start-ups. In addition, Steve has developed 15 different divisions within eight different businesses while managing large business units & increasing enterprise accounts. His track record includes leading, coaching, mentoring and developing people into highly successful business leaders.
Steve has spent his career aligning business professionals with career opportunities. The value that he brings to companies identify with their strengths and opportunities for growth. Steve's experience coaching individuals helps improve communication. He has also conducted numerous presentations to board members and C-Level professionals with highly respected clients and industry associations.
A people oriented leader who drives business collaborative to maximize team performance while mentoring & coaching individuals through aligned approaches to achieve desired results.
Show Highlights:
- What Engagement is, what it isn’t
- Why engagement is critical today
- How to engage people to create emotional attachment!
What is engagement and why is it important? Engagement
- How you communicate with your company
Hiring managers - I want to hire the best talent, retain top talent
- What happens in the middle from what you want vs what you are getting
The company gave 3 hours of training, no orientation, on the job training.
- Employees responsibility - Who owns engagement??
Problem
3 sides of the engagement - Who’s responsibility is it these days
- If a person is not engaged correctly, they are going to bounce quickly… first 30 days.
- The company needs to train leaders to be better leaders
- The dual partnership between the company's & managers
People leave quickly or they stay and are just there because of the paycheck
Belief in mission, vision values.
Outlining issues that you cannot control
- Employee: losing engagement with the job… nothing more that is being contributed
Rick’s Thoughts
- Engagement starts with your job posting, email or phone call
- Critical in attraction & retention
- When you care, you win
Human Contact is the key
- 1:75 people call back.
- There has to be a personal approach.
Steps to maximize engagement
- Sources are not recruiters…
- Everyone with at least relevant experience NEED to be called
- train recruiters on what needs to be asked
- Discuss career worth
- Poor career planning. No mentoring, support or growth
Once they start:
- Not scaling back on your onboarding process
- Social media posts are not onboarding
- Clearly, have a process
Train your recruiters
- What information to gather
- The importance of a conversation
- Reward finding gold nuggets!
- Create a hiring bonus for people who were passed over because of a resume but are actually good
Pick up the phone and call people!
Key Takeaways:
- Differentiate yourself from the standard hiring process
- Create a structured and standardized interview process
- Train your employees to be Talent minded
Remember in engagement – how you make the candidate feel is more important – please be genuine in your approach, efforts and ensure timely and responsive feedback – always
Thursday May 23, 2019
Marinela Gombosev: An Alternate Route for a Startup to Hire Salespeople
Thursday May 23, 2019
Thursday May 23, 2019
Alternative ways to hire salespeople when your company is getting started. Sales are the lifeblood of a company but what do you do when you need to grow revenue but have a limited budget? You get creative. Today we are talking about an interesting alternative to driving sales in the form of Independent sales reps.
Today’s Quote:
"Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, 'Make me feel important.' Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life." - Mary Kay Ash
Guest Bio:
Marinela Gombosev is the President & COO of Evoke Neuroscience, a commercial-stage diagnostic company focusing on early detection of Alzheimer’s and other dementias with a vision of ultimately eradicating dementia. Marinela is a roll up the sleeves leader who strives to work across all levels of the organization, lead from a place of authenticity, and effectively represent the company to its clients, partners and investors.
Over 50,000 patients have been assessed using Evoke’s technology and under Marinela’s leadership, the company has twice been ranked in the Inc. 500|5000 fastest-growing private companies.
Show Highlights:
- The good bad & ugly of hiring independent sales reps
- How to hire them in the most efficient manner
Problem:
Why hire Independent sales reps?
Independent manufactures reps?
- Upside
- No money to spend, a great way to get growth
- Don't pay anything until they close a deal
- Fast
- Rephuner.net
- Downside
- Control or visibility
- Way to monitor, don't want to be managed
- Misunderstand the product, regulations, Get burned a lot
- Can put you in a legal liability
- Misrepresentation of contacts & skills
Solutions
How do you hire them?
- Dirty secret: You are buying their relationships
- Hiring because they are trained. Many are pretty bad. Where she has been successful are the ones with relationships. Once they sell their relationships.
- Similar types of products.
- Who are your call points? Personal network? Other reps that work with you?
- Place an ad and make sure profile is written for reps
- Who are you selling to, what are you selling, how much $ am I going to make
Schedule call
- Evaluate call points
- Level of interest
- Product Understanding
- Amount of time they can invest
- How many other clients they have
- Where am I on the priority scale
Hire
- Sign NDA
- Disclose comp plan
- Sales rep agreement
Comprehensive Training Plan
- On boarding program & test
- Access to all the training materials
Rules
- No exclusive territories
- Lead registration program / lead protection
- Demo product
- Short term play once the network is exhausted they usually burn out
- Internal expertise helps to close leads
- *One to Two phone call hire
- 3-4 hour time investment per person
- Product margins to support it
- A revolving door of recruiting. Have to constantly recruit
- Need 50 because most of them are not selling
- 80/20 rule
- *** Prepare for a love/hate relationship
Thursday May 16, 2019
Angel Iscovich: Routine Hiring is Great for Business!
