#1 Hiring Podcast Designed Specifically For Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Tuesdays @12PM (PST), LIVE on LinkedIn, YouTube, & Facebook Our mission is to enable values-driven startups to win-win the strongest hires by sharing insights from top-performing entrepreneurs, game-changers, & industry thought leaders. www.hirepowerradio.com www.rickgirard.com
Episodes
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
How Skipping Process Bites You With Bill Snyder
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
Having a need often clouds reason. Especially when it comes to hiring and the interview process. There is work to be done and no one is doing it.
So you prioritize filling the gap with a warm body, rather than focusing on the right person in the right seat. How’s that been working out for you??
Short-cutting the interview process is never a good idea because when you do, It will most often bite you in the ass!
Guest Bio:
Bill Snyder is the CEO of digital health startup Vivante Health, the employee benefit for GI care. Bill works with Fortune 500 companies and large health plans, including Walmart and Cigna's Evernorth, to reduce GI-related healthcare costs.
He secured a Series B fundraise in September 2023, which was led by high-profile VC firms Mercato Partners and Health Catalyst Capital. Bill’s success in various leadership roles has been a result of building strong teams and learning each day from those he is fortunate enough to work with.
Challenge today?
- Moving too fast on hiring and not following a detailed process leads to poor hiring.
- Anytime you negotiate against yourself it never works out well
- Deviation from the process does not end well either.
- Never skip steps
- Culture
- Clear about what they value and answer that they don't.
- What they are looking for and not looking for
- Mission-driven organization
- Why us?
- Does align with the mission, not a fit
Why is this important to the company?
- Culture is built by people at the company.
- Strong culture has been driven by the people
- Engagement (#)
Rick’s Nuggets
- Set people up for success even if it is outside
How do we solve the problem?
- Three things:
- 1) Put process in place early
- 2) Ensure there is transparency, collaboration, and accountability across the team for all hiring managers and all positions
- 3) Never settle
- Plan on recruiting, interviewing, and ongoing cultural engagement
- Having one
- Healthy Job description- core themes,
- Put together the interview panel
- Mission and Culture front and center
- Formal presentation- evidence of the work
- Feedback on the work
- Interview for coachability
- Holding each other accountable with the process
- Collaboration with co-workers
- Full visibility for everyone across the organization
- Same process.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Job description- focus on them (WIFM)
- Intense process - determined on what the business needs. Working session.
- Accountability- the process is a value chain for the candidate- attracts a
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today!
- Start the process early and adhere
- Always include culture early
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: Bill Snyder
- Company: Vivante Health
- Facebook: Vivante Health
- Instagram: Vivante Health
- X: Vivante Health
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: Rick Girard
- Company: Intertru, Inc.
- Podcast: Hire Power Radio Show & Podcast
- Book: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
This show is Powered by Intertru
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
Every interview that happens in your company needs to have a purpose.
There is a specific purpose for the phone screen, which is positioning & quality of the individual.
The onsite interview’s purpose, does this person align with our company values and finally, the skills interview’s purpose is to determine if the person has the capacity to thrive in the role.
Too often the directive is given to “have a conversation to find out if you would like to work with this person”. And it is in this non-structured format that bias and discrimination fester because the interviewers don’t understand the interview’s purpose.
Guest Bio:
Robert Hudock founded Hudock Employment Law Group in 2015 to deliver tailored legal services to California companies that thrive in vibrant, creative work environments. His clients are often companies looking at new markets and competitive opportunities, that want to recruit the best talent available while avoiding distracting workplace issues or lawsuits.
Robert is also a competitive triathlete, which requires careful planning, attention to detail, and dedication. He uses those characteristics in his professional life for his client's benefit.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Employment law issues in the hiring process you may not know–but should.
Challenge?
- The 3 most common recruiting and hiring functions in which employment-related issues can arise are: (1) job posting/advertisement, (2) interviewing, and (3) assessing fitness for a position (e.g., any criminal history, drug screening, physical capabilities, psychological health).
- California’s anti-discrimination laws explicitly apply not only to employees and termination of employment, but also to applicants and “refusing to hire” based on a characteristic protected under the applicable antidiscrimination laws (e.g., age, disability, gender, race, etc.).
Why is this important to the company?
- Consider a scenario where your company spends significant time and resources on employment law compliance and protecting itself from lawsuits, only to be subject to an employment-related claim that could have been prevented but for a gap in general knowledge and available preventative strategies relating to recruiting and hiring. Today we’re going to introduce you to the topic and some possible preventive measures.
How do we solve the problem?
- Interviewing: any non-job-related inquiry that "expresses, directly or indirectly, any limitation, specification, or discrimination as to” any protected characteristic is prohibited
- Common implicated categories: age, disability, national origin
- Some examples may surprise you - you may have been asked such questions and you answered without a second thought, the questions are relatively common, or are common topics of conversation:
SUBJECT |
ACCEPTABLE |
UNACCEPTABLE |
Age |
Virtually nothing - but allowed when law requires it |
|
National Origin |
Inquiries re verification of legal right to work in US |
|
Marital Status/Family |
Virtually nothing |
|
Religion |
Statements re regular days, hours, or shifts of the position |
|
- Identify and define, BEFORE interviewing, any legal justification for discriminating with respect to a protected category
- As with job postings, antidiscrimination law does not categorically preclude any and all inquiries into matters relating to protected categories, or lawful discrimination. For example:
- AGE: When a law specifically requires a certain age for job, or requires keeping records re employees’ ages or related information
- RELIGION: When an inquiry directly or indirectly relates to any religious belief or practice does not have any “exclusionary effect”
- DISABILITY: An inquiry re physical capabilities legitimately related to ability to perform an essential job function
- Proper education and training of all interviewers
- How to respond when applicant volunteers information
- Let’s say an interviewer and interviewee are discussing where the interviewee obtained his/her undergraduate degree
- The interviewee, making friendly conversation, says tongue-in-cheek: “...that’s hard to remember for an old guy like me, but I’ll never forget these seemingly endless stairs going up to where I met with my “Campus Christians” group. It was like running a marathon once a month because of my knee injury” → just that short aside references three protected categories (age, religion, and disability)
- In these types of circumstances, the interviewer should (1) steer the discussion away from references to any protected category, and (2) and at some point identify the company’s commitment to equal opportunity
- E.g., “Interesting. That story makes me think about how this company supports equal opportunity and has a strong policy against discrimination.” Let’s move on to your work experience.”
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Teach your people the purpose of each stage
- What data are they expected to gather during the conversation
- Provide a script to each person
- Behavioral interviews
- Tell me about a time when…
- How did that work?
- Walk me through that…
- What steps did you take…
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Develop job descriptions and use them as a foundation for interviews; this can help interviewers remain focused on job qualifications and duties
- Education/training of anyone who will be conducting an interview; e.g., covering the topics we’ve been discussing today
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hudockemploymentlaw/
- Company: https://hudockemploymentlaw.com/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com | www.intertru.ai
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Instilling Values into Your Hiring Process with Ken Babcock of Tango
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Do company values really matter? They do if you are looking to scale a business.
In order to scale you need the strongest people, but the strongest people don't need you…or your company.
What High performers need is to understand how your company brings value to their world, personally & professionally. And how we bring value through value alignment.
Value alignment is the catalyst for performance and retention. When a person is misaligned with the company values, they underperform and/or leave.
As a startup company, every person who is misaligned is a setback of 3-6 months of productivity. So, before you hire another person, incorporate your values into the interview to encourage the strongest people to join your company. Giving your business the fuel for success.
Guest Bio:
Ken Babcock is the Co-founder and CEO of Tango, which allows users to create beautiful step-by-step tutorials of any digital process without the performance art of video recordings.
Ken, along with his co-founders Brian Shultz and Dan Giovacchini, dropped out of Harvard Business School during the pandemic to start the company. Since then, the company has grown to over 150,000 users and 25 full-time team members.
Prior to HBS, Ken spent most of his career in the Bay Area at Uber, where he helped scale launch operations through playbooks and best practices.
TODAY WE DISCUSS:
- Why building your interview around your values is so important
- How to build your interview to gain evidence of value alignment
Challenge today?
- Bringing values into the interview process
- Defining how to show up for an interview
- Principles of how we evaluate people
- Training people on how to interview
Why is this important to the company?
- Every hire is important
- Critical that the process was not shooting ourselves in the foot
- Great experience brings great people
Rick’s Nuggets
- Defocus on skills.
How do we solve the problem?
- Framework for Evaluating for Values
- Define Your Values
- Training
- Defining what a good/bad answer is
▶️ Take Action
Avoid indecision and move past points of uncertainty. Value speed.
🚀 Aim High
Set uncomfortably ambitious goals. Reject mediocrity.
🌎 Embrace Diversity
Bring our true selves to work each day. Seek unique perspectives.
🌱 Leave It Better
Be an owner, not a renter. Cultivate a growth mindset.
✨ Customer Love
Serve the end user and listen closely. Make magic.
🏆 Team First
Winning as a team beats winning alone. Lift up others.
Training
- Develop a recruiting process document
- Shadowing
- Hot to operate during an interview
- Time, opener,
Initial Phone Screen - 30 minutes
Purpose: Determine whether a candidate’s experience is relevant to the role. Understand whether the role matches what they hope to do next (scope, career path, salary expectations).
🚀 Aim High. Set uncomfortably ambitious goals. Reject mediocrity.
- Attributes: Passion, Champion’s mindset, Ambition, Optimism
- Sample Questions:
- How do you think this role fits in with your career goals?
- What are you most proud of in your career?
- What’s your underlying motivator? What’s your why?
- Do you think you're ready to make the jump?
Hiring Manager Phone Screen - 30 minutes
Purpose: Determine whether the candidate would thrive on this team and whether the team would be up-leveled by this candidate
🌱 Leave it Better. Be an owner, not a renter. Strive to improve 1% each day.
- Attributes: Growth mindset, Humility, Ownership, Feedback-oriented
- Sample Questions:
- What are your development areas? How are you working to address them?
- Tell me about a project that fell short of expectations. What happened and how did you fix it moving forward?
- Fast forward five years - assume Tango was a great experience. Describe what might have happened.
