All we do is ask them if they would be open to discussing a potential career opportunity. Virtually 95% of the time the employee replies, “Yes.” Why would anyone not want to know what is going on in the market, have a discussion around their career or just get a feel for current compensation ranges? Even if they are completely happy in their current position, this is good stuff to know.

The important, and I believe the most relevant question is,” Why, out of the 95% that are open to discussing career opportunities, do roughly 10% indicate that they are happy with their job, and although it sounds like a good opportunity, they aren’t interested in pursuing it further?”

What do these 10% have that the other 90% don’t? That is something a recruiter has nothing to do with. They generally have four things, 1) they are learning in their current position, 2) they feel they are having some impact on the company, 3) they are growing, and 4) they respect their boss. When these four things are part of a person’s job, the best recruiter can’t get them to move.

An example of this recently happened. I was jointly interviewing candidates with one of my clients. At dinner one night, my client started asking me about the job market, “Is it picking up?” and “Are any particular industries hiring?” He mentioned that he thought the market was getting better because in the last couple of months he had been contacted a couple of times by recruiters for potential opportunities. Like most, he listened to what they had to say, but in both instances he thanked the recruiter for the call and flatly turn them down.

Why, I asked?

Like most, his answer had nothing to do with compensation. He commented, “I enjoy what I’m doing. I have a great boss and most of all I’m challenged.” Then he added, “When I stop being challenged it is time to move on.” In fact, prior to being promoted to his current position he was looking. If his current position had not come open he would have left the company.

As he explained it, “My last boss treated me like a step child (I used step child. His word did start with an S). The position had lost its challenges, the job was the job, and that was all there was to it.” His boss was rarely around to support him and he was doing the same thing this year as he had done the last three years. Boredom and lack of respect for his boss had set in. The good news was that he worked for an excellent company. BTW, he has been with this company for 12 years and in his current position for 4 years.

This is a classic example of how one employee went from engaging recruiters to telling them, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

We realize that not every company has the ability to promote someone or move them to another position in order to retain them. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of things a company can do to help their best talent feel challenged, feel that they are learning, and be respected by their boss. This can happen in just about any sized company.

The best recruiter couldn’t “steal” this person. It all had to do with the job and the person’s boss. The vast majority of people leave because they lose respect for their boss. The best selling book, First Break All The Rules, validates this. This book should be required reading for all managers, regardless of how many years they’ve been a manager. As recruiters for the last 30 years, my partner Barry Deutsch and I, can also validate this is clearly the number one reason candidates tell us they are open to talking about a new position.

To help companies and hiring managers identify some of the things that managers can do to retain their best talent we have put together for you to download our 8 Level Retention Matrix. This matrix will help you identify whether or not your managers are doing what it takes to retain your best talent.

If your managers do some, or most of these, you won’t lose your talent to a recruiter. Your competition will.

You can also download for free our most popular chapter on sourcing top talent from our best-selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. CLICK HERE to download your free chapter.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

We all look at the world through windows that act as filters. They are held in place by frames that comprise our experiences, learning and fundamental organizing principles. You are an enlightened CEO and believe you have established a culture of serving the client, high levels of integrity in all things your employees do and respect for each person in the organization. It’s time to hire a new sales manager. So, you do the thing you’ve likely always done in the past – put together a job description and start collecting resumes.

I have been a sales manager in very progressive, technology oriented companies for several years. I am looking to relocate to your area and apply for the job. I “know” what a sales manager is and does, I’ve been one. You “know” what a sales manager is too, and that’s what you want to hire. Great – except, unless you are fairly unusual, you will not during the interviewing process, clearly articulate what the culture of your company is. I won’t have a chance to decide if I really “fit” in the organization until I’ve experienced it. Further, your idea of a sales manager is someone who will build long term relationships with the largest clients and who will develop the sales people reporting to that manager in such a way as to also build long term relationships and provide excellent service. While revenue is certainly important, you value relationships more and are willing to allow a long sales cycle, building for tomorrow.

