Hiring Tips | Employee Testing

Hiring Tips from the Folks at Google #1

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Hiring Tips from the Folks at Google #1

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Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and Jonathan Rosenberg, a former Senior Vice President at Google, teamed up to write “How Google Works.”

In this book are nine sets of “dos” and “don’ts” when making hiring decisions.

Let’s look at the first three “dos” and “don’ts” with a bit of commentary from yours truly:

“Do hire people who are smarter and more knowledgeable than you are.

“Don’t hire people you can’t learn from or be challenged by.”

Now that’s an interesting bit of advice. Would you be afraid of being surrounded by people who are smarter than you?

Would you prefer to have employees you could simply give orders and directions to and have them follow them?

If that’s the case, maybe you take this one slowly but surely and hire one person who will challenge you. You may find that sufficiently invigorating that you’ll hire another and another like that!

Okay, moving on to the next set of “dos” and “don’ts”:

“Do hire people who will add value to the product and our culture.

“Don’t hire people who won’t contribute well to both.”

How could you know if the person siting in front of you will add value to your product and culture?

Well, one simple way is to ask point blank, “Fred, you know what we do here, how could you add to the product itself and to our culture?”

Another way you could determine this—shameless plug alert—is to use our employee testing service. Our 200 question test will definitely let you know if your candidate is capable of this kind of contribution. And just as, if not more importantly, the test will let you know who will take steps to poison your culture. Yes, they are out there.

Here’s a link to watch our short video that explains our testing service: WhyTesting.com

And the last set of “dos” and “don’ts”:

“Do hire people who will get things done.

“Don’t hire people who think only about problems.”

Probably the best way to determine this is to hire someone for a short stint with you. A conditional hire for a few days or a couple of weeks should give you an idea if your candidate is oriented towards getting things done or is a problem sponge.

I just made that up—problem sponge—but I bet you’ve had a few of those working for you before.

In the next two Hiring Tips we’ll take up the other “dos” and “don’ts” from the folks at Google.

To see how our employee test can help you bring better people on board watch this three minute video.

If you have ever interviewed someone and later discovered a "different" person is working for you, check out our new book How To Hire The Right People.

The Hiring Revolving Door

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The Hiring Revolving Door

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This is going to be a self-promoting tip, but I believe a valuable one nonetheless.

Many of us are experiencing a revolving door when it comes to hiring new people. We read through the résumés, we conduct what we consider are reasonably thorough interviews and we may even check some references.

Then we hire Sally or Fred.

Sally quits in a few weeks and we have to let Fred go because he’s just not cutting it.

Both Sally and Fred seemed pretty good back when we were reading over their résumés and interviewing them. Now they don’t quite seem like the people we interviewed.

It happens.

For some of us, it happens a lot.

I have written and recorded in podcast form over 100 Hiring Tips. The vast majority of these tips focus on ways you can penetrate the “canned” or practiced responses and the polished résumé.

I spent this much time writing and recording these tips because of our company’s basic premise:

The more you know about someone BEFORE you hire them, the better your hiring decision will be.

So, with that in mind, here comes the self-promotion.

If you are not using our testing service, you really need to. If you were using it in the past and haven’t for your last few hires, by all means use us.

How much does it cost you to hire and train someone only to find yourself doing that a second and a third time for the very same position?

How much does that cost?

You’ve got the cost of the time spent hiring Person A.

You’ve got the cost of the time spent training Person A.

You’ve got the cost of the time spent grooving Person A into your workplace.

And here comes two hidden costs:

The cost of whatever Person A did that adversely affected your customers and prospective customers.

And the cost of whatever Person A did that lowered the production of those around Person A.

There are many costs to hiring someone who is gone in a month or so.

When you really look at the costs involved in not hiring the right people, well, frankly our service is dirt cheap compared to that.

We can and will help you hire better staff.

If you haven’t used our testing service yet, go to WhyTesting.com. There’s a short video there explaining our testing service and a link to take a free test. We want you to see how accurate the test is and, with it being your test, well, you’ll know.

If you have used us in the past, give us a call at 888-600-6095 and we’ll make sure your customized link is dusted off and working.

We want you bringing better and better people on board. We know what that can do for you.

To see how our employee test can help you bring better people on board watch this three minute video.

If you have ever interviewed someone and later discovered a "different" person is working for you, check out our new book How To Hire The Right People.

Do They Criticize Too Often and Too Easily?

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Do They Criticize Too Often and Too Easily?

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Let’s look at two different meanings for this word criticize:

to express judgments about the good and bad qualities of something

to express your disapproval of someone or something, or to talk about their faults

The first definition brings to mind the art or movie critic. Most of us remember Roger Ebert who had a long career as a film critic. When he expressed judgments about the good or bad qualities of a movie. it could send a ton of folks to go see it or just the opposite.