- What's a tough piece of feedback you received recently? How are you working on it?
Technical Screen - 60 minutes
Purpose: Determine whether the candidate can execute in the role at a high level.
▶️ Take Action. Avoid indecision and move past points of uncertainty. Value speed.
- Attributes: Resourceful, Decisive, Problem-solving, Truth-seeking
- Sample Questions:
- How do you approach projects where the scope is overwhelming?
- Tell me about a time where you had to act on incomplete information.
- What's the first thing you'd want to do if you started tomorrow?
- Tell me about a project where your hypothesis turned out to be wrong.
Virtual Onsite - 30-45 minutes each
🏆 Team First. Winning as a team beats winning alone. Lift up others.
- Attributes: Mentorship, Collaboration, Communication, Gratitude
- Sample Questions:
- Tell me about a colleague or manager you admire. What qualities do you try to emulate?
- Tell me about a team dynamic that just wasn't working for you and others. What did you learn from that?
- What do you need from your team members in order to be successful?
- How do you pay it forward in and out of the workplace?
✨ Customer Love. Serve the end user and listen closely. Make magic.
- Attributes: Listening, Perspective-shifting, Humble, Creative
- Sample Questions:
- In prior roles, what have you learned about your customers?
- How do you incorporate the customer’s perspective into your work?
- Tell me about a time at work you made a mistake.
- What does it mean to you to deliver an “Aha Moment” to a customer?
🌎 Embrace Diversity. Bring our true selves to work each day. Seek unique perspectives.
- Attributes: Unique, Conscientious, Self-aware, Inclusive
- Sample Questions:
- You've just been notified you have to give a Ted talk in 15 minutes. What's your topic?
- What have you changed your mind about recently?
- Tell me about a time at work where you really thrived. What contributed to that?
- How do you incorporate feedback into your work?
Closing Interview - 15-30 minutes
Purpose: Sell the candidate on the company’s vision and the quality of the team. Answer any remaining questions.
- Sample Questions:
- How did today’s interviews go? What excites you most about the opportunity?
- What hesitations do you have?
- What timelines or competing processes should we account for?
- Are there any other questions I can answer?
Answer Quality Rubric
Weak |
Average |
Strong |
|
|
|
Decision
- Thumbs up or down
- Do not require unanimous thumbs up
- Debrief, revote
- verdict
Rick’s Nuggets
- 4 to 6 values is all you need
- Phone screen
- Working session
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Integrate your core values into your hiring process and beyond! (performance management, operating cadence, etc.)
- For early-stage companies, you need to toe the line of “always be selling” and evaluating candidates
- Requiring unanimous decisions on candidates can actually force a regression to the mean and avoid taking risks on high-potential candidates.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/
- Company: https://www.tango.us/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trytango/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jul 28, 2022
Thursday Jul 28, 2022
Doom & gloom is the impending economic forecast according to the media. Having flourished through two previous recessions, I have learned to look for the opportunity that comes with the adjustment.
And when it comes to hiring, the opportunities to thrive are bountiful!
One trend that I have personally observed throughout the years is that companies like Google & Facebook silently ramped up passive recruiting during those times and were able to come out of the adjustment even stronger.
Today I challenge you to recognize the opportunity that lies ahead and to commit to the growth of your people. This can and will only have positive results for them and the business.
Today’s Question:
- How do you build a stronger company in tough economic times?
Today we’re going to discuss:
- Why it is critical that you continue hiring activity
- How to hire effectively to increase the productivity & retention of your people
Challenge today?
- Keeping your High performers engaged
- Your best people are MORE valuable!
- They will be hunted by your competitors
- Hiring stronger people challenges & motivates the people you already have
- Your best people are MORE valuable!
- Growth through an economic downturn
- Look for the opportunity for your people
- People become fearful and move to more “stable” environments
- Recruiting remains a reactive activity
- We only hire when we feel the pain
- Hiring happens regardless if you chose to participate
- Participate
- Look for the opportunity for your people
Why is this important to the company?
- Downturns are opportunities for growth!
- The people onboard Fuel or Stifle growth
- Fear drives people to make poor decisions
- Poor decisions kill business
- Avoid being forced to hire anyone who is willing to accept your role… because they need a job
-
- Due to attrition
How do we solve the problem?
- Perspective
- Understand the value of continuously hiring
- Higher bar, less volume
- Opportunity to opportunistically hire
- Attract people who will elevate performance in the organization
- New ideas, new energy
- Understand the value of continuously hiring
- Increased Communication to retain your current people
-
- Career pathing
- Know the “What’s in it for me” for every one of your people
- Planned exits
- Promote purpose
- Engaging New People
- Dedicate 1-2 hours a week
- Passive talent engagement; NOT RECRUITING
- Reconnect with past talent
- Ask for new referrals
- “Get to know you for the future”
- Commit to 2 meetings a week with potential hires - Coffee ok
- Use Discovery Call script
- Purpose: positioning & value alignment
- Empower the hire
- Communicate timeframe and allow the person to be proactive
- Pull the trigger!
- Dedicate 1-2 hours a week
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Proactive hiring: Commit to 1 hour a week to expand your talent network
- Communication: Recognize the opportunity for your people and the business to thrive
- Action: When the opportunity arises to hire a high performer, embrace it. Allow the new person to fuel the energy of your team
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
- Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
How to Avoid Hiring a Bad Actor with Becky Wanta of Q5id
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
We have all become painfully aware that cybercrime is at all-time record highs. Now the bad actors have figured out how to hack your hiring process.
Stories have been surfacing about people accepting roles remotely that are different people from the ones attending the interview.
Let’s face it, hacking the interview process is probably the easiest way to infiltrate your company and ultimately your data. When the interviewers focus on the skills and do not dig deep enough into the truth about the other person the result can be the opportunity that puts your company in jeopardy.
Guest Bio:
Becky Wanta is the CTO of Q5id and a highly accomplished global senior executive with more than 30 years of success in applying extensive IT experience to guide companies in a wide variety of industries to achieve their goals.
She has proven her ability to improve market share and profitability while establishing long-term business relations and recruiting and developing cross-functional and high-performing teams.
She has also been profiled by various publications, including Profile magazine and Bloomberg News. She is the holder of two US patents.
Today We Discuss:
- How bad actors can infiltrate your company
- How to avoid hiring those who can decimate your company
Challenge today?
- Not a guarantee that the person who you are hiring is who they say they are
- No prevent identity
- Billions are lost every year because of data breach
- background check does not guarantee that the person is who they say they are
- References, credit score,
- Remote workforce is giving rise to fake personas & identities
Why is this important to the company?
- Cost the company Millions of dollars
- The FBI just issued a warning on June 28 about fraudulent candidates applying for WFH positions and using deep fakes to hide their true identity. We can be sure this activity will increase, and we can be sure that these are professional criminals and foreign-state actors who want to hijack a company’s data. (source: https://tinyurl.com/mvsnz7bs)
- Background checks are often perfunctory, particularly if a candidate has presented well and you really want to hire this person
- if a person has an apparently clean record, but is a member of a criminal gang or a malicious state actor. Professional criminals are way ahead of you here.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Targeted and focused search
- Totally negates the issue
How do we solve the problem?
- Tighten up and expand pre-employment and background check processes to include a proven identity process which includes:
- Biometrics/personal identifiers that your employees control. This needs to include liveness checks, biometric and AI-driven models to ensure individuals are who they say they are
- Government ID checks
- 15 se Face-to-face live view
- Be Systematic
- So, companies need to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive while building a distributed team, with everyone focused on the product. They must be systematic about finding specific skillsets and finding those skillsets in people who want to work with other people.
- prove their new employees are not working for someone who wants to break into your IT systems and steal everything they can.
- The FBI says cybercrime cost in the form of phishing and other scams and data breaches cost US businesses almost $7 billion last year. With more criminal organizations and state actors involved, and now deploying deep fakes, that number could go up exponentially if companies don’t address this problem urgently. (Source: https://tinyurl.com/yc7abcht)
- CEOs, C-suites, and Boards to implement a program that can combat deep fakes, I’d make sure my Board has at least one person who’s familiar with enterprise-grade security, and I’d make sure I have an A-team Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) on my team.
- Implement a proven identity method
- biometrics
Rick’s Nuggets
- Targeted hiring approach
- Identify & proactively develop a relationship with the person BEFORE you need to hire them.
- Referrals!!!
- Structured Interview process
- Behavioral Interview
- Train your interviewers!
- Evidence
- Values first, skills second
- BS meter
- References
- Verified Managers only
- Backdoor company references
- Behavioral Interview
- Decision Making
- “Hell Yes” or NO
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Never compromise on finding the best people with the best-fitted skills
- Never forget you’re building a product for a specific reason and customer.
- But never be lax in proving your exciting new employees are who they say they are.
- Never be lax in finding out if your new employees are working for a criminal organization or malicious state.
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccawanta/
- Company: https://q5id.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/q5id/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Q5idProvenID
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provenidentity/
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor: www.stridesearch.com
Thursday Jul 14, 2022
It’s Never Too Early to Lead through Core Values with Marc Reinfenrath of Spinutech
Thursday Jul 14, 2022
Thursday Jul 14, 2022
Last week I had a conversation with a CEO who thought it was too early to establish core values because his company was only 15 people. His thinking was that things would just change anyway and he would have to do them all over again as the company grows.
But here was the ginormous problem: Two of his people recently quit, the last 4 offers he made were turned down and the candidate pipeline was drying up.
… And he thought it was about the money.
Today, more than ever, people desire to be in alignment with the values of the organization. If they aren’t in alignment, they leave.
Here’s the truth: your company has values whether you like it or not. Solidifying your values and making them a decision-making tool can never happen too early and will only fuel company growth.
Guest Bio:
Marc Reifenrath is the CEO & Co-founder of Spinutech, a full-service digital marketing agency with 165+ team members across the U.S.
Marc has helped Spinutech grow from a college start-up to one of the premier full-service digital marketing agencies in the country. The secret ingredient? Company values that are truly lived, including a commitment to “Get Better Every Day”.
In that capacity, Marc understands firsthand how critical a company’s culture is to achieving and maintaining success.
