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Interview and Hire the Right People Key Terms
Glossary Page 1
Term Definition Introduced in:
Body Language Interactions that allow individuals, in a sense, to "read" them without having to say or write anything Module 3
Candidate An individual who is being interviewed for a position within a company Module 1
Four-Step ProcessAssists personnel in quickly identifying the best candidate (date, role, results, and prioritized capabilities) Module 1
Hiring Goal Filling the core requirements for a position Module 1
Interview Guide A document that allows you to successful interview candidates Module 3
Managing Conflict The way in which an individual addresses negative encounters Module 1
Open-Ended Questions Questions that require an explanation instead of a "yes" or "no" answer Module 3Social Media The way in which people communicate in electronic communities Module 2Team Building An act that brings a group of people closer together Module 1Verbal Communication Spoken words with another party Module 1
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 1
FRED PRYOR SEMINARS HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT MODULE ONE – PREPARING FOR THE PROCESS ARH120517-1 MAY, 2013 Female: Module One – Preparing for the Process. It’s exciting
when we have a job opening. This is an opportunity
for us to hire a great candidate. It’s an opportunity
for us to increase the level of awareness in our team
and increase the skills and talents. But
unfortunately if we’re not careful, this also could be
an extremely time consuming adventure. See, too often
it happens that when we need a great candidate, we
want them right now. We don’t consider the time it
takes to bring them in, so sometimes we rush the
process. We find ourselves getting someone just to
fill a spot rather than really holding out for the
great candidate. Now in order to get a great
candidate, it really requires that we have a process,
that we have a roadmap. And effective leaders begin
with the end in mind before they ever engage in the
hiring process. And the end is really, what is your
goal? What are you looking for? What does that ideal
candidate look like to you? And your goal could be,
you know, simply to fill a position. And that’s okay.
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 2
Sometimes there are time constraints that we have to
live with. Sometimes if we don’t get the position
filled, we may not have the opportunity to fulfill it
later. So sometimes it is better just to get somebody
in the position. But most of the time, we want to get
a great candidate. And getting a great candidate
means we have to have a specific process in place that
allows that candidate to be able to see our company,
to evaluate our company as much as we’re evaluating
them. And this really means that hiring is a process.
It’s not just an event. And if what we’re trying to
do is check off the interview box, we’re going to end
up with ourselves just hiring someone to hire someone,
and we may not get a great candidate. So in order to
achieve our hiring goal, it’s really critical that we
pay attention to three specific areas. That is,
before the interview - what we do to prepare for that
new candidate; what we say to the candidate and how we
act during the interview; and then of course after the
interview. These are the three critical areas that
we're going to want to monitor. And in this first
section we’re going to prepare ourselves to make sure
that we have everything in place to be able to go
through those three sections effectively and
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 3
efficiently. And it really starts with updating our
tools. See, In order to hire a more qualified
candidate, we need to shift our thinking. We can’t
keep using the same old things that don’t work and
expecting different results. In fact, Einstein told
us that was the definition of insanity – doing the
same thing over and over and over again, expecting
different results. So I’m going to share with you a
four step process that’s going to help you be able to
quickly and clearly identify the best candidate. It’s
also going to shave hours off your recruiting time and
help you see through the masses of resumes that you’re
getting for the few golden nuggets that will really
bring value to your organization. That first step is
you need to define a date. What I mean by this is you
have to pick the final date by when you’re going to
hire someone. Now I understand this is very early in
the process. You might be thinking, well I haven’t
even gotten a resume. How am I going to know how long
it’s going to take? Well, what happens is if you do
not set a time frame, you end up dragging the process
out. Then it becomes a – well maybe another resume,
and maybe another interview. And before you know it,
you’re losing great candidates. They’re getting job
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 4
offers from other companies, and because those
companies are moving faster, you’re losing out on the
best candidates. We see it happen time and time and
time again. So we don’t want that to happen to you.
So here’s my suggestion. Take a look at the position
that you’re looking to fill. In your mind, say okay,
this is the day by which I’m going to hire them. Now
if it doesn’t happen, that’s okay. You can move that
date out. But start with a date in mind. This will
force you to work on a specific process and to move
through that process quickly. Otherwise the
distractions of everything else getting in the way –
which happens on a regular basis to all of us – ends
up delaying and delaying and delaying, and we end up
missing out on those best prospects. So go ahead and
think about that position that you’re hiring for and
circle the day. Is it 30 days out? Is it 60 days
out? Is it 90 days out? What is it for you? How
fast are you going to move through that process to get
that position filled? Now that you’ve got an action
plan and you know when you’re going to have it done
by, let’s look at filling that position. And this
comes down to the fourth step, which is the role. The
role is we need to identify what role this person is
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 5
going to have. Are they going to be a customer
service manager? Are they going to be a customer
service representative? What are they going to do?
Are they going to be an executive? What specifically
is their role? And when you define the role, let’s
take for example a customer service manager. For
example, her role might be that she’s responsible and
accountable for answering phones from 8:00 AM to 4:00
PM. Of course she’s going to get some breaks for
lunch and all that stuff. But she’s going to be
responsible to customer service emails,
troubleshooting product issues, and general overall
customer satisfaction. That would be her role. Now
that we have that defined, we want to go ahead and
look at what results are we going to be expecting from
her. This is where the results are what we want from
her as a result from bringing her or him on board.
This could be three to five items. Now by describing
these results, I want you to think of them as broad
accountabilities or responsibilities. By doing that,
we solidify our general expectations of the role.
