We are sharing our hiring strategy because we know from experience the difference panic hiring vs. planned hiring can make on your business. The more you panic hire, the more likely you are to make poor decisions that will cost you.
What is Panic Hiring?
As a business owner you can sense when you need to hire. You might have a feeling that there are just one too many things on your plate, you know your business can expand, but you are nearing the limit of what can get done with the employees (or simply yourself) currently on your roster. If you ignore this, you are heading toward overwhelm which leads to panic hiring. When you don’t act on that initial instinct, you start losing more and more control of our business and panic sets in. When you first feel that twinge of knowing it is time to act.
Step 1: Define exactly who this employee is.
We recommend creating a Role Scorecard which is a hiring strategy from the book Who: The A Method of Hiring. Define who this person is: what they do, the character they bring to the job, and what their personality is with a ‘score’ or number next to each quality. This takes about an hour or two. We recommend starting this card, and giving yourself space to add to it.
Step 2: Create the job description/ad from your role card.
Your job ad is translated from the Role Scorecard you built. If writing isn’t your thing, you can hire someone to create the job ad. Post your ad on any of the job hiring websites such as Monster, Indeed, Facebook Hire, Wise Hire etc. (Wise Hire is a software based service that is month to month that gives a disc profile with all your candidates).
Pro Tip: No matter how many platforms you post on, direct everyone back to one link (say Indeed) so all your candidates are in one place.
Step 3: Create an Email/Survey that Filters out Applicants
The most important thing after all this is done is to be fast. Go in once a day to your platform of choice, select all the candidates and send them an introductory email. You can create a template for this. In this email put a mandatory survey or question that will deepen your knowledge of the candidate. This creates a self filter; if the candidate doesn't complete the survey/disc profile or respond asking questions they are automatically disqualified from the next level of selection. You want the applicants that are interested in the job, detail-oriented, and will take the extra effort.
Pro-tip:
On Indeed you can ask questions. One of our favorites is:
‘What do you bring to the job that no one else can, what is your superpower?’
Those who answer the question you keep.
Step 4: The Screening Interview
For the screening interviews, it is easiest if you time block one day a week. These interviews shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes. If so, the candidate is most likely on to the next interview. You can have someone else do these interviews or do them yourself.
The screening interview is 4 simple questions:
- What are your career goals?
- What is your superpower?
- What is your kryptonite?
(This one we like to elaborate on by inviting people safely into describing what they aren’t inclined toward such as long team meetings, etc).
- If I were to call your last five bosses what would they say about you?
This has a red flag built in. If they don’t want you to call their last five bosses and can’t be open and transparent about why, it is a sign that they are not a fit. If they can vulnerably and openly explain why they didn’t get along with a former boss it can actually be a sign of a great employee.
Step 5: Set up a final interview.
This interview is an extensive 60-90 minute walk through their occupational and personal history to really get to know who they are by asking questions that dig deeper into who they are in multiple situations.
We start the interview by saying something like ‘Every job is a chapter in your book and we want you to walk us through yours so we can get to know you.’
We start off by asking questions such as:
Who were your influences growing up? What about them inspired you?
When they are talking about themselves and their history you can ask follow up questions that will show you their character and values. For example if they have been driven and successful for most of their lives from high school sports/clubs to their last job, they will most likely be successful in your company.
Now you Hire that Perfect Employee!
In our experience this method will get you to the perfect hire 98% of the time. We refined this hiring strategy from making costly mistakes. Remember to listen to that little voice that warns you now is the time to plan ahead and start the hiring process. We promise you this strategy will save you a great deal of time and energy and get you a fantastic employee!
