My Views on Hiring

My views on hiring revolve around finding the right fit. Often companies promote/hire based on gut feelings, seniority or simply because they need to fill a position now rather than wait to find a good fit. There are often people that are miss-filed as well. Promoting a clearly substandard employee because they have been with a company for a long time is a mistake I have seen too many times.

While the person may be very unhappy about not getting the job, what is worse, the loss of that one employee if they quit or the loss of all the talent under that employee that should not have that job and the fact that the company could have performed better?

The thing that I see most often hurting companies today is a lack of good hiring practices. Poor interviewing skills and relying on gut feelings, rather than taking the time to get a good candidate. Firms run out and hire temp to hire agencies that only care about lining their own pockets rather than providing good employees to their clients. If more companies paid attention to the resumes coming in, adapted a pre-screening, and testing process, they would have a larger pool of people from which to choose. It does not matter if you have an opening or need or not. Screen constantly so you have a well to draw from. Everyday I hear CEO's gripe that there are no good employees to from which to choose. There are plenty of them but they will not be cheap. The adage of you get what you pay for has never been so tested as it has with employers.

Often the best employees are inside the company. The employers never ask what employee’s ambitions are, never ask them to do anything they believe the person cannot do, when often either times they already know how to perform the task or they could easily learn it. Employers have only themselves to blame. Great employees are leaving companies all the time because they do not feel valued, do not get respect and have their skills and talents go unrealized. I know because I was one of those employees for many years. The only reason I stayed was in hope that the management would eventually listen. I left not because the pay was bad. In fact, every time I mentioned leaving they gave me a raise. It was not about the money. I had a great HMO, an IRA, 15 paid days off vacation a year, and 12 sick days a year. The reason I left was that all my skills were simply going to waste and management was never going to change. I left and with me, many followed latter. I had been carrying an organization for a long time and no one noticed. That was until I left and everything fell apart. I still have inside contacts that tell me that the entire organization is slowly disintegrating and people have remarked that I was right about everything.

I have to gloat a little. I was sent to so many classes and seminars and I voluntarily attended many others. I assembled a plan and armed with a desire to change the archaic system I set forth only to be decimated, belittled, and spat upon by the very people that I had been supporting in the time that I was there. Today only one of five of the administration is still there. The remaining positions have retention problems. In fact, the retention issue goes well beyond the administration level.

All they had to do was acknowledge, appreciate, and listen. Today I seek an employer that understands that hierarchies should not hinder people with talent but compensated for their efforts even if it means that the top performers make more than the CEO himself does. This payment concept came from a book I read called First Break All the Rules.

If sales people generate revenues then they are the most important facet of your business. Why would you take away an account and risk the loss of your best salesperson for the sake of a few bucks? Without him, you have no revenues, and therefore nothing to keep the business running! When payroll makes a stink about how much he makes remind payroll that they too would be out of a job if it were not for the revenues he has brought in.

There are plenty of employees out there and even more good ones if you are willing to take the time to discover them. Ask yourself this; if you had a tip that there was a good chance that a winning lotto ticket was in your house somewhere and it may be worth a fortune if you can find it, how long would you wait to look?