Thursday May 16, 2019
Thursday May 16, 2019
We are hard-wired to follow a routine. This is why we perform certain tasks better throughout various times of the day. So designing your hiring routine to follow a person's optimal performance is crucial making the right hiring decision.
Understanding and evolving your personal and company routines are vital for attracting talent!
Today’s Quote:
"Celebrate life in all its glory - challenge yourself to let the routine sing, and the new dance." - Maximillian Degenerez
Guest Bio:
Conventional wisdom suggests the best way to navigate our noisy new world is to accept change: Open up to novelty. Go with the flow. Embrace the relentless pelting of content minute by minute. Dr. I. is here to say this is not the best way to journey through our lives — and in fact, may go against our very nature.
Dr. Angel Iscovich is the President of Inflexion, LLC and the Author of his new book: Routineology: the Art and Science of Routine. Find out more on his web page www.angeliscovich.com and Routineology for Instagram and Doctor I on Twitter.
The crux of Dr. I’s book is that humans not only require structure, they thrive in it. From the womb to the tomb, we create and recreate numerous dynamic “Time Bubbles,” offering us meaning, fulfillment, and purpose. He is excited to show how implementing routine in one's life can lead to better, health, joy, and fulfillment.
Show highlights:
- The science of a routine
- Benefits and negatives of a routine
- Build a strong routine into your hiring practice
Problem:
What is a routine and why does this matter?
The science of a routine
- We are wired for regularity
- Change is not necessarily good for us.
- Routine is boring because you are doing the wrong things, wrong habits
Leadership
- Importance to develop regularity, routine & structure
- Routines become rituals and rituals drive the culture of the company
- Doing things regularly enhances performance
Solutions:
Personal Routine
- Make a routine of spending 45 minutes alone - reflecting
- Turn off the data, social media
- Especially if you are being creative or making a big decision
- Wired to regularity: being smart about what we do and when we do it
- Knowing your Circadian rhythm
- Technology is not able to replace Humanity, “Techmanity”, or how we are wired, is important in hiring talented people.
- Company rituals need to be re-engineered to meet the needs of the people
Interview & work productivity routine
- Task-related activity 8-10 am
- People Engagement 10-12pm (people are most social)
- Postprandial dip after lunch recovery time (task-related)
- Cortisol levels drop by 3 pm (Starbucks coffee, tea time) - Innovation time
- Least productive time - the body needs an energy boost
- Good time to meditate
- NOT a good time to interview!
- Great time for Innovation though... brainstorming
- Another hour of productivity 4-6pm
- Send people home at 3 pm and log on for another hour of work at 7 pm
- *Optimal interview time between 10-3
Rick’s Input
- Hiring routine with the purpose of being impressive
- Interview people when they are most
Key Takeaways:
- We are wired for Regularity and our unique Routines in themselves give us meaning and purpose.
- Our Circadian Rhythm provides us with when we are at our best and when we can be most productive.
- We need leaders to make for stable environments for our team members that create Routines, Rituals, and our Company Culture.
Friday Apr 26, 2019
Diane Lee: Interviewing Etiquette Brings Out the Truth
Friday Apr 26, 2019
Friday Apr 26, 2019
No longer can you, Mr. Hiring manager, get away with bad behavior in an interview and think you will be able to hire the person across the desk from you. When your offer gets turned down and you think it was because of a higher offer, know that was probably not the case. It’s you, not me!
Today’s Quote:
"Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential." - Will Cupp
Guest Bio:
Diane Lee is a foremost expert in providing professionals, specifically millennial workers, with the business etiquette best practices needed to successfully present themselves in the workforce. Diane founded Street Smart Etiquette in 2011 to empower millennials beyond the theoretical, offering hands-on workshops and individualized etiquette courses to help them master business soft skills, and ultimately achieve career success. She has conducted business etiquette classes on California State University campuses at Fullerton, Long Beach and Northridge, along with El Camino, Long Beach and Pasadena community colleges. Diane has been a featured speaker for many Los Angeles and Orange County community, civic and business organizations.
This venture builds on Diane’s successful career in journalism and business marketing. After graduating from California State University, Long Beach, with a degree in public relations and business, Diane made a career in Maui, Hawaii, where she played many roles in the hospitality industry and television, and was a freelance writer. In the consumer food product industry, Diane expanded the production and distribution of many Hawaiian brands throughout the Pacific Rim and western United States, and achieved millions in annual sales for her clients.
After relocating back to the Los Angeles/Orange County area in 2008, Diane found herself at the Disneyland Resort, where she discovered her passion for training and development in the Guest Relations department. That’s where the light bulb went off and the urgent need for interpersonal communication skills was identified. Diane earned her credentials as a certified trainer at The Protocol School of Washington, and is also a certified training designer through the Association of Talent Development (formerly ASTD).
Show Highlights:
- Why it is important to develop your interviewing etiquette
- Provide a checklist on what to do first
Problem:
Why is this important?
- The market is demanding it
- Evidenced by turn downs
How should you treat people in the interview?
- How do you get someone in the right mindset for your interview
- Get people comfortable
- Mindset: get the best out of the person by giving them the most
- Charismatic listing
- Good first impression & look credible
- Duschene smile - smile with your eyes!