These are the core performance details of the job,
along with the tangible gain that your organization
expects when the activities of this position are
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 6
performed well. So that’s the third step, is defining
the results. Now the fourth step is prioritized
capabilities. What we’re going to look at here is the
skills and talents of that individual that they need
to have. This is the third, excuse me, this is the
fourth part of the formula. So to get the results,
that individual has to have specific capabilities.
Now normally I would encourage you to brainstorm a
list of six to ten capabilities, then write those
down. Now after you’ve gone over those six to ten,
you’d want to go ahead and prioritize them. So first
you want to develop the list. So think about that
after today’s caller session. What capabilities are
you looking for? What is most important? And then
through a simple set of comparisons, choose your top
three. What are the top three? And really think of
them as non-negotiable. What are the characteristics
that you need to have, that someone needs to have,
that really are not negotiable for that role? Let’s
take for example, let’s go back to our customer
service manager. So the couple we might say here is
that she has to be customer service satisfaction
results. She has to be oriented towards getting
results. She has to team development. Department
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 7
development is part of her capabilities, performance
improvement, bottom line profitability, and
contributions. Those might be some of the examples
that we might want to look at. So once we’ve used
that four step process of defining the date, the role,
the results, and the prioritized capabilities, next –
so that defines pretty much kind of our job
description, and I know some of you at this training
today may be saying, well we already have job
descriptions. And those are good, and they’re
helpful. But let me ask you this. If you were to
read through that job description, is it really 100
percent accurate? Does it really completely define
that job? And the reason I ask this is I find
oftentimes when I’m consulting with HR, HR
representatives and managers, that a lot of time those
job descriptions are dated. They’re older. They’re
oh yeah, you know what? That person really doesn’t do
this anymore. That’s someone else’s responsibility.
Or you know what? Yeah, but we now have them doing
this. A lot of times job descriptions just don’t keep
up to date as quickly and as much as we need them to.
So it’s important that we go through this four step
process in order that we make sure that the
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 8
information that we’re putting out there really is up
to date, and it really does meet our needs. Wouldn’t
it be a shame if you went through, used your old job
description, found someone that met your old job
description, and then found out when they came on to
the job that they really didn’t meet the new job
description? I mean wouldn’t that be a shame, a waste
of time, of effort – certainly of yours as well as the
candidate’s? So by taking that time to prepare
yourself, understanding the four steps, setting a
date, identifying the role, the results, and the
prioritized capabilities, you can assure that the
target you’re aiming at really is the target that you
have today – not a target that would establish three,
four, five, maybe as many as ten years ago. Once
we’ve got that defined, we want to look at what’s
called top grading. This terminology comes from
Bradford Smart’s bestselling book called Top Grading.
He explains that top players – these are the A players
– consistently exceed objectives and expectations and
are considered by team members to be major
contributors to the team’s success. Then he contrasts
that with B and C players. Let’s look at the A and C.
That’s where we’re going to see our biggest contrast.
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 9
C players, those are the ones who seldomly reach their
objectives. They blame others for failures, and then
they bring a very negative attitude into the work
place. We can all kind of picture an A player versus
a C player. Now the B players, well they’re right in
the middle. And the B players, they’re stable
contributors. Sometimes they meet their goals and
sometimes they don’t. For today’s purpose, we’re
going to focus on the extreme examples. That’s why
I’m using the A and the C. So as we’re identifying
what a candidate looks like, we’ve got their roles,
responsibilities and capabilities, but we also have to
look a little bit deeper and grade them. So let’s
look at what an A player versus a C player might look
like. So when we’re evaluating candidates, we’re
going to use a simple form – something like this. And
we’re going to choose our top three to five, maybe
seven capabilities. Then we’re going to identify what
an A player would do and what a C player would do. So
let’s take a look at that. So if we had verbal
communication, an A player would be interesting and
succinct in their presentations. They would be calm
and confident. They’d be convincing and influential,
whereas if we compared that to a C player, they’d be
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 10
rambling, ambiguous, disorganized. They’d get off
track easily. They’d frequently be nervous in front
of groups. These are two very different types of
candidates. Now we can do the same thing for managing
conflict and team building. What’s important here is
not the specifics, but that we specifically identify
the difference. By identifying an A player and a C
player ahead of time, we can identify and suggest
questions on what to ask to identify these key traits.
See, if all we do is rush in to hire somebody, we
ignore all of this. And oftentimes we make decisions
that are less than optimal for ourselves as well as
for the candidates. And it ends up wasting a lot of
people’s time. Have you ever heard the saying that if
you don’t have time to do it right, then you probably
won’t have time to do it again? Well the same is true
here. Take the time to hire – I always used to hire
slow and fire fast. You want to take as much time as
you can in this hiring process to truly understand the
position as well as the person, and make sure that
they’re a great fit. Now as a hiring manager, let me
give you a shortcut. Work with your HR department. I
know not everybody’s going to have access to HR, but
if you do, use them as a collaboration tool. See, HR
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-1 - MAY, 2013 Page 11
practices – I understand they do and can vary by
organizations, and they vary by the range of services
and activities provided. But please keep in mind that
HR support can also vary in their workload and work
cycles. If you have an HR department, they could do
you a huge favor by helping you through several of
these processes. They can save you time and headache.
They certainly can work you through any of the legal
issues as well. So it’s important that you do engage
your HR department if you do have that luxury.
[End of recording.]
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 1
FRED PRYOR SEMINARS HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT MODULE TWO ARH120517-2 MAY, 2013 Female: See, it really all starts with a resume, doesn’t it?
We got the description ready. We’ve got everything
going. We’ve placed our ads out there. And now the
resumes start coming in. But what if you don’t know
where to find those great candidates? You won’t get
any resumes. So let’s start really with where do the
great candidates come from? It used to be years ago
you could put ads in newspapers. And ads in
newspapers are certainly still very popular.
