The Secret to Hiring Productive People

 

Written August 25, 2014 

 

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Every market leader has a secret to their success.  And it’s usually a secret they don’t want their competitors to know.

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The ingredients of most market leading companies is a combination of effective marketing and sales, financial, organizational and production systems.  But their secret ingredient is always:  The right people, in the right jobs.

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This is also the ingredient that struggling companies admit to lacking.

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So Why are Some Companies So Good at Hiring… & Other Stink?

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Having helped small business owners create systems to hire and develop their most productive staff ever for the past 14 years, I’ve realized why some are so good at it.  And then, I’ve also realized why other are so bad.

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Most, if not all TOP Performing Companies have a secret advantage in hiring over their competitors.  And this is a secret that they’d never share.  (Be sure to read on… because I’m going to share it today!)

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It’s something that they use in their hiring process to do what their competitors only dream they could.

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They’ve eliminated chance and luck from the hiring equation.  And by doing so, they’ve more than quadrupled their odds of hiring the right people the first time.

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Sounds Impossible Right – Eliminating Chance & Luck in Hiring

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For 14 years, small business leaders have come to us to help them solve their costly People Problems.  Basically, these are the reliability, motivation and low performance problems that the wrong people infect your business with.

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One of the first questions we always ask them is, “What have you done in the last ___ years (however long they tell us they’ve had the issues) to solve these problems.”

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And we’ve heard anything from:

– Reorganization (which usually means they shifted people from position to position & laid off others)
– Brought in motivational speakers
– Prayed
– Team building exercises, retreats, etc.
– Painted the office more soothing or invigorating colors
– Hired psychics
– Given ultimatums
– and the list goes on and on

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And then after hearing none of these tactics improved performance, we always ask, “What have you done in your hiring process to solve these problems.”

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The typical answer is “Nothing.”  But some have admitted to trying out:

– Expensive recruiters, headhunters, temporary agencies, etc.
– Interviewing classes
– Implementing background checks, drug-tests, etc.
– Hired professionals to write tricky interview questions for them
– Ineffective “Personality Tests” (that you should know were never intended to be used in the hiring process… and are considered discrimination by the Department of Labor because they label a person as a D or an I, lump them into a Red or Blue section of a graph, etc.)

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And of course when we ask them why they were referred to us or spent time watching the videos at our website, their answer is always…

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“We still need help” because (almost) nothing they’ve done has worked and they are still battling costly People Problems.

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So What is the Secret to Hiring Productive People (the 1st Time)?

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Well, it’s not any of the tactics above.  Most of the time, these tactics just move a company further and further away from improving productivity and reaching their potential.

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The goal of the selection process (or at least it should be) is to determine whether the candidate has a “Job Fit.”

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And there are three areas to assure Job Fit in.  They are:

 

1. Competency Fit – As in verbal and numeric skills that lead to how quickly an individual can be trained, whether they’ll be accurate in their work, be able to process new information and increase their job knowledge.

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(Now, “skills” learned from past experience and education are not the same as competency.  Here’s why:  We’ve all hired someone that came to the job with the skills… but they still failed because they could not learn your processes, communicate at the same level of their team and made a lot of mistakes.  This is because they didn’t have the competency fit required in the job.)

 

2. Interest Fit – As in being internally motivated in the main requirements of the job so they don’t have to be externally motivated, micro-managed and continually coached.  Actually enjoying what you do for a living is important and it leads to job satisfaction, initiative and peak productivity.

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(Unfortunately, studies have shown most people don’t like their jobs.  Basically because what they spend their days doing is not what they enjoy to do or what motivates them.  As you’ve surely seen, it’s almost impossible to force someone to sell or service your customers properly when they are more interested in administrative, technical or creative activities.)

 

3.  Behavioral Fit – As in does the candidate have the natural behaviors required to become and remain successful in the position.  Without knowing a candidate’s traits, you can’t fit the right people to your jobs.  And when most hiring decisions are made with just a resume, interview/s and “gut feel” (chance and luck), we have no idea what the candidate’s true behaviors are… until they’ve been in the job for a month or so – and then it’s too late.

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(And here’s the key – an individual must fit ALL three of these areas [competency, interests & behaviors] to succeed in a job.  If they fail to fit just one, they will fail in the job… without external motivation, micro-management and continual coaching.  This is why “Personality Tests” don’t work – simply because you’re only measuring one of the required areas of Job Fit.)

 

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So How Do Market Leaders Determine Job Fit:

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Well, they are not going to tell you how because it’s the secret to their success.

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But as I told you earlier, I am…  And here is an example of how:

 

Sample “Poor” Job Fit at a 39% Overall Job Match (image below)

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