As an experienced sales manager, I understand sales management as meeting revenue goals through my sales team. I’m used to a sales process focused on overcoming objections, meeting requirements and taking the order off the buyer’s desk then moving on to the next order. The only purpose of establishing a relationship is to make sure “we” are the ones to book that order, not our competition.

Well, we both used the same job title: Sales Manager. We may even have close to the same job description in terms of “duties and responsibilities” for the tactical parts of the job. We are, however, miles apart in the way in which a sales manager is expected to act in your company and how they are to treat the clients and peers. In the end, you may well decide that I just don’t “fit,” that I interviewed well but somehow didn’t turn out the way you expected. I may be feeling that this company doesn’t understand what a “real” salesperson is supposed to do and I made a mistake in joining the company. We’re both correct and both have caused the problem.

I have long contended that as business leaders, we need to find a way to make our culture quickly and accurately visible to prospective employees. One of the biggest reasons for new hires not “sticking” is that they didn’t “fit.” To me, that’s a polite way of saying, we didn’t clearly articulate what our culture is and this person didn’t have an opportunity to see how they would fit in and if our values matched their values – at least close if not exactly.

How might this go differently with proper “framing?” For one thing, on the culture issue, I will fall back to my example of a company who makes an implantable heart valve. The culture of this organization was clearly and succinctly transmitted to me when the hiring manager related the story of how the CEO insisted that from time-to-time they bring a patient in to the factory, at the company’s expense, to meet with the person on the line who made their heart-valve. The employee is reminded in an appropriate way that this patient is alive today because of the heart valve that s/he made (each valve is serialized and one person completes the assembly). There are, of course, no dry eyes in the room. And there is no doubt that the way things get done at this organization is to always put the patient first. The patient isn’t the customer by the way, the Doctor and/or Hospital is the customer. Employees know, because they hear about or witness this process, that they are never to do anything to negatively impact the quality of the product.

The CEO of this organization is very careful to manage the company culture. He does that by deliberately picking the metaphors he uses to communicate the mission and vision to his employees. That in turn flows through the organization right down to establishing the correct success factors for each position in the company. Hiring is all about determining if the prospective employee gets the culture picture and can demonstrate that s/he shares those values and can demonstrate they have experience actually achieving the exact goals in the success factors of something very similar.

I’m sure I’ll be further developing this topic of “framing” our messages to make sure we clearly communicate our vision. I believe it is critical for leaders to be able to inspire and communicate. What I’m learning is just how important it is to use carefully chosen metaphors and stories to get that done.

The one thing that these teams and scouts know is that they will always need top talent if they want to win.
Who are your scouts? Are you engaging potential talent before you need them? Is this important for you to win?

Over the last few years I have asked hundreds of CEOs and key executives, “When do most companies start the hiring process?” Rarely do I hear anything other than, “When they need someone.” Then, how long does it take to hire a person? Most believe that can take between 2 and 4 months. At which point the hiring manager is so desperate that they are pretty much willing to take the proverbial, “Cream of the Crap.”

I believe that “desperation hiring,” if it isn’t the biggest hiring problem, certainly is very near the top.

The problem is not that most companies start the hiring process when they need someone, it is that companies start the hiring process with an empty bench. They have to start from scratch every time. It can take weeks or months just to start locating talent. Top or otherwise.

This may explain why so many companies do an exceptional job attracting the bottom third of the candidate pool.

There is a better way. Companies, like professional sports teams, need to have scouts. They need people out engaging people that might be a fit for key positions. Most companies know the key positions that sooner or later will have to be filled once the economy changes. Even in good times, most companies know way in advance the positions they are contemplating hiring for. However, unlike professional sports teams, companies don’t have anyone out scouting for talent prior to it being needed.

So how can companies get scouts out looking for them? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Whether you have one employee or one thousand employees, they should be your scouts. Make sure all of your employees are constantly aware of potential positions you are thinking about filling. Make sure all employees have a Compelling Market Statement. See some examples of these by CLICKING HERE.

