One of the most overlooked leadership skills is hiring. Hiring is one of, if not the most important decisions we make as managers. Yet, very little time is spent teaching us how to hire successfully so we are left to do the best we can. Most of us take a canned job description, post it, and hire who we think the best person is based on a 30 – 60 minute interview. Is this really the best way to make such an important decision given that this person can make our work life easier or make it miserable?
Prepare to Succeed
Successful hiring, like most leadership skills, depends on preparation. You know the saying, “if you don’t prepare to succeed, be prepared to fail”. You prepare to hire by following these steps:
- Know what you are looking for. What need are you trying to fill? Is this a new position or are you back-filling a vacated one? Are there any nice-to-haves that will round out your team?
- Identify the skills needed for this person to be successful. The technical skills required should be obvious, but review them anyway. Less obvious skills are the softer skills. Does this person need to be good at time / project management? How about the ability to move between tasks several times a day? What type of leadership style do you have and does that match the way the candidate likes to be led? For example, assume you like to provide a framework for your people and let them make decisions within that framework; can the candidate work in that environment or do they need constant direction?
- Refine step 2. Talk to your high performers and get their perspective on what makes them successful and happy. Review what made those less successful hires a bad match.
- Update the job description. Now that you know what it is you are looking for, update the job description to include the skills you identified. Ideally, you would be able to describe your environment so you can attract the most qualified people, but this will be a decision for your HR department and recruiter.
- Develop your interview questions. Take the information you gathered in steps 2 & 3 and develop your interview questions. Don’t forget to include questions that identify traits that won’t be a good fit in your environment. This is the time to find out that the person is not a good fit.
- Include technical skills questions or logic questions in your interviews. Again, this depends on your HR policies, but lobby to include these questions. Can the person do the basic skills required? Can they find information for something they don’t know? Can they solve basic troubleshooting questions?
- Conduct a panel interview. Include front line and management on the panel, and I strongly suggest that you include management from your partner / internal customer organizations too. Get as much perspective as you can, and then make your decision. You should have a good, strong feeling that the candidate you select is the right person. If not, keep looking until you find the right person.
Next Steps
Hiring is the beginning of a relationship, not the final step. From now until you or they leave, you need to keep working on developing that person and your relationship. These are subjects for future posts.
How many of these steps do you take? Are you actively participating in the hiring process? Does your HR department support you or do they dictate the process and questions that you can ask? Leave a comment and let me know how you prepare to hire.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“Don’t forget to include questions that identify traits that won’t be a good fit in your environment”
Very vital point most miss, good post.
Thanks Ramki. I’ve missed this in the past, so this was a lesson learned the hard way for me.
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