Unfortunately, we’re finding that only about five
percent of the resumes that come from newspaper ads
are truly qualified. Do you really want to spend a
lot of time wading through unqualified resumes? So
that may not be your best source. But what about
other sources, like your HR department? Maybe they’ve
got a list of candidates. Maybe they keep a database
of qualified candidates. What about your website?
Many companies today are going for a specific
recruiting and hiring website to where they are
looking for those high qualified candidates. Now
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 2
another way is through referrals. What about your
existing employees? They may have a referral, or they
may know somebody that they can refer in - job boards,
job fairs. Now recruiters is another interesting
area. But let me put a little note here. When
dealing with recruiters or headhunters, do check with
your HR department and make sure you’re clear whether
they’re retained or if it’s a contingency fee. You
want to find out how they get compensated. Certainly
establishing an ongoing relationship with a recruiter
familiar with your industry can provide a huge ongoing
source of qualified talent. And many of the A
candidates are not actively looking for new positions.
But a professional recruiter can locate them and help
them consider your company. So they may be well worth
it, depending on your industry and business. Social
media is another interesting one. It’s one that
certainly comes across somewhat controversial right
now, but what about putting ads on Facebook? What
about using LinkedIn? Certainly posting on Twitter,
“Looking for,” and then the specific type of person.
That can also generate new resumes for you. Also, we
mentioned internal candidates. What about promoting
from within? Don’t forget about your internal
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 3
candidates as well. These can be a great source –
certainly lower cost, because they’re already employed
with your company. And you’ve already got a track
record. You know what you’re going to get when you
work with an internal candidate. So these are
multiple ways to be able to start getting that flux of
resumes to come in. But once they do come in, you’re
going to have to figure out what to do with all of
them. And sometimes, depending on the posting, you
can get a whole lot of resumes in a very, very short
period of time. And this can become very
overwhelming. I know working with many HR directors
and hiring managers, they often get frustrated when
they get five, ten, 20, 50, sometimes 100 resumes.
And they get overwhelmed with what do I do with it?
And they do the old method, probably that we’ve all
tried, which is read every single resume. And we know
what really happens when you do that. You start
looking at the resumes, and the first five, maybe the
first ten, you really give them a good look at. But
by the time you get to the 11th, the 12th, the 15th, the
20th, you’re just skimming it, you’re scanning it. And
the truth be known, most recruiters – whether it’s HR
or a manager – don’t get to the bottom of their resume
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 4
list, which is sad because your best candidates may be
at the bottom. So let me give you a simple several-
step process in how to sort through those resumes in
the quickest, easiest way possible to make sure you
don’t miss your best candidates. The first step, it
truly starts with sorting based on keywords. And
you’re thinking, what the heck does this mean? Well
sorting based on keywords means to decide, based on
your prioritized capabilities, your results and the
role, what specific words you’re looking for in a
resume. And these could be words as simple as
customer service rep, customer service agent,
Microsoft Word experience – specific keywords, buzz
words, that if someone was looking at that resume,
they should be able to say yes or no, this person has
this keyword in their resume. Now some online
services, some computer software services, will do
this for you and automatically scan the resumes.
Otherwise you may have to hire someone. This is a
perfect job, actually, for a junior individual –
somebody that maybe is newer into the organization –
is to have them review every single resume for some
specific keywords. Now in this step, you’re probably
going to want to use a handful of keywords – maybe
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 5
five, six at max. Too many and it gets overwhelming.
Three to five is often good; six is probably on your
maximum side. So, that’s the first step. Now the
second step is after that pile has been sorted through
based on keywords, then a more senior individual can
review and evaluate every one of those resumes. This
is a more careful review. The second pass is designed
to verify some of the second order criteria on the job
description. For instance, the level of education,
years of experience required, salary range, location.
These are the more specifics that we’re looking for.
This phase can be much more in depth and understanding
of the job description and requirement. For instance,
to determine relevant years of experience, the
reviewer must add the years of the relevant jobs up to
make sure it meets the experience. So this may be
somewhat a little bit more experience with reviewing
resumes, and they’re going to have a much shorter
pile. So this will allow them to evaluate, which is
your second step. So your first step is you sort down
the big pile based on keywords to a smaller pile.
Then the smaller pile gets rigorously evaluated to
make sure it meets all the criteria. Then the third
pass is that it’s a qualitative review. That means
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 6
the resumes that reach this step meet many of the
requirements. This final step is to examine the
subtle subjective qualities of each candidate. The
objective is to remove candidates with any red flags
that could potentially mean job fraud, or could
separate the top candidates from the remaining
resumes. So you really have three steps. You sort
them based on keywords; you sort them based on an
evaluative process; and then you sort them based on a
qualitative review. Let’s take a look at a couple of
those red flags that we’re definitely going to want to
know about. The first you’re maybe looking for is
gaps in employment. Now this isn’t necessarily that
we want to throw that resume out. But it may be that
this is of note when you do a phone interview or a
first interview. This is a question that you have for
the candidate. The second one could be job hopping.
Another one could be multiple moves to different
states, significant drops in responsibility, or new
career directions altogether. So these may be some
red flags that you want to note, and again, not
necessarily eliminate them, but certainly ask the
question about what happened and get a further
explanation to understand this candidate. Now there’s
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 7
a couple of other factors you want to consider. Like
for example, does the candidate have a history of
advancement, including more responsibilities and
challenges in each subsequent position? Does the
candidate have experience working at a company of
similar size and resource? Does the candidate have
the correct industry experience? If this person
applied directly for the position, would it be a
significant drop in responsibility or challenge? Is
this person over qualified? Why are they willing to
accept a much lower salary? See, these are some
factors used to evaluate candidates already deemed to
meet the basic qualifications. So these can help you
to further refine that resume search. Now once the
sorting is all done, you want to decide what’s your
process. And today, many companies are using really a
two, maybe a three or a four or a five process. The
first step is most certainly a telephone interview.