2. Approach the hiring process with a proactive approach. Encourage all of your employees to be constantly on the lookout for people they think will fit your culture. When they encounter someone, all they have to do is give the potential candidate a copy of the Compelling Marketing Statement and let them know that your company is always looking for talented people and if they are ever looking, to be sure to think of your company. The farming process has begun. That is what scouts do.

3. Don’t be afraid to engage people you think might potentially be great employees. This can be as simple as meeting them for coffee, including them on your newsletter, updating them of company announcements, sending an email once a quarter, or anything that keeps them on your radar screen and you on theirs.

4. Make it a habit of building queues of potential people for key roles or upcoming roles. Don’t wait until the last minute to start looking for people. Both myself and my partner Barry have placed many people that have been sitting in our database for years. That is why recruiters have people ready to go for you when you call them. You and your team can do the exact same thing. Just knowing where potential people are located is a good start.

5. Build a compelling LinkedIn profile and a Facebook Fan page. Update the Facebook fan page regularly and invite these potential employees to join your page.

6. If you attend trade shows or conferences, don’t just throw the business cards your team collected away. Send each an email to join you on LinkedIn and your fan page on Facebook. If there are a few really good potential employees in the cards, set a time to meet for coffee. Let them know the next time you will be in town and attempt to get together.

7. Do you ask your vendors, customers, trusted advisers, and other service providers for referrals of the best people they work with or know? These can be the best source for building bench strength.

8. Do you encourage your managers and key executives to be active in professional associations, their school alumni association, serve on non-profit boards, or other community associations such as Rotary? These are outstanding places to do some scouting.

I recently wrote another article, “Can’t Find People? They Are Hiding In Plain Sight” because so many hiring managers we work with walk right by potentially great people. This article has three real examples of how people are right there for the asking.

As the economy turns, top talent will be in demand once again. Think back to just three years ago. This top talent will generally end up in one of two places, your team or your competitor’s team.

To find out just how effective your hiring methodology is, download our free 8-Point Hiring Methodology Scorecard. This will help you to develop a truly effective hiring process. CLICK HERE to download yours.

We also have the chapter on sourcing from our book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” as a free download. CLICK HERE to download your chapter on sourcing top talent.

You can also join our LinkedIn Hiring and Retaining Top Talent group. This is an excellent source for discussions and articles on these topics. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your comments and thoughts.

Brad Remillard

Founding Partner IMPACT Hiring Solutions

IMPACT Hiring Solutions provides executive search and in-house workshops that assist companies improve their hiring methodology. Our most popular workshop, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” is delivered to over 1000 CEO’s and key executives each year. It is one of the highest rated programs by Vistage International.

I admire the companies for whom I have worked that have gone out of their way to make sure that they did everything possible to help their employees be productive and happy. They provided training. They moved people from one place to another. They provided internal mentors or professional coaches to both high performing employees and those who needed to “push on some growing edges” for the sake of their career. But what I and others appreciated the most was that they also were willing to set some goals and if they were not reached, the employee was dismissed, compassionately.

I have found that this view of “tough love” approach to employees is particularly difficult in small businesses. In many small businesses, employees are like family, except they get a salary and benefits instead of an allowance! The problem is that we should never hire someone we cannot fire, and family members, real or adopted, are extremely difficult to let go. Now is the time, however, to really pay attention to and begin action on shaping your corporate culture to be one based on performance, consistency and fairness – at all levels.

I know that many of us have been forced to “cut to the bone” during this recession. You may well believe that there is no room for more cuts, and perhaps you are correct. That does not mean, however, that your culture is one that will support an understanding of performance, consistency and fairness going forward. All your executives, managers and employees know that you were “forced to downsize” in order to stay alive. They will not see your actions as being performance based so much as needing to cut costs, unless you truly did reduce your workforce based on performance. Perhaps you used the seniority or LIFO (last in, first out) method to make your decisions. If so, your employees do not believe that their performance will influence their employment with you – so no loyalty either.