Today We Discuss:
- When to implement your company values
- How to weave them into the fabric of your company
Challenge today?
- Had unwritten core values but were not formalized
- Had a miss on 2 or 10 or 20.
- Talent outweighs the cultural fit
- Drawn in by talent and weeded out by the environment
- 2 people hired that within 90 days were gone. Instant misalignment
- -realized culture pushed them out
Why is this important to the company?
- From a hiring perspective, it is a really quick filter
- Not too aspirational. You have to own what you really are
- We take too long to make the decision
Rick’s Nuggets:
- Formalization attracts the right people and repels those who do not
- Notion that you want to attract everyone is WRONG
- Time!
- Interviewing kills the production of your team
- Assumptions, bias & personal motives… oh my!
How do we solve the problem?
- Leadership team development
- People who understand the organization
- Doesn't need to be perfect
- Needs to be honest
- *** needs to be authentic, not aspirational
- Values need to be actionable
- We get better every day: better myself, team & clients
- Work into a daily routine
- Core values onboarding
- Slack channel language is communicated
- Natural part of how they do business
- Lived every single day
- Leaders need to show core values in Action!
- Weekly video “get better every day”
- In every part of the business
- Without core values, a lot more problems.
- Stronger the core values the more you are prepared for growth
- Every person who onboards becomes less of an attack
- Inject DNA into people as quickly as possible
- Feedback on how to enhance the value
Rick’s Nuggets
- Be realistic about who YOU are
- Aspirational values are worthless
- North star for how everyone operates within the organization
- Build interview questions around core values
- Evaluate against values
- Aligned = hire
- Build an interview question library
- Assign interview questions to each interviewer
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Honest about what your core values are, Lived not aspirational
- Actionable values -
- Stay patient in the hiring process. Don't just put a butt in a seat.
Guest Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcreifenrath/
- Company: https://www.spinutech.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spinutech/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spinutech
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spinuser
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinutech.llc/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/spinutech
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
The Hiring 4-S: Strategy, Systems, Staff & Skills with Hilmon Sorey of CoachCRM
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Are Strategy and Systems missing in your hiring process?
The answer is most likely “Yes” as 99.9% of entrepreneurs approach hiring as a reactive activity based on a current need. This is dangerous because it perpetuates the transactional mindset that sets you up for failure.
Strategy is not about “how do I turn on the funnel”. Strategy is about how you identify, contact & engage with the person who will thrive in your business. This means being able to articulate your value to align with each individual.
But, strategy is not enough to get an A-player to join your company. The structure of your interview process is the System that demonstrates excellence within the organization. And excellence is what every high performer strives for in their next company.
Guest Bio:
Hilmon Sorey is Co-Founder of CoachCRM sales coaching software for managers; Co-Founder of ClozeLoop, a sales strategy, training, and enablement firm with offices in New York, Houston, Silicon Valley, and Johannesburg; Partner in 2.12 Angels as a seed-stage venture capital firm; and author of 8 top-selling books on sales, sales management, and coaching.
He has helped build teams in companies that range from early-stage startups to Salesforce, Box, SurveyMonkey, Bill.com, and some of the fastest-growing companies in the world totaling over $600B in valuation and market cap.
He’s an award-winning trainer who has trained over 15,000 salespeople and over 5,000 executives. He is a sought-after speaker around the globe and a Forbes contributor.
Today We Discuss:
- The 4 S’s: Strategy, Systems, Staff & Skills
- How to implement the missing pieces into your organization
Challenge Today?
- Ensuring that you are hiring the right people who will have impact
- Understanding go-to-market strategy in how you hire
- Strategy and Systems absent in most hiring process
- How Companies Scale and How to Use Hiring as Competitive Advantage
Why is this important to the company?
- Ask any CEO of a Unicorn what they consider to be their competitive advantage. They’ll say their people.
- Tech eventually equals out, Markets change, Investors are wonderful - but even they invest in people.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Strategy absent:
- No time to do it
- Feel it’s not important
- It’s all bullshit anyways
- System
- No time to set up or train
- The results you get are the fruits of the effort of the work put.
How do we solve the problem?
- Strategy
- Understanding GTM strategy
- Competitive Differentiation (direct, indirect)
- Winning Zone
- Messaging and Channels
- Systems
- Agile Tech Stack
- Sales & Marketing Playbooks
- Feedback Loop and Ecosystem
- Staff
- Sales Strategy
- Competency Matrix
- Methodology for Alignment (proof)
- Culture
- Skills
- Training
- Coaching
- Margin Gains
Rick’s Nuggets
- Strategy:
- Only hire people who align with company values!
- Learn early
- Understand YOU first
- Only meet people who “lean in”
- System
- Interview process
- Documented, and communicated,
- Interview process
- Skills
- Train your people
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Focus on Strategy and Systems to create scale.
- Hiring is as critical as identifying customers
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilmonsorey/
- Company: https://www.coachcrm.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coachcrm/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/hilmonsorey
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEJm9RoCfu8y7AJpaxkxqQ
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Why is the phone screen is the most underutilized tool in hiring today?
There is this perception or fear that the person making the call will say the wrong thing and screw up the chances that the person will show up. So the phone screen is treated like a used car sale.
Tell people all the great things about our company, gather some basic information and invite the person in to interview. And because we like them because look good on paper, we assume they will want to work for us.
Here’s the truth: High performing people do not want to work for your company based on your sales pitch. What people want is to be understood and to be positioned where they can deliver the greatest impact.
How do I get better with phone screens?
Today we’re going to discuss:
- Why Phone screens (Discovery calls) are critical to hiring A-players
- The most important question you need answered before you bring ANYONE in for an interview
Challenge today?
- Phone Screen! - Discovery call
- Often skipped
- Viewed as a time waster
- Real time waster is the interview
- 90% of the people that get interview will position themselves out
- The most important question:
- “What are 3 or 4 main criteria you need to see in an opportunity for you to accept an offer with a company”
Why is this important to the company?
- First impression of your company
- You need people to show up to your interview
- Understand how to close the person at the end of the proces
How do we solve the problem?
- Value the Discovery call
- Prioritize time
- Make the decision to call EVERYONE
- Basic screening eliminates the bottom 10% but also the top 10%
- A-players often hide
- Positioning before skills
- Pain, Desire & Impact
- Common info (skills, commute, interviewing, compensation expectations)
- Wrap up
- Main Criteria Question
- “3 or 4 main criteria you need to see in an opportunity for you to accept an offer with a company”
- Confirm if they desire what you offer
- How you can get me to join your company!
- Connect the dots
- Allows them to take ownership
- They show up, ready to succeed
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Prioritize the phone screen/discovery call
- Look for alignment of positioning for EVERY person you talk to BEFORE they are brought in for an interview
- Let the person ask for the interview
Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
- Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon)
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
- www.stridesearch.com
Friday Apr 29, 2022
Friday Apr 29, 2022
Sometimes an innocent conversation during an interview can have horrific consequences, especially if you end up not hiring a person.
The biggest problem every company faces during the hiring process is the interview.
Two people go into a room together for a conversation and no one knows what transpires. Conversations flow and curiosity carries the conversation.
As we all know, curiosity killed the cat… and possibly your company.
Let’s replace curiosity with consistency.
Because the lack of consistency is what breeds unfair interviewing practices by promoting assumptions and cultivating bias. By simply eliminating assumptions & bias from the interview, we can create a process where evidence is gathered that supports the decision.
Minimizing your exposure to future litigation.
Guest Bio:
Victor Xu is attorney extraordinaire in the Fisher Phillips Irvine office where he represents companies in all aspects of labor and employment litigation, from inception through trial, in state and federal courts throughout California.
Victor also has significant experience in conducting internal investigations into alleged employee/supervisor misconduct, including harassment and discrimination, and has provided recommendations for remedial measures, including preparation of new company policies.
Today we discuss:
- Ways your interview might be harming your company
- How to set a process that minimizes potential litigation
Challenges today?
What gets you in trouble when interviewing
- Telling people “you are a perfect candidate”
- California is pro-plaintiff
- People grasp on to certain words
Having a standard in place where interviewers are not just shooting from the hip in the interview
- Mitigate risk
- What kind of music do you like?
- Fishing questions
- Trying to be personal but it is going too far
- Too much feedback
Why is this important to the company?
- Serial interviewees who doesn't get the job claiming discrimination
- Going after tech companies
- Puts handcuffs on the company to settle
- People catch wind of who was hired
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interviews tend to be shallow and decisions are made on assumptions & bias
How do we solve the problem?
Train people to interview and use trained people exclusively
- Select interview team
- All people trained
- Stick to the interview outline and consider a list of no-go questions.
- Training limits the liability of what is said/asked (extra layer of protection)
Create an interview guide of objective questions
- Consistent & fair process
- Questions for everyone & role specific questions
- Questions vetted to mitigate risk
- Off-handed comments
- “Your a perfect candidate”
- “Youthful culture”
- Religious assumptions - questions about drinking, etc.
- “What's your ethnic background?”
- Relating to the candidate can get you in trouble
Honest response for hiring choice
- We are going to pass at this time: Thank you for applying, but we have decided to pursue other applicants. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Values cannot be discriminatory, Legitimate business reason- values
- Information to disclose
- We decided to go with another person
Rick’s Nuggets
Tie your interview questions to values
- Assign the questions to a specific interview position (ie: interview #1)
- Remove opinion from the decision making process
- Score card ranking - highly subjective
- Weigh values alignment above skills
- Evaluate skills based on performance metrics for the role
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- Brewery of the perks that you offer candidates and understand their consequences.
- Ensure employees are properly classified even where both sides agree.
- Train and prepare your team on appropriate interview questions.
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-xu-b43bba25/
- Company: https://www.fisherphillips.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fisher-&-phillips-llp/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/labor_attorneys
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fisherphillipsllp/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHCDdUXOnEjfOtUYu6OqTxA
Host Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
- Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
- Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com
- Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre
- HireOS inquiry: rick@stridesearch.com
Show Sponsor:
Thursday Apr 14, 2022
Hiring Super A-Players with Steve Newcomb of Powerset
Thursday Apr 14, 2022
Thursday Apr 14, 2022
Let’s talk about why your company is not stacked with A-players. It is not because you cannot afford them.
