Subject: July Hire Score Newsletter

Welcome to the July Hire Score Newsletter. This month I am going to focus on two issues: Common Sense and Passion. Let's take a look at how these simple concepts enter into the hiring equation.

It all begins with common sense. I was reading the local paper this morning at breakfast about how employers are reluctant to hire new employees even though their business conditions warrant it. This reminds me exactly of what was happening in the late 90's when people were hiring like crazy without regard for the business conditions.

Over-hiring, under-hiring, neither makes sense.

Manpower planning or the allocation of people is an extremely difficult subject but not one you need to be afraid of. Let's look at a simple process you can use to make this difficult problem more manageable.

First, when you get the urge to hire someone, ask the question, "What business problem will this person solve?" Get specific. Next, try and find another way to solve this problem other than hiring a full time employee. Outsourcing, consultants, joint ventures, partners, technology, temporary workers, part-time workers are just a few of the alternate solutions to your business problem.

The next step is difficult but must be done. Try to put an economic value on the solving of the problem. Not salary, but instead, what is it worth to the company to have the problem solved. A simple trick is to decide how much you would pay an outside person or firm to solve this problem. This should give you an idea of the scope of the issue to be solved and hopefully give you a sense o urgency as well.

Here is an example. I had a CEO call me recently and tell me he had a backlog of $1MM in business per month that he could not service due to a lack of people on staff. Hopefully this should give you a real sense of urgency. So whether it is costing you money (expense) or costing you an opportunity (revenue) there has to be an economic value to the problem.

Now you have the problem framed and know the economic value, you have explored alternate solutions so it is time to decide to hire a full time employee. When you lay this analysis against your business strategy, you get a good idea of when and how many to hire. How many is determined by capacity. Let's look back at the previous example.

The business had a backlog of $1MM per month in business. To determine capacity you need to assess how much of that backlog can be reasonably handled by a person. If one person can handle $500K per month, it is obvious you need to hire 2 people. Certainly not an exact science but definitely better than gut or guessing.

I call this common sense. Look at the facts. Use a process to make an informed decision. It is way better than making decisions based on daily headlines in the paper or other emotional criteria. Hope this helps!

Let's switch gears and talk about passion. This is certainly not the typical topic you will find in this newsletter but let me explain. Last week I went to Ashland Oregon for a gathering of the West Coat Fiat world. You might remember from a couple of months ago that my son and I had restored a classic Fiat Spider sports car. Well this was a gathering of a 100 or so Fiat cars. There were 3 days of racing, fun and frolic.

During the event, as is the case with Fiats, many of them broke down. And I noticed that everyone immediately pitched in to help the person get the car running again. (OK stop with the Fiat jokes!)

Well, what does this have to do with hiring. It has to do with passion. Using my behavior terminology, it has to do with people doing whatever is necessary to get the job done regardless of cost or energy expended and enjoying it.

Now, imagine having people work for you that have a passion for the work. The results will be extraordinary. So, how do you hire people who have a passion for their work. Let's take a look.

First thing you need to understand is that not everyone will have a passion for work and that is OK. Your job is to get as many as possible that do. Here are a couple of the behaviors of people who have a passion for what they do: 1. They study there subject. 2. They constantly attempt to get better. 3. They look for new and innovative ways to do the job. 4. They take pride in what they do. 5. They set goals and have pride in the achievement (I can't tell you how good it felt to have these Fiat experts ooh and aah over my car!)

Looking back at this list, you can see that it is possible to interview for all of these behaviors using my Selecting Winners methodology. If you don't know how, you need to read my past newsletters at the www.selectingwinners.com website or better yet pick up one or more of my products at the site.

I got a call from one of my instructors yesterday telling me about a really neat new way she found to present one of the ideas in my Selecting Winners workshop. That is passion at work on the job!

That's it for this month. Lessons to take away are: 1. Hire based on your business model and a factual analysis of the business conditions. 2. Try to hire people who have a passion for the work.

Have a great month recruiting!

Barry Shamis

PS. I just purchased a second Fiat Spider and am going to sell the first. This is a classic in perfect condition. If you are interested, call me at 206-230-9400 x201.