If you believe you have really made the reductions in force using performance as the main criteria, then you don’t have a problem. If, however, you were not consistent and fair in how you reduced your workforce, then you will have a very difficult time as the economy turns around and people are willing to change jobs. Many of us are dealing with workers who are sticking with us, even though they are not particularly happy, because they know they do not want to be “on the street with a resume” at this point. They feel overworked, burned out and in need of something exciting to pick up their spirits. How will you keep the good employees, the ones that are most productive?

I recommend two things that are a bit counter intuitive. First, be ruthless in getting your employees to stop doing things they and you can do without. Stop making that report you’ve always looked at but on which you base no business decisions. There are likely many other tasks with which you can do without. Unburden your employees by making sure that no expendable or marginal tasks are continued. Nice to have no longer cuts it.

Second, and more on topic, begin now carefully, consistently and fairly evaluating employees for performance and how well they adopt to change (like letting go of tasks). You must not allow poor performers to stay in the organization or you will totally demoralize your whole workforce. I’ve said before that there are many good employees, excellent employees who are either available now or because their present employer is not as enlightened as you will be available if they know you are prepared to bring them on board. It is a good time to build a winning team comprising your best players and the best players who have yet to be hired.

On the other hand, my SO seems to be able to simultaneously watch TV, read a book AND hold a conversation without missing what is going on in all three. I feel inadequate. However, it turns out that perhaps I need not feel inadequate. A host of studies is starting to shine the light on the fact that multi-tasking is not all that it’s cracked up to be. One study shows that even simple multi-tasking can cause projects to be late. And another shows that we do not learn as much when we’re multi-tasking, and what learning does take place is specialized and more difficult to recall when needed.

There are many other studies (just “Google” the phrase “multitasking + effectiveness”) that show that multitasking is not a good thing. From what I’ve learned about general brain function and from what I’ve experienced myself, the brain is a serial processor. We switch tasks, we don’t parallel process tasks. So multitasking (meaning doing multiple things AT ONCE) is a misnomer to begin with. We all know, intuitively and from practical experience, that when you drop a task for whatever reason, it takes time to pick it up again later. You have to refresh your memory on where you were and what you were doing in order to start the task again. I learned of the “overhead burden” of picking up a task during my college years as a programmer for the school. It sometimes took an hour to get back to the level of competence I had achieved while originally working on the program. Parameters and variable names had to be picked up again, and formulas had to be “re-understood” in order to continue the programming. Invariably, when there were significant errors, I could trace them to having been interrupted while in the middle of a program. I came to “hate” interruptions and learned to concentrate for hours and hours at a time.

The ability to concentrate for hours is a luxury few of us can claim to have in today’s environment. My focus greatly diminished when I left the engineering school and wound up on an open floor with 100′s of other engineers. All talking, collaborating and interacting in different ways on different projects. It was hardly any better to be in an office as a manager – the door was always open and people knew that. So if we can’t concentrate for hours on a project in a normal office (perhaps some engineering firms find ways to keep their engineers on task), then what are we to do? We must contend with not just phones and colleagues, but with e-mail, instant messaging, text messages, cell phones and 24 hour news demanding our attention these days. It’s getting worse not better. And now we are finding that it is not necessarily a good thing for us as far as mental health is concerned.

Today we are trying to do more with less: less cash expenditure, fewer people, fewer more responsive vendors and yes, even fewer more profitable customers. As we address our own firms and business processes, we might well ask how to increase productivity. We seem to be gaining some productivity simply due to the fact the our employees are working harder. They do not want to be out on the street with a resume, so they just put in longer hours, work from home when they can and try to juggle all their own tasks plus a whole bunch more from colleagues who were let go as cash was squeezed. Then there’s the personal life demanding time as well. We, as leaders, will soon pay the price. As the economy improves, and it will, our people will decide that they can afford to move to other companies where the work load is less demanding (whether true or not is irrelevant).