At its root, the reason is narrowed down to one thing, your foundation
We tend to think of hiring as an activity rather than an essential function like product or finance or even your pitch deck. So much time is invested into these activities. Yet, hiring is the most critical component of building a successful business. In fact, most investors' decisions are heavily influenced by the people who are onboard.
Solidifying a foundation for hiring requires the same amount of care and work as do the other components of your company. It cannot be outsourced. Hiring needs to be owned by leadership, documented and taught to everyone in the organization.
Foundation is what attracts high performers to want to join your company, not the paycheck.
Guest Bio:
Steve Newcomb is a product/engineering led serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four successful venture backed mission-driven startups. He’s best known for co-founding Powerset (now Microsoft Bing) and scaling its engineering team, culture, and operations.
He is the author of some of the most fundamental essays on hiring, culture, and scaling engineering teams, including the original “Cult(ure) Creation” and “In Defense of Introverts”
Today we discuss:
- Building a strong hiring foundation
- How to execute an outstanding interview
Challenges today?
Foundation: Do the big things right and then everything becomes exponentially easier
Be the valedictorian of Stanford. Do the hard things early
- Money tier 1 VC
- Mission
- Product that represents a true and novel breakthrough
- Purpose above just flipping the company
- Oh my god…
- Founder that is technical, thought & cultural leader, good @ recruiting
- excellent at recruiting- study how to speak to people, how to talk to introverts & inspire them. How to be inspiring.
- Have founders that are technical, thought, and culture leaders
- Have a company that matters, something with a mission that’s embedded
- Be a Super A
- Have a founder that is excellent at recruiting and is a Super A
- Track everyone who has ever worked for you. Keep in contact
- A=A, B=C
- Get the right people in early
- VPE needs to be a baller!
- Why buy silver when you can rent gold
- Friends that want to be founders- get them to help 3 days a week?
- Often worth 10 engineers
- Obvious Yes then there is everything else = automatically hire slower
Without this?
- How to hire good people?
- Lie to them & pay them a lot of money
Rick’s Nuggets
Chad Walters from Powerset
- Foundation = Structure & Process
- Structure- steps, timing & interview questions
- Process - flow of the steps, transition & feedback timing, decision
How do we solve the problem?
Principles of doing good interview process. Treat everyone like gold.
You interview me
- Earn your job first
- Change the power dynamic
- De stress
- Have they done any research to come up with questions
- Do not negotiate
- Pay should be at the 50th percentile not pay above market
- When you have to pay above market the worse your product is
- Tier one vc firm gives - data
- Design for introverts and socially awkward situations
- Don’t repeat
Creative Tactics: Don't work without good fundamentals
- Look for “Thank you’s” in IRC/stack overflow
- Reverse layup- founders reverse lookup on everyone that follows you
- Already interested in what you have to say. Know who they are
- Sit down with your A’s
- Ask who they know, names
- Release from the social awkwardness of asking their friends
- Who follows your A’s?
- Super A’s are how you fire fast
- Jr engineers
- Hack reactor- meet everyone and ask ”who is the best engineer is”
- Kill the weeds
- Don't need a unanimous vote to say yes
- If you build trust, they trust you to hire the right people
The interview
- Assign jobs
- Assign interview responsibilities
- Founder leads recruiting
- Do not waste the team's time with duds.
- The highest level Founder/Exec does the filtering so that every candidate that makes it to a full spread interview is a Super A, or an A.
- Do this well, you build trust, followers. Do this poorly and you deserve to fail.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Purpose is to get to the TRUTH
- Script the questions
- Discovery call
- Positioning & Impact
- Value aligned interview
- Do behaviors align with the values, mission & vision of the business
- Working session
- Real life scenario of how the team will work together
- Solve a real problem
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):
- If the foundation is right. Everything else becomes easier
- Spend all your time getting the first people done right
- Be relentlessly creative
Guest Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenewcomb/
- Blog: https://medium.com/@stevenewcomb
- Website: http://famous.co/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenewcomb
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
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 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/
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 Nov 18, 2021
How to Compete & Win-Win Against a Huge Salary with Michael Downing of MDSV Funds
Thursday Nov 18, 2021
Thursday Nov 18, 2021
How do you compete against a huge company like Amazon or even a really well funded startup?
If you are competing checkbook to checkbook, you will lose… Every time!
The only way to tilt the odds in your favor today is to really understand the career wounds of the person and to be able to connect the dots as to how your opportunity fulfills their desires.
This requires you to listen. Stop selling and start understanding what is important to the individual. This will allow you to stand out from the competition and allow the person you need to hire to see value above and beyond the paycheck.
Our guest today: Michael Downing, Founding Partner of MDSV Fund
Michael is a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, has co-founded 6 software companies over a 28 year career, 3 of his companies were acquired and one had an IPO in 2006.
For the last 3 years, Downing has focused on investing in promising early-stage tech companies via his venture capital fund MDSV. Michael has recruited, hired and managed hundreds of employees over the span of his career.
Today we discuss:
- Why leading with the checkbook is a very bad idea
- How to win talent by NOT leading with the money
Challenge today?
- People are getting paid crazy numbers
- People need to have a major passion of belief in the company
- Now this is a requirement
- Conviction & belief are the new requirement
- wild/ disruptive concepts draw in talent
- Without a big/bold vision you struggle- pirate ship opportunity- highly disruptive company
Why is this important to the company?
- Key positions are being filled by people doing side hustles
- Full Time at companies like facebook
- Necessity for side hustles
Rick’s Nuggets
- People are jumping ship because they no longer align with the company values
- Too often big salaries = lot’s of problems (attrition, toxic culture, bad leadership, undefined work)
- If someone turns you down for a higher offer, you blew your hiring process.
- “Rent gold before buying silver” - Steve Newcomb
How do we solve the problem?
- Be new, bold, unique, disruptive concept- big vision
- A new way to solve a problem, product in a totally different way
- Investor pitch- ½ people say “that's crazy”- your onto something
- Make believers in what you are doing
- Build an advisory board first
-
- Thoughtful about who the members are
- Translates to 6-12 contacts that can be team members
- Credibility
- Positioning
- Funding
Rick’s Nuggets
- Have a interviewing process (you are being judged too)
- People to take you seriously
Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! - Value:
- Set Yourself Up For Hiring Success: It's got to be a Big, Bold, Kickass Vision
- Plant Your Roots Early: Your advisory board can be the single most valuable hiring resource in the earliest of days
- Don't Conform: Adapt Your Policies & Benefits to people's changing lifestyles
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldowning/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.downing.7161953
Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaeldowning
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Oct 07, 2021
Thursday Oct 07, 2021
4 Million Americans quit their jobs in July of 2021 , according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. What this means is that you have a tremendous opportunity to upgrade your talent base in your organization.
The pandemic has magnified people’s career wounds in a way that every business will be impacted.
While many reasons are given as to the cause of this mass exodus, the root of the fall out is that the people leaving are no longer in alignment with the company’s values.
Value alignment is now more critical than ever to attract and hire people. Because when people align with the actual company values, they find meaning & discover their purpose.
And their purpose is far more important to them than your profits.
Today is a special episode due to the massive number of requests from our audience about this little problem called the great resignation
We discuss:
- Why it is critical to own your company values
- How to prosper in Hiring - TODAY!
Challenge today?
- My people are getting poached!
- We have come to a point where people want meaning & purpose in their lives.
- Perks, compensation & benefits no longer matter
- People are questioning their “why”
- Imbalance
- Stress & heartache
- More flexibility is not the real issue
- Inc Article https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/great-resignation-work-meaning-esther-perel.html
- Demonstrating meaning & the company cares about them as “human beings”
Why is this important to the company?
- Who’s leaving?
- Mid- career employees have the highest resignation rates! (30-45)
- You are positioned to heal a person's career wounds.
- When you align with values and provide a solution to heal, both parties WIN
- People are expecting win-win relationships with their employers
- The Great Opportunity!
- Easiest time in history to engage A-Players!
- Raise the performance bar in your organization
4 Steps to Win-Win Talent in this Great Resignation
Get solid on your Values
- Key to attracting top performers
- Who you are
- how you lead
- how people act
Understand your Recruiting Process
- Recruiting is how you identify people & get people to talk to you.
- Just because you recruited someone great, doesn't mean you should hire them
- Or that they will even accept your job offer
- What is working today
- Target and Contact & Reconnect
- Do not sell, listen
Understand your Hiring Process
- Start with an in depth Discovery call (phone screen)
- Does this person’s desires align with the company (correctly positioned)
- Not skills
- Vision for the environment in which they will excel
- Timed & structured Interview
- Values alignment first
- Skills second (working session)
- Nurture a proactive flow - allow the person to have a voice in what happens next
- What would you like to do next?
Heal the Career Wound
- Growth, Content of work, Management
- Value Alignment
- Progression, learning, flexibility
- If you cannot provide a path to the individual, don't hire
- Someone else will thrive in the role
- You will be just a paycheck (if the person joins)
Key Takeaways -Value:
- The “Great Resignation” is real and you need to be capitalizing on the opportunity that has been presented to us!
- Get tight on the company values… They are the key to a successful hire
- Don't confuse a recruiting process as a hiring process. They are two separate activities.
Rick's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/
Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/
Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio
Book: Healing Career Wounds - https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Career-Wounds-Ridiculously-Successful/dp/173580360X
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
Balancing Quality & Speed as You Hire to Scale with Brian Breth of Fair.com
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
It is time to change our mindset on how to really attract and hire the strongest people. The answer is not having the greatest recruiters or tools. It is not about having strong “employer branding” or compensation plans. The answer is really simple... It is about gathering the evidence in the interview to support the decision without assumptions & bias.
Leadership drives hiring , not recruiting or HR.
Mic drop moment: There are two critical components to your people function. Recruiting & Hiring. Recruiting is run by, well, recruiters and Hiring is run by hiring managers, executives & founders.
To land the strongest people for your organization both functions must have structure, synergy and adequate training to be successful.
