by Kyle Zagrodzky, president of OsteoStrong
Hiring is one of the most crucial decisions you will make as an entrepreneur. Staffing choices are some of the hardest in any business, but because every person counts in an entrepreneurial venture, the people you choose to grow your business are even more vital. As your business expands, the list of things you have to delegate grows along with it, which means putting more trust in more people. With so much on the line, how do you choose the perfect people for those roles?
Hiring is far more art than science. You could easily ask five great businesspeople about the best way to hire talent and get five different answers. Even hiring mammoth Google, who once tried to identify the smartest candidates with bizarre interview brainteasers, later admitted that their unusual questions weren’t reliable predictors of who would ultimately become a good employee.
How do you sort out the smartest from the friendliest, the most skilled from those with the most potential, and the team players from those who are just out for themselves? How do you make big decisions about who to trust within a miniscule interview period?
The answer is simple: Always go with your gut.
What do your instincts say?
Someone may flaunt perfect test scores, flawless GPAs from ivy league schools, and an ideal number of years in the right jobs, but… For some reason you can’t quite put your finger on, you just don’t like them. If that’s the case, don’t hire them! No matter how great someone seems on paper, it’s always better to hire the person you have a “good feeling” about. Think about a time when an employee didn’t work out, then go back over the initial interviews. Were there red flags or subtle signs that you ignored? When an employee doesn’t go the distance, there were usually overlooked warning signs early on.
Our culture often values visible facts over instinct, but gut feelings are one of your best hiring tools. They’re the subconscious compasses that point out good and bad traits in people that are harder to quantify on paper, traits like creative and confident versus uninspired and cocky. Above all, listen to your gut.
Get the team involved.
As an entrepreneur, you may be the supreme ruler of your business, but the person you hire likely won’t work with you exclusively. Even though the hiring manager makes the decision about who to bring on board, it’s wise to involve the team the candidate will actually work with in the interview and evaluation process. You might get lucky working on your own every time, but it’s better to involve people you trust in the choice of who joins the work family. For this process to work, you also have to make sure employees have a comfortable space to provide candid feedback. Give them a place to share concerns and upsides, and listen carefully.
Diversify your interview question base.
When someone is asked to describe their personality in an interview, they’re often trying to tell you what they think you want to hear. Instead, tune your questions to get answers that will show who someone really is. As they speak, do you get a sense that they are competitive, driven, soft spoken, or intuitive? To get a better sense of the person, make your questions more creative and approachable. For example, what would their best friend tell you about them if they were here? What was their last Facebook post about? What do they do to blow off steam when they’re stressed, and what do they do for fun?
Hire specific personalities for specific job categories.
Everyone is blessed with a certain set of skills and personality traits, and your job is to figure out who fits into which role best. Managers need to be on top of the numbers, but they also have to be fair, accountable, encouraging, and realistic. A good manager will be positive and want to coach employees and bring out the best in them. They need awareness, empathy, and the ability to know which employee will perform which task the best. “Front people” are the born extroverts who are energized by time with people and don’t mind being assertive; they’re the ones you want greeting people on the phone, attending trade shows, and selling. Visionaries are the sensitive, creative problem solvers who assess the present accurately and see past the moment into the future.
Take the interview outside the office.
This rule applies to every role, but especially to jobs that include sales and public-facing responsibilities. Take your top candidates out to lunch, ideally with the group they will work with closely, and let everyone get a sense of them in an informal setting. How are their table manners? Are they comfortable making conversation with a group they don’t know well? How do they treat the waiter and other people who aren’t directly related to the interview? A casual lunch is an optimal environment to just relax with a candidate and let those inner instincts go to work.
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