Happy New Year everyone and welcome to the first newsletter of 2001. I hate to start the new year on a rant but I just can't help myself.

One of my associates sent me an article on how to interview people perfectly every time. The secret ... just ask four questions. I am not going to even insult you by telling you what the questions are, but suffice it to say, they don't make any sense. Most importantly, they accomplish something that a lot of popular advice does and that is to put you (the interviewer) in a position you are not qualified to be in. If you follow this advice, you find yourself in a position of having to figure someone out or interpret something. This is much better left to trained professionals.

When I designed the Selecting Winners workshop in 1984 (wow do I feel old!), one of the main things I wanted to accomplish was to make sure my clients didn't find themselves in a position they were not qualified to be in. It is so easy to tell someone to "figure out a person" or "read their intent" but you and I just aren't going to get that right most of the time.

Don't get me wrong. You need to observe everything in an interview, but drawing conclusions based on isolated guesses or intuitions is not a great way to choose proven winners. My philosophy has always been to make hiring decisions based on as much data as possible. Ask effective data-oriented questions, and lots of them, to get as many behavioral examples as possible. Then look for patterns. This is a proven system that works!

This leads me to another point I want to make. I just finished a great book, "The Knowing-Doing Gap" written by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton. It is a great book about action being the key to success. The authors contend that knowing what to do is not a solution to a problem.

So often when speaking to a group, and I make a point, I see the people in the audience nod their head. I see that famous "light bulb" go on. But, I wonder how many are going to go back and implement what they have learned. Knowing what to do is not enough.

With this in mind, I am going to challenge all of you. Each month I am going to share a number of ideas that will help you recruit, hire and retain better employees faster and for less money. Your challenge is to see how many of these you can put into practice. Is the information forgotten immediately after you close the email or are you putting it to work? Well, here's the deal. Each month I want you to try one or more of the ideas I suggest and tell me how they work. Then I want you to send me a quick note to tell me about it. And each month I will choose one story as the best and that person will receive a free registration to one of my upcoming web-based seminars (a $750 value).

The rules are very simple. Here they are: 1. You must respond by email to the following address contest@selectingwinners.com. 2. You must not respond to any other email address. 3. Tell me in four paragraphs or less what worked and how you benefited. 4. Tell me what didn't work if you choose. 5. You must respond by the end of the first week of the month following the publication of the newsletter. This month's deadline is February 2, 2001.

If you have any questions, send them to contest@selectingwinners.com. I will share the best idea with all of you each month.

To get you started this month, let me make a suggestion. You have read about how important I believe having a Unique Hiring Proposition is (If you didn't read that particular newsletter, you can go to www.selectingwinners.com and click on the "Hiring Resources" option and then click on newsletters to see copies of the last 12 newsletters). You might let me know how you have used this to jump-start your recruiting. I hope you have fun with this.

Consistent with our monthly message of not doing things that put us in an awkward position, I taught a class this past month and got challenged by a participant. She said that she had to ask candidates about their family to get a better picture of them. Let's forget the legal issues for the moment and look at the other problems this creates. What do you do with the information you get? If someone tells you they are divorced, what does that mean? If they tell you they are an only child, what have you learned? If they tell you they coach their daughter's soccer team, what does that mean?

Do you see how many conclusions you can reach based on the answers you get? How many of those conclusions will be right? How many of those will help you predict success on the job? Here is your tip. Before your next interview, go over your list of questions (you do have a list of questions don't you?) and see if you can articulate what piece of data you are after with each. If you can't, fix it.

Question of the Month

"How do I gracefully end an interview early if I have decided the person is not the right person?"
Grace G. Las Vegas NV

This is a great question that I get frequently in my workshops. The first important point is to make certain you have completed a Success Profile. Without this roadmap you are guessing at your evaluation. The next point is to refrain, as much as possible, from evaluating during the interview. Try to use the face-to-face interview as a data-gathering session more than an evaluation session. And finally, my response to this question is always to ask how much screening did you do prior to the interview. Most of the time, a good phone screen will eliminate this problem completely.

All that aside, if you find yourself in the position of having to end an interview short, before you do anything, make certain you have enough data to support your decision. This protects you from legal issues if you have to defend the decision. Next, as politely as possible, let the candidate know that there seems to be a mismatch for this particular position. Do your best to avoid giving them specifics as this only opens a dialog you would prefer to avoid.

Commentary

There is a lot of news today about the layoffs at the dotcom companies. Don't let this fool you. The employment market is still very strong. Those of you that are looking to hire people should use this as an excellent opportunity to pick up some very talented people. Those of you out there that are on the other side should see this situation as an opportunity to drive home my key point that the only reason to hire is to satisfy a business need. Too many companies fell into the trap of thinking that hiring people is the same as growing a company. It's not! Build your business model and then hire people to satisfy specific business needs. This is the best model for long-term success and it avoids these crazy "up and down" periods.

I hope you got some great ideas from this month's newsletter. What can you put into practice right away?

Let me close by sharing a quote I just got from a client:

"We have been using the Selecting Winners process and in the past nine months my turnover has decreased 62% and my bottom-line has improved 8%."

Please make sure you check out www.selectingwinners.com to read about the numerous solutions available for your business. And, www.hiringmadeeasy.com for a copy of my ebook, "HIRING MADE EASY, Solutions To The Most Difficult Recruiting And Selection Problems"

Have a great month recruiting!

Barry Shamis

PS. Don't forget to send your feedback and comments for this month's contest to contest@selectingwinners.com.

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