Let’s find out how that candidate sounds on the phone.
When I was interviewing for a real estate investor
years ago, we interviewed on the phone 15 candidates.
But out of those phone interviews, we only brought in
three. The others just, we wanted someone who could
communicate, and the others just couldn’t communicate
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 8
effectively. So once we did the interview, we brought
them in a face to face interview. Then we did a
second interview where we tested their skills. Then
we brought them in on the third interview. So we had
a four step process. You need to know up front before
you start bringing your candidates in, what is your
process? What is the steps that you are going to take
them through? And keep in mind, your goal is to find
out the real person. Many times people will polish up
and they’ll show you one face on the phone. You’ll
see another face when they come in. And by the time
you meet them the third and fourth time, you’re really
starting to see who they really are. And remember,
you have to match the individual with the position.
Are they really going to be happy at your company in
that position? And your position and your company may
be very, very different than what the competition
offers. So it’s very important that you evaluate many
of those different aspects. And by doing this, you
also want to determine who’s going to make the calls.
Who is it that they’re going to need to interact with?
Remember, different personality styles bring out
different reactions in different people. So consider
carefully who’s going to make the phone calls. And
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 9
then who’s going to be involved in the interview
process? For example, you might choose the planning
process. It might include anyone from their
teammates, they might include peer reviews, they might
include multiple stage reviews, they might include
dinner interviews, they might include lunch
interviews, might include webinars – I mean there’s
all kinds of different types of interviews. And of
course practices vary by department, organizations,
and leaders. It’s important that you consider your
process. What is it that you want to take that
prospect through, or that candidate through, to make
sure they’re going to fit within your organization?
So here’s a few tips. Best practice is typically to
engage HR in the initial steps of recruiting. It’s
standard in most organizations. But please make sure
that your HR department truly understands the full
nature of the position. It’s also great if the HR
professionals have spent time alongside people in the
department that they’re hiring so they can kind of
observe and get a firsthand experience of how things
work. And this will help to speed up the process as
well. Now you may want to involve members of the team
in at least one round of interviews. Again, having
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 10
the team take part in the hiring process really gives
them ownership. It’s a great way to make sure that a
new hire personality is going to fit in great with the
organization. And lastly, let’s take a look at
checklist of what we need to accomplish before we
bring them in to the interview. First, we need to
make sure that we’ve developed a written goal. What
is our goal for getting the person into this position?
What’s our date? When are we planning to have them
hired? The next one lists the six to ten critical
competencies. Are they interpersonal, motivational,
communication, what are we looking for for this
position? The next, make sure to develop examples of
your behavioral comparisons – your A and C candidates.
Create questions for each team to interview. Make
sure you have your assessment tools in place, whether
it’s skill testing or behavioral styles, or whatever
assessment tool you’re going to be using. And then
identify your prioritized lists. And lastly, screen
the candidates before the face to face, which would be
the phone interviews. So those are our checklists to
making sure that we get our best interviews possible.
[End of recording.]
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-2 - MAY, 2013 Page 11
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 1
FRED PRYOR SEMINARS HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT MODULE THREE – DURING THE INTERVIEW ARH120517-3 MAY, 2013 Female: Module Three – During the Interview. Let’s start with
the psychology of recruiting because it’s important to
remember that top performers – they’re willing to work
for it. They don’t want a handout. So when you’re
bringing them in for an interview, it’s important that
you make them, well for lack of a better term, jump
through some hoops. Let me share with you why I mean
that. It wasn’t too long ago that a company had
brought me in, and I was interviewing for a Chief
Marketing Officer position with them. It was going to
be a startup. It sounded very, very interesting. But
something was wrong with the interview, and let me
explain. I talked to the individual. He found me on
the Internet. Okay, I’m certainly easy to find. He
called me in for an interview, and the whole time, he
was convincing me of what a great company it was.
It’s going to do this and it’s going to do that, and
it’s awesome. And it was a startup, and we’ve got
this and we’ve got that, and there’s going to be a ton
of money and it’s going to be incredible. And in the
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 2
end, he’s like, are you ready to join us? And I
hesitated. It was like he was selling me the company.
And because he was selling me the company so hard, I
kind of backed off, because it was weird. He wasn’t
interviewing me. He was selling me. And that right
there threw up a red flag. Well, upon further
research I came to find out that the CEO of this new
company happened to have multiple lawsuits against
him. My understanding was, having talked with others
who had worked with this individual, that he needed a
name for the CMO, and my resume was really, really
good for this. And he knew if he could get me on
paper, he could get his funding. And because of that,
he didn’t really want me to say no. So he did
everything he could to sell me to yes. And that
turned me off. I didn’t want any part of that. But
interestingly enough I spoke with another company
about a Director of Sales position. And when they
spoke to me, there was, tell me why you would be a
good fit; tell me how you’re going to do this; tell me
what expectations you would have. They didn’t sell me
at all on their company. They showed me their
product. It looked pretty good. But they put the
ball in my court to prove to them that I was good
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 3
enough. And because of that, I wanted it more. I was
going after them. I was following up. I was chasing
them. I wanted that position, and the funny thing is
that position paid half of what the other guy offered
me. Now why was I more interested in that? It’s
because a top performer is willing to prove
themselves. They’re willing to show that they can do
it. They know they’re good. They’re willing to go
the extra mile because that’s who they are. So when
you’re interviewing top performers, don’t sell your
company too hard. Let them know you’re a great
company. Let them know some of the things you offer.
