Short Cutting Your Hiring Process Because You Need To Make A Hire! with Kevin Castle of Technossus

Have you ever looked at a resume and thought this person is perfect!  Only to find out after you have hired them that the person is a total mismatch to your organization. This is the result of being “Shopping Hungry” for the hire. 

This is totally avoidable! By keeping the interview process consistent regardless of who the person is, where they came from you will serve you well!

NEEDING  to fill a seat is not enough evidence to warrant making a hire!

Today’s Quote:

"If you take shortcuts, you get cut short."   - Gary Busey

Guest Bio: 

Kevin Castle is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of Technossus. He is responsible for motivating and leading an organization of technology experts who are laser-focused on exceptional client outcomes.  

A highly engaged entrepreneur, Kevin has driven the Company’s strategy and supported the expansion of Technossus’ footprint from one office in Irvine to three worldwide. The firm has been recognized three times by the Orange County Business Journal (“OCBJ”) as one of the best places to work and four times by INC 5000 as one of the fastest-growing companies in America.

Show Highlights:

• The pitfalls of being “shopping hungry”
• How to avoid this pitfall
• A process to cure being shopping hungry

What is “Shopping Hungry”  for last-minute hire? Why does this happen?

• Challenge - at the time you need to hire someone, you scramble to find them, make a hasty decision and do not go through all the of the checks and rigor to make sure they are the true long term fit and strategic hire for you 
• Short cut the interview process

Why is it important not to shortcut the interview process when hiring?

• Hiring the right culture Fit 
• Challenge - you hire someone who has the skills, knowledge, experience - but fails to make sure that they are the right culture fit. Hard to deal with, hard to get them out, and often can have a lasting impact of damage made with internal and with external people who interact with your company.
  • Personal - hired someone that was not rooted in the same values - meaningful relationships, trust, sincere kindness. 

Rick’s Input

• The purpose of the interview… The Truth!
• Short cuts get cut short … like the quote

How do we solve this problem?

• Acknowledge that you were the culprit of the mistakes made
• Solution - spend 5-10% of your week passively recruiting. Meet key persons, spend time networking and reaching out to people to learn more about background, desires. When you need to bring someone in, then a couple of friendly calls can get you moving quickly. Networking with people who may know other people like you may hire is a key strategy to get some great referrals
• Side benefit - a great way to get market aware (can teach you a lot). Also helps to give you a broader breadth of the skills in the market for the position.
• Solution - be clear 
• Important - to only hire people that represent your values
• Trust your gut
• Incident - several years back. Hired someone that I just knew was not going to work well. Did not click with me, and could not get through and understand why. I could not articulate what it was that made us not connect. The team was ecstatic in interviewing this person, all thumbs-up, and ultimately hired this person. 
• What happened - It completely did not work out. Had to let them go and nobody was happy in the end. Did not get the job completed, trust was an issue from the start, had to let them go.
• Important - to click with the people who work for you. To start off with a genuine interest in someone is critical for them to be successful.

Having to let someone go who is loved by all - but is not performing

• Solution - having metrics-based performance tracking - we have this @ every single level in our organization - where goal setting, outcome, performance can be quantified - at times this ends up having to trump likability which is very difficult for people, companies, for us all.
• Have specific questions around the culture. 

Rick’s two cents

• Performance-based metrics. 

Key Takeaways:

• Passive recruiting- Network 5-10% of your time
• Cultural alignment matters
• Trust your gut