4 Interviewing Warning Signs that the Candidate is Not a Good Fit

Very few of us are really good at hiring new employees. We are all too easily persuaded that a candidate is right for the job…either because we need to fill a slot in a hurry or because we just “like” the candidate simply because they are similar to us in style. Neither of these reasons is sound. And hiring wrong is very costly…both in terms of lost time and money and also in terms of the cost to failed team dynamics.

How can we get better at such a critical task so that we hire right consistently? 

One way is to enroll all hiring managers in a proven, customized and experiential behavior based interviewing training program. This preparation for hiring right teaches techniques for how to ask the right questions to reveal a candidate’s true attitude and predict their behavior on the job. You will learn how to probe beneath the surface and uncover what does not show on the resume. You will work with colleagues to set up a proven process for evaluating candidates fairly and accurately and to test whether or not they have the competencies required for the specific job.

Meantime, you should do your best to watch out for the following four warning signs that the candidate you are considering would not be a good fit.

1. Evasive answers
When a candidate skirts your question and answers evasively, it naturally arouses suspicion that they are trying to hide something. This may or may not be the case. Just keep inquiring in various ways. Perhaps your question was misunderstood the first time or the candidate was not confident in their answer. Bottom Line: Dig until you are satisfied.

2. Inappropriate behavior or attire
If you are hiring for an executive position, your candidate should not show up in flip flops (unless you are a sandal company or perhaps headquartered in Hawaii.) And someone who slouches in the chair or chews gum loudly would not be a person you would want representing your company with customers. Bottom Line: They need to fit the organizational culture of your company, your customers and your industry.

3. Incomplete resumes
Certainly misspellings should be a warning that your candidate is not detail-oriented. But beyond this obvious red flag, are there huge gaps in their job experience or, conversely, do they seem to skip from job to job? You will need to find the story behind the job history.  Bottom Line: Mistakes or misrepresentations on the most important interviewing document say a lot about the candidate.

4. Salary discrepancy
If there is a significant discrepancy between what you are offering and what the candidate was paid in previous jobs, you should have an explanation of why they would settle for so much less. They may be trying to shift roles or find a less stressful situation…but you deserve a good reason.  Bottom Line: If things do not seem right, they probably are not right.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/

The #1 Secret to Employee Retention

Want to know the number one secret to retaining your best employees? It’s pretty simple…hire right. 

When you hire the right people—those  employees who have the right competencies, the right attitude, and the right values to fit the job, the team and the organization—you won’t need to invest in any strong-arm tactics to keep them there. So…how do you hire right?

1. First you need a process…an attraction, hiring, interviewing and onboarding process that is practiced throughout the organization, not just a process outlined in the employee handbook. Establish a job profile for every job opening, select an interviewing team that, at a minimum, includes the hiring manager and critical members of the team, divide up the behavior-based competencies that need to be explored, and establish a rating system that all can use when the team reconvenes to discuss and determine next steps.

2. Probe for soft skills, not just hard. It is not just capability or experience that matters anymore. Cultural fit is critical. You need to hire people who subscribe to your organizational values and who will find a comfortable “home” in the way you do business each and every day. This is where you can rely on behavior based interviewing training to teach you and your interviewers how to dig beneath the surface of what the candidate says to how the candidate thinks, behaves and works in order to better predict how they will actually perform on the job.

3. Aim for consistency in how the organization presents itself. Keep in mind that you are in competition for the “A” players out there. Make sure that the job ads, job descriptions, and language of the interviewers are consistent with your company and employer brand. Accurately project who you are and how the company operates so you attract candidates who appreciate and look forward to joining your unique firm.

4. Assure a quality experience for the candidate. From the first screening by phone to the onboarding process for new hires, take a look at your organization through the candidates’ eyes. Think of them as customers who will talk about their experience with others. Make sure that what they say will be positive from beginning to end. It matters. 