But make sure to allow them to sell themselves. Let
them tell you how great they are. So how do you do
this? It starts with asking great questions. And the
questions are going to be based on your prioritized
capabilities. So if we take a look at the prioritized
capabilities of verbal communication, managing
conflict and team building – let’s just say we take
the first one, verbal communication, and we break this
down into some very specific things that we want this
candidate to be able to do. We want them to use
facts, not personality, when resolving conflicts. We
want them to determine everyone’s expectation and
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integrate best ideas for win/win solution. We want
them to be approachable and easy to talk with. We
want them to listen more than they talk. And this is
very, very important. We also want them to listen
with more than just their ears. We want them to watch
what’s happening, we want them to FEEL what the person
is saying. So if we were to take that one module, we
would start to ask questions around that specific
module. So a sample question might be when you
receive negative feedback about your work, how do you
respond? This gives us an opportunity to see, what
are they going to do to respond to this? How do they
work on this? What is their perception? And during
this, we can watch how they answer. Are they
listening to what we say? Are they responding to more
than just our words? Are they paying attention to our
body language? So these are all things that we start
to watch when we start interviewing for top
performers. Now we want to remember there’s good and
there’s great questions. Good questions might be
something like, well what would you say your skill set
is? Are you beginning, intermediate, or an advanced
user of Microsoft Word? And that would be a good
question, but it’s not a great question. Great
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questions force them to tell us about things they’ve
done, and if they’re very good at communication,
they’re going to interweave the things that we’re
looking to hear. They’re going to pay attention to
what we want. So for example, a great question might
be, tell me about some of the recent projects you
completed using MS Word. This would be a much better
question. You would get a much better answer from
them. And based on what they tell you will tell you
their skill set, versus them saying I’m an advanced
user. That really doesn’t tell you anything. Now in
asking questions, you want to make sure that you avoid
yes and no, or short, one word answers. We want them
to elaborate. We want them to talk. I remember years
ago when I was learning sales, my mentor taught me,
“Kim, if all you do is let people talk, they’ll sell
themselves into anything.” And the same is true for
hiring. See, ultimately we’re going to offer them,
potentially this specific person, a job. They have to
say yes, too. So it’s a two way street. Ideally we
want them to convince us they’re the right candidate
for this position. And when we ask yes and no
questions, that doesn’t give them really an
opportunity to convince us. So we want to ask more
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 6
open ended questions – tell me how you. And I
remember not too long ago, I was reading an article
and it talked about Bill Gates. When Bill Gates used
to hire people, he would ask the question of, if we
were going to send a computer to the moon, tell me
where you would start on that project. And he would
just wait, and watch to see what they said. See, it
was more about their thinking than it was about the
right answer, because there really isn’t a right
answer. We want to understand the thought process of
each of our candidates, and then evaluate, does that
thought process work within our company, within our
organization? And that’s what really want to look at
to be able to hire the best people. Now I want to
talk a little bit about an interview guide. This is
simply a guide that you can use and you can develop in
your organization to be able to interview each
candidate. You’re probably going to bring in three,
maybe five candidates. And before you know it, they
start to blur. It’s kind of like looking at houses.
After you look at the first three or four, they all
kind of run together and you start to forget who said
what. An interview guide is a guide set up with all
your capabilities - prioritized capabilities in there
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– where you have the specific capabilities, you have
some questions, and then you have notes by each of the
interviewers. And then at the bottom, you rate the
candidate. So let’s say, for example in this
interview guide, we have the verbal communication
skills. We have the specifics that we’re looking for,
and then we have the questions that we’re going to
ask. Now of course, we may ask other questions, but
the purpose of this is to be able to show everybody in
the organization the questions that were asked and the
answers that were received. This way, we’re not all
asking the same question of the same person, and they
don’t feel like we’re all kind of like trained
parrots. It helps us to get more information from
them, and we can leverage off of each other’s
information. Now this is an interview guide. Some
companies, some pass this as they interview someone.
They pass it off to the next person. Others just keep
multiple copies. It’s completely up to you how you
use it. But this will help you to track each
candidate and see how that candidate fits, as well as
to rate the candidate. Now do notice at the bottom it
says on a scale of 1 to 4. Notice it’s 1, 2, 3, or 4.
There is no 2.5. There’s no 3.1. Just go ahead and
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make a decision when you valuate the candidate whether
it’s going to be a 1, a 2, a 3, or a 4. Now after
we’ve interviewed them, we’re also going to want to
keep in mind of the people in the agendas. This is
something else we have to consider, because each
person that interviews the candidate should have a
copy of their resume. They should get the interview
guide, the questions, a note pad, and what questions
have been asked. And again, this could be in the
interview guide, this could be a separate document.
We want to make sure that each person is on the same
page so that we’re organized. We show a professional
front when we are interviewing top candidates.
Remember the types of interviews. There are two main
types of interviews. You’ve got your team interview,
and then your panel interviews. Your team interviews
are going to be more informal. This is going to be
closer to the workspace of the team. Now panel
interviews, you typically don’t want to have more than
three people on a panel as this can become
overwhelming very, very quickly for the candidate.
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same people
from the same teams. It could be an HR person, it
could be a manager, and it could be a teammate. Any
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 9
of those combinations for the panel interviews will
work perfectly. Now when you’re considering where to
have the interviews, your logistics and your locations
make a difference, because remember – this is the
first impression that your candidate gets. And your
first impression certainly is lasting. It can be a
valuable opportunity to sell your culture as well.
Consider everyone as a part of your interview team.
