We saved for years and made a decision that we were going to buy a new car and do it with cash. All that work saving and grinding, and then in a stroke of a pen, we would exchange it for a car.
You better believe we did our research.
When we hire, we are in effect, taking all of the hard work and energy that we, and others, have put into the business since its founding and in the stroke of a pen on an employment agreement allowing another person to come to operate behind the curtain of the business.
Too many times we do it with a mindset of “just get them in here so we can get some of this work done!”
Going into the hire we tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time on a person's experience, skill, and technical expertise, and less time on the true make-or-break details like mindset, desire, and motivation.
The world of sports is stained with a graveyard of former first round, five-star, blue chip athletes who relied on skill and talent through their amateur play and yet could not harness their mindset for the true challenge of a professional when every other player is as good or better than they are.
You are hiring professionals. Professional oil changers, bookkeepers, ice cream scoopers, trademark filers, superintendents, estimators, and on and on; all skills that can be built and developed on site.
The greater challenge is to find the right fit, the right mindset, the right intangibles. A business can overcome skillset hiccups far easier than overcoming mindset deficiencies. A world-class soccer defender can only bring value if she first cares to bring value and believes the value she can bring is worth the effort.
You are on the hunt for team members who will learn to ask, “what can go right” vs. “what can go wrong”.
Team members who will appreciate systems, structure, and touchpoints, instead of running rogue with an “I work best when I’m left alone” attitude.
Testing for skill is much easier than testing for mindset. Testing for skill, simply provide your candidate with an actual task to do related to the job you may hire them for and them pay them for their time.
Testing for mindset means you pay attention to all of the intangibles surrounding the test project in relation to how they accomplished the task. Did they ask questions? Were they on time? How did they utilize or interact with others? How did they communicate?
Here is the problem, how do you objectively evaluate the subjective motivation of another person?
Business owners are best served when they can hold tangible evidence in their hand of feedback that has been provided both by the candidate and by people who know the candidate well.
Three things you should do during the testing and assessment phase of the hiring process.
First, you should administer some sort of challenge to the person you are about to hire.
If you are hiring a bookkeeper, then have them reconcile an old set of books.
If you are hiring an estimator, then have them bid an old set of plans.
If you are hiring a window washer, then have them wash your windows.
This will help you to actually see, objectively, how they work and with what expertise.
Offer to pay them for the time they committed to the task you provided.
Second, you should administer a personality assessment. We recommend the DISC profile precisely because it is simple to understand for busy business owners and allows you to quickly understand what gives your candidate energy, and what sucks the life out of them.
These assessments are so revealing of the motivation of a person that we no longer give hiring advice without an assessment to go with it.
Finally, you should reach out to a minimum of three contacts that have had significant interaction with your candidate. Simply ask them for a list of 5 people to reach out to with their names, relationship, and contact, and then you pick three you wish to speak to.
You may think, “what a waste of time... they are just going to have me call their friends.”
You will be surprised how many of “their friends” are willing to tell you some helpful insights.
Do not overlook any of these three steps. They will take time, and they will give you irreplaceable insight into both their technical skill and their emotional intelligence so you avoid bringing a fixed mindset of pessimism into the mission of your business.