Yet when you ask them what their process is to find top talent most reply in the same way, “We run ads” or “We post it internally.” That is the way 80% of all companies go about finding people.

Below are three real life examples of alternative ways of finding people.

1) In 2007, I was having lunch with a partner from a local CPA firm. During lunch he commented that they had been struggling for six months to find an audit manager. In fact, he commented that they would pay a $10,000 bounty for an employee referral. I didn’t add a zero. So I asked, “How many people have you hired?”  The reply, “None.” They were doing the usual, running ads and asking current employees. That was their process for finding people.

So as the lunch continued, he mentioned to me that they had just brought on a new client and that he had just had lunch with the new CFO at this same restaurant. I immediately asked the partner, “Did you ask the CFO who was the best audit manager at his current company?” or “Who were some of the best audit managers he had worked with in the past?” He had never even thought of this. I suggested that he could contact all of his CFO clients and ask them. After all, it is in the client’s best interest to have good audit managers.

This was such an obvious thing to me and yet he was willing to pay ten grand. For those of you thinking it takes too much time to find good people, I don’t think asking these few questions would have extended the lunch that much.

2) Last year I was conducting one of our in-house workshops for a mid-sized technology company in New York. During the workshop, one of the key executives mentioned how difficult it is to hire technical people. I probed a little further and asked about the type of people they hire. She commented that they want people comfortable with technology. People who understand how networks work, people who diagnose a computer problem when a client calls with a problem, install software, and perform basic repairs that clients need right away if something goes wrong. They were willing to train on their specific systems and software. They just wanted someone that was moderately technical and comfortable with technology.

These people were “extremely” hard to find.

I asked if they ever go to Best Buy and engage the Geek Squad. Have they ever taken in a computer and found someone that provides great customer service and demonstrates that they understand technical issues?

She and her team had never thought about these people. I received an email two months after the workshop letting me know they had hired two people from Best Buy.

3) My best friend manages a store for one of the major retail chains. Every time we play golf, I have to listen to him complain about how hard it is to find people willing to work. He complains that his company works people hard and is demanding. The result is a lot of turnover.

So I asked him how often when he or his team is out shopping and they come across a great person in another retail chain do they engage the person, give them a business card and ask the person to call him, or let the person know that if they ever think about leaving to call him.

I mentioned that I go to a coffee shop most mornings when I’m in town for an hour of work. At this coffee shop, every person is probably in their late teens and early twenties. These people run the coffee shop. They open every morning at 6 AM so they have to get there by 5:30, they are friendly, they know customers by name, the coffee shop is clean and they are great employees. So I asked if he ever asked any of them about potentially coming to work a his store.

In both cases he replied no, and that he doesn’t even encourage his team leaders to be aware of potential employees when they are out shopping.

Qualified people are all around us. As a recruiter, I always have my antenna up. Most CEOs and hiring managers just walk right by these people. Work with  your team and start noticing people hiding in plain sight.

Download our Hiring Process Self Assessment Scorecard and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring system. CLICK HERE to get your assessment.

Get our most popular chapter “Sourcing Top Talent” from our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” which is available for Free to download. CLICK HERE to get the chapter.

Consider joining our LinkedIn group,  Hire and Retain Top Talent. This group is dedicated to discussions and articles to help  you improve your hiring and retention. CLICK HERE to join the group.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

The latest sturm & drang stems from this past week’s announcement of the iPad, Apple’s latest attempt at disruptive innovation.

As can always be anticipated, the announcement was meant with the usual unbridled optimism & support from Apple’s fan base, and countervailing skepticism and outright derision from its critics. The criticisms typically center around the following issues & observations:

1) It’s only an iPhone or iPod Touch on steroids, not really a netbook computer - many people - including myself - were hoping for a tablet format Macintosh, running the OSX operating system. We didn’t get that.

2) It doesn’t have…..one or more of the following “must haves”: USB….multi-tasking….Flash…..a camera….SD slot….stylus input….ability to load software from other than Apple’s App Store….etc..