For example, the first screen from the receptionist is
a critical – make sure that receptionist is smiling
and pleasant. This is the first interaction that the
candidate’s going to have with your company. And
what’s interesting is many candidates kind of let
their guard down when they first walk in. They don’t
think they have to turn it on until the meeting with
the interviewer. So this person behind the desk could
actually get a more accurate read on the person’s true
colors. So make sure that she or he is definitely
part of your interview team. Also, make sure you
create a company package with a notebook, pen, mission
statement, values, organization chart – all of these
things to help the candidate understand your company
and your business. And one last tip, with your tables
and chairs, make sure that they’re out of the way.
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Don’t have unnecessary barriers between you and the
candidate. However you choose to do that is great,
but try to keep it close enough that you’re not
putting extra barriers in the way. And remember, it’s
two way communication. They’re selling you – excuse
me. They’re selling you on themselves as much as
you’re selling the company. But remember to keep it
balanced. Keep it balanced on how much selling you
do. If you oversell the company, it sends off red
flags. So why are you selling me so hard? You want
to remember that you’ve got the position. They’re the
candidate. Let them convince you, but make sure that
you share with them the most critical perks, and let
others tell them why working there is such a great
place. And lastly, remember you have two ears and one
mouth. A lot of times when I work with hiring
managers or interviewing managers, I find they spend
about 70 percent of the time talking. That means the
candidate’s only getting about 30 percent of the time.
And this can truly be a challenge because how are you
going to learn about the person if they’re not saying
anything? So we really need to flip that to about
50/50, if not 60/40 – 60 percent of the time let them
talk. You will learn more about your candidates when
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 11
you listen than when you’re talking. So develop great
questions ahead of time, and really take good, quality
notes so that you can remember their answer
afterwards. Now when you are interviewing, you want
to use some phrases to kind of fish out the truth.
What’s happening? What’s really going on with this
candidate? And our job is to be able to ask behavior
based questions that would lead them to give us an
answer. And therefore, we could see how their
behavior is. When you’re thinking about creating
behavior based questions, you want to make sure you’re
getting the right requirement. So here’s some
starting phrases you would want to consider. Describe
a situation when; or give me an example of; tell me
about a decision you made when; how would you handle
...? See, we’re going to prompt the interviewee to
describe in detail how they would handle or
successfully handle a situation. And if I were the
hiring manager, I would want to explore in depth the
extent of the candidate’s experience in managing
conflict. I would list managing conflict in one of
those boxes on the left side as one of those key
things that we want to make sure – regardless of the
position, if they’re going to be working with people,
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 12
they need to learn to manage conflict. Let’s take a
look at a couple of examples. We could use something
like, describe a situation where an angry,
dissatisfied customer wanted resolution to a product
problem and it was not clearly the responsibility of
the company you work for – and let them talk. Let
them share what they would do. Next, what was your
approach with the customer? Or what steps did you
take with the customer in ultimately identifying the
core problem? What was the end result of the
interaction? What did you do well when dealing with
this situation? What would you like to have done
differently? Of course you may not rapid-fire these
questions as quickly as I did. You might take a
little bit more time, and you might not ask all of
them. But by going through this process, you’re now
starting to see how that candidate thinks. And I
truly believe in hiring candidates for talent and
teaching skill. Talent is what’s innate to them.
It’s how they are. It’s who they are. It’s the way
they act. So it’s important that when we interview
candidates, we want to get down to their core – who
are they? What’s their personality like? What are
they going to do? Where are they at? I used a saying
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 13
years ago, and I love this saying, and I use it very
frequently – zebras don’t change stripes. Whoever
they are is who they’re going to be when they join
your business. So you want to know who they are
before you offer them a position. Find out if they’re
going to be a great fit. Find out if they’re not
going to be a great fit. Another way to get insight
is to read their body language. The body will never
lie. The mouth may lie from time to time, but the
body will never lie. So you want to get good at what
are their arms saying? Are they crossed because
they’re frustrated or hiding something? Or are they
crossed because they’re cold? And you want to be able
to distinguish that difference. Are their legs
pointing towards you or away from you? Typically when
someone has their legs crossed towards you, that means
they’re in contact. They’re paying attention. If
they’re away, what they’re really saying is I want to
get out of here. I want to leave. And the body will
never lie to you. So you want to be able to read the
body language and be able to pay attention to what
they’re really saying in spite of what their words are
telling you. And one last thing – when you’re having
your interviews, make sure that they know what the
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next steps are. The next step could be an additional
interview, it could be background checks, it could be
reference checks, it could be when the final offer
deadline is. Make sure that you’re communicating with
each candidate so that they understand what your
process is and where you’re taking them through that
process. Here’s our checklist for during the
interview. First, make sure to develop interview
linguistics – who’s the interviewing manager, the
time, and the locations. Make sure you have a company
materials package. This could be the mission
statement, your products, your services, a little bit
about your customers. Make sure the team interviews
with the interview guide. Be sure you have your
interview guide developed ahead of time. And team
discussions to make the selection, decision matrix.
And then finally, make the final decision. One last
tip here. Sometimes we get into a quagmire where
we’re not really sure what to do. We get stuck. And
we want to be proactive and solicit input from staff
members and peers. You not only gain perspective, but
you gain buy-in. This is another great benefit. It’s
essential to the new hire that they have buy-in from
all the potential colleagues. No manager or
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-3 - MAY, 2013 Page 15
supervisor has all the answers all the time. And I
know that might be shocking or overwhelming to hear,
but the truth is we all, with a little bit of help,
can get a lot more insight – and this becomes a
valuable resource in the interviewing process. So
don’t hesitate to reach out to others to help you as
you start to make the decisions for this process.
