Perfect Hire Blueprint

by Dave Clough

  All states have different laws, and employers need to be aware of these laws. The interviewer has no risk in asking, but the reference could get his company in trouble for not disclosing some types of information.

  Be aware also of a false good reference. This takes more skill to detect, but I know of cases where a company did not want to fire an employee, but they made it difficult for the employee, hoping that he would leave. This is true of administrative staff and also higher level employees.

  A reference check should be welcomed by that employer because it indicates that the candidate is seriously looking for a new job. A glowing report that is unwarranted could possibly pass the problem on to the new company.

  If an employee was terminated and is collecting unemployment, the same incentive for the former employer exists. This is illegal and known as negligent misrepresentation. So if your BS detector goes off or you have a uneasy feeling, either dig deeper or at least document the interaction to look at it in the larger context of the rest of the information you have.

  This piece of information may bring clarity to something not fully apparent in the interview, roundtable or Assessment.

  I have helped clients write recommendation letters for a “desired departure” that sound good but said nothing of substance. All of the statements are true, but the lack of specificity about job performance should have been a red flag for a future employer.

  I recommended the letter because it stands on its own, and if anyone called for a reference, the letter was to be produced, allowing for no follow-up. If you get such a letter, read it carefully and be aware of what is not being said.

  The best reference to check may be one that was not provided by the candidate. If someone in your company knows someone in the candidate’s current or prior company who is not on the candidate’s reference list, try to talk to that person in a casual way to get candid information and opinion.

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  Reference checks are an essential piece of the puzzle that is the candidate’s job performance.

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  For more detail on reference checks, visit PerfectHireBlueprint.com/Resources.

  Background Check

  The background check is an optional step. We don’t always do background checks. Criminal background checks should be required if employees are entering clients’ homes, but may not be required if they stay in an office. Driving records should be checked for anyone driving a company vehicle.

  We also recommend that a credit check be done for anyone with access to the company’s financial accounts. If you want to do a background check, I recommend that you go to National Crime Search (nationalcrimesearch.com). You can go there directly, sign up and get a report with any of this info: criminal history, sex offender status, SSN validation, list of known aliases, list of known addresses, terrorist search, motor vehicle report, credit report, federal district court search, bankruptcy search, federal & state tax lien search, civil litigation search.

  Education verification could also be useful. I recently had a client who had “Education: Master’s degree preferred” on the job ad for an executive level position. They found out in the first 90 days that the new hire did not have even a Bachelor’s degree. The new hire’s response was, “it said Master’s preferred, but did not say anything about Bachelor’s degree.” The employee was terminated because the trust was gone, and the employer was partially to blame.

  The costs of these checks are surprisingly low in my view for the benefit the information brings. Be sure to follow state and federal law on what is allowed. The background check company will likely be able to help you stay within the law.

  Summary & Action Items

  The second interview needs to primarily gather more data on the areas of concern from the first interview and the Assessment.

  Use the questions provided by the Job Report that pertain to the areas of concern from the Assessment. Based on the answers to the questions, discern if the gaps from the report can be bridged.

  Reference Checks

  Here are some good questions to ask:

  In what capacity did you work with Joe?

  What were his biggest strengths or value to the group?

  Would you say that Joe was in the top 25% in job performance as compared to his peers?

  If you were managing Joe, what area would you think he could improve most? Is there another?

  In the interview, Joe told me the story about ___. Can you tell me what happened from your perspective?

  Joe seems to be (character trait). Do I have a correct impression of this?

  Reference checks are an essential piece of the puzzle that is the candidate’s job performance.

  Hiring manager should make the call to get a peer to peer interaction.

  Legal concerns may make it harder to get candid information. The truth and facts are never illegal to convey.

  Listen for what is not said as well as what is said

  Background check

  Criminal background checks should be required if employees are entering clients’ homes or working with sensitive information, but may not be required if they stay in an office. Better safe than sorry, because those you least suspect could be disqualified.

  For more information on legal issues and background checks, visit PerfectHireBlueprint.com/Resources.

  Chapter 15: Post Interview Roundtable/Interview Candidate Roundtable

  The roundtable is a discussion among the people who interviewed the candidate to determine who should be given an offer based on the resume, interviews, Assessments, and reference checks. A roundtable should be run by the hiring manager, or the human resources manager if a better facilitator than the manager.