Most of these objections can be seen as coming from a conceptual framework that views what Apple is attempting to do as a next-generation multi-function computer. In such a model, the product attributes of features, functionalities, CPU power,  I/O interfaces, “openness”, etc. Are all considered paramount - allowing the user to configure and use the device as she prefers. This is clearly not what we will be getting from the iPad. Nor, is that the product’s design intent….

Rather, Apple appears to be attempting to create not only a new platform category residing between the smartphone and the notebook computer, it is also trying to establish a new paradigm for personal productivity computing devices - that of being appliances, not multi-purpose computers. This distinction was aptly articulated by Fraser Speirs in his recent blog entry titled “The iPad’s Future Shock”

What Apple is counting on with the iPad, is not only that many people will want a platform in that space, but also that most people don’t want to worry about figuring out how all this should work together - the dark cloud to the silver lining of openness and multi-functionality. It was precisely this unmet & unexpressed need (a.k.a. “Heart of the Customer” that Apple tapped into with the iPhone - eschewing the feature/function computer-based paradigm of the smartphone for a value-proposition of “it simply works, and is fun to use”.

“Voice of the Customer” approaches - that of listening to the expressed needs of the customer can sometimes be a trap - incrementally leading companies to create new & better products to meet those needs - but leading everyone down a path that turns out to be non-optimal over the long-term. I maintain that most criticisms of the iPad are based on this paradigm - that what customers are asking for is ever more flexible & powerful technologies, and open technical/business models, that maximize the options a user has in configuring and using the machine to their own specific needs.

Apple believes they’re tapping into the “Heart of the Customer” -  the unmet & unexpressed needs that people want in their mobile computing and communications - they just want it to work, and don’t want or need to figure all this out for themselves.

I used to be in the former camp - over time, I’ve become less and less enthralled by spending the time & effort to figure out how all this stuff works….and Apple appears to be counting on there being a lot of folks out there just like me. As or me - I am selling my MacBook notebook and buying an iPad 3G in April.but then again, I’m just an Apple fanboy…

What is not a waste of time is executing strategy and that is why the mission of our company – in fact, our very tagline – is all about “Executing Strategy”. 

But don’t you need a strategy to execute on it?  Of course you do.  But do you need to do strategic planning to have a strategy? Not necessarily. 

In fact all organizations have a strategy already.  How do I know? Organizations make decisions everyday. They must have a context, a framework for making those decisions.  That context is their strategy.  It may not be well articulated, it may not take into account all possible scenarios, but a strategy exists. 

Strategic planning, in the traditional sense, is an Activity field process that involves a lot of analysis and establishment of goals and objectives (Learn more about the Activity field of energy in The Living Organization model here).  It includes the company’s Strengths and Weaknesses and considers the external Opportunities and Threats. 

Integrating this information with market forces and trends the company determines its competitive position; a position that will hopefully place it in a blue ocean of success rather than the red ocean of bloody competition. 

All of this is wrapped into a document that maps out a 3-5 year execution plan. Success is now assured.  Or is it?

The problem I have with traditional strategic planning is that it ignores a critical factor of today’s reality.  The rate of change and degree of complexity has increased significantly!

I think you will all agree that to effectively plan one must know the key variables that define success.  But how can you plan when the actions that will create the desired results today will not create the same results in the future.

If we look at the frequency of change back in the early 1900, a person might experience 2 – 3 significant changes within one’s lifetime.  Mostly the rules of how life worked were the same over any given 10 – 20 year time span.  During the middle of the 20^th century, the change frequency may have increased from 3 to maybe 5 or six, but the environmental factors that determined success still had at least a 5 to 10 year life span.

As we look back to the first decade of the 21^st century, we find a significantly different story.  We find an environment that is constantly changing at ever increasing rates. The needs of the marketplace and our customers are changing with it.  The complexity of the challenges we face is rising along with this increased rate of change. Predicting future environments is close to impossible.