Now, we’re also going to have to sort the good from
the great. It can get frustrating if you move from
interview to interview to interview to interview
without taking good quality notes. I just want to
mention here very briefly, do your homework and make
sure you give candidates homework. If you’re going to
be in a multiple interview situation, ask them to
complete something before they come back the next
time. This will show you how serious they are and
show you if they are willing to follow instruction.
Also, their level – if writing is a requirement, write
an essay on something. Give them homework to let them
show you they’re really the great candidate you’re
looking for.
[End of recording.]
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 1
FRED PRYOR SEMINARS HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT MODULE FOUR – AFTER THE INTERVIEW ARH120517-4 MAY, 2013 Female: Module Four – After the Interview. Okay, you’ve
interviewed all the candidates. Now you’ve got to sit
down and decide what’s next – who are we going to
choose? And it becomes a process. So let’s go
through that process. It starts by rating your
candidates. You want to rate each candidate
independently. As you speak with them, ideally you
want to be rating them. Review your rating and your
notes with the other interviewers. Find out what they
liked. Find out where they had concerns. Sometimes
different personalities interact differently with each
other. So this is an opportunity to get more insight
on the candidate you’re evaluating. Number three,
evaluate the process and as you’re going through the
process, look at how you can improve the process as
well, remember – the candidate is evaluating you as
much as you’re evaluating them. And of course you
want to make your hiring decision. Decide who you’re
going to offer the position to, make and obtain the
acceptance to the offer, and communicate your final
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 2
decision to all the candidates. As you’re rating
candidates, let’s take a look at what a rating sheet
might look like. This rating sheet is a very simple
one. You can see we have four candidates across the
top – candidate 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then we have specific
items across the left side that we’re going to
evaluate them on. So for each candidate, we would
evaluate them maybe on a scale of 1 to 5, and then
we’d total it up, and we’d see which candidate has the
highest score. This is a rating system to be able to
rate candidates and to be able to make the decision a
whole lot more objective and remove the subjectivity
of having looked at so many candidates. Now it’s
important that we use a proactive selection. This
means it’s great that when someone feels right, we
just think they’d fit really well. But we want to
make sure not to forget to do our – check our
references, to document their skills, document their
abilities, and make sure to ask the important
questions. I know sometimes we get sent a candidate.
Perhaps it’s the friend of the owner, or perhaps it’s
an uncle or a cousin that they recommend. Just
because we were sent that person doesn’t mean that we
don’t have a right to do the checks. If this person’s
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 3
going to be in our organization, we have every right
to check their references, to document their skills
and abilities, and to still ask them important
questions. We don’t want to forego that just because
they might be a friend of the owner. Now after the
face to face, you want to make sure to follow up in a
timely manner. If we have the opportunity, we want to
make sure to provide a hand written follow up, to
thank them. They took time out of their schedule to
come sit with you, and one of the biggest complaints
today that we hear from candidates across the board is
that they never hear back after an interview. It’s by
far the biggest complaint. What that does, is that
really leaves a sour taste in their mouth for your
organization. Because candidates do interview
multiple times with multiple companies, it’s important
that you don’t close or maybe slam that door with that
candidate. You never know if they might be back
again. So it’s important, especially with top
performing candidates, that you communicate openly
with them. Allow that door to be open so they can
call and find out. But more importantly, let them
know what the process is. Let them know what has been
happening, if you’ve made offers. Provide that
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 4
information so that they can feel that they understand
what’s going on. Just a quick legal alert here –
there are some questions that you just can’t ask in
interviews, and there are some things that legally you
cannot do. It’s important that you make sure to get
up to speed on this with your HR director and your HR
or legal department. These vary from company to
company, and depending on your company specifics, you
want to know what are the specifics you can ask, what
can’t you ask, and where you can go, and what are the
options you have? So let’s say, though, you get down
to it. You’ve narrowed it down to two candidates.
Now what? The reality of selection is that 50 percent
of the hiring decision is attributed to the chemistry
of the interaction during the interviews. Intuition,
gut feeling, whatever you call it – that’s what ends
up choosing our final candidate. The weighted
capability model should provide a way to contrast and
compare candidates, but ultimately you’re going to end
up hiring who you feel best with. And this isn’t
easy. This hiring process, you know, can take months
to go through, and weeks to get the final answer. So
another idea is make sure that when you do prepare to
hire someone that you have a 90 day agenda and
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 5
itinerary ready. Of course many companies today are
doing 90 day probation periods. They want to make
sure that person is a great fit before they lock them
into the organization. So what they’ll do is they’ll
prepare an 89 day summary to the team as an overview
of what the new team member has learned, the improved
ideas they have, and any help they might need in
contributing in moving forward. And one last tip –
you want to make the hiring process continually
getting better. Every single step, you want to get it
better. The military has a system for improving every
mission. They call it the “After Actions Report,” the
AAR. You plan the same follow-up questions. What did
we do well? What didn’t we do well? And what can we
improve next time? And under this close scrutiny,
you’re going to find that you get better and better at
this process. You get better candidates. You share
more information, and you find that this process
becomes easier and simpler every time you implement
it. What about those near misses? What do we do when
we have a candidate that is really a good candidate,
but they end up not being a great fit for the team?