- Offer a drink of water
- Be punctual:
- Discuss & contrast - 10 minute cutoff
- Story Bad experience:
- Kept waiting 45 minutes & had Dodger game on the whole time
Rick’s Input
- The people you are trying to recruit are the decision makers (Sellers Market)
- An accurate picture of what daily life is really like. Own your culture
- Be present
Solutions:
How does a hiring manager use Etiquette to their advantage?
Here is a checklist of what to do to maximize your interview experience.
- Greeting
- Personal presentation- etiquette is making the other person feel comfortable
- An air of credibility, one chance to make a first impression
- Remember the person’s name
- 5 minutes of small talk
- Ease the nerves
- Then get into the meat of the conversation
- Art of listening- leaning into the conversation
- Your Physical Cues
- Body posture, body language,
- 70% of people fail the interview due to lack of eye contact & smiling
- Charisma- everyone should walk out feeling like they really want to work for you
- Setting the person up for success - preparation, sending email re Parking.
Rick’s Input
- Approach each interview with Candor & Curiosity
- Hiring manager needs to set the example by being prepared
- No cell phone
Key Takeaways:
- Prepare for the interview, read & organize your info & questions. Check your personal presentation
- Make a genuine smile, positive body language, eye contact and active listening techniques automatic habits
- Get the most out of your time by ensuring the candidate is comfortable and you are relaxed & focused
- Set your candidate up for success with appt details, beyond time and place, such as expectations, as well as, traffic & parking tips to alleviate pre-interview stress
Friday Apr 05, 2019
Friday Apr 05, 2019
Diversity & Inclusion is critical to your company’s success but it is not a strategy. Here’s why... D&I needs to be built into the DNA of your company instead of being treated with kid gloves. Besides, hiring like-minded people is bad for business!
Today’s Quote:
"Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same." - Angelina Jolie
About the Guest:
Mike “Batman” Cohen is the Founder of Wayne Technologies, a recruitment training and search firm. Mike has over a decade of experience placing technologists, recruiters, and business development professionals, and has conducted training for Corporate and Agency Recruiters.
Throughout his career he’s learned several things that he’s committed to paying forward:
- We can’t make it on our own - we need community
- There is no “secret sauce” - we should be sharing our skills, tips, tricks, etc. openly
- Data is extremely important
- Being a good human is more important than data
He has worked with a diverse group of clients ranging from GIPHY, Spotify, TripAdvisor, Digital Asset, MacDonald Miller, etc.
He contributes articles to SourceCon, has a chair in the Program Committee with ATAP, helps run SourceHouston, and is a Brand Ambassador for ERE.
Mike has spoken at:
- Talent42 (June 2019)
- TechRecruit Los Angeles (July 2019)
- TechRecruit Chicago (September 2019)
- HireConf (October 2019)
- HRTX Dallas
- RecruitCon
- ATAP Webinars
- TalentNet
- SourceHouston
- ERE
- HR Houston
- Scala Up North
- Scala.io
Show Highlights:
- Why Diversity & Inclusion is not a strategy
- How to embed diversity into your Company's DNA while staying true to your company values
Problem:
Why is Diversity & Inclusion such a hot topic?
-
- Diverse communities are growing and matriculating faster than any other
- Organizations are realizing that diverse thought doesn’t just come from people who went to different schools or studied different subjects, it comes from background, upbringing, etc.
- We all want females, minorities & orientations.
- Candidates are placing a large focus on organizations that put a value on D&I - if you want the best candidates - this is one of the things that’s important to them!
Why is this important to organizations?
- Are we hiring because of D&I to check off boxes?
- Shouldn’t we be looking deeper into diversity of thought rather than physical characteristics?
- Hiring people who are different from you and are included in your culture
Shouldn't we just be concerned with hiring the best person?
- Just start hiring people who make you uncomfortable
- Embrace the differences
- Hiring like minded people is bad for business
What about the alignment of core corporate values?
- Define corporate culture.
Solutions:
If Diversity & Inclusion isn’t a strategy, how do we accomplish it?
- You don't want to hire someone just because they are a certain classification
- It has to go beyond “skin deep” - this isn’t about the way someone looks, it’s about integrating all different walks of life or trains of thought or images into your brand.
- Not to diversify to make things different, but to create a culture where diversity is the norm - that is how you create inclusion
- The desire to have different people is not a business strategy
- It is a top-down mind-set as to how the business operates and what it considers important, successful, and a good fit
- Vetting issue- how does one determine who the best person is. Not the values or mission
- Grey area- Defining the gray area or you will fail.
- Focus for cultural alignment vs skills
- Perks that attract like-minded people, like Ping pong and foosball tables & kegerators, reduce D&I.
- The Strategies to achieving D&I are merely the execution of a goal.
- Companies aren’t built on strategies - they are built on vision and mission - Strategy is simply how we get there - is your company built on top of a foundation (mission and vision) that doesn’t celebrate diversity, but instead values it as a competitive advantage?
- These values and mission themselves should come with a very diverse perspective.
- The more avenues of thought the quicker and higher quality it will take you to that mission.
Rick’s two cents:
What should be your strategy?