Ten years ago we did not have such things as Google, Facebook or Twitter.  Today they are defining how we live, how we interact (both socially and professionally) and what our customers expect from us.  It is unlikely that any strategic plan took these changes into account for how their organization would communicate with their customers, test out new products, and expand their markets.

So what’s the solution? Stop planning and just react to whatever happens?  Accept that everything is out of our control and we should just run as fast as we can to keep up?  NO!

The challenge of executing strategy requires a different lens for how we view the role of strategy and a different framework for how we prepare our organization to execute.

The old model puts the emphasis on the planning. With a well thought out plan, execution follows.  And if you didn’t get the desired results, you must have created a poorly developed plan.  The solution, hold another management offsite and do a better plan.  This is what you would expect from a dominantly Activity field orientation.  This is now obsolete. 

The new model, which we call The Living Organization®, puts the emphasis on execution over planning and takes into account the Relationship field and the Context field. The Living Organization® provides a means to monitor the execution progress and be flexible to change as it occurs. Download a free white paper on the The Living Organization® to learn more.

I think a really good metaphor for what life is like today is to take a look at how some video games work (interestingly they call this segment of video games strategy gaming).  Games like Zork, Myst and the ever-popular World of Warcraft are perfect examples.

You understand in a broad sense what you must do to win the game, and have access to key tools, such as a treasure map or a compass.  These tools guide you along the way, even though you may not yet understand how to interpret or use everything in your arsenal.

The video screen provides a limited set of information about your surroundings. You can only take action on what is in the foreground, the field of play.  You may have some visibility to what lies ahead; but the further down the path you look, the less information you have. 

You must make all your decisions and take quick, decisive actions with only the immediate information available in the field of play in order to progress. Then more information is revealed.  Each small action unveils a new, altered playing field with more of the background, the future, moving into the field of play.   If you stay true to the game’s rules, use the guiding maps and compass, and follow your deeper guiding principles to make quick decisive decisions, you will invariably succeed in your quest. 

This is how one of our clients is successfully navigating a major strategic transition to take the company in a whole new direction.  They set the direction to offer a new set of services that is an expansion into new markets and even new relationships with existing clients.  There are many elements to the execution of this strategic direction but to go through them all would take to long to enumerate here. 

One specific example that highlights this approach is how they defined their new offerings.  In the traditional approach, they would have collected data from their customer base (market research) and then defined a set of offerings with a plan to bring them to market.  When I spoke with the CEO about why he wasn’t doing this, his comment was “we aren’t that smart”. 

What did he mean by this?  Simply, the marketplace dynamics fluctuate too much to follow this traditional approach.  Instead, they went to their customers and said this is our new direction, how do you feel the company might best serve your needs?  In essence, they are working with their customers in real time to define and configure the offerings. 

The CEO, and his team, with a clear compass of where they want to go, is using that compass to make critical decisions in real time, in the active field of play, which provides the only the information available.  And with every decision the field of play unfolds revealing new information and the process repeats.

At Quantum Leaders, we call this approach to strategy execution Real-Time Execution™. 

Strategic planning as a process has become less and less relevant and reliable.  Such plans run the risk of instant obsolescence before they can even begin to be executed.

By establishing a clear sense of “who” your organization is (its Soulful Purpose), where it wants to go (its Vision), and what it stands for (its Core Principles), a company develops a strong moral compass that guides strategic decision-making and responsible action at every level of the organization. Using the Compass to guide its decisions in real time allows the company to remain flexible, adaptive and responsive to their changing environment and market needs.  These companies will ultimately have the most success in today’s business world.

And with new models of the 21^st century business, like The Living Organization® they have access to a more robust set of information about the field of play, increasing their ability to execute effectively.

The first four from Part One are:

1) Verbal Praise

2) Achievement Awards

3) Learning and Development

4) Fun and Recreation Events

Each of these can be done at the department or company level. Each demonstrates a culture that rewards people for outstanding effort, provides a positive culture, and a culture that signals respect for the employee.

