recruitment

(This is an excerpt from one of our books 100,000 Successful Hires written, primarily for employers. But if you’re a job seeker, it certainly doesn’t hurt to know the best way for a job offer to be made.)

You would think that the event of making a job offer to a prospective candidate would be an easy, logical one. In fact, it might be a surprise to even think that we would have to address the whole idea. Wrong! Fact is that the actual process of making an offer, once a final candidate has been identified, can be one of the strangest, goofiest parts of the hiring process. One would think it should be the simplest part of the process, but it can mess up a smooth running process very easily.

The final step in the hiring process is making an offer. It can be traumatic for both candidate and employer. This is the time for people to make commitments. Up to this point, every interaction between candidate and employer is speculative. There is minimal risk on each person’s part. True, there has been a lot of effort on the part of both candidate and employer to interview each other, but there’s no commitment, therefore no risk, until an offer is made.

There is a final twinge of fear on the part of the employer and candidate when making an offer. Employers often become alarmingly fearful that their offer will be rejected, that the candidate they’ve courted for weeks and who was interviewed by everyone they could think of will refuse their offer. The candidate who has been trying to get an offer, but also evaluating as best he or she can the firm they are interviewing with, gets scared. They fear that they won’t get an offer and, if they do, they’re anxious about what it might be. This step in the process is difficult for everyone.

The offer step in the hiring process should be a simple and natural progression of the interviewing process, yet it gets confusing when people either lose sight of its importance or overreact to it. In fact, if the interviewing process is done correctly, the offer step should be easy.

The most successful hiring authorities have a pre-offer conversation with a candidate. This can be a face-to-face meeting or a telephone conversation. The hiring authority explains to the candidate that he or she would like to discuss what an offer would look like and also any details about the job that haven’t been discussed in the interviewing process.

If the hiring authority hasn’t done it already throughout the interviewing process, this is the time that he or she should be selling the candidate on the job and the opportunity. This conversation is the candidate’s opportunity to ask any questions he or she might have, but it also provides an opportunity to the hiring authority to find out the answers to any questions he or she may not have answered. It should be a friendly, calm, and open conversation.

In this conversation, the best hiring authorities get a real good indication as to whether or not the candidate will accept the job. In fact, the best hiring authorities actually qualify the candidate in this conversation. They discuss every aspect of the job offer. They answer all the candidate’s questions. Then, they simply ask the hard question of the candidate, “I’m ready to get together for a formal meeting to offer you the job. Can you see any reason that you wouldn’t accept it?”
If for some reason the candidate hesitates or gives noncommittal answers like “Well, when I see the offer in writing, I’ll know better,” or “I’d have to think about it,” or anything that isn’t a positive like “I would accept it,” then the best hiring authorities may rethink making the offer. If they get these kinds of answers, they simply ask a candidate what they’re thinking or what might stand in the way in order to find out why they are hesitant. It never hurts to be blunt and ask, “Why are you hesitating? I don’t want to make an offer unless I know it’s going to be accepted.”
It’s hard to give a blanket strategy for all things that can come up at this point of the process. The best hiring authorities are prepared for just about anything and they always have the salvation of backup candidates. They always have several other people in the queue in case their #1 candidate falters.
The formal offer

If the conversation goes well, the best hiring authorities meet with candidates as soon as possible. They know that any candidate they might want will be wanted by others. Most importantly, the longer they put off this meeting after the above conversation the more indecisive they appear.
We can’t tell you the number of opportunities to hire a good candidate that have been lost because the hiring authority felt the job offer was simply a formality and the candidate was going to accept the job and postpone the formal meeting because regular business got in the way. They assumed a done deal, prolonged the time to formally meet, made it appear that the meeting wasn’t all that important, and lost the candidate. (We once had a hiring authority who postponed the offer meeting for two weeks so she could go on vacation. Lots of love, huh?)

The best hiring authorities have a formal offer written for the candidate. When they meet to discuss the offer in detail, they assume the candidate is going to have lots of questions and have prepared the answers to the questions the candidate had in the pre-offer phone call. The best hiring authorities take as much time in this meeting as they need to and are patient with any questions or discussions the candidate may have. They realize how important this meeting is to both of them.

