How to Hire the Right People -
The hardest personnel decisions often come down to the softest skills

By Suzanne F. Fairlie, CPC
Appeared in the March 2002 issue of Smart Business Now.

You probably already know the numbers. The economic downturn that began more than a year ago has cost 2.5 million Americans their jobs, and driven the nation's jobless rate to 5.8 percent.

As a business owner or manager, you can hide your head in the sand and wait for things to get better, or you can become proactive and turn a bad economy into a good thing for your company. You just have to know the strategies for hiring the right people at a time when every new hire truly counts.

In the last five years, it was not unusual for a key employee to change jobs every year to year and half. The market was intense. People were getting recruited left and right. With that kind of turnover, employers weren't so concerned about "soft skills." They were more concerned about critical technical skills.

But the new economy has changed those old ideas. Now, people try to stay a longer term at a company. Smart owners are looking for longer term strategic hires, not a quick fix. I've talked to key hiring professionals throughout the Delaware Valley, and they consistently had the same impression. The soft skills are becoming even more critical. Soft skills are the emotional and behavioral side of an employee. Do they fit in with the company culture? How do they handle change? Can they work at the same pace as the rest of your employees?

How can you tell? Let's start with the most important soft skill: understanding the company culture. According to the McKinsey Report, the number one reason people leave a job in the first year is they don't fit that culture. So how do you identify that in the interview process? You need to ask a lot more open-ended questions. You need to ask a lot more "what ifs"; a lot more situational/behavioral interview questions.

Here are some specific telltale questions you should try:

• "Describe to me your best manager."
• "Describe to me your worst manager."

Hearing what they like or don't like about management style will help you determine if they fit with your culture.

• "Describe to me a situation where you had to bring in a project in a very difficult timeframe, or difficult budget."

Listen carefully to the answers. Did they do it themselves? Did they put together a team? Did they work overtime hours? This will give you an idea about how they think out of the box.

• "Describe a difficult situation you didn't agree with in your work environment. How did you deal with it?"

What you're looking for is: are they managing the situation? Are they sticking with the status quo or acting more on a director level--trying to create and change, and find different ways to get people to do what they might think is right. This will tell you whether they're gophers or leaders.

Soft skills have become so important, many companies are using personality profile tests more, such as the PEAC, Predictive Index, Caliper and others. How do you choose the right test? Look for how long a test has been in existence; how widely it's used in your industry. And test your best employees prior to utilizing this. Do you agree with those results? If you do, use them as a baseline to compare new hires.

Most people tend to hire in their own image. You really need to look beyond that. Granted, it's hard to do. You find out that someone went to the same school or is a golf nut like you, and you forget to get into the other management issues, the other behavioral/event issues.

If you're doing the interviewing, try not to make it too chummy. If others are doing it for you, you really need to spend the time to teach them to interview.

Another good cultural issue to focus on is the pace of your environment. If you're a very fast-paced, changing environment, you can ask an applicant if that's the way they work. But a better way to do it is to actually change pace in the interview and see how the react. If you're in an environment that is full of constant interruptions, and pagers are constantly beeping, let your pager go off in the interview. If the candidate gets offended, they're going to be offended on the job. Have the interview profile and pace match the profile and pace of the work environment. If your environment is one where everybody's exactly on time, make sure you're exactly on time for the interview.

Truth be told, here's one thing you can't forget. When you have an environment where there are so many candidates looking, and people have been out of work for a long time, be aware that people tend to exaggerate and lie! Lying should never be tolerated in an interview. These days, it's more important than ever to check references. You can hire an outside source to do that. Check degrees. Check with unofficial references [people not listed on the applicant's C.V.] to make sure that people were where they say they were. Call your network of associates. Philadelphia's a very small city when it comes to that. People know people at other companies. Pick up the phone and say, "This is an unofficial reference. Can you share with me the fact that this person worked there and that they left of their own accord?"

When checking references, don't just ask about attendance and punctuality. Here are some references questions to ask:

• How did they think out of the box?
• How did they get along with other people? Ask for examples.
• How are they at picking up new skills?
• Would you hire this person again?

Remind the references that this is confidential, and ask them ahead of time if they have time to talk, or would it be better if you call back later? Making them comfortable will get you better answers.

This is a great time to really attract top talent. There are so many people, good people looking for work now that you can truly raise the level of your team. It's an opportunity to replace mediocrity with excellence. Like the savvy owners of a sports franchise, the timing is right to look over the free agent market. If you're hiring really good people in a downturn market, you benefit in two ways. You're adding a good player to your team, and that's usually a sign that the other people on your team will stay because good people want to stay with good people.

How will you attract the good free agents? It won't always be a matter of salary. In fact, salaries are coming down. That's a given. You need to find and offer other things they're looking for. Because of recent events, people are more concerned about quality of life, about less travel, about the ability to be home with their families. Use that when you're attracting good people. Find ways to bend the rules to get the good people interested. It might mean increasing a tuition refund program or a vacation plan. Believe me, it will be worth your while.

This is the perfect opportunity to build up your workforce with the right people so that when the economy opens up, which it will in a matter of months, you'll have the right team intact.

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