Our guest today: Brian Breth, Riot games alumni & former VP of Talent Acquisition at Fair
Brian is a talent acquisition leader and US Marine Corps veteran with 20 years of experience forging, adapting, and applying best practices to complex business challenges in recruiting. He has a proven track record as an entrepreneurial leader whose ability to align teams, enact change, and build sustainable frameworks enables businesses to attract top talent and become more efficient, productive, and competitive.
Specialties: Global talent acquisition strategy and operations, leadership coaching and development, team-building and communication, process development and implementation, networking.
Brian was responsible for scaling Rubicon Project from 200 to almost 800 people in two years.
Today we discuss:
- Why Quality is more important when you scale
- How to scale without sacrificing quality
Challenge today?
- Scaling quickly without sacrificing quality
- Mindset
- Lets get people as fast as we can
- Competing for talent
- Finding the best people
- Not clear into what the values are then translating it to others
- Managing the expectations of investors
- Growth at whatever cost is dangerous
Why is this important to the company?
- A startups evolution
- Culture is the most important element for founders
- Desire for culture conflicts with the investors desires for rapid growth
- To become a competitor you NEED the best people
Rick’s Nuggets
- Understanding what you are up against today
- Flip the funnel upside down
- Work referrals at scale
How do we solve the problem?
- Acquisition
- Understand that hiring people needs to be understood by leadership
- A commitment from leadership
- Cannot just set it & forget it
- Just as important as your new product pipeline
- Alignment at the executive level as to where and how they want to compete for talent
- Realistic on what you can pay
- Value prop - speaking to what is important to the person from a more intrinsic value. What’s important to me?
- Build out the people function
- Retention
- Invest internally to retain them
- Value - a future to live into
- People leave because they no longer see a future for themselves
- Develop leader to provide the future for each team member
Rick’s Nuggets
- Understand each individual’s pain, desire & impact
- Invest in the discovery call!
- 45 minutes saves hours in the long run
- Crucial checkpoint
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Founders look at what you are investing in your people function
- What you invest in talent acquisition you should be investing into leadership training to get them really good at hiring
Guest Links:
Brian Breth: LinkedIn
Website: Riot Games Fair TechRecruit Conference
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop
Thursday Jul 08, 2021
The Right Formula for Proactive Recruiting with Eric Dahan of Open Influence
Thursday Jul 08, 2021
Thursday Jul 08, 2021
Do you have a target list of the people you desire to hire?
It is easy to plan the roles you need to hire but the “who” is what matters most. A very simple hack is to just create a spreadsheet and every time you hear of someone good, add them to your list.
Now here is the important part… reach out and seek to understand. Simply reaching out and listening to their desires is all it takes to attract a well positioned player for your company.
Our guest today: Eric Dahan, Co-Founder & CEO of Open Influence
A premiere influencer marketing company with clients that include Disney, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Under Armour, among others. The company is also a leader in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence within the ad industry thanks to its predictive analytics tools and entire influencer taxonomy, which contains over 10B data points. Eric is a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and Inc. 30 Under 30 honoree.
Eric has hired over 100 people for Open Influence and has a strong proactive program in place.
Today we discuss:
- Why you should always be interviewing
- How to run a proactive hiring campaign
Challenge today? (Reactive hiring and approach to talent)
- Cascade risk of people getting burned out and demoralized
- Takes time to train new people
- An ounce of prevention
- Avoiding the “oh shit” moments
Why is this important to the company?
- From a p&l standpoint, building a more lucrative business
- Retaining the best and brightest that they have worked so hard to to build up
- Attracting, building, training and elevating the best people
Rick’s Nuggets
- People are harder than ever to attract
- Building a passive talent pipeline allows you to constantly raise productivity
How do we solve the problem? (Creating a proactive approach and system to hiring)
- Planning
- This is the structure
- Getting the team to buy in
- The why
- Accomplish more by delegating
- Create a strong feeder of young candidates
- In network referrals
- Inbound, through website
- Industry niche focused
- Building relationships with professors in college
- Elevate and create a management layer
- Empower managers to
- Giving a bit more time to go out and find people
- Budget for strong hires
- Role creation for strong talent
- Elevating from within
- Hired HR director to help with recruiting and building out better processes
-
- A lot of time saved with onboarding
- Point person for planning & vetting
Rick’s Nuggets
- Dedicate 1 hour a week to talent development (first 20)
- Adopt a policy of opportunistic relationship building
- ie: hackathons, hosting events
- Understand the person’s pain & desire
- Start interviewing 2 months prior the role becoming available
- Value alignment is key!
- Judge on values, not skills
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Think about the ideal structure and what is going to make you scale. What is the break point? How do you make sure you bring it to life?
- Think of hiring as something that you will always have to do
- To really scale, make hiring continuous
Guest Links:
Eric Dahan: LinkedIn
Company: Open Influence Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop
Friday May 21, 2021
Diversity Hiring Fire Drills with Venesa Klein of Calibre One
Friday May 21, 2021
Friday May 21, 2021
It is no secret that diversity sparks innovation and fuels business growth.
But diversity for the sake of image or social pressure is dangerous. It needs to truly be embedded into the fabric of the corporate values in how people interact. It is not just checking off a box to satisfy outsiders.
This is most dangerous when someone is hired simply for their gender or race without any consideration of what the individual is positioned to contribute. Values are misaligned, expectations miscommunicated and voila …. Let the nightmare begin.
Costly mistakes that result in wrongful terminations, and hostile work environment lawsuits.
Our guest today: Venesa Klein, Executive Recruiter & Partner for Calibre One.
Since 2007, Venesa has helped some of the world's most successful companies build out the critical leadership teams that drive their success.
As Partner at Calibre One, Venesa founded its Purpose-Driven Practice, which focuses on placing executives in growing organizations seeking to create innovation with meaningful impact. Her empathy forward personality along with her strategic thinking has enabled her to successfully build diversity programs for her clients.
Today we discuss:
- Why diversity may not be right for your company
- How to correctly implement a diversity program
Challenge today? Having a real diversity strategy
- Implement a long term strategy that develops people into leaders
- Diversity in leadership to fill a role - check off the box
- Oh Shit, we need to hire a woman because we are an all male leadership team
- the structure to give opportunity to diversity
- Vanity hire
Why is this important to the company?
- Real change and a more diverse workforce equals growth & innovation
- Companies
- The reality is that a woman
- Diversity of perspective: Will the person really be valued
Rick’s Nuggets
- Hiring for core values alignment eliminates bias, promotes diversity
- Just filling a seat for diversity sake, dangerous
- Value aligned
- Empowered to thrive
How do we solve the problem?
- Bottom up approach
- Add people at the most jr level first
- Development plan
- Way of identifying people who are doing well and offering opportunity to continuously grow
- Promote into leadership
- Incentivizing organization to develop those around them
- Leadership accountability
- When you have to go out to search
- Leadership team in agreement
- Think through the obstacles in recruiting within the criteria
- Ask Why?
- Needs to be a level of honesty -that is not happening
Rick’s Nuggets
- Build your interview process to eliminate bias first
- Value alignment first
- Values come in every flavor of person
- Positioning before Pitch
- Understand the person’s desires
- Path to success
- Heal their career wounds with your opportunity
- Value alignment first
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Bottom up approach
- Strategy around developing diversity in the organization
- Looking through the lens of diversity
Guest Links:
Venesa Klein: LinkedIn Twitter
Company: Calibre One Facebook Twitter
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop
Thursday May 06, 2021
Thursday May 06, 2021
Assumptions are the #1 reason we fail in our expectations when hiring and raising capital.
Assumptions are drawn when we don’t invest the time to listen to all parties. Asking deeper questions to gather data to support an accurate decision is crucial. What is not uncovered is the reason we make bad hires. Because we inject our own assumptions, needs & bias where the evidence should be.
This especially holds true in your hiring process when our needs and desires cloud what is most important, the truth.
Our guest today: Brian Franco, Founder & Managing Partner of Meritage Partners.
Brian strives for excellence and fairness in deal structure and has a deeply intuitive understanding of the importance of company’s compatibility. He has represented and completed deals with an extremely diverse set of small and mid-sized businesses (SMB's), private equity groups and public companies in a number of industries and has significant experience working with companies in: architecture & engineering, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, wellness, A.I., software and technology, and professional services.
Brian is an expert in aligning expectations in the M&A process.
Today we discuss:
- Managing Expectations with Market Conditions and Expectations when Fundraising & Hiring
- 3 step process to achieving expectation alignment
Challenge today?
- Capital raisers need to secure time to develop and bring their vision to market. In business as in life, Time is afforded by “capital” ILLUSTRATION: An airplane needs enough runway, a powerful engine or engines , and fuel to develop speed/momentum to get airborne. One without the other will result in catastrophic results
EXAMPLE: Amazon did not expect to make a profit for four to five years
QUESTION: Will you expect Capital Providers to wait months or years to return a profit?
- Does the investment opportunity meet the investors expectations?
- Time requirement
- Return on Investment
- Balanced Risk & Reward
- Is their alignment among the founders and the investors?
- Cultural alignment
- Is the founder/team coachable?
- Is the founder a “rebel” or a “cowboy/cowgirl”?
- Cultural alignment
- Is there TRUST, Is there a Perception of risk when it comes to the topics of:
- Operational Control
- Financial Control
- Investing in the PERSON or TEAM to execute the vision or the business plan
Note: Visionaries aren’t always the best integrators
STORY: Some of us are familiar with the story about Steve Jobs leaving Apple in 1985 for 12 years and then returning in 1997
- To manage you must first understand
- LISTENING
Why is this important to the company?
- Understanding alignment empowers us and allows us to understand how to meet expectations and then meeting those expectations leads to SUCCESS
- Qualified leadership team: is their personal goodwill or collateral in past successes?
- Relevant experience in leadership
Rick’s Nuggets
- Assume nothing- eliminate your needs, desires & bias
- Listening is the only way to understand
- Understanding is the key to truth
- Truth is the springboard to success
How do we solve the problem of managing expectations?
It is as simple as “Listening” and “Educating” ourselves so that we align and meet expectations of Capital Raisers and Capital Providers.