Discussing a formal offer over the phone is nowhere near as effective as meeting face-to-face. It simply doesn’t have the same emotional camaraderie and the “we care about you” feeling. If a company’s HR department has to issue the offer letter, the best hiring authorities will still meet with the candidate and discuss the offer in detail. The best hiring authorities do not let anyone in the company discuss the offer with the candidate except themselves. They leave nothing to chance.

If everything has been done correctly 75 percent of the time, the best hiring authorities will get the candidate to execute an offer letter and set a start date during this meeting. However, if the candidate asks, “When do I need to let you know?” the best hiring authorities will explain to a candidate that they need to hear from them within 24 hours about their decision. Maybe under extenuating circumstances they may offer a little more time, such as if the candidate is traveling and needs to discuss it with their spouse, but 99 percent of the time the best hiring authorities tell the candidate they need to know within one day.

The best hiring authorities already have a feel for what the candidate is going to do. The best hiring authorities know that a decisive candidate is going to be able to decide quickly. Anything beyond 24 hours usually indicates that the candidate is going to use the offer to leverage another one, and the best hiring authorities don’t seem to tolerate much of this.
If the candidate insists on more than 24-hours, the best hiring authorities explain that they can’t do that, that they have other candidates they are going to pursue. They reinterate that they need to know within 24 hours. If a candidate cannot do that, the best hiring authorities explain to the candidate that they will therefore pursue the next candidate. End of story! The candidate is either in or out. It’s that simple.

By the way, if the formal offer is written after this meeting, the best hiring authorities review it to be sure that it’s consistent with what was discussed. 15 percent of the time, when offer letters are sent after a formal offer discussion, especially when they are written by the HR department in some far-off city, they aren’t the same as what was discussed in the offer meeting. It’s a quick and easy way to lose an excellent candidate

The best hiring authorities set a start date as soon as possible. They know that the further out the start date is from when the offer is accepted, the more things can happen that are adverse to the situation.

The best hiring authorities never assume anything in the offer meetings. If the candidate accepts the job and sets the start date, they simply prepare themselves for that. If the candidate, for some reason, turns the job down or claims that they can’t decide within the 24-hour time limit, the best hiring authorities are gracious and unemotional about it. Getting upset or angry with a candidate who turns the job down is unwise. The best hiring authorities know that they may try to recruit a candidate again somewhere down the line. They know that it pays to always be nice.

No matter what level of position, from the CEO on down, 15 percent of the time a candidate who has accepted an offer is going to call and renege. Sometimes they will do it with grace and style long before the start date. Unfortunately, they sometimes just plain don’t show up with no notice at all. (We agree that’s totally pathetic!)

The best hiring authorities know this kind of thing might happen. One of the ways they prepare themselves for this possibility is to explain to the #2 and maybe the #3 candidates, “We’ve offered the position to another candidate and it’s been accepted. It was a very close decision and you were certainly an extremely good candidate. We did what we thought was best for our organization. The new hire is supposed to start on (date). We expect everything to go well, but if, for some reason, something happens that he or she does not start, I’d like to give you a call. If we might still be a consideration for you, we can pick up the conversation again, if we need to.”

The best hiring authorities hope they won’t need this contingency plan. But just in case, they’ve prepared themselves for it. The #2 and #3 candidates may not be available should this happen, but at least a hiring authority may not have to start all over if it does. We can’t tell you the number of phenomenally successful employees we’ve placed who got hired this way.

(Over the next few weeks, we’re going to discuss non-compete agreements from a hiring authority perspective as they relate to the interviewing and hiring process).

So, you think you’ve got a non-compete agreement with all of your employees and no one would dare leave your organization and compete with you by calling on your customers or taking your “trade secrets.” Babich & Associates, as a recruiting firm, gets asked about this issue at least two times a week. We are not attorneys (… that’s why we’re asking Russ Brown to help us with this issue), but we are asked by, not only candidates, but also our clients about non-competes. It’s pretty clear by the frequency of this question that non-compete issues are important ones in the hiring and employment process. It is also clear that most hiring authorities think they know about non-compete agreements. Most don’t!

