Thank you for listening to The Champion Forum Podcast with Jeff Hancher! Hiring new employees can be a stressful and confusing process. How do you know if you are hiring the right person for the job? How do you know if your best employee will be successful if they are promoted? If you are unsure of the answers to these questions, you might need to revisit your hiring practices! In this episode, we’ll talk about the benefits of hiring internally and recruiting externally, the three most critical criteria for hiring leaders, and how to solve the challenges leaders face during the interview process.
“Everything rises and falls at the hands of leaders.” John Maxwell
What advice would you give to the leader that needs to identify a leader for their organization?
Your leader should have these three characteristics:
A reliable method for success that can be reproduced in others.
Short-term and long-term results in their current role.
An understanding of the company culture.
These three qualities will ensure that you have an employee who will be successful long-term. You can increase your odds of making a great hire by hiring from within. If you want to raise up leaders in your company, you need an intentional succession planning strategy.
Q: Which characteristic did you think was most important before listening to this episode? Did the episode change your opinion? Why do you think it is important for a candidate to be a good culture fit? Describe a time when you worked with someone who was not a culture fit. How did it impact your ability to work with them?
What is the biggest mistake that you see being made when hiring leaders?
The biggest mistake I see being made is hiring a candidate because of what they have done instead of what they can do. You cannot just look at their results, awards, and reputation. You must determine if they have the skill and aptitude to lead effectively. If you’re not sure if you are making the right decision, try asking this question: “Are they the best candidate, or the easiest candidate?” The secret to selecting great leaders is to predict the future, not to reward the past.
If you do not already have one, you should create a personal development strategy for those in your organization that you believe have leadership potential. Start giving them assignments and tasks related to the position you think they could fill that they could potentially be promoted into. Both the employee and the company win when you do this.
Q: Have you ever made this mistake when hiring someone? Why do you think past results do not necessarily indicate future success? Why do you think people hire a candidate who is not necessarily the best fit?
What if you cannot hire from within?
Hiring from the outside helps bring new ideas and a fresh perspective, but it also is a risk.
You have got to be 100% sure of this hire. Remember that even when you are 100% sure, you will only be right about 60% of the time.
2 Hiring Strategies
Have two or three other people interview the candidate. Having multiple people interview your prospective hire helps you determine if they are consistent in their messaging and character.
Ask great questions that draw out substance.
Great questions help you separate the candidate’s head knowledge from their experience. Ask questions that force them to talk about specific situations they have experienced in the past and how they handled them. With the right questions and the right interview process, you will increase your odds of hiring the best candidate for a leadership role in your company.
Q: What questions would you ask someone if you were interviewing them to take your job? How would you uncover both their character and their skills? Would you spend more time asking questions about skills or character? Why?
Application Activities
Take some time to walk through your current application questions with a colleague before you conduct your next job interview. Do you have questions that focus on identifying your candidate’s character and ability to uphold your company’s values? If not, add these questions.
Look at the thoroughness of your interview questions by conducting a mock interview. Did your mock interview give you all the information you would want in a real interview? Was there anything about the candidate that you now know that the current interview questions would not have discovered?
Who was the last person you had to fire? Take some time to think about why you had to make that decision. Were they an internal or external hire? Is there any way that you could have identified their weaknesses by asking different interview questions? Use this feedback to further evaluate your interview process.
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