by Beth | Apr 25, 2019 | Adventures in Interviewing, Interview Process
I am currently interviewing for a Vice President in an up and coming technology company. We recently flew in a promising candidate in order to discuss the position further. When asked to describe the best job he had ever had, he said, “I was a hot dog vendor in the red-light district, and I got to hang out with the ladies of evening.” Then he laughed.
This candidate checked off all of our other boxes: he had held the position before in another growing tech firm, he had the leadership skills that we wanted, and he was eager to get started, but this comment stopped us in our tracks.
As we discussed the candidate after the interview, one member of the interview team said that the candidate was “just joking” and we shouldn’t hold that comment against him.
But what if he wasn’t joking? There is a really big potential risk to take on when a candidate alludes to sex in an interview.
The bottom line is this: referring to and/or alluding to sex in a professional interview is completely inappropriate, no matter what the company, the product, the experience or the position. Whether this candidate meant to or not, you as the employer can’t under any circumstances take on that risk. It puts all of your other employees in a terrible position should this candidate not limit his inappropriateness to the interview process.
In other words, we can’t assume that he was joking. Next!
by Beth | Dec 4, 2017 | Adventures in Interviewing, Employee Hiring
Most of my clients would probably tell you that I have seen everything there is to see when it comes to interviewing candidates. I will tell you this just isn’t true. People in general continue to surprise me, even more so during the interview process. This past week, I encountered a “first” when interviewing a candidate. While conducting a phone interview with an applicant for a high-level position, his dog barked consistently in the background. To attempt to keep the dog quiet, the gentleman used a squeaky toy to try to distract the dog, which of course, only excited the dog more. Squeak! Squeak! Bark! Bark! “I am definitely the best fit for this role!” he yelled over the barking dog.
I am all about having dogs. I love them and support companies that allow employees to bring their dogs to work. Studies have shown that dogs help de-stress their owners and I am always an advocate for a less stressful workplace. I also believe in taking excellent care of our beloved pets by providing all the squeaky toys that they can handle.
Do I believe that dogs belong in an interview for employment? No, I do not.
An interview is a first impression. We are evaluating a candidates’ ability to focus, to think on their feet, and to listen to the questions asked. If they are busy playing with their dog during an interview, they are telling their potential employer that they are less concerned about you and more concerned with their four-legged friend. It may also be a sign they will become distracted easily. If this occurs during one of your interviews for an A-list employee, I recommend a hard pass.
Woof!
by Beth | Jun 6, 2017 | Adventures in Interviewing, Attitude, Employee Hiring, Interview Process
Did you know that Colorado currently has the lowest unemployment rate in over 40 years? This is very good news! Having lots of people with jobs is something to celebrate. However, it can make for a very long recruiting process. If you are hiring, this is the time that you can make fear-based mistakes, so here are 3 tips to keep you calm and focused while you are searching for your amazing hire.
- Create your Ideal List and stick to it. Regardless of the unemployment rate, employers needing to fill a position feel the pressure of urgency – hurry up already and just find someone! But rushing a hiring decision rarely, if ever, results in a good hire. Envision the employee you really want and stick to your vision, even when you feel that pressure. Read over your Ideal List. Get excited over how much better things will be when you find your great hire, and then read your Ideal list again!
- Get creative and thorough with your outreach. You never know where your great hire will be found, so make sure you’re looking everywhere you can. Utilize the network of people you know – talk to your neighbors, your friends, your children’s friends’ parents… everyone. Also, make sure that your message appears everywhere online, not only in the networks you yourself frequent. For instance, people who regularly use Facebook might post their message there, but they’ll never reach the ideal candidate who doesn’t log on to Facebook but who regularly uses Craigslist. Your outreach should be as large as possible, and may include some unconventional methods: I talked to one employer who leaves her business card with people that she thinks will be good hires.
- Check your brand online. Jobseekers will research you and your company, and if they see negative information they will be less likely to apply. When is the last time you’ve done a Google search on your company, or checked what Glassdoor and Amazon say about your company? Make sure you know what potential candidates are seeing about you.
