HIRING for CHARACTER

What do you do when you have an important position to fill?

If you are like most people, you post an open position on your favorite job site or call the local recruiter with the specifications for the position.

How much do you really know about what you are getting when you plow through a mountain of resumes?

A resume can tell you whether the person is capable of performing the job.  A resume is unable to tell you much about the person behind it.

Can you afford to make the wrong hiring decision? What do you do when you have to fire someone?  Are you able to fire them or are they protected by a collective bargaining agreement, tenure or other reason? 

What makes you conclude that you must fire the person?  They appeared to have all the necessary skills for performing the job, yet they lacked the character or disposition.  Bad character is often the main problem.

What if you knew what to do, what to look for and how to ask a few strategic questions during the job interview to help you learn a great deal about the candidate’s character before hiring them?

To recruit great talent, you must look for the following overall qualities in a candidate:

1. Skills required for the position or the potential for gaining the skills
2. Disposition that indicates a fit for the position
3. The candidate’s Strength of Character – basic governing values and standards
4. Emotional Intelligence
5. Fit in background/motivation/status/stage of life

Remember, everything comes down to fit.

Here is what gets in the way of a successful interview, the interviewer tends to do most of the talking.  They want to tell the candidate all about the position, the company, the brand, themselves, etc. Because the interviewer wants the candidate to be impressed, he/she talks too much, and typically finds out too little about the candidate. The result? You often have learned entirely too little about the person you think you want to hire.

I suggest rather than doing most of the talking, ask more questions and listen more to the answers.  Listen to what the candidate says, how they say it and what they fail to say. Often candidates will make self-disclosing remarks and reveal a lot about themselves.

The more they talk, the more they tell you something about who they are.  So, it is very important to ask a lot of questions and then notice how they answer.

Ask the candidate questions to get them to talk more.  Notice their behavior as they are speaking.  You can tell a lot by their body language.  Do they appear to be authentic?  Do they truly believe what they are telling you or are they simply telling you what they think you want to hear?  Consider the timing and fit.  Is this the right person for the job right now or will another year of experience elsewhere benefit the company? How does the candidate speak?  What is their command of the language? To what extent do they make complete sentences and thoughts? How much does it look like what they are saying matches how they look with their facial expressions? What are they saying about their values, standards, and character?

How much do you want to hire someone who is going to be an investment rather than an expense?

• A new hire that is an investment means you will invest in them, and expect a good return. A good investment means the person will likely take initiative, go the extra mile, pay the freight to do the job, and exceed your expectations. This kind of person probably has good character. This is probably someone you want to hire.
• An expense on the other hand, means the person will likely cost you money, take little initiative, wait to be told what to do, do just enough to get by, watch the clock, and often present the attitude that suggests, “What have you done for me lately?”  This is probably a person you will want to be successful somewhere else.
• Consider what your investment to the candidate is likely to render in return.  In the interview, you might ask the candidate what they consider to be their value to your brand.  The way they answer that question will often be very revealing. They might talk about what they want to give to your brand… GOOD, or they might only talk about what they want to get… BAD!
• With an understanding of what to do, what to look for, and how to ask a few strategic questions, you will have a much-improved series of conclusions about the fit before deciding to hire that person.

WHAT IS THE COST OF HIRING BAD TALENT?  WHAT IS THE PRICE YOU PAY?

• decreased revenue, along with increased expense
• turning off your customers; a deterioration of relationships with your market
• your market concludes the price for your product / service is higher than the value received
• more problem description rather than problem solution
• poor customer service, the bad talent demonstrates indifference or contempt for the market
• infecting and contaminating morale
• reduced performance and lower teamwork
• more internal conflicts
• slow follow-through on projects and tasks
• apathy and irresponsible behavior
• toxic working environment
• the bad talent becomes an expense instead of an investment

Moreover, what happens when you hire bad talent, and it becomes virtually impossible to fire them? Perhaps you are dealing with the union, or tenure, or political correctness, or you are uncomfortable with conflict. What is the price you pay when you have to keep that bad talent on the payroll?

What makes up bad talent? Almost always it is poor character, bad conduct, lowered standards, and irresponsible and immature habits.

So, what happened during the hiring process? Most likely you looked at the candidate’s background and skills. Now, the reason you want to fire them is because of their CHARACTER AND CONDUCT! Common sense says it is a VERY GOOD IDEA to also find out about their CHARACTER during the hiring process.

Most of the time, when you hire someone, you find yourself HOPING that the person you think you hired is the person you actually get!  If you have been in business over several years, you are familiar with that HOPING.  Clearly there have been times that you get someone with poor character, sub-standard principles and bad work habits.

So what do you suppose is a better practice?

1.  Interviewing a candidate for background and skills and continually HOPING you are correct about your impressions of them?

OR

2. Interviewing a candidate for background and skills, CHARACTER, STANDARDS OF CONDUCT, and BASIC GOVERNING VALUES?

Now you are much more CONFIDENT that the person you get is likely to be the person you interviewed.

Clearly it makes common sense to practice #2 and save yourself all that heartache and expense that costs you when you hire bad talent.

So now the question is, HOW DO YOU INTERVIEW FOR CHARACTER? What questions do you ask? How do you interpret the candidate’s answers?  What do you look for in the way the candidate responds to the questions? How can you interview so it is easy to do it, and the candidate will reveal who they really are?  Further, what are some questions that will pass approval from the HR department, because as you know, there are some questions you are prohibited from asking!

YOU ARE INVITED TO A FREE WEBINAR! Join Dr. J. Mitchell Perry to learn a very effective and easy way to add HIRING FOR CHARACTER in your interviewing process. He has perfected 5 simple questions to ask during the hiring interview process. The candidates’ answers to these questions will illuminate an enormous amount about their character. With this information, you can make much more intelligent and wise decisions about who you want to hire. You will replace your hope with increased confidence when you make a decision to hire someone with strong character. The result? You will realize a much smaller gap between what you want and what you get with your new hire.

Remember, the Chicago Cubs management believe they won the 2016 World Series because they put an enormous premium on hiring players with strong character.

Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series Winners

IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT THEIR CHARACTER!