- Hire People who perform
- Hire People who bring different perspectives
- Hire People who will challenge you
Key Takeaways:
- D&I isn’t a strategy, it’s a business mindset
- Dissonance is a good thing! Just be respectful
- Diversity is a mindset, Inclusion is turning that mindset into the norm
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Special Event: Beerud Sheth from TiECon SoCal
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Beerud Sheth, Co-Founder and CEO of Gupshup
Thursday Mar 14, 2019
Erik Huberman: Dissecting a Hire Gone Wrong
Thursday Mar 14, 2019
Thursday Mar 14, 2019
The mistakes we, as entrepreneurs and hiring managers, make when building our companies. Often our need to fill overrides our logic in determining the fit between both parties and as result Core Values are often ignored. Assumptions, unclear expectations, and lack of diligence make for a perfect storm of a disastrous hire.
Today’s Quote
"Hiring people is like making friends. Pick good ones, and they'll enrich your life. Make bad choices, and they'll bring you down." - Jason Fried
Show Guest
Erik Huberman is the founder and CEO of Hawke Media, the fastest growing marketing agency in the United States. Launched in 2014, Hawke Media has serviced over 1000 brands of all sizes, ranging from startups like Tamara Mellon, SiO Beauty and Bottlekeeper to household names like Red Bull, Verizon Wireless and Alibaba. Hawke Media has taken home numerous industry awards including inclusion on the Inc. 5000 2017 list of “Fastest Growing Companies”, Fortune Magazine’s “50 Best Workplaces in Southern California” and Forbes’ “Content Marketing Companies to Check Out in 2018."
"Prior to Hawke, Erik founded, grew and sold two successful e-commerce companies. Huberman is the recipient of numerous awards including Forbes “30 Under 30,” Inc. Magazine’s “Top 25 Marketing Influencers,” and Best in Biz North America’s “Marketing Executive of the Year.” A regular contributor to major publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur and CS Q. Huberman is also a well-known keynote speaker.
Episode Highlights
- Break down one of your early hires and talk about the decisions that were made and why
- What we learned and how you can avoid making our mistakes
Making a wrong Hire: Walk through the story
- Hired an executive, all-star, great background
- “Why would you buy a dog if you're the one barking on the corner”
- Discussing expectations, but not the HOW.
- Had a budget, revenue numbers, really clear…
- Takes time for executives to ramp up
- Hired from a large company- a different mindset
- Taking people through a more formalized process.
- Properly frames the mindset as a professional environment
- You are taken more seriously
- *Onboarding Process
- Didn’t have a process. Throw people to the wind
- Unprofessional entrance + people didn't view it professionally
- Made the mistake of selling perks
- Hired 7 people in the beginning, only one stayed past 6 months.
- Bridging the gap with the business.
* Post hire, you are not done once you made the hire. Once someone is hired, real-time investment into their success.
Rick’s Hiring Mistake
- Hiring Friends without clear expectations
- created an expectations document
Key Takeaways
- Stick to a hiring process - It must be Professional
- The more senior the hire, the more time investment to align expectations - May take up to a year to come up to speed
Thursday Nov 01, 2018
Brenan German: Can AI be the Solution to a Bad Interviewing Experience?
Thursday Nov 01, 2018
Thursday Nov 01, 2018
Did you know that according to LinkedIn “83% of talent say a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company they once liked, while 87% of talent say a positive interview experience can change their mind about a role or company they once doubted.” Candidate Experience Matters!
Today's Quote:
“The only source of knowledge is experience.” - Albert Einstein
Show highlights:
- The impact of candidate experience on your ability to hire
- AI
- Our solution to create a positive candidate experience
What is candidate experience? Why is it important:
-
- Job descriptions
- Application process
- Interview Experience
- Feedback/Closing the Loop
- Nearly 60% of Job Seekers Have Had a Poor Candidate Experience & 72% Talk About It (GlassDoor)
The VALUE of AI:
- AI- Recruitment Automation
-
- Sourcing 58%
- Screening 56%
- Nurturing 55%
- Scheduling 42%
- Engagement 24%
- Interviewing 6%
- AI will eliminate the transactional pieces of recruiting but it won't solve the most critical portions….Engagement, Interviewing
Let’s lay out our structure for creating an impressive candidate experience:
Engagement:
-
- Marketing/Messaging aligned with company values
- Job Descriptions with clear performance metrics
- Application process…. RESPOND!
Interview:
-
- Set Expectations
- Structure (Organized, Timed, real time feedback)
- Pre-determined questions
- Give & Receive Feedback
Closure:
- Professionally release each person from the process
-
- Do Not Ghost
- Listen to your bad glassdoor reviews
Brenan German is Founder and President at Bright Talent Resources, Inc., Which is a boutique Human Resources Advisory, Project Management, Training, and Recruiting Services firm..
Brenan’s particular expertise involves the alignment of talent management strategies to business goals, and the implementation of systems and processes to reach measurable objectives, demonstrating clearly the bottom line impact expected of strategic Human Resources programs.
Thursday Oct 18, 2018
Nicole Washington: You Closed Your First Round of Funding, Now What?