In a previous post, I suggested that we make sure we get our employees to stop doing some tasks that they insist on doing in order to appear less expendable to the organization. Part of what makes it so successful to have folks stop doing tasks that we can afford to let go is that it allows more time for them to concentrate on single tasks. However, that isn’t always what they do. Instead, they still work on multiple tasks in short bursts. I believe we need to not only eliminate all the tasks we possibly can (how many reports or inquiries do we ask for as leaders that totally disrupt the workflow and we never even think about that?), but we need to set the example for our employees by making sure we leave significant blocks of time for important projects. Since we can’t really parallel process (our brains simply cannot do that, we process serially and switch tasks), and since we know that task switching adds an “overhead burden” (like factory set-up time), then we need to maximize the effectiveness of our employees by minimizing task switching wherever possible.

Some companies try and set up e-mail processing times during the day and encourage people NOT to process e-mails at other times. There are “no meeting days” at some companies. If there is a company wide calendaring system that allows others to “invite” you to meetings, then employees are encouraged to block out “Personal Work Time (PWT)” on their calendars so that others will not schedule them for meetings. All of this is critical to retaining your top talent. I see signs of “burn out” in many companies who are running so close to the line that anyone out with the flu has major impact on customer deliverables.

So here are the questions (by now you know I end most posts with questions): How will you keep your talent when things turn around? What are you doing to keep employees mentally healthy by insisting on minimizing so called “multitasking?” As an individual, what are you doing to make sure you are working on major projects in significant chunks of time rather than task switching too frequently? Are you scheduling PWT? Are there times when your door is NOT open so you can concentrate without interruption? Do you silence your phone from time-to-time?

On the employee side, they feel that it’s quite alright for them to give two weeks notice if they get a better offer elsewhere, but at the same time seem to think that as long as they want to stay, they should be able to do so. If the employer lets them go (for whatever reason), they feel that somehow it is unfair. Of course, this is not true of all employees nor do all business owners despair over employees not acting as if the company is their own. However, there does seem to be anecdotal data to back up my perceptions.

This situation first came to my attention many years ago as I worked in the semiconductor industry. We had facilities in Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale and San Jose). I often heard managers complaining that employees were more than willing to leave for a slight raise and join another company. It seemed to be easy to do in the valley and it seemed to be true; and it made me wonder. So I started asking some questions of the engineers, marketers and sales people who left our company and those still with us. The picture became a bit clearer. It seems that there was a lot of loyalty – but the loyalty was to a particular product line or architecture rather than a company. So if I considered myself a Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) kind of guy, I would go where all the exciting things were happening in that field. Likewise if I considered myself a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) person. If I was skilled and excited about one architecture and the company began to emphasize the other, I eventually left to find another employer in line with my talents and passions. This kind of “loyalty to a concept” was even more prevalent in the software and internet companies.

So managers needed to change the context in which they interpreted the content of their experience with respect to “loyal employees.” If an engineer or sales person believed in a certain product or architecture and we began to de-emphasize that particular product, then we could expect to see folks leave for greener pastures. On the other hand, if we kept pushing the envelope and introduced new products and improvements to existing products, then our employees were “loyal” and mostly content.

Discovering this different view of loyalty led to some insights that served some divisions very well. As long as they were able to stay at the leading edge of product development, they kept the best employees. They found that salary and other monetary rewards were not the biggest motivators. They had to be competitive, but by and large, it was an exciting environment in product development that the employees appreciated and which kept them happy and inspired.

So as we work our way out of this recession and employees begin feeling as though employment changes are possible, how will you hold on to your key players? Do you know what your employees are loyal to? Since they don’t own the company, it likely isn’t the company itself that inspires them. They may be grateful for the company and the employment it provides, but what are they really passionate about?

The first four from Part One are:

1) Verbal Praise

2) Achievement Awards

3) Learning and Development

4) Fun and Recreation Events

Each of these can be done at the department or company level. Each demonstrates a culture that rewards people for outstanding effort, provides a positive culture, and a culture that signals respect for the employee.

The last three are:

5) Company Wide Attention This is a step up from department rewards and recognition. This is at the company level. It is great to be honored or recognized by one’s boss, however, when it is by the CEO or at a company level it is a completely different experience. Examples include, recognition in the company newsletter or on its Website, the up front parking space, a picture on the Wall of Fame, recognition at the annual staff meeting, a medal of distinction, any seemingly small thing for exceptional performance, for performing beyond the call of duty or an event that demonstrates extra effort.