Turnover costs big time. Increase employee engagement and employee retention by hiring right and you will see an increase in productivity and performance while strengthening your corporate culture.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/

The High Cost of Hiring Low Performers

Imagine this picture represents the ratings by your interviewing team of a job candidate on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest value. There’s no question, right? This candidate needs to look for a job elsewhere. But what if the ratings averaged 3.5 or higher or are not representative of what is truly required to be successful? Are you being pressured to fill the open slot so much so that you would be tempted to hire a less than “A” talent?

Before you make a move, you should be fully aware of the high cost of hiring low performers. The costs can be divided into 5 different categories…the costs of

1. Turnover
Think about how much you invest every time you hire. Salary is just the beginning. You should calculate, too, the costs of recruiting, interviewing, onboarding and time until a new hire is fully productive. When turnover is high, you face these costs every time one person exits and there is an open slot to fill. 

2. Damage to company reputation
If you have low performing employees in customer-facing positions, you face a loss of your hard-won reputation for excellence. Don’t risk your brand with below standard workers. 

3. Culture depreciation
Low performers diminish your culture. If you allow them to stay, their presence signals a loss of accountability and alignment. When high performers work alongside poor performers for whom there are no consequences of substandard effort, they will quickly disengage and may well leave.

4. Personal devaluation
When workers are poorly matched to their job roles, they don’t enjoy their work and do not perform well. They doubt their ability and are discouraged. Their attitude can infect others negatively to the point that team members also begin to disengage.

5. Lost opportunities
Whether your company is losing potential sales deals because of poor sales performers or losing customers because your service team’s performance is lacking, you will never know what has been missed. This cost category is incalculable…both in terms of assigning real numbers and in terms of size.

So what do you do? You make sure that you hire only the best and that they are well suited to the job role, your organizational culture and your business strategy. Give your interviewing team the best in behavior based interviewing training so they can distinguish between the candidates who talk a good game and the candidates who will perform well above par in your unique environment.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/

What You Really Need to Know to Hire Right

So many mistakes are made in the hiring process…by candidates who accept a job for the wrong reasons and by interviewers who are not tuned in to what really works at their company. And those interviewing mistakes are costly. 

The new hires that don’t fit are unhappy, disengaged and stressed by thoughts of what it would take to leave and begin another job search. The company loses out with new employees who are not aligned with company culture or values, who are not engaged in their work, and who are likely to underperform or quit. The company pays the costs of the loss of productivity as they try to fill open slots, onboard and train new hires, and deal with the lowered morale of the workers who stay.

Hiring mistakes are much less likely to occur if you invest in proven behavior-based interviewing training. Your interviewers need to become skilled at sorting out who will fit your corporate culture and the job itself and who won’t. To do this, they need to be able to dig beneath the surface of savvy candidates who say what interviewers want to hear. What really counts is how the candidates will behave and act on the job, whether they will get along with coworkers, and how closely aligned they are with the company’s business strategy, culture and values.

Here is what you as an interviewer need to know to hire right:

1. Know what kind of organization you really are.
Yes, we know how marketing and recruiters want to portray the company in order to attract customers and top talent. But is this picture accurate? How do things get done on a day-to-day basis and what is the climate in which your high performing employees thrive? What corporate values do you actually reward and live? Answer these questions and then you will be closer to knowing what kind of employees will fit, contribute and stay. 

2. Learn from your mistakes.
Take a careful look at the employees who left. What were they looking for that they didn’t find? Perhaps they were more driven by status and power while your culture values teamwork and collaboration. Perhaps they were hoping to make a real difference in the world while your corporate culture is more focused on technical innovation than altruism. Perhaps they were thinkers who need structure while your organizational culture promotes intuitive thinking. 

Successful behavioral interviewers identify the critical few traits and attributes of their most successful employees and rigorously look for those qualities in those they hire. 

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/

Never Stop Recruiting

Don’t let the “tyranny of the urgent” rule your hiring strategy. If you wait until there’s a job opening, you risk a huge loss in productivity and, if the open slot is on a sales team, a huge dent in revenue. Yes, the hiring process takes a lot of time and most sales folks resist anything that takes them away from their customers. But think of it this way…team success depends on the quality and dedication of team members. Lose or hire a top player and the consequences on team goals can be enormous.