  The assumption is that each interviewer has asked the same questions to each candidate, and each had their own unique questions during the interviews. The goal of the roundtable is to discuss what was asked and what was answered during the interview. This allows everyone to hear the questions and answers.

  The hiring manager may have a favorite candidate, so unless the hiring manager can be unbiased, the human resources manager could facilitate the roundtable.

  Humans can be manipulative, especially in a situation such as an interview. As stated previously, the gut is difficult to trust by itself with deceptive candidates. This is common, since most are not their natural selves during the interview process. Additional data is needed to confirm or rebut the feelings. Remember that people form an opinion quickly and the interviewer could be using the interview to reinforce the first impression.

  A good manager or leader will likely be skilled in influencing, and this can be used to manage the outcome of the roundtable if he or she wants to. I have done it personally. Likewise, in meetings like this roundtable, a more vocal person can sway others who are not strongly in one camp or the other (pro or con). I’ll describe how I did it so that you are aware of how it can be done.

  Let me first say I did this during a particularly difficult hiring environment where there were more job openings than there were qualified candidates (A-players). I also had an incentivized objective to hire someone that month.

  As the hiring manager, I knew I liked a particular candidate (let’s call him Joe) after the phone screen. I knew that an interviewer or two may not like Joe as much because I knew what specific interviewers looked for in a candidate (for example, attended a highly ranked school). I knew Joe did not have exactly what they were looking for, but I thought he had great experience and potential.

  I quickly debriefed every interviewer as each finished with Joe to gauge if the person was leaning toward yes or no. This was before we met for the roundtable.

  I wanted to start the roundtable with a positive note to set the tone, and I wanted to end on a positive note before we voted. Actually, I was the last to speak. A meeting can take on a life of its own when it starts unexpectedly.

  While the vote was not binding, and I had the final say, I wanted a super majority before givin
g an offer to Joe because I wanted to have, ideally, unanimous buy-in. This buy-in is good for morale, and hiring someone without unanimous buy-in has the opposite effect.

  There were five people voting, and I had two NOs sandwiched between three YES. I also set a time limit of 5 minutes per person (not just this time, but always) so as not to have a filibuster. The resulting vote was what I had hoped for. Joe would get an offer. (By the way, Joe turned out to be a great fit!)

  I do not recommend that any hiring manager should do what I did above. I made my one really bad hiring mistake 20 years ago, when hiring someone I knew socially (unacknowledged bias). I learned my lesson about following the process. It is ideal that you have unanimity with the vote, but you should always have a large majority.

  Now to the recommended process:

  I recommend at least 3 interviewers (I prefer 5). It is understood that smaller companies will have fewer, and larger companies will typically have more.

  As stated in the First Interview chapter, each interviewer should ask different questions from the others, and those questions should align with the person’s expertise if possible. The reason to do this is to uncover as much as possible with the most efficient use of time.

  If multiple candidates are being interviewed, the same interviewers should ask the same questions in the same way to all candidates to ensure comparing apples to apples.

  To make the process “fair,” the facilitator (manager or other) should ask each interviewer about their experience with the candidate and how she answered the assigned questions. The order should be lowest rank to highest rank, because the answers of higher ranking people will influence those who rank lower.

  The other interviewers should be allowed to ask clarifying questions of the interviewer who is speaking to help them form their own opinions.

  While the goal is for everyone to get equal time speaking, there can be a time when a specific candidate answer will spur on more discussion. Suppressing that discussion could hurt full buy-in, but end the discussion when issue is clarified and everyone has been heard.

  The decision to do a roundtable on each candidate or to do it on all candidates that have gone through 2 interviews (or one roundtable for Interview 1, another for Interview 2, etc.) depends on the urgency, best candidate timeline and the hiring environment.

  If you need someone quickly, have an A-player who needs an answer quickly, or you are in an environment where there are few qualified candidates, then I would recommend that you do a roundtable on each candidate, not waiting for all the interviews to be completed.

  This is because the best candidates are in greater demand and could be snapped up by another company before you make an offer. If Einstein applied for a research job, would you wait to interview all of the other candidates before you decided?

  To make a hiring decision, the Assessment should make up no more than 1/3rd of the decision. Other components to the hiring decision are the interviews, the job specific test, references, background checks, experience, proximity to work, unexplained job gaps, education level, and responsiveness.