It is often these small things that have the biggest and lasting impact.

6) Impactful and Meaningful Work This is one of the biggest reasons top talent contact executive recruiters. Top talent must be constantly challenged. They want to know what is expected of them. When clear direction is consistently lacking, they become frustrated and disengage. However, when top talent have a target to hit they will not only engage but strive to hit the bull’s eye.

Giving your best people additional challenges doesn’t mean you have to constantly be expanding their responsibilities. There is a lot of ground between saying, “That is your job and that is all there is.” to time-to-time challenging them with a special project, taking something off of your desk and giving it to them, allowing them to serve on an ad hoc project, stretching them with some strategic thinking, or involving them in an inter-department project. We find that all it takes is as little as 5% of top talent’s time to be focused on impactful and meaningful work to make a difference.

7) Feedback This seems so obvious but many managers fail to do it. This is not the “good job” feedback discussed earlier. This feedback is at a much higher level. This is feedback that all top talent want and few get. This is what we call, 1-2-1 time. These sessions can be as short as 20 minutes a month. These 1-2-1 sessions focus on their growth, on improvement, build rapport, show genuine interest by the manager, and give time to demonstrate a personal interest in that individual. In our experience, when a manager takes the opportunity to conduct a 1-2-1 on a regular basis, the employee feels a part of the organization. They have the opportunity to be involved in the department, they can give and get feedback, participate, and be heard by their supervisor.

The 1-2-1 can be one of the most powerful experiences for an employee and their supervisor and it can be done in just 20 minutes a month.

Doing one or all of these seven things can dramatically impact your department or organization. In these difficult times any one of these will cement the loyalty of those top performers to you and your company. They will stand by you in difficult times and excel in great times.

Do you have a culture of performance and feedback? To evaluate your culture, download our free Culture Assessment Worksheet. See if everyone in your company would describe your company culture the same. CLICK HERE to download.

Is your hiring process effective at attracting, hiring and retaining top talent? You can do a self assessment of your hiring methodology by downloading our 8 Point Hiring Methodology Self Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE to download.

If you have an idea that we missed I welcome your input and comments.

Brad Remillard

With our candidates, their primary concern is focused on non-monetary issues. Most of the time it evolves around their boss or the company. This is not to say compensation isn’t important to them, but it isn’t the primary motivator to listen to a recruiter.

The reverse is also true. When potential candidates decide not to listen to a potential opportunity, it usually isn’t because they feel they are overpaid and that no other company will pay them as much. Rather it is generally that they have a great relationship with their boss and love working at the company.

After listening to so many potential candidates turn us down because they were so happy working where they are, we have come up with 7 things these companies consistently do to create a culture that retains their talent. You don’t have to do all of these, but if you aren’t do any of them you might want to reconsider.

1) Verbal Praise - These companies give what we call, “Standing Ovations” for outstanding performance. They take the time to recognize when someone goes above and beyond the call of duty. They also give praise or even a simple thanks when someone does a good job. This is sincere praise and thanks, not just given as a matter of fact. The contrast is a culture in which the employee’s performance is viewed as, “just doing their job” or “isn’t that what we pay them to do.”

2) Achievement Awards – Another form of praise. These achievement awards are earned. It is not about sooner or later everyone will get one, so everybody feels good. That loses all of their meaning and significance. These awards take different forms in different companies. Some examples include a reserved parking space, employee of the month, a trophy prominently displayed in the person’s office, certificates, mention in the company newsletter, a pin handed out by the CEO, lunch with the CEO and executive team, take a break and cake on Friday afternoon, etc. The important point is that the employees appreciate the recognition and don’t take it for granted.