Identify what is Achievable
- Listening
Education
- Educating clients on what the ‘market’ is likely to offer them
- Aligning expectations to market practices or offerings (reality)
Plan & Equip
- Identify relevant investors
- Develop Pitch Deck and Memorandum to articulate a consistent message
- Experience and ability to Assembling the team and identifying strengths and weaknesses (don’t put the strongest person in any position simply because they are “strong” align their strengths with the organization because they are qualified and capable)
Rick’s Nuggets
- Understand the person the business needs
- Target:
- Research, network & connect with 5-10 potential candidates
- Execute
- Have conversations to determine positioning alignment
Key Takeaways -Value:
- Don’t get in the way of your vision (don’t be too rigid)
- Put an allstar team together
- Be coachable
Guest Links:
Brian Franco: LinkedIn Twitter
Company: Meritage Partners
This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Crop
Friday Nov 13, 2020
Friday Nov 13, 2020
Entrepreneurs, take your mental health seriously because the life of your company depends on it!
Our guest today: Sally Spencer-Thomas, President of United Suicide Survivors International
Sally Spencer-Thomas is a clinical psychologist, inspirational international speaker and an impact entrepreneur. Dr. Spencer-Thomas was moved to work in suicide prevention after her younger brother, a Denver entrepreneur, died of suicide after a difficult battle with bipolar condition.
Today we discuss:
- Why it is critical that you prioritize your mental health
- The 3 components of a strong mental health practice that you can build into your company
My entrepreneurial journey has been a plethora of highs and lows… At times:
- Question my purpose
- Question my judgement
- Manifested extreme confidence followed by imposter syndrome
My saving grace: Having an outlet of physical & mental stimulation outside of business
- Jiu jitsu
Challenge today?
- Cannot let mental unwellness show to investors or competitors
- Extreme self-reliance
- Can not take a mental health day
- When things go down it is on you
- When it crashes it is on you
- A lot of pressure
- Isolation: Tend to be lone rangers
- Competition for funding, being first to market,
- Less likely to reach out for support
- Evidence that we live on the bipolar spectrum, susceptible to maina: https://www.bphope.com/entrepreneurs-success-bipolar/
Why is this important to the company?
- The entrepreneur is the essence of the company.
- You have to keep yourself well because it is on you
- People’s holistic health keeps people engaged in the company
- Talent will not stick around if they are not getting broader opportunities to find a passion for living beyond work
How do we build mental health practice into your company?
- Appreciating that our mental wellbeing is part of our overall asset to the wellbeing of the company.
- Understanding of your own mental health and how best to promote the wellbeing of others.
- Upstream about driving a culture of care -- attract and retain talent, long-arc of productivity and success
Upstream - Building protective factors, resilience as strong at it can be -- modeling self-care
- Eating, exercising, sleep
- Having the a team of the ready
- Front end your day with as much personal wellbeing investment as possible
- Walking the dog touches many aspects of wellness
Midstream - Catching things early
- Before they become catastrophic -- what are the early warning signs that the wheels are wobbling.
- Measures put in place to course correct
- https://www.helpyourselfhelpothers.org/
Downstream - Where do we turn? Resources we have access to
- Dealing with the crisis in our lives
- What is the plan
- Crisis Text Line: https://www.crisistextline.org/ text HELLO to 741741
- iRel8: https://irel8.org/
Key Takeaways:
- Commitment to investing in your health first
- Check out when your brain is not sharp
- Having a plan for crisis (personal)
- Kick the tires of mental health resources before you need them
Links
Guest website and social media platforms:
https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/
TEDx Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/sally_spencer_thomas_stopping_suicide_with_story
Entrepreneurs and mental health video: https://youtu.be/qrWbePKB-6A
Article: Prevent start-up suicide. Literally. Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/271435
Article: Entrepreneurs And Suicide Risk: A New Perspective On Entrapment Provides Hope. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prudygourguechon/2018/08/23/entrepreneurs-and-suicide-a-new-perspective-on-entrapment-gives-hope/?sh=2b2e3cbb5385
Article: The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship. Inc. https://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/jessica-bruder/psychological-price-of-entrepreneurship.html
Carson’s story: https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/history/
https://www.facebook.com/DrSallySpeaks/
https://twitter.com/sspencerthomas
https://www.instagram.com/sspencerthomas/
https://www.pinterest.com/sallyspencertho/boards/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfr2b_0rxSsItOgo021ykkw?view_as=subscriber
Facebook @WorkplaceSuicidePrevention
Twitter @WorkSuicidePrev
Insta: @WorkplaceSuicidePrevention
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOjL6-clq63_G9X_F7Wp1mQ
Thursday Jul 02, 2020
Thursday Jul 02, 2020
Marketing and hiring are far too often major failure points because they are started too late. The right time to start marketing is before you launch your product. Just as the right time to hire is before you feel the pain of needing the work to be done. It is never too soon to to proactively start your marketing or hiring process. The key to not failing is having the structure in place before you feel the pain!
Our guest today: Andrew Miller, CEO of GrowthExpertz
Andrew is a Startup Marketer who's been traveling the world working with early-stage companies. After driving growth for 3 multimillion-dollar startup exits, including a 500startups project in San Francisco, he founded GrowthExpertz.
Andrew's specialty lies in helping companies scale efficiently in the early-stages with both growth coaching and remote consultancy. He’s written for INC magazine, StartupGrind, and StartupNation. Andrew is also a prolific #DigitalNomad who in the last decade has visited, lived, and worked from over 70 countries.
Today we are discussing
- The right time to start marketing efforts
- How to kick off marketing for both product and people
When should a startup start marketing?
- Start marketing right now
- Pre launch, start building a strategy
- Landing pages, call to action
- Even still in stealth mode
- Coming soon, gathering prelaunch beta email list
Why is this important?
- Prioritize marketing too late
- Show investors that you have traction
- Do things that don't scale in the beginning
- Marketing drives your launch
- Launch with an email list
- Bootstrap marketing- drive organic traffic during the early stage of the business. Before launch
Rick’s Nuggets
- Marketing directly leads into hiring
How do we implement marketing & when?
- Online presence- marketing foundation
- Create landing pages, website,
- Social media pages
- Analytics
Start organic marketing
- Organic marketing channels
- PR - start creating relationships with podcast,
- Create content with call to action
- Build to 500 emails of beta testers & followers pre launch
Launch product
- Create press release, go live
Scale the marketing strategies that work
- Go into launch with traffic
- Be able to go into investors with relevant data
Rick’s Nuggets
- With hiring:
- Identify target hires
- Have conversations, network
- Gain buy in to win the hire
Key Takeaways:
- Prioritize foundational marketing early in the game
- Greenlight your organic marketing before the product launch
- Know your kpi’s, analytics
Guest Contact:
- GrowthExpertz - For Funded Startups
- Andrewstartups.com or Instagram - For Bootstrapped Startups
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 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 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.
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 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 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!
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Cracking the Bootstrapped Startup Hiring Code with Meetul Shah of DemandMatrix Inc.
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Why is raising capital more celebrated than building a business that is actually profitable? It may be a smarter play to join an actual business rather than a "concept company".
A bootstrapped company should be more attractive to people but for some reason, it is not. Today we are out to prove that driving a good business does not require venture capital and You do not need VC money to attract and hire the right talent.
Today’s Quote:
"Bootstrapping is a way to do something about the problems you have without letting someone else give you permission to do them."
- Tom Preson-Werner, co-founder of Github
Guest Bio:
Meetul Shah CEO of DemandMatrix, Inc., is a tech entrepreneur, having successfully built 3 companies prior to starting Demand Matrix. His “entrepreneurial” vision and inspiration comes from his desire to create and bring products to the marketplace that can help solve problems he himself has faced in his career. The combination of his years as a successful entrepreneur combined with his tenure at Microsoft has given a strong shape to his business acumen and technical expertise.
Meetul has been featured in several major publications, like CIO, NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Venture Beat, and more.
If you were to ask him to introduce himself in less than 5 seconds, he’d probably just say he’s an idea machine, health freak, and wine lover! He is deeply passionate about Sales and Marketing Productivity given his time working for and selling to enterprise companies like Microsoft, DocuSign, Google, Cisco.
Show Highlights:
- Bootstraping! What is it?
- Challenges & benefits to hiring in this type of organization
- A Process to hire when you do not have money to burn
What is Bootstrapping?
- A bootstrap is a business launched by an entrepreneur with little or no outside cash or other support.
Why Bootstrap your company?
- When you take the capital, you take more risks in hiring. You make bad hires under the pressure of VC money.
- The pressure to hire outweighs common sense.
Challenges faced while hiring
- Viewed like you don't have money
- May not be able to afford people because salaries are supported by the business.
- Lowering standards because people are not biting.
- Desperation takes over and you hire whoever you can.
- Hiring is misunderstood in startups
- False perception- you have money, you hiring
- Early-stage it costs the company a lot when you make a bad hire!
Rick’s Input:
- VC money opens doors but it
- Attracting people who are brainwashed by funding yet you will probably won't get a dime when the company exits
Solutions (what you learned):
As an Entrepreneur, where to Start?
- Understanding yourself, who you are
- Supplement & compliment people to support core values.
- Hiring community understand and can divide and conquer
Structure your process to allow for successful hiring
- Hire a really good TA person
- Build a recruiting process.
- -find a recruiting process, glassdoor
- Don't be desperation and be non-bias and do not ignore the warning signs
- Badmouthing employer, blaming others, sharing things they should not share (internal information), bad culture, bad boss
Rick's Process:
- Determine what the business needs, set performance metrics
- Build interview questions to gauge with company value alignment
- Formalize an interview structure for “Purpose”
- predetermined questions
- Timed
- Behavioral-based interviewing (like Amazon)
- Communication/Feedback channel
Key Takeaways:
- 1. Know yourself, and the values you care about
- 2. Pay attention to the warning signs
- 3. Build a solid business foundation so you can use VC money "as a fuel in the fire" to align incentives/goals
Friday Mar 29, 2019
Special Event: Erik Huberman from TiECon SoCal
Friday Mar 29, 2019
Friday Mar 29, 2019
Erik Huberman, Founder and CEO of Hawke Media, Managing Director of Nest Equity Partners, and Operating Partner of Arrowroot Capital Management
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Mark Angel: How to Hire, Build Process & Lead in a Distributed Startup
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
What are the biggest challenges in building a distributed team as a startup? Today we discuss how to Hire, build process and lead in a distributed model. We will learn that uncovering the right people hinges on the Individual's desire and their emotional intelligence.