It’s Russ’ job to advise you about specific details of enforceable non-compete agreements with employees. He can be reached at 214-613-3350 or russ@brownfoxlaw.com. We are often asked, however, about a candidate’s non-compete agreement by our clients as well as candidates asking us about their non-compete in seeking a new job. Our discussion is going to center around the issues we see in the interviewing and hiring process regarding non-competes and ask for Russ’ comment and opinion about these issues. Russ can discuss non-compete specifics for the standard fee of $300 per hour. (Trust me, he is worth every penny of it!)

A non-compete agreement typically restrains employees from engaging in a competing business with his or her former employer, in a certain geographical area, and for a limited period of time following the termination of the employment relationship.

Here are some of the major issues we hear from our clients about non-competes during the interviewing and hiring process:

Can your candidate bring us customers? This question is usually asked of sales candidates, customer service or customer facing candidates. Our clients would like a candidate to be able to bring his or her contacts who they are presently calling on to their new employer. It’s usually followed by the comment, “Don’t worry if they have a non-compete… they don’t mean anything in Texas.” Ironically, many hiring authorities will claim they have a non-compete also.

Any candidate with any brains would know that if the new hiring authority was asking them to “steal for them” then somewhere along the line, the employee’s new company would just as easily “steal from them.”

The rationale behind this thinking on the part of a prospective employer is, “Well, everybody knows everybody’s customers. We all have the same customers, so they’re not really any trade secrets.” Don’t fall into this trap. A company’s password protected, customer database is probably going to be construed as a “trade secret.”

Asking a candidate to bring a printed customer database from his present or previous employer once he or she is hired is equally insane. It is not the candidate’s property.

Russ’ comment:

“Anytime an employee seeks to introduce her customer “Rolodex” from a prior employer to a new employer, there will be an opportunity for legal fireworks. Protection of this sensitive information is a huge issue for companies. Generally speaking, never ask a candidate to use a prior employer’s confidential information. Instead, I recommend to my corporate clients to be proactive and first obtain assurances from a candidate that she is not working under any form of restrictive covenants (e.g., restrictions like a non-compete), or if she is, precisely determine the limitations on future employment. The new employer should obtain this assurance in writing either in the form of a non-disclosure agreement or various protective clauses in her new employment agreement. These assurances should greatly help to protect the company from unknowingly using a prior employer’s client lists and trade secrets and remind the new employee that the company will expect her to protect its confidential information in the future. Key clauses include written assurances from the candidate that (a) she is not under any prior restrictive covenants and/or will honor prior restrictive covenants, (b) she will not improperly use any third-party’s (e.g., your company’s client) trade secrets or confidential information, and most importantly, (c) she will not use your trade secrets and confidential information beyond the ordinary course and scope of her employment with you.

Beyond client lists, the new employer should ensure it does not use any other trade secrets supplied by the new employee. Some examples:

Budgets, business plans, cost and price information, blueprints, analytical data, advertising terms/conditions, forecasts, formulas, profit/loss statements, proprietary technology, marketing/sales promotion information, vendor/supply lists, visitor tracking data, etc.

An employer who takes these issues seriously on the front end will be much better equipped to defend against claims by the former employer in the future.”

Well, the candidate had those people as customers before he went to his present employer… right? That may be true, but his or her present employer will not see it that way. Their attitude will be, “Once a customer is in our database… he is our customer.” And since that customer is a “legitimate business interest,” they can’t be taken from us. Often, we have candidates who, when they went to work for their present employer, excluded from their non-compete agreement customers they already had. Expect that a candidate might do the same with you.

Russ’ comment:

“ The ‘ownership’ or origination of customers can be a fact intensive issue in which the lawyers duke it out through written discovery, depositions, emergency temporary restraining order hearings, injunction hearings, and trial, if necessary. As we previously suggested, it’s wise to establish a clear understanding on the front end and at the outset of employment and do so in writing and seek legal advice regarding how to handle next steps.”

