Hire the right people
Carrabba doesn’t have to do a lot of advertising to draw potential employees to Cliffs these days. With good morals and ethics throughout the company, people know that and want to be a part of that.
“You don’t have to advertise that on a billboard if you attract those kinds of people who come in,” he says. “On a people side, success begets success. The better you treat people, the more you’re going to get that kind of person to work here.”
But it’s not as if he snaps his fingers and the perfect employees stand out above the others seeking him out — it still takes some work to make sure you hire the right people. Start by focusing on the right things.
“I really leave the technical aspects of the interview to the other folks and their respective departments,” Carrabba says. “My sense is really around team chemistry. That has to be first. You could be the smartest person in the world, but if you don’t have the chemistry like we’re talking about to fit into the group, it won’t work for the individual interviewing, and it certainly won’t work for us. … Dwell on team chemistry and get a sense for where the person wants to go, how they like to operate, how they like to manage their time both personally and professionally.”
He says to ask about life experiences from organizations that they’ve been a part of during their career but also about leadership experiences going back as far as high school and college. Ask if they’ve been involved in team sports at any level and see what types of work they do on the charitable side of business.
“All of those build team types of quality and experiences,” Carrabba says. “You go through the highs when you’re winning and the lows when you’re losing when you’re a team player, so you really have to look for those.”
It’s also important to use the interview process as a chance to show who your company is and not just what it does. This is the time to get people who will buy in to your values.
“It starts at the very beginning of the interview and making sure that they know what kind of company they’re coming to work for and what the values of the company are so there aren’t any surprises when they come here,” Carrabba says.
Also involve several people in the process to make sure you get the right people for your organization because different people will pick up on different things about a person. For example, he’ll involve a ma
nager, but he’ll also involve someone from human resources.
“They’re not in the department, so they can give me an external view, if you will, and that’s what they’re trained in the business to do,” he says.
Then there would also be some peers and lateral people who are at that same level as the person who would be coming in.
“Again, that team chemistry has to work, and they have to have a good feel for the selection that’s going to come into the department,” Carrabba says. “Everybody picks up on different things.”