The last three are:

5) Company Wide Attention This is a step up from department rewards and recognition. This is at the company level. It is great to be honored or recognized by one’s boss, however, when it is by the CEO or at a company level it is a completely different experience. Examples include, recognition in the company newsletter or on its Website, the up front parking space, a picture on the Wall of Fame, recognition at the annual staff meeting, a medal of distinction, any seemingly small thing for exceptional performance, for performing beyond the call of duty or an event that demonstrates extra effort.

It is often these small things that have the biggest and lasting impact.

6) Impactful and Meaningful Work This is one of the biggest reasons top talent contact executive recruiters. Top talent must be constantly challenged. They want to know what is expected of them. When clear direction is consistently lacking, they become frustrated and disengage. However, when top talent have a target to hit they will not only engage but strive to hit the bull’s eye.

Giving your best people additional challenges doesn’t mean you have to constantly be expanding their responsibilities. There is a lot of ground between saying, “That is your job and that is all there is.” to time-to-time challenging them with a special project, taking something off of your desk and giving it to them, allowing them to serve on an ad hoc project, stretching them with some strategic thinking, or involving them in an inter-department project. We find that all it takes is as little as 5% of top talent’s time to be focused on impactful and meaningful work to make a difference.

7) Feedback This seems so obvious but many managers fail to do it. This is not the “good job” feedback discussed earlier. This feedback is at a much higher level. This is feedback that all top talent want and few get. This is what we call, 1-2-1 time. These sessions can be as short as 20 minutes a month. These 1-2-1 sessions focus on their growth, on improvement, build rapport, show genuine interest by the manager, and give time to demonstrate a personal interest in that individual. In our experience, when a manager takes the opportunity to conduct a 1-2-1 on a regular basis, the employee feels a part of the organization. They have the opportunity to be involved in the department, they can give and get feedback, participate, and be heard by their supervisor.

The 1-2-1 can be one of the most powerful experiences for an employee and their supervisor and it can be done in just 20 minutes a month.

Doing one or all of these seven things can dramatically impact your department or organization. In these difficult times any one of these will cement the loyalty of those top performers to you and your company. They will stand by you in difficult times and excel in great times.

Do you have a culture of performance and feedback? To evaluate your culture, download our free Culture Assessment Worksheet. See if everyone in your company would describe your company culture the same. CLICK HERE to download.

Is your hiring process effective at attracting, hiring and retaining top talent? You can do a self assessment of your hiring methodology by downloading our 8 Point Hiring Methodology Self Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE to download.

If you have an idea that we missed I welcome your input and comments.

Brad Remillard

With our candidates, their primary concern is focused on non-monetary issues. Most of the time it evolves around their boss or the company. This is not to say compensation isn’t important to them, but it isn’t the primary motivator to listen to a recruiter.

The reverse is also true. When potential candidates decide not to listen to a potential opportunity, it usually isn’t because they feel they are overpaid and that no other company will pay them as much. Rather it is generally that they have a great relationship with their boss and love working at the company.

After listening to so many potential candidates turn us down because they were so happy working where they are, we have come up with 7 things  these companies consistently do to create a culture that retains their talent. You don’t have to do all of these, but if you aren’t do any of them you might want to reconsider.

1) Verbal Praise - These companies give what we call, “Standing Ovations” for outstanding performance. They take the time to recognize when someone goes above and beyond the call of duty. They also give praise  or even a simple thanks when someone does a good job. This is sincere praise and thanks, not just given as a matter of fact.  The contrast is a culture in which the employee’s performance  is viewed as, “just doing their job” or “isn’t that what we pay them to do.”

2) Achievement Awards – Another form of praise. These achievement awards are earned. It is not about sooner or later everyone will get one, so everybody feels good. That loses all of their meaning and significance. These awards take different forms in different companies. Some examples include a reserved parking space, employee of the month, a trophy prominently displayed in the person’s office, certificates, mention in the company newsletter, a pin handed out by the CEO, lunch with the CEO and executive team, take a break and cake on Friday afternoon, etc.  The important point is that the employees appreciate the recognition and don’t take it for granted.

