When you are hiring, what do you look for?
When I ask most hiring managers this question, I generally hear they make the job offer to the person with most experience in their business. I submit to you isn’t the best way to hire. I know this from experience.
When I was first made a manager and had to hire people, the main thing I looked for was someone with a lot of experience in our business — but many of them didn’t work out for various reasons: lack of people skills, job hoppers, drinking and/or drug problems, excessive tardiness, couldn’t get along with coworkers, etc.
I was very frustrated with my poor batting average until I went to a seminar on hiring conducted by Bill Lee of Lee Resources in Greenville. Bill talked about the TEC method of hiring. The T stands for talent, the E stands for experience and the C stands for chemistry. Bill said the perfect candidate has the talent, experience and chemistry you are looking for. So if you find someone who has those three things, you should hire that person. However, if you can’t find a person that has all three of those things, then the first thing you should compromise on is experience. This is because experience can be gained, but you can’t teach talent or chemistry. So if you can’t find a person that has everything you’re looking for, but you can find a person that has talent and with whom you have great chemistry, hire that person — because they can get experience.
I have found this to be very true. We have all come across a waitress, an airline ticket agent or a sales clerk who has a magnetic personality. When you find someone like that, snatch them up (unless you are filling a highly technical position) because, especially in sales, people with those types of personalities do extremely well. They do much better than a person with loads of experience but a dour personality.
Now, when I interview someone, immediately after the candidate leaves (so my feelings are fresh in my mind) I rate the candidates on a 1-10 scale in terms of:
- Friendliness
- Smile
- Sense of humor
- Personality
- Fun to be around
- Enjoyable to interview
- Charisma
- Aggressiveness
- Preparation for interview (had questions and notes written down for interview)
- Good listener or interrupted a lot?
- Concise answers or long rambling ones?
Hiring based on attitude made a huge difference in my success rate with new hires. If you haven’t been hiring for attitude, give it a try and see how it works for you.
Jim Sobeck is CEO of New South Construction Supply, a building products distributor based in Greenville with 10 locations in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. He is the author of “The Real Business 101: Lessons From the Trenches.” newsouthsupply.com.
