For the past few weeks, I have been visiting my clients to get quotes for my upcoming book about the interview process. The success stories have been awesome to hear, like the one from my client Steve. He and I hired his right hand employee a little over 2 years ago. Steve is reporting that he now has the drama- free office environment that he has always wanted. As a matter of fact, he now takes Fridays off and is making more money! To give you an example of just how great it is to be Steve, he faces a bi-annual audit as he is in the financial industry. The audit process has typically taken about 4 hours with the auditor and several weeks of Steve’s time to prepare. This last audit took 45 minutes and Steve’s employee prepared the entire document.
Lesson learned: Great hires = more time and more money.
Sand on the stage, beach balls in the air and Parrot Heads! This was the scene at the Pepsi Center several years ago for a Jimmy Buffett concert I attended. The back-up singers and dancers began rousing the crowd to get into the groove, which reached a feverish frenzy until finally, the man himself stepped out onto the stage to a packed house of screaming fans. If you have never been to a Jimmy Buffett concert, it is hard to describe how the music started, the colors of the lights flashing and just how enamored I was with the entire scene, especially because right before the concert, I was the lucky holder of a backstage pass to meet a legend himself!
Meeting Mr. Buffett was indeed a lifetime experience, and one that I keep living over and over. I relay the story often to my friends, colleagues and now you. However, because you were not there, you probably do not have the same attachment to the story as I do. Shaking his hand, listening to the crowd in the background, and having my photo taken with him was truly amazing. But since you were not there with me, it is not possible for you to have the same relationship with Jimmy that I now have. After all, listening to Margaritaville on your iPod is just not the same.
Now you may be asking how this relates to interviewing for employees. Imagine that you send your very capable team to an interview with a candidate. Then imagine them trying to describe the interaction to you in a manner that encompasses all facets of the interview. It is simply not the same thing as meeting with the candidate face to face. Even when your team takes great notes and really listens to the candidate, they will not be able to fully describe the interview in its entirety. No one can, anymore that you could possibly grasp the full experience of meeting Jimmy Buffett. In order to fully experience a candidate’s interview, you have to be in the room with them. You have to shake their hand and see how they interact with you in order to know if this candidate will be a good fit for your open position. With approximately 2/3 of all hires being mistakes, and the money that those mistakes cost, can you really afford to short change an interview process by not being present?
Last week, I sat on the beach with sand in my toes, wind in my hair, the ocean roaring in my ears, and a margarita in my hand. I spent a 10 day vacation with my family, my cousins and my friends hanging out, playing cards, walking on the beach and generally relaxing. For those of you that know me, relaxing is not my area of expertise. In fact, I rarely take vacations. After I flew back to town, I realized that my synapses were firing on all cylinders. I have a renewed interest in interviewing and was completely excited to be interviewing all week for multiple clients!
The fact remains that people need time away from work, even when you own the company, like me. Some of my clients get really excited when a candidate will tell us in an interview that they NEVER take vacations. I actually think that this is a negative. Inspiration rarely comes to someone sitting in their office answering emails. Inspiration comes from experiences and usually those come after office hours.
As a nation, we are not good at taking vacation anyway. We feel that we can’t get away, we can’t unplug or we might miss something. I think we actually miss things when we DON’T take time off.
So, when your employees want to take vacation time, praise them for it. Say thank you. Then ask them what you can do to help facilitate their vacation time so they are not performing work while away. Not only will they think that you are the greatest boss ever, but they will come back recharged, renewed and inspired. Your business will benefit, and therefore, so will you. Maybe then you can take some time off too.
I am back in the saddle doing the work that I love because I had a fabulous vacation. I am inspired and working on new ways to teach you how to interview better. And in addition to that, I have a killer tan!
I am fairly certain that none of you know my full name is Margaret Elizabeth Smith. When I was a little baby about 5 months old, my parents called me “the baby” until Mom got pregnant with my brother. My folks figured out that calling me “the baby” was short lived, for obvious reasons and they had better come up with something to call me. Mom tried, “Maggie, Margaret and Meg”. Dad didn’t like any of those. Dad tried “Liza, Liz and Lizzie”. Mom said “Over my dead body”. Dad came home with Beth, and it stuck…sort of. Dad calls me “Bethy- Boo”, Mom calls me “Bethie”, my husband calls me “B”, my nieces and nephews call me “Aunt B” and my beloved grandfather called me “Becky”. Swear.
Last year, my daughter Katy entered the 6th grade at the ripe old age of 12 and she decided that calling me “Mom” was for babies, so she began calling me “Bethly”. Her friends even now call me “Befly”.
I must be a total whack job, because I answer to all of it.
I have seen lots of ads lately with crazy job titles on them. For an admin position “Chief Administrative Officer” and my immediate reaction was “Here is a C-level position that I have never heard of before!” Until I read the complete job ad that included answering the phones and opening the mail, I was under the impression that this person was higher than entry level. It was confusing. If I am confused, and I read job ads all the time, imagine what the candidates must be experiencing. Call the job what it is, so that people recognize themselves in that job and they apply.
Just because I am crazy and answer to 10 different derivatives of my name, doesn’t mean your candidates will. Happy Name Calling!
My daughter, Katy, and I love to make cookies, especially when it is snowing outside and we have a process that we go through to make them. Melt the butter, sneak a few chocolate chips. Add the sugar and eggs, sneak a few chocolate chips. Add vanilla, baking soda, flour, etc. and of course, sneak a few chips. Then, you stir it all together to get the dough, which, you must taste! Sing a little to the song on the radio, do a little dance, put the dough on the pan, and put it in the oven. Dance a little more, try another pinch of dough until the cookies come out of the oven and eat one while it is really hot. It melts all over your hands and face! Giggle some more while you pour a much-needed glass of milk and voila! In addition to feeling a tad sick, you have made cookies and memories all in one day!
One time, however, we put baking powder in the dough instead of baking soda and it was a disaster! Another time, we forgot the eggs; and yet another time, we pulled the cookies out of the oven too late and they were burnt. If you miss a necessary step in baking, you will ruin the final cookie outcome.
The experience is the same when you are trying to hire the right person. There is a recipe for finding the right fit called the 7 Steps to Finding Great Employees: 1) Create your Ideal Candidate in your mind 2) Write the job description 3) Write the job ad 4) Review resumes and schedule candidates 5) First Interview 6) Second Interview and 7) Third Interview. When you miss one of these steps, it is like you burnt your beloved chocolate chip cookies… gut wrenching!
Cultivating your staff begins with hiring the best and you can’t do that if you leave out a part of the recipe. So pay attention, focus and be patient when hiring your next employee. Also, don’t forget to wipe the chocolate off your chin!
For the past few weeks, I have been visiting my clients to get quotes for my upcoming book about the interview process. The success stories have been awesome to hear, like the one from my client Steve. He and I hired his right hand employee a little over 2 years ago. Steve is reporting that he now has the drama- free office environment that he has always wanted. As a matter of fact, he now takes Fridays off and is making more money! To give you an example of just how great it is to be Steve, he faces a bi-annual audit as he is in the financial industry. The audit process has typically taken about 4 hours with the auditor and several weeks of Steve’s time to prepare. This last audit took 45 minutes and Steve’s employee prepared the entire document.