Have the candidate bring a copy of their present non-compete agreement with them during the interview process. Now, we’re getting somewhere. This is a great idea. Many non-compete agreements are written in other states. Some of the ones we’ve seen over the years would be terribly difficult to enforce (i.e. the defined geographical area is “the world”). Don’t take the candidate’s opinion of how enforceable or valid his or her non-compete agreement is. Their attitude towards their present non-compete will be the same attitude they will have toward yours. Regardless of their attitude, you be the judge of the candidate’s non-compete agreement and how it could impact your business should you hire the candidate.

We’ve had some clients over the years who have agreed to take on the legal fees associated with defending a candidate’s non-compete if the candidate was sued by their previous employer. Something like that is a business decision and may be worth it. Most of us have enough headaches and don’t need a “self-inflicted” one like this, but it might be worth considering.

Beware of a candidate who says he or she does not have a non-compete agreement or can’t find the one they signed when they were employed by their present company. Some candidates… amazing number of even very professional ones… truly don’t know if they have a non-compete agreement or not. Both situations should be big red flags.

Russ’ comment:

“Tony, you’re exactly right about new candidates’ confusion regarding prior agreements.” At the time of hire, employees typically are excited and taking in a lot of information. It’s not uncommon for an employee to sign basic “new hire” documents with little or no review. I’ve encountered instances where written non-competition agreements are in place, but the employees do not recall signing an employment agreement, non-disclosure agreement, or non-compete agreement.

I also would never advise a client to trust a new employee’s assurances regarding a prior agreement. If possible, a wise employer will, at a minimum, review the agreement in-house. The best option is for the employer’s counsel to review the prior agreement.

It is important to note that there is a vast difference between various states’ approaches to restrictive covenants. In Texas, where I practice, properly drafted, reasonable restrictive covenants, including non-compete agreements, are enforceable and employers serious about protecting their workforce and trade secrets will aggressively seek enforcement.”

Legal Disclaimer:
*No commentary by Russ Brown in this article is to be construed as legal advice or creating an attorney-client relationship. If you have specific questions, contact an experienced employment attorney to discuss your legal issues.

About Russ Brown:

*Russ Brown is a Dallas-based employment attorney and the Managing Partner of Brown Fox Kizzia & Johnson PLLC. Russ has been honored as one of the Best Lawyers in Dallas under 40 years old by D Magazine and as a Rising Star by Texas Monthly and Super Lawyers seven times. Learn more about Russ Alland Brown Fox by visiting www.brownfoxlaw.com.

Topics for the next few weeks: honoring the non-compete and still being competitive, lawsuits over the non-compete, history of the candidate’s present employer regarding non-compete agreements, and postemployment agreements with previous employer.