Thursday Oct 18, 2018
Thursday Oct 18, 2018
Congratulations! You closed your first round of funding, what's next? To scale, you better have a plan, a structure and commitments for who’s on board.
Today's Quote:
“If you're trying to create a company, it's like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.”
- Elon Musk
Show highlights:
- The importance of having a structured plan
- Stick to the plan
- Layout structural elements
Stick to the defined plan!
- Cause, Mission, Vision
- Should have an active pipeline ready to go
- Key positions in place, partners, hr strategy in place
- Hiring without compromise- values and mission driven alignment
- Investors should have dig into core company values and compromise levels of hiring
- Just a bunch of people winging it… you won't be able to hire right in today’s landscape
Create a team that investors will continue to invest in
- No, no’s
- Knowing the difficulty creating a team
- Hard for people to find a good technical people
- Don't hang out in the same places
- Setting Expectations & writing them down
- What happens when it doesn't work?
Structure… Have everything lined up!
- Company values in cement
- Define your Road map
- Set the stage for what happens next
- All documents & agreements in place
- Getting people to join before you have funding or a product
- Leverage university talent, students, - easier to get people to resonate with them
- Students: finding the ones who are doing research in your particular field
- Develop the relationship with the professors
- Reach out directly to the student *attractive to investors
Takeaways:
- Do not make compromises!
- Goals of the company first
- Hire with the end result in mind
Nicole Washington, Director of Innovation and Growth of OCTANe OC, focuses on engaging with strategic partners to accelerate the growth of early to later stage ventures and small to medium size business throughout the entire Southern California Ecosystem.
She currently serves as Chair of the Academic Committee and Trustee of the Board of Education for Samueli Academy. A (STEM) high school that delivers state of the art education to a large population of underrepresented youth.
Nicole is a member of the Ohio TechAngel Fund, the 2nd largest Angel Investor Network in the United States, where she served as the due diligence team, technology lead for several years.
Thursday Sep 20, 2018
Shawn Andrews: What Is Emotional Intelligence And How Is It Relevant To Hiring?
Thursday Sep 20, 2018
Thursday Sep 20, 2018
Why should we care about Emotional Intelligence when building a company today? People with high EQ, work better with others, manage customers more effectively and cultivate an accepting company culture.
Today's Quote:
“Emotion is more powerful than logic” - Albert Einstein
Show Guest:
Dr. Shawn Andrews is a keynote speaker, organizational consultant, and the founder and CEO of Andrews Research International. She serves as adjunct professor at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, where she teaches courses on Organizational Behavior, Women in Leadership, Diversity in Organizations, and Leadership and Ethics. She was the 2017 Diversity & Inclusion columnist for Training Industry Magazine, and is the author of the book, The Power of Perception: Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and the Gender Divide (Amazon.com)
Episode highlights:
-
- EQ, What is it?
- How to you get it?
- Incorporate into your hiring
What is EQ?
Set of emotional and social skills that collectively establish how well we:
- Perceive and express ourselves
- Develop and maintain social relationships
- Cope with challenges, manage stress and make decisions
- Use emotional information to guide our thinking and action
- Managing emotions
- Manage stress
- Overcome obstacles
- Inspire toward collective goals
- Self perception, Self expression, interpersonal, decision making, Stress Management
- Tied into core company values
Why is it Important?
- Low Emotional Intelligence breeds bad cultures
- “Hire hard, manage easy”
What if you don’t have EQ? How do you get it?
- Get EQ assessment
- Read a book
EQ for different roles:
Leadership:
- Interpersonal relationships
- Assertiveness
- Self-awareness
Sales:
- Self-actualization
- Assertiveness
- Happiness
Marketing / Creative:
- Optimism
- Reality testing
- Independence
Customer Service:
- Stress tolerance
- Assertiveness
- Happiness
Product Development /Manufacturing:
- Flexibility
- Problem solving
- Independence
Interviewing for EQ
- Behavioral Interviewing
- Comfortable candidate- feel conversational, warm & informal
- Start: difficult challenge that was solved, commend… then go granular
- “Hire hard, manage easy”
- Deep reference checking
- Evidence of low & high EQ behaviors
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Darrell Gurney: Breaking Bad, Career And Hiring Habits!
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Why is it that we put more thought into lunch choices than we do our career or hiring decisions?
Today we are going to discuss the top three bad habits that both candidates and companies do throughout the hiring process that kill their ability to make a smart decision.
Today's Quote:
“To change habits, we must study the habits of successful role models.” – Jack Canfield
Show Guest:
Darrell Gurney is a career expert, executive coach and authority in supporting people through successful transitions. He brings back the power of social connection by teaching professionals that you’re simply one face-to-face relationship away from your dream job life.
He is the author of the Amazon bestseller “Never Apply for a Job Again: Break the Rules, Cut the Line, Beat the Rest."
As founder of both CareerGuy.com and TheBackForty.com, Darrell’s motto for both career and life is, as Frank Sinatra sings, “the best is yet to come, and won’t it be fine!”
Episode highlights:
- The top 3 bad habits we need to stop right now!
