How can you gauge those characteristics in someone when you
are interviewing?
You can’t get a complete picture, and you don’t truly know
until you are interacting and working with someone. You can tell a lot about
people by how they interact. Everything from the first time they reach out to
HR to how they follow up, how they treat the receptionist versus how they treat
the CEO. Do they interact differently? Did they ask questions?
I can rule it down to one simple phrase, and it is Peter Drucker’s
— look at what you can contribute rather than what you can accomplish. When you
have people coming in and their mindset is what can I contribute to this
company, rather than what am I going to get out of this company, then you are
typically on the right track. So we are trying to find out if that’s how people
think and if that’s how they are actually going to act. We don’t always get it
right, but if we reduce the number of wrong hires in the end, it’s obviously
going to pay off.
How long is your hiring process?
It really starts with the manager that’s going to own the
resource request. So we make them go through a business justification for the
investment. What kind of person are they looking for? We don’t ask them just
skill set; we are also looking for some of the other skills, as well. Who are
they going to interact with? Are they going to be in front of customers? Are we
looking for logical, analytical? You
know, are we looking for a good writer? Those types of things, it really starts
there. From the time we start the process to the time we end the process it can
be four weeks to eight weeks. We don’t hire to meet a deadline so what we don’t
do is we don’t say this is the best available candidate and we have a deadline
to meet. If we wouldn’t hire them anyway we don’t just settle. … It creates a
great internal tension. … You could make a mistake that’s very painful on the
backend.
What difference have you seen when you’ve taken the time and
invested the money in hiring the right people?
It’s night and day. It’s the difference between success and
failure, without question. The key is, the more time you put into hiring the
right person the higher the odds are of hiring the right person. It’s not a
fool-proof system that says spend more time and you’re guaranteed a success. It’s
not that it necessarily guarantees success, but it definitely improves the
probability of hiring the right person. I have people that have started working
for me ten years ago that still work for me. That investment has obviously paid
off in dividends. And I’m just as proud of the other people that have left and
gone on and done great careers somewhere else. I think the common denominator
has always been those folks that have always been able to learn and to grow
just as much as how they can improve their resume if you will.
How to reach: Telligent Systems, (877) 492-9484 or www.telligent.com