Next, hire well.  Behavior based interviewing training can help you focus on the behavioral competencies that are necessary for success within your corporate culture and help you dig beneath the surface of a candidate to predict how they will behave on the job. With a clear list of intellectual, interpersonal and motivational competencies, a proven process for hiring, and well-trained, well-prepared behavioral interviewers, you can build the team of your dreams. 

So keep on the lookout for top performers and never stop recruiting. Maintain an active pipeline of prospects for expected and unexpected openings on your sales team. 

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/

What Kinds of Questions Best Get Beneath the Surface of a Potential New Hire?

There is a debate among interviewers about what kinds of questions are most likely to dig beneath the surface of a candidate’s thinking and experience to uncover their true abilities and attitudes. 

Some prefer the wacky questions like, “Who do you admire more…Mickey Mouse or Goofy…and why?” Others prefer to stick with the more standard queries like, “Tell me about a challenging situation at your previous job and how you handled it.” 

We see the value of both. To us, it seems a matter of what kinds of competencies you are seeking for the job opening and what type of employee would fit best in your culture. Here is our advice:

• Off-the-Wall Interviewing QuestionsThe so-called “wacky” questions come as a surprise and a candidate is not able to prepare for them. So they test the candidate’s ability to think on their feet, show some humor and personality in their answer, and give insight into how they might react at work when the unexpected happens and they are somewhat stressed. When hiring for fast-paced, stressful and “think on your feet” environments, these questions can actually make sense when determining a candidate’s ability to perform under pressure.  
  
  Glassdoor recently ran a list of the top 10 oddball interview questions.  Airbnb reportedly asks “What would you do if you were the one survivor in a plane crash?”  If this question can be linked back to skills and behaviors needed to succeed at Airbnb, then it seems like a great question.  Maybe employees at Airbnb need to be resourceful, or deal with crises, or be grateful for what they have.  And Spirit Airlines supposedly asks “Describe the color yellow to somebody who's blind.”  Perhaps clear, compelling and empathetic communication is an important success attribute.
  
  
• Behavior-Based Interviewing QuestionsThe more standard behavior-based interview questions can provide valuable insight into a candidate’s real qualifications for the job as well as their underlying values and experience. Following behavior based interviewing training, you can probe further to be able to predict how the candidate would actually behave on the job. For more structured competencies and cultural fit, this is often a better line of questioning to use.

The bottom line.  Determining a prospective new hire’s cultural and job fit is not easy.  The farther you stray from behaviors, competencies and values that actually have to do with the job, the farther you stray from finding talent that will thrive in your unique organizational culture.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/

3 Steps to Finding (and Keeping) Sales Super Heroes

There may be no team more critical to the success of an enterprise than the sales team. You rely upon them for revenue, and if they are not set up to succeed, there are few resources available to support the rest of the organization.

You want super heroes on your sales team? Here are 3 steps you should take before you even begin to source potential candidates:

1. Be absolutely clear about what it takes to sell successfully in your business.Create a profile with specific skills and behaviors so that you will recognize the ideal candidate when find them. And remember that you need someone who not only fits the skills profile but someone who shares your organization’s values and will fit in your unique sales culture.
   
2. Assemble and educate the interview team.
   Put together a hiring team and make sure each member understands the specific criteria for success and their role in the hiring process. Each one should have “graduated” from behavior based interviewing training so they know how to ask the right questions that will dig deep enough to best predict on-the-job behavior. And stress that these interviews have priority. Few meetings matter more than selecting the team that will have such a huge impact on business success.
   
3. Build an onboarding process and orientation plan that helps new hires be successful as soon as possible.
   High performers, the ones you target to hire, especially need to be productive quickly in order to feel and stay engaged. They are used to winning. Ensure that they are able to contribute from the very beginning be designing a new hire orientation process that improves the speed to sales productivity.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/