- Why these habits are so detrimental
- Good habits to replace the bad
Hiring bad habits from both sides:
Darrell’s top 3:
- 1. Looking to see what jobs are available & Going through the front door by applying for open positions.
- Take charge of their career path vs be at the effect
- Get out of your box: the house, the computer screen, the phone, and get in front of people.
- 80% of all jobs are filled before they are ever advertised by the people in the know bringing in the people they know
- 2. Failing to develop relationships beyond the job search process.
- Never submerge in your job or your life. Get out, be making connections, be talking to people about your interests and passions
- 3. Not treating yourself like a business
- Realize that you have your own business, and you always have -- you simply lease out your employable assets
- A business owner is always concerned first and foremost about two measures: ROI (Return on Investment) and ROE (Return on Equity). You want to similarly always watch, manage and monitor your own Return on Individuality and Return on Effort.
Rick’s top 3:
- Winging it-
- company values -clueless
- Not clear on what the business needs
- Work that needs to be accomplished
- Listening!
- Interview Process
- Not clearly defined
- Following the pack -
- Accepting the Status quo
- Testing people before engaging
- Transactional relationship
- Not understanding the person across from you
- Focus on skills
- Protective of the culture
Why are these habits bad?
- How can you get where you are going when you don’t know where you are?
How do we fix these habits?
- Winging it- not clear on what the business needs
- Build preparation time into your schedule
- Define what the business needs (not your wants) and who you need to take you there
- Interview Process
- Structured, Organized, Timed & Purpose Driven
- Get to the Truth!
- Transactional relationship
- Heal the person’s wound with your opportunity
Thursday Sep 06, 2018
Thursday Sep 06, 2018
Founders need to build the cultural foundation before building the product! Building the right team is more important than just any team.
Today's Quote:
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” ― Helen Keller
Show highlights:
- The importance of taking the time to select the right team
- Recognizing the team challenges
- How to set the right foundation for building a great team
Challenges we see with teams:
- What you really need in a team...Taking anyone is not the right thing to do
- Hiring anyone or for skills dramatically increases the likelihood of failure.
- Founder need to develop their muscles to make smart hiring decisions
- The foundation- transparency & culture
- Purpose- What's in it for me?
- How and who makes decisions?
- Most importantly, How does the team solve problems?
- Develop the EQ to have the difficult conversations
Framework for Building the Right Team from the Beginning:
- Establish mission, vision & values (as a team)
- Communication standards
- Foster transparency
- Business Model Canvas (product driven)
- Establish process
- Define who you are BEFORE you make your first hire
- Only hire people who mirror your core values and align with your vision
- Great things often come out of conflict
Takeaways:
- Culture first
- Transparency
- Hire people who will take you where you want to go
Melinda Kim is the Executive Director, co-founder of PeopleSpaceOC, an incubator and workspace located in Irvine, Ca. She is a proven executive/entrepreneur who facilitates collaboration and innovation between developers and business entrepreneurs from around the world.
Aside from her responsibilities, Melinda is also a Startup Weekend Facilitator and NASA Space Apps Lead. She specialize in Statistics Driven Product Analysis, Business Strategy, Growth, Community and Social impact.
Thursday Aug 23, 2018
Matt Charney: “Me Too” Messaging Does Not Attract People to Join Your Company
Thursday Aug 23, 2018
Thursday Aug 23, 2018
It all comes down to your messaging in everything from your job descriptions to how you contact people. Today we are tackling this issue!
Today's Quote:
"Words empty as the wind, are best left unsaid" -Homer
The problems with messaging, specific to recruiting
- Hard part is getting a response
- How to not be boring
- *** Messaging.
- Pure copyrighting... translating HR speak into people speak
- Getting your message right
- Job Descriptions are taken from compensation documents - messaging is not getting people to convert
- why?
- Positioning
- zig when everyone else zags. learning agility.
- Move in the opposite direction
- Key is getting someone to opt in to communication.
- Client: the two most effective searches were billboards & radio.
- Another was linkedin.
Framework for fixing your messaging
- Marketing perspective
- Turn hr speak to plain English.
- Targeted messaging. *** 1 shot to attract a person.
- crafting 121 communications.
- Headline & lead matter most... read the first 140 characters.
- Topic header- Twitter
- Text messaging - sms automation tools!
- Use of Humor
- ***Opening a wound
- Performance metrics
- The actual content of the work (Uniqueness)
- Call to Action
- Pick up the phone and call- differentiator!
- Managed perception on both side
- Tools: Spokeo, Icims, text recruit
- Takeaway- volume is not a good thing.
- Talent trends are real
Matt Charney is the Executive Editor and Partner for Recruiting Daily and the Chief Content Officer at Allegis Global Solutions, the largest staffing and recruiting firm in North America. Matt focuses on the intersection of human capital and technology; his blog, Snark Attack, was named one of the top 20 business blogs in the world by WordPress, and his work has appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Wired.com, The Harvard Business Review, Outsourcing Magazine, HR Magazine.
Thursday Aug 09, 2018
Thursday Aug 09, 2018
Don't underestimate the power of giving and receiving feedback in the interview process. Feedback helps your company improve your hiring process and it provides a positive “candidate experience” for the interviewee!
