Hire for Will, Train for Skill
Hiring Talent With the Right Attitude
Have you ever tried to hire someone to fill an open position and have it not work out? Hiring new employees is often a lengthy and complex process for a manager, so making sure you hire the right people is essential to your success. But how do you do this? Beyond just their resume, how do you assess job-seeking candidates to make sure they’re the right people for your organization? Let’s take a closer look at how we can evaluate candidates to make sure they stay.
The Hiring Process
Hiring employees is a process. From the identifying the initial needs to extending the offer, most organizations follow five primary steps in their hiring process.
Step 1: Identifying the Necessary Skills – Managers who seek to bring on a new employee must first identify the job expectations, the required skills and finally the compensation range. Care must be put in defining the job description and minimum skills because candidates are initially filtered based on the basic job requirements.
Step 2: Recruiting and Screening Candidates – As is the case with many organizations, the proposed position must be approved, after which recruiting efforts can begin. Recruiting efforts will typically involve collecting resumes and CVs, as well as phone screening candidates. Screening often focusses on the minimum skills required by the job posting.
Step 3: On-Site Interviews – The on-site interview is for both the company and the candidate. The on-site interview is the most thorough opportunity for both parties to evaluate one another for the position. Interviewers review candidates to see if they meet the professional needs, and candidate evaluate employers to make sure it’s a place they want to work.
Step 4: Consensus Among Interviewers – Many firms have more than one interviewer, who collect and share notes from their respective interviews of the candidates. The purpose of the consensus meeting is to compare candidates in order to select the best one.
Step 5: Extending the Offer – An offer for employment is extended once the interviewers agree upon the desired candidate. Once the candidate accepts, it’s time to start the on-boarding sequence.
How Confident Are You In the Candidate?
Though the recruiting and hiring process itself is relatively straight forward, much of the process relies solely on first impressions: selecting who to call based on a resume or CV; who to bring in for a face-to-face interview based on a 20 minute phone call. Then, after an hour or two, deciding whether or not the candidate is a good fit for the role. For this reason, many managers understandably second-guess his or her hiring decisions after such cursory review of a CV, a phone screen or even a face-to-face interview.
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To make matters worse, many businesses tightly control hiring since increased staffing drives up cost to the business. In fact, a hiring manager once confessed to us that he was afraid to offer a candidate a position because there had been tremendous pressure to avoid increasing staffing levels at his company. After all the trouble he had gone through to get the new position approved, he was terrified of hiring the wrong person.
Beyond the Resume: What to Look For in Job Applicants
A resume is just a piece of paper and sometimes, candidates with the exact skills we as hiring managers seek simply don’t exist. Knowing the process is not perfect, what can we do to make sure we’re picking the right candidate? An interesting interview by Small Business Big Marketing provides an insightful answer to this question. The interview features a man named Tom O’Toole, who is the successful owner of Beechworth Bakery.
During the interview, Tom speaks at length about how business success depends on the company culture and the personal ownership that employees demonstrate in doing their jobs. In response to a question about hiring, Tom states that the key to staffing is to ‘hire for will, train for skill.’ Hiring for will and training for skill means that the cultural fit of a candidate is an essential criterion for getting the position, while job-specific skills can be learned.
An Organization’s Culture
Businesses expend tremendous effort and resources in order to create the desired culture for its work force. For starters, organizations spend a great deal of time evaluating employees through elaborate performance management systems. These systems not only evaluate what a person accomplished, but also how they went about their job. Further, more resources are consumed through annual reinforcement trainings on things like company values and policies.
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All companies seek classic traits such as hard work, dedication and motivation in the employees they hire. All of these behaviors are understandable because they often translate into bottom line results. But there is more to hiring than simply seeking a hard working staffer.
Every employee is different, and running a team that includes an employee who doesn’t fit the desired ‘mold’ can be extremely challenging for managers. Not that those employees are any less qualified in terms of skills, they simply require a different style of management. Sometimes it just takes more energy on the part of the manager to ensure the employee is performing as desired. But in other cases, individuals who do not mix well with the organizational may lead to bigger problems.
Problems Managers Face When an Employee is a Bad Cultural Fit:
- May Lead to Interpersonal Conflict
- May be Highly Argumentative
- Disruptive or Distracting to Other Staff
- Different Work Ethic and Drive May Compromise Results
- May be Viewed as Non-Team Player
Tom’s advice – hiring for will and training for skill – is insightful. Specific job skills can be learned through training and mentoring. In fact, job-related skills are more easily learned when the new employee naturally blends with the team. An individual’s sources of motivation, on the other hand, cannot be learned and are part of our innate personalities. Hiring employees who naturally fit with the team culture will make integrating the new employee far easier.
The Importance of Cultural Fit
Hiring for cultural fit within a team is just as important as the candidate’s resume itself. In order to assess cultural fit, start by asking interview questions that reflect actual scenarios that your current employees have experienced. In addition, as you conduct interviews of various candidates, look for individuals who are self-starters and take it upon themselves to learn. An individual’s willingness to learn is often a good indication that he or she can adapt to and perform in a new environment. Finally, look for behaviors that lend themselves to the specific role you are trying to fill. For instance, if your employees will be working closely with customers, seek individuals who have good interpersonal skills.
Hiring is not easy, and there is always uncertainty on the part of the hiring manager. But by looking beyond the resume and considering how well a candidate fits within your organizational culture is a great way to find the right people. Take Tom’s advice: hire for will, train for skill.