David was a terrific sales guy—at least on paper. He did have one or two excellent years in the nine years he had been in sales. He was aggressive and assertive and had a great military background before he began a sales career. He rocked along for nine years but always managed to sabotage the jobs he had, even when he performed well. He managed to go through six jobs in that nine-year period.
His first marriage was tumultuous at best. Six years of marriage was interrupted by two one-year stints of separation. The two drug rehab episodes didn’t help. One was for three months and, a year later, another for six months. Everyone agreed that David was probably a really good salesperson but his personal life had gotten in his way and, some say, his “real self” came out and his performance was mediocre.
It took David and us six months and at least fifteen interviews to get an employer to take a chance on him. He’s been with the firm for seven years now. For four of those years, he was the company’s #1 salesperson. He has been promoted twice in the last three years and is now the #1 regional vice president in the country. Go figure.
David and the company we placed him with got lucky.
The role of luck in hiring
Most managers won’t admit how much of a role luck plays in hiring employees. The world is full of literature that addresses how to eliminate luck in the process of hiring. The best hiring authorities, however, realize that luck plays a huge part in successful hiring. Above all, these managers feel lucky about themselves and their hiring.
No matter how good the interviewing, testing, and reference checking process is, it’s very difficult to fully measure grit, character, integrity, sincerity, commitment, passion, or professionalism, as well as the lack of any of these traits. We might think we’re able to detect some of these qualities in a candidate when they’re interviewing, but there’s no way of realizing their full impact on the person until we actually hire them. How many of us see the people we work with in the same light as we saw them when they interviewed? Interviewing is a staged, contrived event, and in our hearts we know that, at best, it might give us an indication of how the candidate is going to perform
The average hiring process only involves four hours of face-to-face meetings and, at best, an hour or two of testing, paperwork, reference and credit checks, and other tasks. In spite of good intentions, there’s simply no real way of knowing exactly what a potential employee is going to be like. Our files are full of stories of people who have far exceeded the expectations of the people with whom we placed them. We’re also sure that there were many hired with high expectations that turned out to be mediocre. It’s luck.
There’s no way of predicting when even a less than average employee is going to be in the right organization, take on the responsibility of the family, and catch fire out of need to provide for them. Who knows when people find the right environment, are around the right people, discover their talent, find the right mentor, and turn their life around to be rock stars? Who knows when the right teacher/mentor appears in a person’s life just at the right time and place to help them tap into the latent talent they may possess? Who knows when someone is going to have an epiphany or insight into all of the mistakes they’ve made and take advantage of what they’ve learned? Ask any group of experienced senior managers about their experience along this line and they’ll also recount to you their experiences with people who were going to be their future leaders, stellar new hires who flopped, were fired, or what’s worse, embezzled or cheated. It’s luck.
The best hiring authorities realize that there’s a lot of luck in the hiring process. It’s often their timing and the right timing for the new employee. Most inexperienced managers will talk about their expectations about their new hires before they start work. The best hiring authorities devote a focused, concerted effort in interviewing and hiring and reserve judgment about their decision until they see the new employee perform. They will hope and be quietly optimistic about the potential and future of the new employee . . . until they see performance. They know a large part of it is luck.
Lucky (and experienced) hiring authorities consider themselves lucky and look for opportunities to get lucky with the people they hire. They have high energy levels and seek candidates with the same energy. They interview a high number of candidates to increase their probability of being lucky. They increase their chances.
The lucky hiring authorities have high expectations for themselves and for those they hire. They expect good things, good people, and a good future. They are realistic about their judgments and always hopeful for the best.
The best hiring authorities also follow their gut. They verify what they feel in their gut about hiring, but don’t hesitate to fix a mistake in hiring by following their gut and firing when they first get the inkling.

I don’t really hear the above words spoken this way. I hear it just about every day, but nobody says it just that way. They say things like, “Well we want people who are ‘moving up’ in their career,”…”We really only want 5 to 7 years of management experience, if that,”… “Our average age around here is in the 30s and we want someone who can identify with that group”… ” Senior management is in their early 40s so we don’t want someone older than that”… No matter how they say it, it’s all the same thing, “we just don’t want to hire somebody that’s older.”

Of course, when our client says things this blatantly, our standard comeback is, “Well, we will refer every candidate who is qualified regardless of just about anything. As long as they are capable of doing the job we will refer them.” And, of course, our clients will say, “yeah, okay” and go back to either including or eliminating candidates for any reason they want. We recommend them no matter what.

One of my candidates wrote when she read between the lines and interpreted her being turned down for an interview as her being “too old.” This is about as well written and articulate as I’ve ever seen anyone (boomer) express themselves about the condition of the marketplace. It is not only sincere but communicates exactly the way people over 50 feel. It’s so well done, I have to share it: (Her particular profession is in high-tech sales. But before you dismiss that as, “it’s different in my profession” read the whole article.)

“I have spent the past 25 years becoming an expert at my craft, winning performance awards, demonstrating consistent growth, and helping others replicate my success, that I am no longer marketable because I am over 50 years old and have too much experience.

Nobody sees value in a consistent, 25 year track record or the 80+ recommendations on LinkedIn from my clients, partners, peers, direct reports, and management. This new revelation surprises me because I actually feel that I am just now hitting my stride. I have worked too hard to get here to accept that my experience is no longer valued. I fully expect, and look forward to, another 20 years of success.

Earlier in my career, I resisted leadership roles because frankly, I have always produced, so I actually am at a stage of my life that I get more fulfillment from helping others grow than from my personal growth. So I have gone down the leadership path. Now I find out that I am over qualified for an individual contributor role and I am really too old to lead.