Today's Quote:
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” – Ken Blanchard (one minute manager books)
Show highlights:
-
- The Whys’ of interview feedback
- Giving & receiving feedback
- Provide the tools to create feedback channels into your Interview process
You must first have an interview process:
- Feedback is process improvement
- Candidate Experience
- Time management &
- Candidate Attraction
Feedback Challenges:
- Don't have it - Go get it!
- Have it but not sure how to deliver it
- Companies not required to provide feedback
- Legality of feedback - fear of litigation
- Fear of Discrimination lawsuit
- Not everyone can accept feedback - low EQ
- CASE STUDY: 70% of companies do not provide unselected job applicants with any feedback
- Make feedback a constant throughout the process- give & receive
- Is there any reason why you would not hire me
- Is there any reason why you would not accept an offer with our company
*Mystery creates distrust
What you can and cannot give as feedback:
- Skills
- Problem solving abilities
- Interview Preparation
- Alignment with Cultural/Values
- Evidence based feedback
- Discriminatory in nature
- Your too Old
- Never give a woman feedback that she is not assertive enough
- Body odor
Aaron’s process for giving & receiving feedback:
- Balanced
- Build in feedback time (10 minutes after the interview has ended)
- Feedback based on competency - bullet points, not short stories
Rick’s process for giving & receiving feedback:
- Feedback starts at the first contact (gauge ability to give/receive feedback)
- discuss concerns & fit between career & company goals
- Ask Questions:
- What are your thoughts?
- How do you feel about that?
- Why is that important?
- Assign a facilitator of Feedback
- Ie: recruiter or admin
- Provide something constructive
- Give & Get feedback in Real Time -interview wrap up
How to professionally release a person from the process:
- Call Them!
- A 5-10 minute phone call to ensure a positive image of your company.
- Be specific. Facts without any value judgment.
- Help people to learn. Focus on improvement & help them to find the right fit
- Be empathetic.
The candidate experience: Integrity & Transparency in the hiring process creates less likelihood of a lawsuit, especially when you leave the door open.
Erin Wilson is the Co-Founder & Talent Engineer of Hirepool, Inc. He has personally interviewed more than 10,000 job seekers. Erin has helped build a company that exited for $640M, and just released a consumer Interview preparation software product (Hirepool.io) being used by job seekers around the world.
Friday Aug 03, 2018
Friday Aug 03, 2018
Today we are talking about the chemistry of your team! Look, you can have the greatest product in the world but without a strong team chemistry, your company will ultimately fail.
Today's Quote:
"Skills are Cheap. Chemistry is expensive" ― Mal Pancoast
Show highlights:
- Why chemistry is so important
- How to Monitor your team chemistry
- What to do to encourage or change the chemistry
Elements of good team chemistry:
- Constructive Chemistry
- *Good chemistry, Your brains produce more Oxytocin, which is the hormone that helps us feel more connected to other people. Higher levels of Oxytocin produce more pleasure, deeper trust, and stronger intimacy.
Warning signs of bad chemistry:
- Destructive Chemistry
- Identify bad chemistry early on… disrespectful, not being productive, dropping the ball, personal issues.
- Adding value or afraid of adding value
- Lieing, false information or not saying anything.
- Personal Issues- ie: How do you deal with someone involved with drugs? (JC’s Story)
Monitoring your chemistry:
- Proactive, Honest
- Best Monitor: Praise is the most important element of a team. People will give more because they feel valued
- checks and balances, always questioning
Interviewing to uncover chemistry:
- Understanding Yourself & Your business needs…. Vision - opposing working styles
- How to identify in the interview - Wound, Desire, Accomplishment
- Best job in vetting people. Honesty is not that common. People can turn in a heartbeat
- Optimistic pessimism
- Behavioral Questions - Evidence & Knockouts!
Ways to omit bad chemistry:
- Communicate
- Identify & change with minimum impact to the organization
- Hire slow, fire quickly
J.C. Ruffalo joined the OCTANe OC team in June 2014 and is the Director of LaunchPad SBDC and Investor Relations. JC Mentor's hundreds of companies each year and has assisted LaunchPad companies to achieve over $750 million in capital infusion and, as a result, create over 3,500 new jobs in Southern California.
Prior to Octane, JC co-founded a small startup (Double Splash Media), which was involved with email marketing. He also worked for LKQ, a large corporation that is the world’s largest supplier of automotive replacement parts, as a buyer and general manager.
Friday Jul 27, 2018
Friday Jul 27, 2018
According to Wikipedia, Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Gamification commonly employs gamedesign elements to improve user engagement, organizational productivity, employee recruitment and evaluation, and more.
We are all used to being gamefied. In fact, our lives have been programmed to do things based on reward. Everything from our GPA to buying a new iPhone pulls from principles of Gamification. A lot of Companies Gamify pieces of the organization, mainly those associated with revenue. It is not commonly implemented throughout the whole organization, especially the operational side of the organization. Full organizational gamification has increased employee engagement by 92% and productivity is hitting record strides!
Today's Quote:
“The Game gives you a Purpose. The Real Game is, to Find a Purpose.”
Show highlights:
- Discuss the benefits of gamification to your business
- What's needed to gamify your company?