3) Learning and Development – Top performers want to continue to learn and develop their skills. Does your company encourage on-going learning for your employees? This might include giving them some time off to attend classes, bringing a topic expert in to speak to a group, allowing them to attend a workshop, have an on-line training program they can complete, or encouraging involvement in professional association and trade associations. These types of programs generally don’t take a lot of time or can be performed outside of working hours and the ROI to the company can be huge.

4) Fun and Recreational Events – My daughter works for a private university. They recognize that they don’t pay at the industry level. They overcome this in many ways, but one way is that either her department or the administrative team will do some fun thing that takes an hour or two. Some examples include, a putting contest in the office, a picnic at the park for lunch,one time her department took off an hour early to go see the filming of the Tonight Show, they went bowling during lunch time, they will take a few minutes late in the day and play a game of charades or Pictionary, etc. These are just fun things that make it a great place to work. To the workers this is worth making a few dollars less because they enjoy the people and their efforts are recognized.

Part 2 will cover the final three non-monetary rewards you can do to retain your best talent.

A free audio recording from our radio show that discusses these in more detail is available on our Web site. CLICK HERE to download a copy.

Join our LinkedIn Group, Hiring and Retaining Talent for additional discussions and articles. CLICK HERE to join.

If this article was helpful to you, please pass it on to others so they can also benefit. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Just about every process in a company, from how customer invoices are processed, to how the phone is answered are repeatable, with competent people and a certain level of standards required. If something goes wrong in the process, for example, a customer invoice is lost resulting in the product not shipping or the order never being billed, qualified people research to identify what went wrong and if necessary either train the people or change the process.

This rarely happens when the hiring process fails. Too often companies just accept the failed hire as part of the process and move on. Why?

Over the last year I have asked over 500 CEOs and key executives the following question, “How many of you have audited, not sat in or co-interviewed, but audited if the people doing the interviewing are competent interviewers?” To no surprise the answer is that around 12% have done this. All the rest admit they have no clue if the people they are relying on to make a successful hire are even competent.

Is there any other process in your company in which you don’t know if the people doing the job are competent? I seriously doubt it.

We have put together an 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard that you can download for free to evaluate your hiring process (CLICK HERE to download).  This assessment will at least highlight the areas of strengths and weaknesses in your company. You can then begin to work on bringing your hiring process standards up to the same standards as other processes in your organization.

At a minimum an effective hiring process must have at least these 5 steps.

1. Job descriptions based on defining success in the role instead of a laundry list of candidate attributes, experiences and skills. Good job descriptions quantify expected results and the time frame to achieve them for managers, and benchmark standards for all non-managerial positions.We call these Success Factors, and the accumulation of all the Success Factors, a Success Factor Snapshot instead of a job description.  (You can download examples of Success Factor Snapshots by CLICKING HERE).
2. A sourcing process that attracts passive candidates, not just those candidates actively looking for a position. Passive candidates make up the vast majority of the candidate pool and the way most companies promote, advertise and network, they rarely attract these candidates. In fact, the way most companies advertise actually turns passive candidates seeking a compelling opportunity off. (You can download our chapter on sourcing top talent from our award winning book for free by CLICKING HERE).
3. In-depth probing interviews with competent people. We already discussed the need to determine if those interviewing are competent. Most interviewers don’t probe deeply and most “tell” the person about the job instead of asking “how” they would do the job. Interviewers can obtain 80% of the information to determine if a candidate can do the job with just 5 core questions.
4. Candidate assessment after the interview. Most companies simple ask those that have been involved in the interviewing process, “What did  you think of the candidate?” or “How did the interview go?’ The person usually replies, “Oh, I liked them. They will fit in well.” or maybe just the famous thumbs up or thumbs down. Not exactly an in-depth assessment to determine if there are any further issues that need to be vetted. (You can obtain our 8 Point Candidate Assessment Matrix by CLICKING HERE).
5. Additional validation needs to done. There needs to be some follow-up steps to validate that what the candidate said they did during the interview is what they really did. Some examples are skills testing, homework assignment, make a presentation, bring in an example of past work or performance reviews, or even conducting behavioral or work style assessments by an outside professional.