I also learned that the number of jobs I have is unattractive to potential employers. It’s been my experience that having a diverse background of Fortune 500 companies gives me an upper hand in a competitive sales scenario. I have been well trained at each company and I also know the reality of each company’s weaknesses. I know why we won and I know why we lost. My clients have been located all over the United States. Wouldn’t that knowledge and experience bring tremendous value to an organization that competes with them? I was also told that I have too many short stints at risky start-ups on my resume. Why is it automatically assumed that a career change is due to the employee’s shortcomings?”

There are facts around strategic career moves, ethical conflicts, product viability, misrepresentation of comp plans, and management shortfalls that I would not want to discuss during a job interview because I try to focus on my success at each role vs. why I am still not there. Regardless of what I experienced, I have left each company stronger, wiser, and better equipped to be successful at the next job. I love that my background is diverse. I find it confusing that what I consider to be “experience,” is considered “unhirable” by today’s Corporate America.

I also learned that having many jobs makes some potential employers worry that I may be unstable. Well, I am glad that my instability hasn’t impacted my 28 year marriage. I am glad that this instability didn’t damage the successful, ethical, moral, honors graduate that we raised. I am grateful that the instability didn’t impact me financing 100% of my own college education or the multiple jobs I held while completing my education. And finally, I am grateful that my instability didn’t impact the three jobs that lasted over five years, each or all the awards I have earned throughout the years or the billions of dollars in sales that I closed while living in DFW my entire life.”

It’s really important for all of us to have a perspective of age and how it is perceived by hiring authorities, especially if the perception is, “too old.” The real issues around being “too old” in getting hired is not the issue of age so much as it is a group of issues that are reflected in being older. It’s not being “older” that is the issue as much as it is a whole bunch of things that happen to come along with “being older.” Let me explain with the story of my own personal practice.

My personal practice in the recruitment profession centers around high-tech and IT sales and sales management. My personal practice covers everything from products, hardware, software, etc., to services, staffing, consulting, etc. Our firm employs more than 20 recruiters focusing on candidates and opportunities closely in the DFW area but also some in Austin and Houston. Even though my personal practice is in IT sales, our firm works practices in banking, finance and accounting, IT, administrative, and technical placement. The firm has been around since 1952, focusing on the local area.

I started in the business in 1973. In the late 80s I began to place salespeople in the emerging high-tech/data processing field. It began with organizations like ADP hiring copier and office products salespeople, because there were no “experienced” payroll services salespeople available. In other words, people like ADP could not find experienced people for what they did, so they had to hire the “best athletes” they could and train them in payroll services sales. As technology advanced, organizations like Computer Associates, Oracle, PeopleSoft (and hundreds of other software firms whose names are ancient history) couldn’t find experienced software salespeople, so they hired tons of “best athletes” they could find…like payroll processing salespeople (from ADP and the like). My wife, Chris and I put our first of five children through Columbia University on the fees I earned from placing people with just Computer Associates. The late 80s and most all of the 90s were hot markets for technology salespeople, fortunately for us, in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. There were literally thousands of IT salespeople in the area and they were moving around as fast as the hundreds of companies getting into the software/services business could hire them. They were all in their late 20s to early 40s.The industry was young and aggressive and they were hiring those types of people. To give you a perspective, in the year 2000, I personally billed more than $4.3 million in fees. I was placing 15 to 20 of these people a month, for a whole year. (It was not my recruiting ability; I happened to catch a great market at the right time!)

A lot of the folks that I was placing became rock stars. (The Candidate quoted above was one of them!) It wasn’t uncommon to see lots of these people earning more than $1 million a year. High-tech was hot and lots of people could see no end to it. In the mid-2000’s though, technology started to catch up with itself. Companies were either evolving or emerging to create environments with even more efficiency and less technology. Some technology firms, like Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and a few others grew exponentially. But for every one of those, literally hundreds of these firms declined, got absorbed or simply went away. As technology advanced, business didn’t need as much technology. Hardware became more efficient, cheaper and eventually a commodity. Software went to the cloud and competition drove the pricing drastically downward.