3)  Learning and Development – Top performers want to continue to learn and develop their skills. Does your company encourage on-going learning for your employees? This might include giving them some time off to attend classes, bringing a topic expert in to speak to a group, allowing them to attend a workshop, have an on-line training program they can complete, or encouraging involvement in professional association and trade associations. These types of programs generally don’t take a lot of time or can be performed outside of working hours and the ROI to the company can be huge.

4) Fun and Recreational Events – My daughter works for a private university. They recognize that they don’t pay at the industry level. They overcome this in many ways, but one way is that either her department or the administrative team will do some fun thing that takes an hour or two. Some examples include, a putting contest in the office, a picnic at the park for lunch,one time her department took off an hour early to go see the filming of the Tonight Show, they went bowling during lunch time, they will take a few minutes late in the day and play a game of charades or Pictionary, etc. These are just fun things that make it a great place to work. To the workers this is worth making a few dollars less because they enjoy the people and their efforts are recognized.

Part 2 will cover the final three non-monetary rewards you can do to retain your best talent.

A free audio recording from our radio show that discusses these in more detail is available on our Web site. CLICK HERE to download a copy.

Join our LinkedIn Group, Hiring and Retaining Talent for additional discussions and articles. CLICK HERE to join.

If this article was helpful to you, please pass it on to others so they can also benefit. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Google’s corporate motto is “Do no evil”, and it personally struck me odd (as it did a number of other, more vocal groups) that Google acquiesced to China in the filtering/censoring of it’s search engine. To me, this was an abrogation of it’s motto, and significantly blemished it’s authenticity.

There’s a cynical observation that “Sincerity is everything, and once you can fake that, you’ve got it made….” And all too often, this is how the general public, but particularly the business world - led by old-school public relations hacks - views such issues as authenticity, corporate mission, and principles-based decision-making. This cynical view was embodied in a quote from the New York Times of 1/12/10, in an article entitled “Google Would Abandon a Lucrative Market” written by Miguel Helft:

“Many people in Silicon Valley were surprised by Google’s stance. “I don’t think anybody is going to run away from China,” said Joe Schoendorf, a partner at Accel Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with a major presence in China. “Google has Microsoft on the ropes, and China is arguably the world’s most important market outside of the U.S. You don’t walk away from that on principle.””

It’s been my personal experience that most people - and thus, most businesses - truly want to “do the right thing” as it relates to their customers and partners. And it’s very easy to be principles-based when it’s convenient to do so (e.g., in alignment with your revenue objectives, contractual relationships, etc..)

However, the true test of one’s principles is when it is inconvenient to do so - and it’s here where human frailties can hold sway, with rationalizations of actions - in Google’s case, their justifying filtering & censoring as a means to eventually open up China over time.

Hopefully, it now seems that Google has come to finally embrace & apply their motto as it relates to the inconvenient realities of doing business in China.

Kudos to them if they can maintain their regained moral compass as it relates to the Chinese market….

Of course, the results business leaders are talking about are the impacts to their organization’s bottom line.  The question really is,  “What can I expect in terms of increased revenue, lower expenses, higher profits and increased shareholder value by applying your model?

This is an extremely important question and one I will endeavor to address concisely here.  (For those who are not familiar with The Living Organization® Model click here to download a short whitepaper).

First, let’s acknowledge that business is a time-based game.  By this, I mean that time is a critical factor in determining successful results.  Growing from $80 million in revenues to $200 million in 20 years is a far different level of organizational performance than achieving that same growth in just 3 years.  Delivering an innovative new product to market in 6 months yields a better result than achieving that same goal in 24 months.

In other words, time is a critical dimension in producing bottom-line results. Basic results measures such as Return on Investment (ROI) incorporates time as one of the key variables in its calculation.

So, anything that reduces the time it takes to achieve desired goals will  improve the bottom line.  As one of our CEO clients has noted, “your model helps me increase the velocity of execution and that is why we are adopting it.”

What did he mean by “increase the velocity of execution” and how does The Living Organization® Model do that?

