My personal trainer is Christine Neff, (a.k.a. Marquis de Sade). She has this wicked sense of humor as she gleefully kicks my butt all across the gym. I looked at her with this evil stare and she yells “Now there is that ‘I love you, Christine’ look!” Last week, she made me do push-ups. I hate push-ups! The reason that I hate push-ups is because I really struggle with them. They do not come easy to me. So, she says to me one day that the push up that I only ½ do is the very best one… Huh? “Your strength comes from the struggle,” she replied.
Finding the right person to hire is always a struggle, which is why my clients have difficulty with interviewing. You cannot just go online and place a special order for the right fit. You especially cannot get any deals or shortcuts when it comes to finding the right employee. You have to go through the 7 step interview process fully and completely, and yes, you may struggle. The person that you hire out of desperation, out of fear or out of panic will never work out for you. You have to complete the interview process in order to hire the brightest and the best; then when you finally do hire, it is SO satisfying!
When I met with Christine before Thanksgiving, I was able to finish 4½ whole push ups! The ½ push up was by far the hardest. But with arms shaking and sweating profusely, I struggled and I continue to get stronger.
Yesterday I was interviewing with a client who turned to me and said “Beth, I am so sick of interviewing people!” I responded “Well, you better learn to love it.” He looked horrified, and asked “WHY?” I replied, “Because if you are going to grow and evolve as a company, you will be constantly interviewing people.” He looked a little sick from my answer.
This mindset of hating interviewing is common among many of my clients. They HATE interviewing. They HATE spending all day sitting in a room with a steady stream of people coming through the building. They HATE “wasting time” and not being able to do their “real job”.
Here is the truth: when you run a company or department, your job is to create the vision for your area and hire the people to implement that vision. If you approach this valuable activity with any other intention, then you ARE wasting your time. Instead of coming to the table hating the interviewing process, shift to learning how to LOVE finding new employees. Begin by getting in touch with the end goal, which is to find an amazing candidate who comes in and knocks the ball out of the park. THAT person will let you go back to doing the rest of what you love to do. Hiring the very best fit means that you spend some time interviewing candidates to find employees who love what they do. Then you get to spend more time doing things that you love. You cannot find a better way to spend your time than that.
Back in the 1950’s, many vacuum cleaners were sold door-to-door; in other words, a salesman would come to the home, be invited in, and he would stage a demonstration of the vacuum’s effectiveness. Usually, that demonstration involved dumping dirt and debris on the carpet and then using the vacuum to remove it.
But what happened if the vacuum didn’t suck up the dirt? The homeowners were left with a mess in the middle of their living room. (And of course, they did not buy the vacuum.)
Surprisingly, people today often use the job interview as an opportunity to dump unwanted “dirt and debris” all over the conference table. Candidates report how awful their past employers were, how horrible their last job was and how impossible the boss was to please. Last week, a candidate complained to me that he had “embellished” his skills when applying for his previous position and was subsequently fired. His exact quote was “if they had just TRAINED me on those skills (that he already told the boss he had), then I could have been successful!”
Just like with non-working vacuums, if there is a big pile of “dirt and debris” sitting on the conference table after an interview, then the candidate isn’t working and you need to keep searching for the right one.
Several weeks ago, my client and I called a candidate to get her scheduled for an interview. She asked for a phone interview at noon on the Friday afternoon that we had available for interviewing. She was very specific about the time. When I asked her if there was a reason for that particular time, and she responded by saying, “Yes. I am in a wedding that day and it starts at 2:00.” Since we schedule phone interviews all the time, I asked her if another day and time might be better, and she said “No. I do NOT want to miss out on this opportunity.”
On the day of her interview, I asked her if she was ready for the wedding, and she said “Yes. We have done our hair and makeup, and I am sitting in a church pew in my Bridesmaid’s dress. This is a first for me.” It was a first for me and the client as well!
The most amazing part about that interview wasn’t the dress or dedication to taking the call, although these were great steps to showing her enthusiasm for the position; it was actually in her preparation. She had done her research on the company. She referred to Yelp reviews. She asked excellent questions and she referred to her “list” of questions several times. She knocked the ball out of the park… all in her bridesmaid dress.
Imagine being in an interview for a job that you really want. The interview team is a panel of people not talking, asking you pretty hard questions, and you are concentrating solely on impressing them. All of the sudden, one of those people points out that you have a spider crawling on your shirt. What would you do? Would you scream? Jump up and run? Brush that spider off and then kill it DEAD?
This actually happened to a poor candidate that we interviewed this past week, and he calmly brushed the spider off his shirt and continued his interview gracefully. Then, he joked about being Peter Parker.
We all laughed uproariously. He followed up later that day with a thank you email for the opportunity to interview, expressed his desire to come back for the final round as he really wanted this job, and he signed his email: “Your friendly neighborhood spider man. “
I have spent hours talking to my clients about what to look for in candidates, and the ability to handle difficult situations is invariably one of the top qualities that my clients want. An employee who can laugh at themselves and the situation, handle it gracefully and leave you impressed in an awkward set of circumstances is someone you have to hire.
And as for Spiderman? He comes in this week for his final interview for… you guessed it, a web developer.
I recently got a new/used car, and at the end of a long day of interviewing, I got in it to go home. It has one of those keyless buttons that you press to make it start (this is new technology to me). I pushed the button and… nothing. I began to try everything I could think of to get the vehicle to start. I discovered the “key” in the key fob where I turned the car off, then on again. I opened and shut all the doors. Nothing happened.
One of the employees who was leaving at the same time offered, “Beth, do you need some jumper cables? I don’t have any, but I could call somebody!” I gracefully declined. Even if she had jumper cables, I would not have known what to do with them; regardless, I was pretty sure the issue with the car was user error, not engine failure.
As I continued my discovery process (which really involved me sitting in the front seat staring out the window in amazement, hoping a solution would just present itself), my client walked by and said “Is the car in park?” The car was in reverse. I put the car in park and it started right up at the push of the button. Boy, did I feel like an idiot, and I can guarantee you that I have not heard the end of this from my client, beloved husband and friends (nor will I EVER)! It was such a simple fix!
“What is the point?” you may be asking yourself. Last week, an article came out about a tech company failing to attract female candidates. After some conversations, they realized that the job title they’d used for years (“hacker”) was not perceived as inclusive by potential candidates. Once they changed their verbiage from “hacker” to “developer”, they began to attract many more female candidates. Sometimes a very simple change (in this case, of one word) can make all the difference in the world. Read the article here.
The next time you find yourself not attracting the types of candidates that you want (or when your new/used car will not start), take a second look. Put your process (and car) in park. Take a second to review your job ad to ensure that the language you are using directly reflects the message you want to portray. Then, press the button and GO!
Meanwhile, I will be reading the manual for my car…