  Below is a sample grid that you can use to make a hiring decision. This was adapted from a best practice from a colleague, Simon Young of the Rainmaker Group, who only hires top sales people for companies. Some things are non-negotiable.

  You can use this to set expectations and calibrate your interview team. In this model, 100pts is a NO HIRE – the lower the score, the better. You can find this as a spreadsheet for download at PerfectHireBlueprint.com/Resources.

  Adapt this to your needs. Build your grid with criteria and point values so that you should not give an offer to anyone over 25 points. If you give an offer to someone who is over 30 points, you are settling. Don’t settle - keep looking for a better fit.

  Now that the decision has been made to try to get the candidate, it is up to the manager to determine with the help of HR whether they can make an offer that will be accepted.

  Summary & Action Items

  The roundtable is a discussion among the people who interviewed the candidate to determine who should be given an offer based on the resume, interviews and Assessments.

  3-5 interviewers

  Different questions from each interviewer – aligned with expertise

  Summary of interview process

  Develop the hiring criteria.

  Ensure each interviewer has unique questions.

  Have each interviewer ask the same questions to all candidates.

  Have a brief roundtable after Interview 1. Send Assessment to all candidates who are going on to interview 2.

  Have a roundtable after interview 2 to determine: hire or no hire.

  Manager/facilitator of roundtable should be objective and fair.

  Have a facilitator of the roundtable if needed.

  Gain unanimity if possible. People need to weigh in to buy in.

  Section 3: Closing the Deal

  Chapter 16: The Offer

  Does it bother you when someone asks a question starting with, “If money were no object, what would you…”? It’s hard to make decisions without any concern for what you’d earn or what it would cost.

  Recently someone told me that a father with only one daughter said he’d pay any amount for her wedding, but I still think there might have been an upper limit. Even sports teams with rabid fan bases have a salary cap, and some sports markets can pay more than others (luckily for me, my local Boston teams have those fans).

  While your company’s budget may not be the same as an MLB or NFL team, I’m sure you also have an upper limit. That limit might also be below the current market value for the position that you are hiring.

  I think what companies are looking for is the cheapest person who can adequately do the job as they envision it. I think they should be trying to get the person of the most value within the budget. This is the person who may perform at a level much higher than the compensation would normally attract.

  First we’ll go down the usual path that companies consider regarding compensation, and then we’ll discuss something much more strategic when it comes to getting A-players on board.

  One client was recently looking for an inside salesperson, and he had a salary range in mind. Although he was not looking for this, he found a candidate with more skills. The candidate could not only be proficient at the inside sales job the day he started, but he also had the short term potential to be an even more valuable outside salesperson.

  In this case, the company paid much more than they were budgeting not only to fill the current opening, but also hopefully a future opening.

  Another client needed an Accounts Payable specialist initially for a part time position. After 80+ resumes, and many of phone screens and interviews, they offered the job to a woman who had more than enough experience. She was just reentering the workforce after her children reached school age.

  The company believes that they got an amazing value, and the employee might be able to transition to full time as the children get older and the company keeps growing.

  It is difficult for me to tell you what to offer a candidate because value is in the eye of the beholder. But I can say that you need to think about more than just the cost of hiring – think about the value you will gain.

  For instance, a CPA firm might hire someone who works fast and will be billable on her first day. If the firm does fixed-price tax returns, that person is going to bring in a lot of money for the firm.

  If the company doesn’t feel comfortable about a high price to be paid, consider a variable compensation model. Salespeople are typically paid on commission, and that motivates the type of person who does not want his compensation to be limited and wants to be paid well for performing well. I’m not recommending that everyone be paid on some type of commission, but there are other variable compensation models.

  One model that I like and have instituted in many places is the Management by Objective, or MBO. For example, let’s take 20% of the person
’s total compensation and tie it to attaining goals and objectives. Speaking broadly, if the objectives bring in revenue or reduce expenses, then the company may have the money to pay the 20%.

  MBOs tend to be performance based, so higher performance pays more, and higher performance can be more profitable, so the personal and company goals are aligned.

  There are many details that matter with MBOs, so the right implementation is incredibly important. The thing to remember about paying for results is that you get what you pay for, and there needs to be an awareness of unintended consequences.