A company’s success is determined by the production and delivery of goods and services that are desired and adopted by the market it serves.  A company’s strategy is a roadmap of how it plans to accomplish this objective.  It consists of the organization’s understanding of the market, its vision of how its unique contribution will best serve the market, and the specific tactics and initiatives it needs to execute to realize its vision, goals and objectives.  Therefore, the bottom line results will be determined by two factors: 1) how well the company has defined the right strategy, and 2) how well the company then executes that strategy.

At Quantum Leaders, we believe that execution is the more important of the two factors.  A mediocre strategy that is well executed will out-perform an outstanding strategy that is poorly executed.  Why? Because a well-executed strategy achieves its goals and objectives faster, or said another way, velocity of execution is increased.

What does it take to shorten the time to achieve the desired goals? 

To achieve our goals we must take into account all the variables and forces that will either hinder our progress or propel us forward, minimizing the former and maximizing the later.  We must understand all the forces impacting our ability to achieve our desired results, just as a ship’s captain must know how to power and maneuver his boat amid the invisible forces of wind and current.

What if the ship’s captain did not understand the way in which the forces of wind were impacting the ship’s progress?  How quickly and effectively would the captain be able to arrive at the desired destination?  How effective would you be if you did not understand – or were not even aware of - the invisible forces impacting your execution?

There are many forces impacting an organization’s execution.  Some of these are easily identifiable such as those in the Activity field.    But like the wind and the current, the forces in the Relationship and Context fields are not readily observable.  Without a tool like The Living Organization® at your disposal crucial factors invariably remain in our blind spot.  Simply put, we cannot improve what we cannot see.

The ARC Framework™ component of The Living Organization® model makes visible what has been heretofore mostly invisible.  This tool maps the fields of Activity, Relationship and Context to the domains of Leadership, People, Process and Markets that allows us to better understand, identify and manage the flow of energy across the enterprise.  With our tools, the organization’s leadership can more effectively diagnose the factors impeding execution.  They can identify the clogs in the flow of energy within the organization, and develop specific actions to remove them. 

In essence, when all the potential barriers to success have been laid bare before you, the shortest and most optimal path to reaching your goals becomes clear. You are therefore able to more quickly identify the most efficient roadmap to reach the desired goals, address all critical problems along the way and thereby increase the speed and efficiency of strategy execution.

The Living Organization® Model and the ARC Framework™ increases the velocity of execution, thereby improving your bottom-line results.  It’s that simple!

This is the first in a series of installments on The Living Organization® Model. Be sure to come back and read the next few weeks’ posts, in which we highlight specific applications of The Living Organization® within our clients’ companies, and the specific results they have achieved as a result!

Just about every process in a company, from how customer invoices are processed, to how the phone is answered are repeatable, with competent people and a certain level of standards required. If something goes wrong in the process, for example, a customer invoice is lost resulting in the product not shipping or the order never being billed, qualified people research to identify what went wrong and if necessary either train the people or change the process.

This rarely happens when the hiring process fails. Too often companies just accept the failed hire as part of the process and move on. Why?

Over the last year I have asked over 500 CEOs and key executives the following question, “How many of you have audited, not sat in or co-interviewed, but audited if the people doing the interviewing are competent interviewers?” To no surprise the answer is that around 12% have done this. All the rest admit they have no clue if the people they are relying on to make a successful hire are even competent.

Is there any other process in your company in which you don’t know if the people doing the job are competent? I seriously doubt it.

We have put together an 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard that you can download for free to evaluate your hiring process (CLICK HERE to download).  This assessment will at least highlight the areas of strengths and weaknesses in your company. You can then begin to work on bringing your hiring process standards up to the same standards as other processes in your organization.

At a minimum an effective hiring process must have at least these 5 steps.

