Hire self-starters. The biggest issue is self-motivation. They have to build that enthusiasm and do it on their own. You want a self-motivator, someone who has their own desire and push. We’re a pretty lean organization on a body basis, so we want fast people, quick thinkers.
I’ve always believed that you should hire an A-player, and hire them with an idea that they can take your job. So we want to get great quality people, cut them loose at the outset to do the best they can do. If you’re not hiring someone who could take your job, you’re not moving forward.
As we interview, one of the statements I make is the only constant we have around here is change. In something like the software industry, that’s always in play, but the banking industry has a reputation for being a little bit stodgy, kind of a 9-to-5 job. We don’t do that. We’re a pretty lean machine, we have constantly tried to re-innovate old practices, doing them differently. The hiring play is to find people who think outside the box, think creatively, everything is up for grabs. Never believe that you should do something just because you’ve always done it that way. We perpetually try to improve through change.
A lot of our new hires from over the years have come from referral. We have an internal recruiting program, kind of refer-a-friend, [and]that sorts out a lot of people who you might not want. It takes a special person to be the type you might want to work with. A lot of friends become enemies when you get close together. The employees themselves kind of weed out some of the players and really give us a great pool of candidates.
Ask the right questions. One of my favorite interview questions is, ‘If I’m the fairy godfather and you can do anything you want to do, what would it be?’ It’s phenomenally insightful. Some people would lay on the beach and read books all day. It would tell you that they’re not very self-motivated or very focused. If someone says they’d travel to a third-world country and build irrigation systems, that shows you they’re motivated to do things. I’ve had phenomenal answers to that question. My answer when I was in college was that I would race sports cars on the weekend and do photojournalism, going site to site, race to race. It’s intriguing, off the wall, and catches most people a little off guard. They know they have to respond relatively quickly, so they don’t get a tremendous amount of time to think. You get insight into their characteristics, their background and motivation.
How to reach: First Internet Bank of Indiana, (888) 873-3424 or www.firstib.com