How do you screen new hires?

Jeff Bezos said "I'd rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person."

Some of you have a vast experience when it comes to hiring people. What traits are you looking for in a new candidate? Does his/her experience override their character flaws? Or are you looking for things like humility, teachability, common sense?

Interested in hearing your feedback.

 

Over the course of my career, I have hired, managed/coached literally hundreds and hundreds of employees (I have often thought about quantifying the actual number, but I doubt that I could come close to remembering all of them.) However, it was a very focused endeavor in that they have all been either sales, marketing, sales engineering, or customer service reps. In addition, a couple of years ago, I briefly toyed with joining Amazon in a sales management position. It did not work out, but I did go through all of their hiring process. It did not seem particularly exceptional or unique, except that they force you to read a lot about their culture and management approach and expect you to tell them how great it is.

Anyway, to get back to your question: I start with a one-minute scan of the applicant's resume. For salespeople, I want to see at least two-year's experience in sales. Despite always being in companies with highly complex solutions, I am not looking for exact or even close experience in the field. I just want to be sure that they have had at least two years to experience the overwhelming negativity associated with any sales job and that they have the thick skin and gumption to handle it. Then, I need to see evidence that they have the intelligence to be trained on and understand the complex solution that they will be selling. That could involve their academic efforts or other work experiences that required intelligence to perform. Finally, if there are any typo's or resume errors that I catch in this brief review, they are finished as they have shown me that they do not have the basic sales intelligence to put their best foot forward at all times.

The next step, if they make it, is most critical: a 20-minute phone screen. In that call, I am only looking for one thing from a sales candidate: a "fire in the belly." There are only three "fires" that I find compelling:

A. The candidate has a strong desire to make a lot more money than they currently are making.
B. The candidate has a strong desire to move up the corporate ladder.
C. The candidate exhibits strong desire for both A and B. (this is the best one, of course)

The final round of interview is in-person. Note that I do not have them do silly things like role play or take any of the bogus psychological employee tests that the various quacks out there have been promoting for decades (as an aside, I have taken everything from a ten-minute online psychology test to a 1-day, proctored battery of psychological/aptitude/skills tests and they are all total crap and BS. In fact, I have gotten really good at manipulating them to reflect what I want them to reflect on the test results.) In the meeting, I focus on their skills as a communicator: do they actually listen to me and do their responses reflect that? When I ask them an open-ended question about themselves, do they answer with a well-thought out story that is compelling? There is much more I watch for (e.g., how do they handle inevitable silence during our discussion) as the conversation progresses. These interviews generally last about 45 minutes.

The final piece for me is how well they follow up and stay in touch throughout the hiring process. Are they persistent? Do they get back to me when I have asked them to? Do they take any initiative to stand out and be sure that they are considered? These are the types of things that tell me whether they have the skills/tools to do a good sales job.

I expect less from marketing, sales engineers and customer service reps, of course. In those cases, I am much more interested in their past work and experience/skills. So, their resume gets a much longer look and I mostly focus on what they have done previously versus how they sell themselves to me (though I do not entirely ignore that, of course.)

HTH.

 

Hiring on monthly/annual salary, and hiring on project to project basis are 2 different things.
I hire second type, freelancers.

When I hire, which I only do if I myself cannot do the job (photoshop work, app development work etc) then my first priority is cost.
Being a tech person myself, I have an idea about what the job is worth, so if someone quotes too high, then that is a sure "NO".
I was looking for app developers recently, and one group quoted 3k-4k USD for an android webview app... (20 lines of code)
I literally laughed in their face!!! LOL

Its not that I am willing to pay too less, but the cost a person is quoting also tells me how much the person understands the work involved.
If they are quoting too high a price, then obviously they do not understand that its a 10 minute job, or they are trying to take me for a ride.
Like these digital marketing guys charging 200 USD for 2-3 fb posts in a month, to keep my fb page alive... LOL

My second priority is to figure out if they really are suitable for the work, have the knowledge.
Like during my app developer hunt, came across another person whom I asked "What if I also want to send push notifications to my app users".
The guy suggested me wp plugin.

You mention the name WP in an interview with me, I'd say bye bye quicker than you could finish the sentence.

Clearly the coder is too lazy, did not even cared to figure out how push notifications code works, wants to sell someone elses work, will not be able to handle if something goes wrong or google changes its API process.
I did not really wanted push notifications immediately in my app, but that gave me a good idea about what the coder is made of.

These 2 are my main priorities.

 

I put the character on the first place. One then I look to the skills.
Logic is simple: working with someone you feel uncomfortable is hard. This applies both for me and the person I hire, of course, but the responsibility on that is mine.

 

It has been two decades since I hired anyone. And to be truthful, I was a LOUSY interviewer.

What I looked for was HONESTY. If necessary, EVERYTHING else can be taught. Without honesty, every thing falls apart throughout the organization. If the prospective employee could not consistently be on time at his previous jobs, that to me shows a tendency to STEAL, or lack of honesty. Bad mouthing others tends to show lack of responsibility, or being dishonest with oneself. Since my experience has shown that LESS than one percent of people meet my standards for honesty, I was forced to slightly lower the bar for prospective employees, sometimes to my regret.

The written application must show attention to detail. Ignoring instructions and/or leaving blanks send up red flags that must be addressed. First impressions count. If one is not motivated enough to submit an error free application using proper English spelling and grammar, I feel he is not motivated enough to be hired. It is a waste of resources to train unmotivated people.

About five years ago, long after no longer wanting nor needing employees, I stumbled across an interesting twist to hiring. Basically, during the in-your-face interview, ask the prospective employee the name of the LAST book he read and have him give a short synopsis of it. If he cannot do that, then on to the next applicant. Apparently, people that are READERS tend to be better employees if for no other reason than readers tend to write error free and grammar correct reports. They also tend to follow instructions better.