- The structure to implement gamification into your company
Why did your company decide to gamify?
- Our lives are gamified
- Isn't gamification a form of behavioral modification or conditioning?
- Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism or Pavlovian response
- Benefits to the company?
The gamification you use at iPlace. How does it work?
- Launchpad
- Customer, Employee & Company goals
- *Launchpad: each person earns a star each week for successfully completing tasks. Each week mini performance review- Agile sprint?
- 40 stars = pay raise, 120 stars promotion.
Why does gamification work in terms of Engagement?
- Build a culture of performance and healthy competition
- UNDERPERFORMERS CAN NOT HIDE
- Put management on auto pilot. Unscheduled leaves have declined over 93% since they have eliminated by escalations (they and all of team loses stars)
- Sets expectations up front
Hank Levine is the President and CEO of iPlace USA, which is widely regarded as the highest quality company providing professionally managed sourcing and recruiting services for US-based companies from India. Over the past twelve years, he has helped over 240 American companies establish offshore recruiting operations.
Hank spearheaded the development of a very innovative “company operations system” based on gamification. He was the keynote speaker last May at the StaffingTec conference where he spoke about how progressive companies are using gamification to scale their operations, align company and client goals, improve the health and wellness of their employees, and even eliminate performance reviews.
Thursday Jul 19, 2018
Dane Petchul: College Debt Is Hindering Your Ability To Hire the Strongest Talent!
Thursday Jul 19, 2018
Thursday Jul 19, 2018
Student loan debt is certainly a major issue and yet it is not often addressed in the hiring process. Some would argue that the overwhelming pressure to start paying back the loan often results in a person making the wrong career decision out of necessity. Companies could do more to alleviate some of that pain by targeting talent out of their specific industry and creating benefits or incentives to help with this burden.
“When you get in debt you become a slave.” - Andrew Jackson
Show highlights:
- The effect student loans have on career choices
- How companies might capitalize on debt to help attract talent
Ways in which an individual can reduce the amount of student loan debt:
- Planning
- Cost reduction programs
- Hidden gems of free money?
What are the inherent challenges related to student loan debt:
- Default on the loan -7 million people are in default
- Limits ability to get a job- ie:govt related
- License suspension -nursing, teachers, lawyers, realtors emergency technicians
- Shackled to what you hate to pay the bills
When people make poor career choices because of necessity it impacts the company that they join. The regret over poor job choice does not only impact the employee but the employer as well. Job regret leads to:
- Apathy
- Low motivation
- Poor employee performance
- Spend work time searching for other employment
How might companies be able to attract the right people by helping to alleviate the student loan debt wound?
- benefits
- Recruit people from outside industries (look outside the box)- accomplishment based hiring
- Opportunity
- Provide an avenue
- Look at the debt as an opportunity to provide performance incentives to offset the debt
Dane Petchul is the Founder and President of Oracle College Planning. With a long history of helping people with their retirement in the finance world, Dane shifted the focus to help families – parents and children – identify the best path to take for a financially responsible college experience..
Dane committed himself to helping families carefully protect their life-savings from soaring college costs while ensuring that a proper financial pathway would be in place so that students wouldn’t be saddled in debt after graduating. Therefore enabling them to make better career decisions.
Friday Jul 13, 2018
Anita Kanti: Abolish the Resume!
Friday Jul 13, 2018
Friday Jul 13, 2018
A majority of the most talented people have terrible resumes. Why? Because they are busy making things happen!
Companies miss out on great people because they never make it past the resume screen. Automating the process and screening for buzzwords is just not an effective tool for finding the right people for your business. We are in the people business when we recruit. So, pick up the phone and judge based on your conversation and not the resume.
Today's Quote:
"Insanity is knowing that what you're doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can't stop it."
- Elizabeth Wurtzel
Show highlights:
- Positive points of resumes
- Everything wrong with a resume
- Alternate solutions to resumes - solve the resume black hole
What resumes are good for:
- Contact information
- Career History
- The “white space”
What is wrong with the resume:
- Keyword dependent -wrong keywords or no keywords
- Designed to match with wish list of skills
- Too heavily relied upon in the interview process
- People lie
Alternate options to a resume:
- Video clips
- Video talent snapshot (resume) - Why is this a good idea?
- -discrimination bias?
- - how can a 1 minute video give you an accurate picture?
- AI
- Actual assessment - conversation
- Wound, Desire, Accomplishment
Effective use of a resume and how to identify great people:
- Just a tool, not a wall
- A guide to formulate skills based questions - Transferable skills
Anita Kanti is the Executive Talent Manager of Huawei Technologises. She is a global business partner and senior manager supporting executive leadership deliverables' for leadership talent acquisition needs for the US and China marketplace.
As both a motivational life coach and strategic talent manager, Anita Kanti offers progressive solutions to help her company and clients optimize their strengths and create a pathway of success. Anita is a proven expert in talent recruitment, both in leading corporations such as Broadcom Inc., and United Healthcare, as well as building a company of her own, Anita K Solutions. Anita K has combined her expertise in talent development and leadership with her training in motivational techniques to create a unique and effective life coaching philosophy.