As technology evolved, the users of it became more savvy and understanding about what the technology did. The technology firms that had to hire salespeople to help businesses change the way they did business in the late 80s and 90s could hire a different breed of salesperson once their customers got used to the technology. Take an example of payroll services. Payroll service companies had to hire really smart, convincing, aggressive salespeople in the late 80s and early 90s because these salespeople were getting businesses to outsource and trust the sales person’s employer with one of their most important endeavors… payroll. The last thing a business wants is to make a mistake with its payroll. It took some phenomenally convincing salespeople to get businesses to change the way they were doing things and to turn that function over to someone else. It was not uncommon to see some of these salespeople making $250,000-$350,000 a year selling payroll services. These salespeople conditioned and educated their customers to trust an outside service with one of the most important functions of the company. These sales folks were literally changing the manner in which companies did business.

Now, feature the fact that eventually hordes of businesses in the United States used payroll services. Most every business totally understands the service and isn’t afraid of it. Payroll services do not have to hire “attainer” type salespeople anymore because the customer understands, sometimes better than the salesperson, what the service is. The payroll service can hire a “maintainer” to go out and call on potential customers to get them to simply “change” payroll services. Not only are these payroll services offering other employee oriented products like insurance, but the only differentiator with many of them is simply “price”. The service has now become a commodity. The customer knows as much about the product and the service as the provider does. In fact, all of the providers are providing a wonderful education for the customer to the point where the customer is tremendously enlightened. In fact, most anyone who can maneuver the Internet can go online and buy payroll processing services for their company. Not only do they not need a salesperson, but they can get all of their customer support over the phone or live chat. Technology has changed the whole thing!

Now, extrapolate what happened in the payroll services business to all kinds of other hardware and software technology innovations. As technology advances, the products and services become cheaper and the providers need to hire fewer people and can spend less money doing it (telecom business). One of my associates, Jim Brown has been with us for almost 30 years. As I was placing sales and marketing folks in technology, he was placing systems engineers and customer support folks. Back then, just about every sales and marketing organization had a boatload of SE’s supporting salespeople. These were people who did the technical demonstrations to the customer of what the hardware and software could do. It was definitely technical stuff and required not only superior technical skills but also great people skills. Most people don’t have any idea how the ability to do customer demonstrations has changed with the speed and the quality of the Internet. The technology to write software has advanced so rapidly, companies don’t need as many developers as they used to.

When you think about it, the advance of technology has decreased the need for the number of people it took to deliver the technology into the marketplace. With the contraction of the number of technology firms…sure, there are the salesforces and the workdays of the world but nowhere near the numbers of them as back in the evolutionary periods of Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, etc….. there is a glut of technology sales/managers/technical support/developers available who cut their teeth and their career helping to build these organizations. When they need to change jobs or find a new job, they find that they are competing with hordes of other candidates with the same pedigree and background. In other words, the supply has far out distanced the demand. Ironically, technology has advanced so far that it has created a glut of technology people available for fewer jobs.

The result – For every sales position that I work with, my client can choose, just in sheer numbers from 25 or 30 people. For every management position there are 45 to 50 candidates available. Now, maybe not all of these people are “equal” but their experience and abilities are not that far off from each other. There are fewer positions and lots and lots and lots of choices of candidates. Years ago, they used us to find the “best athlete” they could and taught them what they needed to know. Now they use us to identify two or three excellent candidates out of the pool of 40 or 50 possibilities. The effort of the work is the same but the facet of it is different.

We all have a tendency to think that our success is because we’re so damn good. We neglect to accept the fact that we might’ve been at the right place at the right time. There’s been years since 2000 that I have done one half of that $4.3 million, but I haven’t come close to it since. 1999 and 2000 were anomalies. They were the point in time where technology was taking off and I happen to be in the recruiting business and happen to be doing it in Dallas, Texas which was a hub of technology. Did I work hard? Absolutely! Was I lucky? Absolutely! I rode the wave. It was a blast. But it wasn’t me. Well some of it might’ve been a little me, but it was mostly the market. It was a time when we got people hired and they didn’t even have to have a resume. They would have one interview and get hired on the spot.