Well, there’s a couple of options here. Of course the
first option is consult with your HR department. See
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 6
if maybe there is another position. You hate to get
rid of a great candidate or a great employee just
because they don’t fit in the position that you have
them in. And of course all candidates have something
to offer to your company. Of course they wouldn’t
have made it through the hiring process if they
didn’t. But just because they didn’t fit into your
box doesn’t mean they aren’t a viable candidate for
somewhere else. So get a system. Create a system
that identifies company needs, and check against it
people who don’t fit in your matrix. If they’re non-
hired candidates, they’re going to feel comfortable
about developing that rapport with your company,
because then there might be a fit somewhere else. So
this is an important key to be able to help you bring
in top performers and key performers and not lose
them. So let’s look at our checklist. So after the
interview, we want to make sure to contact all
candidates, new hire paperwork and prepare for
signatures, make sure you send a personal note to all
candidates within 24 hours of their interview, de-
brief with all interviewers to improve opportunities,
and make sure you have a 90 day itinerary for the new
hire to implement after the hiring date. Now these
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-4 - MAY, 2013 Page 7
checklist steps will help you to streamline your
interviewing process.
[End of recording.]
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-5 - MAY, 2013 Page 1
FRED PRYOR SEMINARS HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT MODULE FIVE – COMMON HIRING MISTAKES ARH120517-5 MAY, 2013 Female: Module Five – Common Hiring Mistakes. The first
hiring mistake is that we use our prior job
description. I know this sounds logical. Why not use
it? It’s worked. We know what their job is supposed
to be. But here’s what happens – organizations are
continually changing, growing, and evolving. Why
should the position in your company not grow as well?
See, requirements for positions morph and change. How
can we optimally hire based on past information when
what we really require may have been changed or
dramatically altered? I’ve known many managers who
have been frustrated by their lack of hiring success,
and many times, it’s because of this gap – the gap
between the position as it’s been described and as
it’s been historically understood, and the real needs
of the position. So if we’re going to change that, we
need to start by using the four step process - we need
to identify a date, identify the roles, the results,
and the prioritized capabilities – and this will help
us from falling into that same old trap of hiring what
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-5 - MAY, 2013 Page 2
we thought we wanted and finding out it wasn’t really
what we needed. Another common myth, or a common hire
mistake, is only sending out a letter to the person
I’m offering a position. I know you’re busy. I
completely understand you’re overwhelmed. Your desk
is piled over with tons of things to do. I mean
consider hiring is only one of the many
responsibilities that you have. It’s easy to get
myoptic and focused on the candidate that you want,
and to forget to provide information back to the other
candidates. So make it part of your process. Make it
part of the process that every candidate gets a
handwritten letter, because remember – it’s a people
business. You’re hiring PEOPLE. And how people feel
about you is going to influence whether they want to
work for you or with you. And just because they
weren’t a good fit today or this week doesn’t mean
they won’t be a great fit next week or next month or
next year for an additional position. How they feel
about you is going to carry over. So take the time.
Make a checklist for yourself if you need, and every
time you interview a candidate, the first thing you do
afterwards is you write a thank you note for their
time. This will help them feel great about the
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-5 - MAY, 2013 Page 3
experience, and you’ll know that you’re never going to
lose out on a top performer because you ignored them
that one time. Now another common mistake is having
deeply defined needs and requirements. I’ve seen many
managers do that. They have a list a mile long – this
person needs to do this, and this, and this, and this,
this. I just get tired of hearing the list. It’s
crazy. And what happens is they have it so tightly
defined that nobody could ever meet all their
requirements. And the reality is probably only three
to six, maybe seven of those, maybe ten of them, are
really absolutely non-negotiable. I’m going to
challenge you to pare down that list to three non-
negotiable must-haves. And what will be interesting,
is as you start to see candidates come in, you’ll be
surprised at the candidates that do come in and how
they do fit the rest of the criteria. Again, get rid
of the non-negotiable stuff. Simply choose what’s
negotiable and make sure to go after it. Another
common mistake is, “I’ll just let our HR do the
interviews.” I mean, I don’t blame you. I would do
the same thing, and in my early career as a hiring
manager, I did the same thing. I gave HR the
requirements and I said, go find me a great candidate
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-5 - MAY, 2013 Page 4
– as if somehow they had the magic power. And the
reality is they didn’t. And many times, the person
that they brought that they thought would be a great
candidate really didn’t fit. See, HR wasn’t in our
department. They didn’t understand our needs, really.
They understood the paper and what I asked for, but
they didn’t really translate that into the
capabilities of the individual. So you really need to
be doing your own interviews. And remember, the
person you’re hiring is going to have to work for you,
so they better get along with you. YOU better have a
good fit there. It’s important that we not abdicate
our responsibilities here and say, oh no, HR can do
that. Let HR be a part of the process, but don’t give
them all the responsibility. It’s just not fair for
them. And lastly, waiting for all the resumes before
you start sorting through them. I remember I was
working for a real estate investor at one point, and
we were hiring for an assistant. And he brought me in
as a consultant to help him hire the right person.
He’d had five people in there in about four and a half
months. And he just couldn’t seem to get the right
person. What he was doing is he was waiting until he
would get 15, 20, 30, 40 resumes instead of looking at
HIRE RECRUIT RIGHT - ARH120517-5 - MAY, 2013 Page 5
the first resume, evaluating it and moving on. He
would wait. And what would happen would be all the
good candidates were gone by the time he wanted to
hire them. So it was only the people who were late in
submitting their information that we would look at,
and sometimes those weren’t the greatest candidates.
So don’t wait until you get a bunch of resumes. Start
immediately. Start with your keyword process. Know
which keywords you’re looking for. And then start
with the evaluations, and then do your qualitative
searches. As soon as you find someone that meets all
three, start interviewing. Start speaking with them.
You have a date set. You know when you’re going to
hire by. So start moving through the process. And
what you’ll start to find is you get better qualified
candidates, you’ll get more proactive candidates, and
you’ll find hiring becomes a whole lot easier.
[End of recording.]