Today’s Quote:
“Completing one another is more important than competing with one another." - John C. Maxwell
Show Guest:
Mark Angel is the CEO and Co-founder of Amira Learning, the company reinventing learning to read with AI. Amira is a rapidly growing, venture-funded startup bringing the first intelligent reading assistant into K-3 classrooms.
Mark formerly served as Chief Technology Officer at Renaissance Learning, where he led the R&D organization and worked on the two most successful reading apps in the United States – Accelerated Reader and STAR. He has worked for 30 years in the Silicon Valley as a CEO, CTO and General Manager for innovators in the realm of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (Ernst & Young, Nuance, KANA Software).
Mr. Angel is the founder of three successful start-ups. He is a chief inventor on more than 10 patents in the areas of search.
Episode Highlights:
- The Story of the Challenges faced when building a distributed company
- 3 biggest issues you struggled with
- Tools & solutions that worked best for your team
Problem:
Challenges in Hiring a Distributed Team:
- Hire for the distributed model
- Learn to screen for people who are truly able to function in a distributed environment
- People not really self-aware.
- Build process around the distributed model;
- Challenge: creating infrastructure and culture of behavior to help people to collaborate
- Choices in tooling that turned out to be wrong
- Have to "servant-lead" for the distributed model.
What issues have we struggled with around hiring?
- Where they will Thrive!
- People are not self-aware around work mode…
- The focus seems to be around the technologies they want to use or the comp they want.
Discuss the Model
- Need to put the issue up front before people get excited about the rest of the story and fool themselves and consequently us
Core Values alignment
- We need to be conscious that some folks like talking/collaborating and for others, it’s not the most pleasant part of the day. We aren't going to change a leopard’s spots.
Creating a situation where there is a balance of work and not having too many meetings. Keeping people in a place where they are getting constructive work behavior. Getting that work done but also helping others to get the work done. People are happiest when you find the “groove”.
Rick’s Challenges
- An issue of Upfront Expectations alignment
- Continually ask “Why”
Solutions
What have we done about this?
- Put this issue front & center in the interviewing process
- Getting out of the skills-based mindset.
- Screening - needed to find people who are able to cope with the nature of the model.
- Intentional about the need for people who are wired to work in a distributed environment.
- -talk about the distributed issue up front.
- Hired a recruiting expert
- Learned to screen for being at least somewhat "outgoing" and "opinionated"
- "Servant-leadership" for the distributed model.
How do we manage work?
Baking collaboration into everyday environment. Tools like google suite/slack/zoom/github/atlassian -- basically emphasis is on creating the norms around the tools. Understand when they should be using the tools
- Slack, Zoom, Gmail suite, Google docs works really well, hangouts did not for them.
- tools around design thinking.
- Set of heuristics and norms around the tools.
Allow people Flexibility
What went right & wrong in the process?
- right -- took a "team experiment" approach
- right -- recognized they needed help & hired an expert
- wrong -- didn’t push hard enough to create norms
Rick’s first step
- Take the time to understand a person’s desires before you “Pitch” the company
- People will tell you what they want. You just have to ask.
- "If you could design your ideal company, what would that look like for you?"
- A company where you will Thrive!
Key Takeaways:
- Hire people who are self-aware - Hire for EQ & cultural fit first
- Experiment with popular tools to find the tools that “best fit" for your team
- Recognize you are fighting human nature and hire to overcome
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
Monday Feb 11, 2019
Monday Feb 11, 2019
Today we are discussing the Steps to building & scaling headcount in growth mode. Making sure that execution & time to fill are aligned.
Today’s Quote:
"Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together." - James Cash Penney
Show Guest:
Brendan Rogers, Co-Founder & Leading Recruiting of Wag Labs, has raised over $360 million in venture capital, most recently $300 million from Softbank's Vision Fund. Wag! connects pet parents to dog walkers and is currently live in over 110 U.S. cities. He co-founded a social discovery service to meet new people which grew to over 50 million users in over 10 countries and was acquired by IAC in 2014.
Brendan's next big event will be speaking at the ERE Conference on April 22-24th.
Episode Highlights:
- How to ramp up from 0 to hero
- Steps to put in place to avoid making hiring mistakes
You company closes your first round of funding
- 10 -12 roles from Nothing
- no resources & no systems in place
- Spreadsheets, manual task-oriented, process
Preparation before go mode
- Building out pipelines, similar spaces, consumer-related companies.
- How to avoid making the wrong hire.
- How to scale for maximum impact
- Tools needed. Process in place, a foundation to scale.
- Get really good at identifying the right people, connecting the dots, sourcing- research
- He does a ton of research, knows his space.
- Strive to keep quality really high. Target specific businesses.
Action Plan & Execution
- First hire should be a recruiter
- Identify what is needed & write job descriptions
- Right messaging
- Tackled building pipeline, hired.com
- Spreadsheet
- Hired a recruiter, brought in an ATS (applicant tracking system)
First:
- Get an ATS system first! -like Newton, Google (hire with Google) Greenhouse, lever
- - take open requirements and intake with each hiring manager. Know the roles from top to bottom
Second:
- Build a pipeline, training managers on how to use the ats, become partners with the hiring managers
Third:
- Hire a recruiter only after 5+ open roles.
- Admin- for cost savings
- Having a foundation will only help you to scale.
Key Take-Aways
- Be best friends with your Hiring Managers
- Be on top of everything
- Always be available
- Invest in the right tools
Friday Nov 30, 2018
Sang Huynh: Extreme Transparency, Tech Startup Style
Friday Nov 30, 2018
Friday Nov 30, 2018
The good and great results of full company transparency. There is a growing movement for full openness within companies which is pretty common in Tech startups. The more open you are, the more engaged your people become!
Today’s Quote:
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” - Dalai Lama
Show highlights:
- What is Transparency & Why it is important
- What works & what doesn't
- Transparency in the hiring process
Let’s start by talking about your experience at Tint
- How was the company transparent?
- Open door meetings
- Open Financials
- Employee compensation
- Group decision making
- Different levels of Transparency
- Extreme transparency
What works and what doesn't?
- Ownership
-
- Decision-making process
- Compensation Transparency
- Reduces distractions
- Open venting/surveying
- Open transparency to customers did not work so well
Process for transparency in the interview process
Structure for Transparency
Preparation for roll out
Engagement
- Job postings
- Personal awareness with an assessment to determine the data
- Contact - demonstrate transparency
- Managing expectations- positive experience… expect to hear from us by x date
Interview
- Interview process
- Discuss people challenges
- Product/company challenges
- Preparing the candidate,
- What happens when & time frame
- Lower the barrier of nervousness - must get them comfortable
Sang Huynh is a Mentor at Quake Capital Partners and former COO for TINT (tintup.com), A marketing tech startup in SF that recently exited. One of TINT’s guiding principles is to “cultivate transparency both internally and externally.” From open door meetings, exposed financials (including compensation) and group-based decision making. Prior to TINT, Sang was a VP in the Global Security Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch which has the traditional corporate culture. He’s here to share his experience as a former leader at two organizations with polar opposite approach to culture.
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 Oct 11, 2018
Rocky Romanella: Define and Build Your Core Company Values
Thursday Oct 11, 2018
Thursday Oct 11, 2018
Define and build your core company values. Companies with clearly defined values & purpose consistently outperform their competitors by as much as 10x. Today’s episode is focused on helping you define who you are.
Today's Quote:
"Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose." - Edward de Bono (1933 - ), Author and Inventor
Show Guest:
Rocky Romanella is currently the Founder and CEO of 3SIXTY Management Services, LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in Executive Speaking, Leadership Development, and Consulting Services.
Rocky is an experienced CEO who led one of the largest rebranding initiatives in franchising history – The UPS Store, revolutionizing the $9 billion retail shipping and business services market. He steered UPS’s entry into the healthcare industry and created the mantra, “It’s a patient, not a package. ®”
He also led the integration of more than 20 acquisitions to improve financial performance, capabilities and global network footprint. Rocky has the rare ability to see a clear vision of the changing business landscape, the passion to develop strategies, tactics and metrics to drive desired results. He is the Author of Tighten the Lug Nuts: the Principles of Balanced Leadership(Amazon.com).
Episode highlights:
- Who you are?
- Defining your company values
- How to align your hiring with your values
“Without a strong set of values, the best leadership strategy can go awry. With a good value structure in place, the worst leadership approach can right itself and eventually lead to the desired outcome.” - Rocky Romanella
Why is this Important?
- People desire a sense of purpose to really thrive
- Core values are the Foundation for defining your Mission & Purpose
- Attrition issues/bad hires
- *small business don't believe they need to have values well defined... Wrong!
How do you define who you are?
- Start with your personal brand
- “Your true character is defined by your honesty of purpose”
- Ask peers
- Company Survey
- What won't I compromise
Step by step of how to define and build your core company values:
Rick’s process:
- Start with Personal values first
- KPI driven VS. People driven
- Established Leadership Team
- Define everyone’s core values and build from there.
- Prioritize top values
- Own your Values!
- Understand your values? You must:
- Articulate clearly in writing.
- Test your values through daily decision-making.
- Rocky’s Structure:
- Mission
- Vision
- Strategy
- Roadmap
How to transfer your values into your hiring:
- Values Alignment
- Values drive hiring
- Behavioral interview process
- Assessments: Disc, Predictive Learning
- Don’t compromise on hiring!
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.
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
Event Interview:Paul Pickle From Octane OC's Technology Innovation Forum
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
Paul Pickle, Former President & COO, of Microsemi & MC of Octane OC's 2018 Technology Innovation Forum. We discussed the future of Semiconductor and whats on the horizon.
