Hire employees who fit
Through the changes, Myeroff has also learned that you can’t force employees to adopt company values. So rather than trying to convince employees why yours are important, just hire ones who share similar beliefs in the first place.
Because any applicant can tell you what you want to hear, Myeroff recommends giving each one an objective personality assessment. Measure applicants against traits that your employees already possess. Cohen & Co., for example, ran 10 high-performing employees from different departments through a personality test to come up with a master profile of commonalities to judge candidates by.
“I never thought I’d say that I’ve gotten more scientific about the interview. I felt like it was a gut feeling,” Myeroff says. “But interviewing is more of a science. Doing profiles and personality assessments is really valuable.”
The gut feeling comes into play during the interview portion, where Myeroff has several current employees conduct round-table discussions with candidates.
Again, to avoid canned answers, don’t start by describing your culture then asking if the employees agree.
“You can’t tell somebody, ‘Here’s our culture,’” he says. “You have to be strategic about it so that it doesn’t appear to be about culture: ‘When’s the last time you got upset with a co-worker? How did you react? How did you resolve it?’ Ask those kinds of questions. Their answers can tell you a lot.”
After the interview portion, bring all the interviewers together to compare notes about their interactions with the candidate. Because your employees won’t all ask the same list of questions, they’ll each see different sides of the candidate. Together, you’ll be able to paint a more comprehensive picture.
Myeroff also checks references and backgrounds to see how candidates’ prior behavior lines up with the values at Cohen & Co.
But ultimately, at least for Myeroff, the decision comes down to science.
“If they don’t do well in the interview but they fit on the profile, we give them a chance,” he says. “If others go through the interview and they miss on the profile, we may make the decision not to take a chance.”
