Recruit With a Process

I’ve finished up the section on recruiting in How to Hire this week. Author Clint Smith’s recommendation is that you recruit with a process that is clearly defined, measurable, and can be held accountable. And really, everything we do in business should be done with those in mind to demand predictability from our outcomes. The thing we really want predictability from is our hiring. The time and money cost of a bad hire is exponentially expensive. Smith asserts that the up-front time investment of creating and sticking to a hiring process that provides total clarity and confidence in your hire is worthwhile. And I agree with him whole-heartedly.

The Interview Scorecard

The interview scorecard is a tangible thing you keep with you throughout every stage of the hiring process. You take notes on it and it is something that helps you easily determine if you have a “GO” or a “NO-GO” candidate before you. Smith made it a point to say that there is no “MAYBE” when it comes to hiring decisions. You should seek to be placing the candidate into one of those two categories throughout each stage of the interview process. The scorecard also gives you something to review at the end of the hiring process to ensure you have done it well.

There are three things Smith’s company looks for when hiring people:

Ability

Motivation

Culture fit

On the scorecard, the ability section lists the necessary three skills or talents the candidate must possess to do the job proficiently from an ability-standpoint. And their ability to do the job is either a yes or a no – there is no room for a maybe.

Then, simply, do they have motivation to do the job: yes or no?

The assessment of whether or not they are a culture fit refers to the candidate possessing those three to four company core values you have established.

The final section on the scorecard forces the hiring manager to circle a YES or a NO beside each of the three scoring components overall. This written exercise clearly demonstrates, at every step of interview process, if you should continue to move forward with a candidate.

The Candidate Defense

The final stage of the hiring process convenes your existing team – the people you trust to hold you accountable. [If you don’t have such people on your team, you need to find a mentor or a business partner to hold you accountable.]  You cover the positives and the negatives about the candidate’s fit for the role and the team. You review each section of the scorecard, and you defend the person you are about to hire. You vocalize why they are a great – not just good – fit. And if you have any concerns or red flags, you discuss those with the team. Let the viewpoint of others challenge you to defend why you should hire this person. When you do that, not only are you forced to defend the need to hire someone for this role on your team, but you are furthermore defending the person you are about to bring onto the team and celebrate as a new addition. When you defend someone, it becomes pretty clear if you are passionate about hiring them or if you are merely settling to ease a current pain. If you are settling, you should acknowledge that this candidate is really a “NO-GO,” and return to the candidate pool at large.

The candidate defense is something that we do on our team too – albeit a bit more informally. Smith has a formal process for it, and I applaud him. At every point of your business’ growth, you should always be striving to becomes less entrepreneurial and turn more of your regular operating procedures into solidified processes.

Ultimately, there should be no uncertainty in the end. The best way to avoid uncertainty in business is to create a process. And without accountability, a process is just a process that doesn’t produce results. I challenge you to create a process for making sure you recruit and hire the right person to your team. Pay special attention to ability, motivation and culture fit, and hold yourself accountable to finding the great fit you deserve. Never settle.

Written by Schuyler Williamson

REALTOR. Leader. Veteran. Business Owner. Investor.

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God Bless!

~ Schuyler Williamson