Subject: February Hire Score Newsletter

Welcome to the February edition of the Hire Score Newsletter. We have lots of stuff we need to cover this month to keep you on the right track.

First, a little scary news. In a recent article in the USA Today newspaper, it stated that job discrimination complaints were up to the highest level in seven years. So what does this have to do with you?

It's simple. You better be using a proven, defensible model to hire employees. Of course I would like you to use my Selecting Winners model which meets all the legal requirements both here in the US and in the more than 30 countries where we have delivered the program.

Here are a couple of specific things you need to pay attention to when hiring (these are tactics to avoid legal pitfalls but they exist in the system because they make sense not just to avoid legal problems).

First, have a performance-based profile of the successful person that is specific to the position. You hire people to satisfy business needs so make sure your profile ties back to the specific business need.

Next, make certain to use the profile as the basis of all decisions. Each candidate will be evaluated against the same standard. Do NOT evaluate candidates against each other. This has always been a fools trap. Equality (and common sense) dictate that instead of evaluating A against B, you evaluate A against the standard and B against the standard.

This not only makes sense but it should keep you out of trouble.

Next, keep your questions job related. It is human nature to want to find out what the person does in their private life but avoid the temptation. Not only will you get in trouble from a legal perspective, you will waste your time. Trying to map private information to work performance is just about impossible. So why bother?

Finally, make sure you give every person an opportunity to share information in each of the critical areas (your critical job requirements from the performance-based success profile). Once again, this satisfies the legal requirement but is not the reason you should do this. If the ability to create spreadsheets is important to the job, you should get information from every candidate about their skill in this area.

But, I need to destroy a common misconception on this subject. DO NOT ASK EVERY CANDIDATE THE SAME QUESTIONS. Too often people resort to this to meet legal requirements and in the process completely sabotage the interview. Asking every candidate the same questions requires you to ask general, generic questions. And the answers you get to general generic questions are almost always general and generic.

Instead, customize your questions for each candidate being certain to give each an opportunity to share information in all the important areas. Don't ask, "Can you create spreadsheets?" Instead ask, "How did you create your budget spreadsheet at ABC?"

Enough legal stuff!

As my long-term subscribers know, basing your evaluation on interview behavior is a real no-no. Why? Because some people are very good actors. Do you want to hire a good actor or do you want to hire a person that will be successful on your job?

So, how can you tell if someone is acting in an interview?

Glad you asked!

To begin, you MUST have a performance-based success profile that clearly describes the behaviors necessary for success. Next, you have to understand that the best predictor of behavior is past behavior.

Putting these two givens together makes it obvious that your course of action needs to be to gather as much information as possible about how the person has behaved in the past.

The fact that the person is outgoing in the interview does not mean the person behaves that way on the job. Ask the person for examples of how they established rapport with different people in the past. Get lots of examples. Look for patterns in how the person behaves. This is your best indicator of the true person.

Also, be certain to get lots of detail. Actors will not have the detail to back up the examples you are exploring in the interview.

What you should not do is start playing games with the person. I always worry that the person may be a better game player than you. Why even go in this direction. Stick to lots of examples of past behavior with lots of detail and you should pierce any act or smoke-screen the person might throw at you.

Update:

I have seen lots of hiring activity since the beginning of the year. I have spoken to numerous groups in the past month and people are genuinely concerned with growing their businesses. So how do you get the jump on competition?

The best advice I can give you is contained in the Webinar I conducted last fall, "The Selecting Winners 5X5 Strategic Staffing System" This was a session I conducted on-line where I showed the participants how to tie staffing models into business requirements.

Well here is the good news. We recorded the session and produced CD-ROMs of the session. Here is the bad news, I only have 17 of the CD-ROMs left and I am not going to produce any more. So here is your last chance to get this information that will give you specific tools and strategies to jump start your hiring in this changing market.

And, I am going to make these last 17 discs available for just $59 (and I will pick up the shipping). But when they are gone they are gone for good. So it you want to start taking advantage of the market right now, click the link below and order your copy now. The first 17 people to respond get the goods. Thanks!

http://www.snurl.com/cd_offer

Finally, please let me know what types of issues you are facing. I like to keep this newsletter as relevant as possible. Send me the subjects you would like to read about and i will deliver.

Have a great month recruiting.

Barry Shamis