1. Job descriptions based on defining success in the role instead of a laundry list of candidate attributes, experiences and skills. Good job descriptions quantify expected results and the time frame to achieve them for managers, and benchmark standards for all non-managerial positions.We call these Success Factors, and the accumulation of all the Success Factors, a Success Factor Snapshot instead of a job description.  (You can download examples of Success Factor Snapshots by CLICKING HERE).
2. A sourcing process that attracts passive candidates, not just those candidates actively looking for a position. Passive candidates make up the vast majority of the candidate pool and the way most companies promote, advertise and network, they rarely attract these candidates. In fact, the way most companies advertise actually turns passive candidates seeking a compelling opportunity off. (You can download our chapter on sourcing top talent from our award winning book for free by CLICKING HERE).
3. In-depth probing interviews with competent people. We already discussed the need to determine if those interviewing are competent. Most interviewers don’t probe deeply and most “tell” the person about the job instead of asking “how” they would do the job. Interviewers can obtain 80% of the information to determine if a candidate can do the job with just 5 core questions.
4. Candidate assessment after the interview. Most companies simple ask those that have been involved in the interviewing process, “What did  you think of the candidate?” or “How did the interview go?’ The person usually replies, “Oh, I liked them. They will fit in well.” or maybe just the famous thumbs up or thumbs down. Not exactly an in-depth assessment to determine if there are any further issues that need to be vetted. (You can obtain our 8 Point Candidate Assessment Matrix by CLICKING HERE).
5. Additional validation needs to done. There needs to be some follow-up steps to validate that what the candidate said they did during the interview is what they really did. Some examples are skills testing, homework assignment, make a presentation, bring in an example of past work or performance reviews, or even conducting behavioral or work style assessments by an outside professional.

These are the minimum 5 steps required by every effective hiring process. If you don’t have at least these 5 being done with competent people, then you might consider re-evaluating your hiring process.

Download a FREE 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard to evaluate your hiring process. CLICK HERE to download.

Our award winning book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. A CEO’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent, describes in-depth how to implement the 5 steps listed above. CLICK HERE to review the book and how to get yours.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions. If you found this article helpful, please pass it along to someone in your network to help them too.

Brad Remillard - Contributing Blogger
Impact Hiring Solutions

Entrepreneurs start their companies because of a passion to a vision.  Rarely is that vision just about “how can I make a boatful of money”.   It is almost always about how can I help, how can I solve this problem or overcome that challenge.  And it is always about serving a marketplace to provide a better solution to the needs of their intended customers.

At some point there is a need for additional resources, which in turn requires access to additional capital.  And so the relationship with the financial community begins.  Whether it is through friends, family, banks, or investors, the entrepreneur enters the world of financing.

The financing community, however, is oriented towards one key objective:  a return on their investment (ROI).  Of course for them to get a return on their investment they need to have something to invest in.  Enter the entrepreneur. 

For the financing community the entrepreneur is a means to their end – ROI.  For the entrepreneur the financing is a means to their end - to serve the marketplace.

So who is the means and who is the end?  When “the system” works, the two are positively aligned and both ends are achieved simultaneously.   When the entrepreneur achieves success in the marketplace and is able to be of service to their end consumer, then the financing entity achieves their end, achieving a strong ROI. 

This scenario is what the financing community would have you believe is the norm.  But often the two entities are in conflict.

If we kept the perspective that positive financial performance is the byproduct of successfully serving the marketplace then everything would work appropriately and the right balance would be achieved.  But we have elevated financial results to be the top priority.  “He who has the gold rules” has become the mantra of our society. The entrepreneur’s passion to be in service to his intended customers becomes nothing more than a means to the end for the financial community to make money.

I have witnessed how this orientation has destroyed more than one entrepreneur as he was forced to “sell out” to the investors.  I have watched investors destroy good companies - literally putting hundreds of people out of work - not because the company wasn’t succeeding, but simply because it better served their financial objectives to do so.  We have all seen how Wall Street’s demand for quarterly profits have hindered countless companies from making the investments they know they need in order to grow their companies.

In the aftermath of our economic collapse, it is time to get our priorities straight again.  It is time to swing the pendulum back to center, where the investor and the entrepreneur are truly partners. When the ultimate focus and guiding force for decision making is to better serve and provide more value to the customers, everyone wins.  It’s really that simple.   It is time for entrepreneurs, CEOs and Boards to stand up to the financial community and take their rightful place, not as supplicants, but as partners unified in their mission to bettering our marketplace and those we serve.