Although I never thought of it until long after having employees, another thing to consider is the decision making capability of a prospective employee. NO business can afford poor decision making. Unfortunately, most, but not all, poor people are poor because of poor decisions. So, unless there is good reason, it is better to hire other people even if it means paying more to get them. One bad decision can destroy a company.

For example, years ago one of my sister's clients needed some work done. So, on Saturday they hired some laborers. On Monday, the client wanted my sister to add those laborers to her payroll (my sister owned a labor staffing company). She told the client to have the laborers meet her face-to-face and fill out the appropriate paperwork. The laborers never showed up, so were never added to her payroll. Why? They were DEAD.

What happened is the client hired the laborers under-the-table, then when they died on the job, tried to add them to my sister's payroll. VERY BAD DECISION for the client as it BANKRUPTED the client. Further, my sister spent millions defending herself, even though she was totally innocent. She was sued multiple times during the next ten years, and EVERY LAWSUIT WAS THROWN OUT OF COURT BY THE JUDGES. In the end, even my sister lost everything to the crooked lawyers - went from having seven offices and 200 plus employees to nothing. There was even a book written about how the crooked lawyers kept going after everyone even REMOTELY tied to the client.

 

@mmerlinn what happened to your sister sounds horrific.

 

Now an update to my sister's story.

A year ago, after almost two decades of being out of the staffing business, she opened a new staffing business in the same city and today has about 200 employees.

I do not know any details, but apparently she recently spent several days in court over something related to her business. I don't know whether there is any connection to the shitshow referenced above or not. What I do know is that she has been sued so many times over the last four decades (AND NEVER LOST) that she probably knows as much about law as the lawyers she hires.

 

Wow, 0 - 200 in a year is fantastic, even if they are contractors. She also certainly knows how to navigate the legal system.

I would have Liked your post, but am still unable to do that.

 

They were working in a ditch with no shoring and the ditch collapsed on them. Many big fails there.

 

You got to also remember that she opened the new staffing business about the time that the CCV surfaced and within 3 months had over 100 employees. Have no idea whether the CCV helped or hindered her, but minor things like that have NEVER stopped her.

BTW, are you REALLY the wizard of tin foil hats? Not being able to like posts raises that question.

**********

I guess I probably should fill in some of the blanks while I am at it.

After graduating from HS my sister (we will call her Sue, no pun intended) moved to a major metropolitan area (MMA) and worked various jobs for a few years. Next she moved to a major city (pop about 40,000 then) in a minor state for a few years where she bought a house.

A couple of years later Sue rented out her house, moved back to the MMA, and went to work for Kelly Services, a staffing company. Within one year she became their top salesman for the MMA.

A few months later Sue moved back to her house in the minor state and opened her own staffing company there. Kelly Services sued her over a non-compete clause she signed when she went to work for Kelly in the MMA. She won. Several years later, in 1987 she sold her staffing company to a New York staffing company. She sold her house and spent a few months poking around various states looking for a location to open another staffing company.

Mid-December 1987, just months after the 1987 stock market crash, Sue opened another staffing company in another major city in a major state (MCMS). Her first customer was a major computer company (MCC) that needed to move two weeks later. The MCC required about 150 people all with BLUE shirts to move the company over the New Year's holiday. ALL of the other staffing companies in the MCMS said it was IMPOSSIBLE to find that many people and that many shirts on such short notice. My sister found 150+ people, bought every blue shirt in MCMS, and moved MCC over the holiday. Mind you, she is a STRANGER in the MCMS having never been there before in her life, yet she became the biggest staffing company there literally overnight, all because she NEVER lets the little things stand in her way.

Over the next few years Sue added six more offices covering about 10% of the state. Then the disaster noted in a post above happened. She fought that battle for years while still running her staffing business. Finally, she was basically broke and forced to close down. She moved out of the MCMS and moved to a tiny town (TT, maybe 700 people) in another state, basically telling the crooked lawyers to shove it where it does not shine.

I have another sister who had business about 200 miles from TT that sold and set up trade shows, providing everything needed to run a trade show. The two of them collaborated a lot over the intervening years in several businesses in several cities of that state before Sue decided to re-open a staffing business in the same MCMS that she left years ago. She recently sold her house in TT for $2.5 million and last I heard she was looking at buying a house about 200 miles from where we were born, even though it would be over 2000 miles from the MCMS where her business operates.

Don't know what will happen next, but I can assure you that the word "CAN'T" does NOT exist in Sue's vocabulary.

 

I might as well update this again.

The sister "Sue" last month moved to the major state where her staffing business operates. She found a small town (maybe 3000 people) two hours away from her business, bought 4 houses, an old bank building, and a pizza parlor including its property. Basically, she bought all available property in town outright. Don't know what her plans are, but I can guarantee that she is not bored, nor is she likely to go hungry since she is now the proud owner of a pizza parlor.

Apparently, "Sue" found this town by accident while helping the other sister noted above move to a different town (maybe 10000 people) about 30 miles away. That sister (have not telked to her, so this is rumor) apparently bought 2 houses. Not sure whether she moved/is moving her business or not.

Then last week, I was notified that another sister of mine sold her free-and-clear house in a major city then bought a house outright in a town of 500 people an hour from the nearest city. She has worked from home for over 10 years in the medical profession adjudicating medical claims for a major medical services company and will continue to do so from her new home.

Nothing like having all of my living sisters move in a one month period. Now wonder if any of my brothers will be moving.

 

Not many. I have 3 living brothers. Two of my sisters are dead and so is one of my brothers.