These are the minimum 5 steps required by every effective hiring process. If you don’t have at least these 5 being done with competent people, then you might consider re-evaluating your hiring process.

Download a FREE 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard to evaluate your hiring process. CLICK HERE to download.

Our award winning book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. A CEO’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent, describes in-depth how to implement the 5 steps listed above. CLICK HERE to review the book and how to get yours.

Finally, consider joining our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group. It has numerous discussions and articles to help you attract, hire and retain top talent. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions. If you found this article helpful, please pass it along to someone in your network to help them too.

Brad Remillard

Then they come on board and fall flat on their face. Within 3 – 6 months you are saying to  yourself, “You’re NOT the person I hired” (a great title for a book).

You step back and start asking  yourself, “What went wrong? How could this have happened?”

Here is what went wrong – just because a person was a great CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR, doesn’t mean they are the right CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR.  This is the main premise of our Success Factor Methodology hiring process.

Hiring managers too often assume that because a person excelled at their last company, they did all these great things, they told you they could do your job, that this means the person will excel in your company. We believe this is where the concept, “past performance is a good indicator of future performance,” falls short. First off, it is only an indicator, nothing more. An indicator is not the right criteria for a good hire. Secondly, it also depends on how qualified the person interpreting the indicator is at interpreting the indicator. It has been our experience that most hiring managers are not competently trained in hiring or interviewing to do this. The few that are generally do hiring so rarely that they need a refresher course before starting the hiring process again.

There is a better way.

The Success Factor Methodology overcomes the biggest hiring mistakes that cause the problem.

Start by properly defining the job. This is the number one biggest hiring mistake companies make. They don’t properly define the job, so the whole hiring process is in jeopardy from the beginning. Since the job isn’t properly defined, then exactly what is the hiring manager screening and interviewing on or for? Generally background, experiences and skills.

This makes sense because that is exactly what most job descriptions are, simply a list of candidate attributes. Not a job description,  but rather a candidate description. This leads directly back to the problem. Hiring managers assume that  if they have this background they are an “A” candidate, and they may well be an “A” candidate. However, since the job isn’t properly defined, the real question “Will they be an “A” employee?” isn’t known.  This is the only thing you care about.

To properly define the actual job, start by defining outcomes. Ask yourself, “A year from now what will this person have done/accomplished in order to be considered a great hire?” or “What defines success in this role?” This is how we came up with the name, Success Factor Methodology. We simply started asking our search clients the questions, “What are the factors you will use to define success in this role?”  Once we had 4 or 5 of these we combined them into a Success Factor Snapshot. Now the Success Factor Snapshot becomes the job description. After all, this really is the actual job.

Once this is done, then go out and find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver this success.

When you find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver the 4 or 5 Success Factors, you have found both an “A” candidate and an “A” employee.

You can download some examples of Success Factor Snapshots for free to help you by CLICKING HERE.

Our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, with over 10,000 copies in circulation, describes how you can implement the Success Factor Methodology. CLICK HERE for more details.

Join our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. It is free to join just CLICK HERE.

Author’s Bio

Brad Remillard, an executive recruiter with over 25 years of experience, has conducted over 10,000 interviews and been involved in more than 2,000 executive searches. A CPA and graduate of California State University, Fullerton, Brad is one of the founding partners of IMPACT Hiring Solutions, a national retained executive search firm and best practices hiring solution company, headquartered in Southern California. Previously he served as President of CJA Executive Search, which was recognized as one of the top search firms in Southern California. Brad has conducted nationwide searches ranging from Fortune 500 executive vacancies to entrepreneurial companies.

He is frequent Vistage International speaker to CEO’s and key executive on best hiring practices for companies and Advance Interviewing – Eliminating Embellishment and Exaggeration.

He and his partner, Barry Deutsch, authored two books. Their first has over 10,000 copies in cirulation titled, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, A CEO’s Survial Guide to Hiring Top Talent and their second book, This Is NOT The Position I Accepted, Executive Recruiters Reveal the Inside Secrets How To Reduce Your Time In Search was published this year.