Yes, in a market with low unemployment, finding your ideal candidate may take longer than it might under different circumstances. However, keep in mind that even under the best of circumstances, finding your ideal candidate will seem to you like it takes forever! Regardless, it’s a stressful situation, but be comforted in knowing that every other company is in the same boat; let them be the ones who buckle under the fear and stress and make impulsive and costly hiring mistakes. Stay calm, stay focused and hang in there!
by Beth | Mar 27, 2017 | Adventures in Interviewing, Employee Hiring, Interview Process, Selecting Good Candidates, Updating Position Criteria
“Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it…” – Stephen King, author
Many authors have described writing as a lengthy and arduous process. I myself have been in the process of writing a book for almost seven years now, and it seems I’ve been at it forever! And yet, as I put the final touches on my manuscript to send to the publisher, I am struck by how amazing this process has been (even though there were times when I wanted to pull my hair out). The learning, the soul searching, the patience and persistence have all been incredible lessons.
As I write, rewrite, delete, and continue to revise my vision, I realize that the process of writing a book is much like the process of interviewing for new employees:
- Your vision changes as you go along. The book that I thought I was writing when I began this process is not the book that I ended up writing. I envisioned the process of writing a book was similar to the process of reading one – you start at the beginning and write steadily and smoothly until you’ve reached the end. I was unprepared for the amount of revisions, edits, rewrites and rearranging that occurs… and the same thing happens in the process of interviewing candidates for a position. My clients are surprised that midway through the process, we may change the job title, change the scope of the position or change the current department structure because we now have a better idea of what we need. You truly do not know what you are looking for until you begin the search, any more than I knew what book I would be writing until I started to write it.
- Never, never, never give up. Wise words uttered from the amazing Winston Churchill. There were SO many times that I wanted to just quit writing. I got stuck, had writer’s block, or just became fed up with the whole process and would exclaim, “That’s it! I give up!” About that time, I would have a breakthrough that gave my book and my vision for it new energy. When you are interviewing for new employees, you will have bad days. You will think, “I am NEVER going to find someone!” Then, suddenly because you kept at it, a person walks in and renews your energy, both in the new employee and in your business.
- It’s worth it. Much like completing a book, when you have finished the search, when you have found your Ideal Person and you have completed the hiring process, you feel like you could “leap tall buildings in a single bound!” You forget the times when you got stuck, frustrated, impatient, and the times where you HATED the process. Instead, you feel like you won the lottery!
While you continue the search for A-list employees (and while I complete this final phase of publishing my book), remember: Anything worth having is worth the trouble of making it happen, whether it be writing a book or hiring your next superstar. And stay tuned as my book, “Why Can’t I Hire Good People?” hits the bookshelves this spring!
by Beth | Jun 29, 2016 | Adventures in Interviewing, Employee Hiring, Selecting Good Candidates
You are a badass!
This is the title of the latest book that I have read by Jen Sincero, and every time I read it, pick it up or look at it, I think of you.
I know that right now you are struggling to find the best employees that you can possibly find and it is hard work! Slogging through resumes, interviewing candidates and trying to find the time to do your own job on top of that… and pulling your hair out at the difficulty of the process. After a really bad day of interviewing (or more than one) you wonder, “Where are all of the good people?” You really want to give up and just hire someone already! 
I want you to keep your chin up, because you are a badass. You deserve to have to best of the best, and those people are coming. Get out your Ideal Candidate List and read over it again. Get in touch with how AMAZING it is going to be when these people finally get here. When they do, hang onto your hat… you will be floored at the difference they make and you will be thankful that you held your ground and didn’t give in to the temptation to just fill an empty chair with whomever.
In the meantime, when you have a lousy day, look back at how far you have come! Look at the changes that you have already made and what a difference it has made on your organization and your life.
Keep rocking it, you badass, you!
by Beth | Jan 22, 2016 | Adventures in Interviewing, Selecting Good Candidates
My daughter, Katy, received a text from a potential suitor that said “Your so pretty!” She showed me the text with a horrified look on her face and said “I’m sorry. If he doesn’t know the difference between your/you’re and to/two/too, then I am not interested!”
In my business, we receive hundreds of resumes for jobs per week and at least half of them have some sort of grammar and/or spelling error. Sometimes we interview them anyway because they have the experience that we are looking for, they wrote a “nice” cover letter or we decide to forgive that “one tiny mistake.” But here is the hard and fast truth: The easiest way to determine if the candidate is serious about the position is whether or not they took the extra 2 minutes to run spell check and proof their work. It really isn’t hard. It really doesn’t take much time. It really does make a difference.
So for those candidates that are continuously asking me for interviewing help, my best advice to get the interview is to please do a review of your materials before you send them. Better yet, have your neighbor, friend, significant other read your resume and cover letter, just for that extra set of eyes. And for my clients who ask, Yes! Grammar counts! Just ask my beloved teenage daughter!
P.S. May all boys within dating age of my daughter make grammatical errors like these. Amen.
