Hire Power Radio Show

“People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. - Simon Sinek How does this translate to your hiring? The simple answer is that your company's WHY is the one thing that differentiates whether a person joins for the paycheck or something bigger. Because it is important to them.  It is the WIIFM (what's in it for me) Right person, right seat needs to happen, every time. Your company depends...

Referrals are most often your most potent source of talent for your organization.  So investor referrals must be the holy grail of all referrals. After all, there is a vested interest in your company's success so why shouldn't the referrals be outstanding?  Here’s the thing to consider. Yes, these referrals are gold but it is dangerous to assume that this person will automatically thrive in your u...

How often have you hired the right person for the wrong seat?  Here’s how that happens.  A person is identified and it is assumed that because of their background that they crush it for you. After all, they are already doing it for someone else. Perfect logic, right? Nope! The reason this logic is so dangerous for your company is that current skills are just a small part of success. As we have all...

Amazon’s leadership principles (Core Values) have been the most critical element in their unprecedented success. Value alignment first, and skills second. So why is this not a standard practice among all up-and-coming startups?  The reason I believe is that leaders then become accountable for their actions when they misbehave.  Without values, it is easy to hide. It is easy to rationalize bad deci...

There is nothing more disappointing than a hire that does not work out. Especially when the person hired was someone you were convinced, would be a great hire! Conventional wisdom says “hire slow, fire fast” but this almost never happens. Because we are too concerned with filling the role fast. Triaging our pain. Maybe if we really hired slowly, the interview would produce much stronger results. T...

Every interview that happens in your company needs to have a purpose.  There is a specific purpose for the phone screen, which is positioning & quality of the individual.  The onsite interview’s purpose, does this person align with our company values and finally, the skills interview’s purpose is to determine if the person has the capacity to thrive in the role.  Too often the directive is given t...

Do you ever wonder why only a small percentage of people respond to your recruiting emails?  The answer is that there is nothing in it for them.  Especially if the person you are trying to recruit is already working.  Let’s be honest, selling people on what we NEED only attracts people who are actively looking, and 99% of messages all sound the same!  Here's why we are great… What we need… What we...

It has been decided that we want to hire a person who made it through our interview process. Yay! Now we invest the time to have the “offer conversation” about what it is going to take for you to join us. Eagerly, we present our case, discuss our benefits & perks, and divulge our rationale behind what we would like to pay our hot new employee.  The only problem is, that having this conversation no...

How do you hire people when you have no money?  While this may seem like an impossible task, the truth is that it is not as difficult as you might think. It starts by understanding what is important to the individual. Then connecting their desire your the value of your opportunity.  Compensation comes in a lot of different forms and money is just one piece of the equation. Professional growth, cha...

The reason why people think that hiring is “really hard” is because interviews are conducted without a defined set of criteria to which a person is being evaluated.  This especially rings true when interviewing outside your personal competency level. Most often when hiring a CMO or CRO. In order for any interview to be effective, there has to be two components by which a person is being judged. Sk...

Most good hires are a result of luck rather than skill. In fact, I would argue that very few hires are by design.  Throughout my career, I have never met a person who views interviewing and the hiring process as anything more than a chore that they loathe. In fact, the most common reaction to the subject usually results in a huge “uuuggghhhhh” or “I hate hiring”.  We dread the act of interviewing...

Do company values really matter? They do if you are looking to scale a business.  In order to scale you need the strongest people, but the strongest people don't need you…or your company.  What High performers need is to understand how your company brings value to their world, personally & professionally. And how we bring value through value alignment.  Value alignment is the catalyst for performa...

Doom & gloom is the impending economic forecast according to the media. Having flourished through two previous recessions, I have learned to look for the opportunity that comes with the adjustment.  And when it comes to hiring, the opportunities to thrive are bountiful! One trend that I have personally observed throughout the years is that companies like Google & Facebook silently ramped up passiv...

We have all become painfully aware that cybercrime is at all-time record highs. Now the bad actors have figured out how to hack your hiring process. Stories have been surfacing about people accepting roles remotely that are different people from the ones attending the interview. Let’s face it, hacking the interview process is probably the easiest way to infiltrate your company and ultimately your...

Last week I had a conversation with a CEO who thought it was too early to establish core values because his company was only 15 people. His thinking was that things would just change anyway and he would have to do them all over again as the company grows. But here was the ginormous problem: Two of his people recently quit, the last 4 offers he made were turned down and the candidate pipeline was d...

Are Strategy and Systems missing in your hiring process? The answer is most likely “Yes” as 99.9% of entrepreneurs approach hiring as a reactive activity based on a current need. This is dangerous because it perpetuates the transactional mindset that sets you up for failure. Strategy is not about “how do I turn on the funnel”. Strategy is about how you identify, contact & engage with the person wh...

Why is the phone screen is the most underutilized tool in hiring today? There is this perception or fear that the person making the call will say the wrong thing and screw up the chances that the person will show up. So the phone screen is treated like a used car sale. Tell people all the great things about our company, gather some basic information and invite the person in to interview.  And beca...

Two people pop into a room together for an interview. What happens next? No one knows!  This is the eternal mystery that most companies have faced for decades. And the single point of failure in hiring! Because we assume that everyone knows how to interview. But the truth is, they do not as most interviewers have only been trained on what NOT to say. There is no insight as to what is being said, t...

One big thing that we have learned over the past year is that employers no longer have control over the people they hire. The balance of power has shifted with the majority of people willing to walk away from an opportunity that does not align with their personal beliefs or values.  Many companies are left scratching their heads as to why. So, the thinking has evolved into “it must be the money” s...

Do you really need a data scientist for your startup? Throughout my career, I have placed a lot of data scientists at smaller companies. Most of the people placed left within a year of starting with the common feedback that the work didn't warrant having a data scientist. In most cases a data engineer is more than sufficient to build the organization. Sure AI and machine learning may be critical t...

A company founder approached me last week with a problem. He has had a critical role open for the past 6 months and no one has accepted his offer. 5 people had been offered the job and every single person turned it down. When asked why, the founder said, “I did a great job selling each one of them from the beginning so It must have been the money”. Then I asked, “what was it that the person you we...

A big push for people to return to the office is the argument that spontaneous interaction is critical to the growth of the business. The fear is that people are not communicating and it has hindered innovation. However, let’s look at the number of fully remote companies who have been thriving throughout the past few years. The big differentiator is the structure and setting up interaction channel...

We often hear data on how much bad hire costs you and your company. About 3x the person’s annual salary. But how much did the interview process itself cost? For a startup to make a hire, the company spends about 73 total hours interviewing. With the most significant cost being 30 hours of the production team's combined time. And this is assuming that 6 people make it through a full interview to ge...

Let's face it, a lot of people are BAD at interviewing on both sides of the table.  It is easy to understand that candidates or job seekers are bad for numerous reasons. Being nervous, out of practice, and under pressure to do well because of NEED,  create a large margin for error. For seasoned interviewers, it becomes easier to perform because the person has a lot of practice interviewing. That p...

Sometimes an innocent conversation during an interview can have horrific consequences, especially if you end up not hiring a person. The biggest problem every company faces during the hiring process is the interview.  Two people go into a room together for a conversation and no one knows what transpires. Conversations flow and curiosity carries the conversation. As we all know, curiosity killed th...