The last thing you want is people telling future potential employees how bad the company or hiring manager was when they interviewed and that they would never work for that hiring manager or company.

Not good PR if you plan on attracting top talent to your company. In fact, a great way to ensure top talent will work for your competitors.

I don’t think some (not all) companies or managers recognize the same principles apply when laying people off or even firing them.

Well they do, and I can  demonstrate this, because I recently encountered bad PR. Twice.

First example

I was recruiting for a Regional Director of Sales in the upper northeast. Because of the weather, it isn’t easy to relocate people there.  The company was in a very niche industry, and because it was a senior level sales job, industry experience was important.

It didn’t take long before trouble set in. Did I mention the reason for the opening was that the previous person was fired? Apparently, the manner in which the person’s boss fired him was at best inappropriate and at worst down right wrong and disrespectful.

The fired employee had spread the word about his treatment all around, stating what a jerk this person was to work for and how he badly he treated people. He also took the time to go into great detail about how he was fired. Now, what I heard when I tried to recruit people was, “I’m open to talking as long as it isn’t for X company working for X?” WOW, what a way to start a search in a small industry in a small geographical area.

This all happened because the VP didn’t see firing as a PR event. The best way to fire someone is to make them think you are doing them a favor, not by degrading them, surprising them, or throwing them out of the building. This VP took a bad situation (firing someone) and made it worse by the manner in which he did it. If the VP had done it correctly, he would have still reached his goal of letting the person go, but he also could have set himself up as a person that cares and people want to work for.

Second example

I live in Orange County, California. Most people think it is part of Los Angeles. It isn’t. For such a large area, it is actually its own community. Large enough to get lost, but small enough that people get to know people. There are so many networking groups that it is literally hard to plan an event because the first thing that comes up is, you know XYZ networking group meets then. At almost any time day and night, every day of the week, some group is getting together. Some groups have attendance in the hundreds and some have less. Regardless, there are a lot and this is how people get to know people in Orange County, California.

At a recent event I noticed a lot of people were saying, “Did you hear about ABC Company and how they did the RIF?”  RIF stands for reduction in force, or in plain English laid people off.  This was the buzz while people were standing around talking before the meeting started. Apparently, some of the people that got laid off were at the meeting and telling horror stories about how the company treated the employees they let go. Many of whom had been with the company for some time.

How many other meetings do you think these people attended in the next week and started telling the same stories? Not to mention all the people at the first meeting perpetuating the stories to their network, colleagues, friends and family. We used to say, this is how rumors start. Now we say this story is going viral. It won’t be long before this company’s reputation precedes them. When the economy shifts, and they need to hire people, it will not be easy.

All because they didn’t think of letting people go as a PR event. An event that impacts the company’s reputation and how it is viewed in its industry and community.

If you found this helpful, please forward it on to others so they will be helped. You can email it to your team, forward it to your network, post on Linkedin or company Web site. Let’s help everyone build teams of top talent.

Our 8 Point Hiring Process Assessment Scorecard is available to download for free. Try taking this and learning if your hiring process is designed to attract, hire and retain top talent. CLICK HERE to download your scorecard.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions.

Author’s Bio:

Brad Remillard is one of the founding partners at IMPACT Hiring Solutions.  His company provides hiring solutions to companies seeking to improve their hiring accuracy.  They provide solutions on the best practices to attract, hire and retain top talent.

He has co-authored two books on hiring. Their best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired , has over 10,000 copies in circulation. For many companies this has been the step-by-step approach they now use to as their hiring process.

He speaks nationally over 30 times a year to Vistage International CEO and Key Executive Groups.  For the last 30 years as an executive recruiter he has been involved in over 2000 executive searches and has conducted well over 10,000 interviews.

Prior starting his own firm in 2005, he served as President of CJA Associates one of Southern California’s largest retained executive search firms.