One of the most common complaints by business owners and entrepreneurs is finding the right people. Someone did say however that it’s not just about getting the right people on the bus, it’s more like having the right bus for the people to get on board. Hard truth!
What I do know after business coaching and mentoring over a very long period of time is that some people do seem to have just too much luck when it comes to this issue and others – well, none at all!
Anyone who has had some business coaching and advising or even had just little input from any business advisor knows that you can do any number of behavioural and psychological profiles and still come up short. Sometimes you put in the place exactly the sort of precise profile you think will fit the bill only to find out after two months that the person is not only ill-equipped for the job, but also has the wrong attitude.
It is said that when hiring or recruiting people you need to be looking at not only the right person for the job but also the right person WITH the right skills and WITH the right attitude.
Sometimes you get one or two qualities and the missing quality usually rules them out very quickly as the cracks appear in lightning speed.
So what to do? There are several things you can do in the short term and other things you can do as you proceed in the recruitment process. What I’ve found out is that apart from the different profiles you can throw at people it’s also a really good thing to find out how they operate under stress; also whether they are under stress at the interview and how much stress is the interview creating for them.
When people apply for a job, often they just want to pay their bills and get onto someone’s payroll as quickly as possible. Some good things to find out are –
- How much they know about your company
- What is their behavioural profile and how close a match generically is that profile to the profile that job often requires?
- What is their psychological profile and how much of a mask are they wearing on the day? Have you observed that they dropped their mask at a specific time in the interview and why was that?
- Is stress affecting their answers?
- Do their values align at least a little with yours and the company’s?
- During a recess in the interview process have they dropped their guard and shown you some cracks?
- How do they behave and present themselves in a group interview?
- How bad do they want the job? Bad enough to come on at a lower pay grade during probation?
There are many questions you can ask and there are many people saying they can tell you that there is a holy grail to the dilemma of finding the right fit for your company.
The truth is that YOU must be the leader that inspires trust, loyalty and in a way respect.
Too much emphasis is placed on getting the right employee or team member where in fact the owners themselves lack the credibility and charisma to attract the right people in the first place.
The thing with getting the right employee/team member is that generally speaking, they have come from an environment which is or has been far from ideal and they are carrying all the baggage of their former employer and fellow employees; not necessarily toxic but FAR from the environment you want to have when they come on board.
In short, you need to create the sort of environment YOU would like to come into and BE the sort of leader YOU would love to serve under. We are all servants, just we have different labels.
~ Chris Borrett