Monday Jun 11, 2018
Event Interview: Ryan Permeh From Octane OC's Technology Innovation Forum
Monday Jun 11, 2018
Monday Jun 11, 2018
Ryan Permeh, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Cylance! I had the pleasure to sit down with Ryan for a quick interview at Octane OC's Technology Innovation Forum Event. He shared some great Insight on Leveraging the Cybersecurity hub in SoCal.
Thursday May 17, 2018
Richard Franzi:Unintended Consequences Of A Poor Hiring Process
Thursday May 17, 2018
Thursday May 17, 2018
Bad hires are the negative effect of a unstructured hiring practice and will manifest itself in the performance of your company. So how do you minimize the risk of bad hires? A hiring structure needs to be in place to drastically increase the chances of making a great hire.
Show Guest:
Rick Franzi is the Founder & CEO of Critical Mass for Business. He is the author of the best selling book “Killing Cats, Leads to Rats” -Mitigating the unintended consequences of Business Decisions.(Amazon.com)
Rick currently chairs CEO Peer Groups® throughout Los Angeles and Orange County, CA through his partnership with Renaissance Executive Forums. He is the host of Critical Mass Radio Show & Podcast here on OC Talk Radio.
He is a nationally recognized thought leader on the power of peer learning for CEOs and business executives. Rick's work has been featured in national media forums such as Forbes & Inc.com
Topics covered in “unintended consequences”:
- Symptoms
- Diagnosis: the disease is not Hiring with a process
- Secure Model for Hiring
- Prescription
What are the symptoms (issues)?
- Company’s hire for Skills
- Winging it
- Asking the wrong questions
- Down hiring
The diagnosis: disease is not having a hiring process. Why?
- Repels great talent (unstructured is unimpressive)
- Unstructured interview (only a 6% chance of making the correct hire)
- Bad hire will infect 30% of the people around that person - drop in performance
Prescription/solution - implementing the SECURE Model
- S stands for slow down the decision-making process.
- E stands for expand your knowledge.
- C stands for clarify the desired outcome.
- U stands for unify the team
- R stands for retain control of the process.
- E stands for ensure you stay outcome focused.
Check out the Blog on the Stride Search, Inc site for the supplementary “show recap” article with detailed takeaways/insights from the interview.
Thursday May 10, 2018
Thursday May 10, 2018
True transparency maximizes trust and enables a company to thrive! Vincit promotes proactive leadership and a bottom up leadership approach. The results: a rediculously successful business with no attrition and incredible engagement and productivity.
Episode highlights:
- True Transparency- what it looks like to a company that is thriving
- Proactive leadership
- How this structure attracts outstanding people!
Explain what transparency looks like in you company
- Publish Salaries openly- colleagues nominate for raises. Twice a year
- Satisfaction guarantee for new employees. Pay people to leave within first two months
- Eliminated middle management
- Company credit card
How does transparency Maximize Trust?
- Bottom to top approach to leadership - focus on listening and reacting. Leadership as a service- created a platform. LaaS
- Increase Management workload? - lowers load because you are not predicting situations to handle situations. Individualize the model. People end up managing themselves
Transfer into your hiring process?
- What do they do in hiring?
- Screening to eliminate the mediocrity? they test interviews in teamwork based situations.
- Look for collaboration, skills and cultural fit. Have to be able ask questions, “having dialog”
Results?
- Attrition
- Engagement
- Productivity
Ville Houttu is the Founder and CEO of Vincit California, Inc. Previously, he helped to take it public in Nasdaq First North marketplace. After the IPO, Ville moved to California to start Vincit’s local subsidiary. During the first year of operations he built a team of 20 developers in Irvine and acquired OC’s hottest digital branding agency, XTOPOLY. The team operates in Irvine and Palo Alto, where they help companies such as Logitech and Yamaha to develop their mobile apps and digital services.
Ville is passionate about creating lean working environments and scaling operations without creating policies. He is also one of the few Ironman triathletes who plays steel guitar on several albums on Spotify.
Check out the Blog on the Stride Search, Inc site for the supplementary “show recap” article with detailed takeaways/insights from the interview.
Friday May 04, 2018
Friday May 04, 2018
We all have unconcious bias. It is important to recognize and identify them, especially in the workplace. When we acknowledge these biases, then they can be eliminated in the interview process, creating smarter hires for your business.
Episode highlights:
- What Unconscious bias is
- How to acknowledge it
- Eliminate it from the hiring process
What is Unconscious Bias?
- Relative to gender, race, age
- We all judge but the key is not to pass judgement until…
- Unconscious (or implicit) biases are learned stereotypes that are automatic, unintentional, deeply ingrained, universal, and able to influence behavior
How do we recognize and identify our bias?
- EQ, Self Awareness
- Roots
The value of Bias in the workplace
- Diversity in thinking
- Leverage Enlightenment
How do we Eliminate Unconscious bias from the interview process?
- Understand the value around bias in the workplace
- Harvard Business Review:
- Seek to understand- “Organizational conversation”,
- Job descriptions- perception words, gendered words-balance:”build and create”
- Blind resume review- ignore the name
- Accomplishment focus
- Structure Interviews
- Value fit
- Diversity goals
Chris Steely is the Managing Director of GPS Business Group. He is a transformational business leader, author, trainer, and business coach, who has trained thousands of business leaders worldwide on how to refine and apply optimal capabilities to their business. Chris focuses on delivering business effectiveness services to clients across the globe. He’s co-authored two books, and has been featured as a business expert on countless international stages.
Check out the Blog on the Stride Search, Inc site for the supplementary “show recap” article with detailed takeaways/insights from the interview.
Thursday Apr 26, 2018
Thursday Apr 26, 2018
Insights on Proper Interview Communication and the ways to incorporate them effectively for the Hiring Process:
- What are the broken issues in the Interview communication
- Fix the crucial areas
- Utilize Solutions and Tools that are available to enhance communication and overall candidate experience
With all the technology & tools available, Why is this still a problem today?
- We try really hard to take out the human element from the process
- Lost art
- Transactional
Where the challenges lie
- Recruiter & Interviewee
- Recruiter & hiring manager
- Interviewee & hiring manager
Forms of Communication & Issues
- Video interviewing vs phone interviewing, Video cons: implicit bias
- Chatbots- engagement /screening tool
- Text messages
How do we make interview communications effective?
- Recruiter & Interviewee
- Recruiter & hiring manager
Tools
- Interview Data/Evidence
- Remember your Conversations
- Reduce misinterpretation and bias
- Remove redundant interview steps
- Other Tools:videos, Chatbots
- Technical tests
- Take home tests
Nick Livingston is CEO of Honeit Software. He has been scaling recruiting teams and companies in San Francisco and New York City for 15 years. Nick started his career as a technology headhunter in NYC. After a successful IPO at TubeMogul (now Adobe) while attending business school at UC Berkeley, he co-founded Honeit Software to rethink interview communication and simplify the hiring process. At MTV, Nick was the Recruiting Director responsible for digital media and interactive technology talent. Nick worked at HR Technology companies Taleo and NextSource. He received his MBA from Berkeley, with BS in Applied Mathematics.
Check out the Blog on the Stride Search, Inc site for the supplementary “show recap” article with detailed takeaways/insights from the interview.
Thursday Apr 19, 2018
Todd Raphael:Hiring Practices That Are Driving Great People Away From Your Company!
Thursday Apr 19, 2018
Thursday Apr 19, 2018
Companies complain that they can’t find people yet they do a lot of alienating of potential hires through their actions. Identifying and fixing what drives people away in each stage of the interview process, looking at data of where the best hires are produced, and learning the trends in the Industry will increase the pool of better candidates for your business.
Episode highlights:
- What drives candidates away?
- How do we fix these issues
What drives people away?
- Job description- selfish, not engaging,
- First contact - too selling job focused
- Interview - prepared, structured, Format
- Follow up process
Hurdles in Applicant tracking systems/Interview process
- Tests
- Missing human connection
Job boards are getting less traction
- Evolution of video interviews & ai… matching
- Candidate experience- cannot do @ scale
- Automated process & gaming
Look at your data. Where are the best hires produced?
- Changing the mix of were you recruit. *do the opposite of what you are doing now!
- Job ads- alienating people….need to Engage people, *contact & follow up
- Blind resumes? *eliminate bias
- Messaging- party environment
- Getting past bias
What needs to be fixed?
- Job description
- First contact
- Interview
- Follow up process
Trends in the Industry
- What’s working & What’s not
Todd Raphael manages global publications and conferences for ERE Media, a global community of recruiters and others in the talent field. He has appeared on Sirius XM, VoiceAmerica.com, Wall Street Journal, Time, Forbes, and more.
Todd was named DevSkiller's 2016 "50 Most Game-Changing Influencers In Recruitment." Named Glassdoor's "2015 HR & Recruiting Thought Leaders" and HR Examiner's "Top 100 Influencers" list in employment/human resources and its top 25 Online Influencers.
He was listed on Mike Vangel of TMP's "60 Or So True Influencers In Social+Mobile Media and/or Recruitment."
Check out the Blog on the Stride Search, Inc site for the supplementary “show recap” article with detailed takeaways/insights from the interview.
Monday Apr 16, 2018
Monday Apr 16, 2018
Brenda Diedrichs, Chief Human Resource Officer and Hilda Gracia, Employee Relations Analyst of County of Orange
Thursday Apr 12, 2018
Thursday Apr 12, 2018
Leisa Reid: The 3 Keys To Transformation For Yourself And Your Business!
Thursday Apr 12, 2018
Thursday Apr 12, 2018
The 3 keys to transformation and how to apply them for success:
-Understanding of yourself (past)
-Awareness (present)
-Compelling vision (future)
Leisa Reid is a presenter with Productive Learning, a boutique personal growth company founded in 1992, and has trained thousands of people on the power of the mindset. After 20+ years of Management, Sales and Executive Leadership, Leisa dedicated her life to assisting others invest in their personal development. Why? Because she personally experienced the powerful results as a client of Productive Learning. She loved the company so much she joined them in the pursuit of living an extraordinary life.
Leisa is also the Author of the book “Manage to Success: A Guide to Cultivating Happy & Productive Employees” (Amazon.com)
Check out the Blog on the Stride Search, Inc site for the supplementary “show recap” article with detailed takeaways/insights from the interview.