The second definition of criticize is the one I’m referring to in this Hiring Tip:

to express your disapproval of someone or something, or to talk about their faults

Some people spend a good deal of time criticizing those around them. This person will often tell us “it’s for their own good” or “it’s constructive criticism.” They want you to believe they are doing you a favor by pointing out the faults of others.

In a number of instances, it would be good to find out if someone is doing something that needs to be corrected.

Here, however, I’m talking about the person who just criticizes too much. And the criticism is often over the top or unwarranted.

In my opinion, this person is more destructive than helpful to your workplace.

How do we discover this kind of person before we bring them on board?

Well, our employee testing service will help you spot this individual. One of the ten personality traits that we cover will let you know just how critical (or overly critical) your candidates are.

We might also get a clue or two in the hiring interview. Ask your candidate to name a couple of people—not family members—that they do not like. Now find out why they do not like these people.

The idea here is to see how easy it is for your candidate to criticize. Do they do it slowly and begrudgingly or is it very easy for them to tell you the faults of others.

I strongly recommend you use our testing service for this particular trait as this kind of person can cause considerable damage in your workplace. Either way, knowing more about this trait will help you elevate the productivity and overall tone of your scene.

To see how our employee test can help you bring better people on board watch this three minute video.

If you have ever interviewed someone and later discovered a "different" person is working for you, check out our new book How To Hire The Right People.

Attitude Versus Skills, Revisited!

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Attitude Versus Skills, Revisited!

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An article by Mark Murphy, entitled Hiring for Attitude was a Q&A with Mark on the importance of attitude when considering new candidates.

I found the first question and answer particularly interesting:

Question: “We hear it a lot… company X did a great job hiring a highly skilled worker, only to later discover that the new hire was a terrible fit for the organization. Why do so many interviews fail to assess whether a candidate will be a good fit?”

Answer (from Mark Murphy): “When our research tracked 20,000 new hires, we found that 89% of the time new hires failed, it was for attitudinal reasons, not lack of skill. One of the reasons is that most organizations have no test by which to assess attitude, and many have no concrete idea of what the attitudes they should be hiring for even are. You can train for skills and technical competence; but you can’t train for ‘attitude.’ You have to interview and hire for attitude.”

I’d say that’s pretty powerful research. At least, in terms of the clarity it brings.

Essentially 9 out of 10 of those 20,000 new hires failed as a result of attitude, with the remainder failing due to lack of skill of some kind.

This research doesn’t surprise me. I’ve written hiring tips before on this subject.

What does this mean for your company?

Well, if you’ve been in business for awhile, you’ve likely established a “culture” in your workplace. There’s a certain way you and your staff go about doing things. I imagine there’s a certain tone or atmosphere that you promote. If this culture works for you, then hiring people who “fit” into that culture is a worthy objective.

To some degree you can test your candidates for this. Our personality test will provide you with definite clues as to how people act and interact in the workplace. Proper testing can help you weed out bad apples.

But, in the final analysis, I’m going to say your perceptions are accurate. If the person sitting across from you doesn’t appear to have the attitudes you’re looking for, or if you feel this person will not really fit into your culture, then so be it.

Don’t invalidate your perceptions.

Too often we see something we don’t like about a candidate and then we brush it off. We tell ourselves there’s so many other things we do like, we don’t let that one nagging thing get in the way.

And yes, we do need to carefully weigh the positives and the negatives of every candidate.

When it comes to attitude, though, let’s start giving it the weight it deserves.

To see how our employee test can help you bring better people on board watch this three minute video.

If you have ever interviewed someone and later discovered a "different" person is working for you, check out our new book How To Hire The Right People.

Should I Use Employee Testing?

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Should I Use Employee Testing?

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There are many types of employee tests available:

— Personality Tests

— Intelligence Tests

— Aptitude Tests

There are also quite a few tests that measure workplace skills. A few examples would be typing skills, math skills, tests to measure how well someone uses Excel software, and so on.

Some of these tests are inexpensive and some cost quite a bit.

So how do you decide what would be good for you?

If you’re reading or listening to these tips, you probably know that they are provided by the Employee Testing Center. We have a very basic belief about hiring. We believe the more you KNOW about someone BEFORE you hire them, the better your hiring decision will be.

Our core service is employee testing. I cannot remember a client that we got started with who did not initially take a FREE test.

We want our clients to know precisely how accurate our test is. And, from our perspective, the best way to demonstrate that accuracy is to have the decision maker take the test.

So, in answer to the question, how should you decide what test would be good for your business, I strongly recommend you take the test yourself. It is either accurate or it’s not. There’s no room for sales gimmicks; there’s no way of fooling YOU.

To see how our employee test can help you bring better people on board watch this three minute video.

If you have ever interviewed someone and later discovered a "different" person is working for you, check out our new book How To Hire The Right People.