So here is what happens now. One of these clients comes along and needs to hire, let’s say, a salesperson in the software sales arena, let’s say the average salary is $110,000 base salary with the total on target earnings of $240,000. I easily have at least 15 (if not more) qualified candidates for them. Short of one green eye and one blue eye on the same person, I have five or six that are exactly what they might be looking for.

Now, in the eyes of my client, looking at the candidate who I quoted above, why would they consider someone with 25 years of experience when they only need, according to them, 10 years of experience? Recommendations are great, but their fear is if they “overhire” and get someone with 25 years of experience when they only need 10 years of experience, that person will leave if they get the chance for a better job that might be more commensurate with their 25 years of experience. Even though the candidate is willing to accept a sales job, even though she has been in management, the client is concerned that if they hire someone like her as a salesperson, she will continue looking for a management job. (This is a fallacy. People very rarely take a job and then keep looking for another one, especially on a professional level.), but in 44 years I’ve never been able to convince anybody that just because a person’s been in management before they will leave a non-management job if a management opportunity comes along.

Although the candidate may feel that she is “just now hitting my stride,” the client feels that she is taking one or two steps backward and is afraid, again, that if a perceived better opportunity comes along, she would leave. She is perceived to be “overqualified” for a contributor role. And, when a management role came along, which it did the other day, the client had so many people to choose from who had experience in exactly what they did, she was eliminated. She wasn’t eliminated because of her age, she was eliminated because of her experience, or lack of it.

The number of jobs this candidate has had is probably one of the most difficult challenges I, or any other recruiter deals with. When a hiring authority sees a number of short stints on a resume, this scenario runs through their head: they will hire this person, they will stay a short period of time and the hiring authority’s boss will turn to them and say, “You damn fool, couldn’t you see that they were only going to stay a short period of time?…” All of the reasons that the candidate went to or left the jobs they’ve had doesn’t matter. The hiring authority has so many people available to them, running the risk of a person with too many jobs isn’t something most of them are willing to do. “Ethical conflicts…product viability…misrepresentation…management shortfalls…” might all be true, but our hiring authority is afraid of making a mistake and may not even listen to these realities.

The issues that most over 50-year-old candidates face are not issues of age. They are issues that come along with age. If these firms interviewed a 30-year-old who was experientially overqualified or had made too much money or had too many jobs, they probably wouldn’t hire them either. But, alas, it’s hard to see or appreciate this when you are looking for a job and keep getting turned down. The candidate I quoted above is a good person with a great track record. Any company that would hire her would get a great employee. I’ve placed her twice in her 25 year career and she’s great. If I could place her again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I don’t write the rules. I live by the policies and parameters that our clients dictate to us.

The most difficult fact that most job seekers, but especially the ones over 50-years-old, have to come to grips with is the phenomenal number of candidates a hiring authority has to choose from. People say to me all the time, “But unemployment is at 4.3%; there can’t be that many good candidates!” Well, in most professions, there are. And even if there aren’t, most hiring authorities would rather run a risk with a lesser experienced person then an overly experienced person. Most job seekers see a job opportunity through their own eyes and have no idea how they stack up with the other candidates that might be available to the employer. They know they have the ability to do the job. And they probably do have that ability. But the ability to get the job is another matter.

Being too old isn’t the issue. It’s all of the things that come with it!

So, it’s easy to say, “Well this candidate is in high tech sales and it’s different in my profession. I still have the same problem… but it’s harder with me!” We are such interesting beings. We always think the other guy has an easier go at things than we do. Having been in the placement profession since 1973 here are some of the professions and businesses I’ve experienced changing. If you were in one of these businesses or professions, the story of my candidate above applies to you also:

Electronics… diodes, resistors and PC boards .. Manufacturing to sales (years ago!)
Aerospace manufacturing
Mining
Steel manufacturing
Key punch operations and management
Telecommunications…manufacturing, sales, installation
Drafting and Design
Garment manufacturing
Furniture manufacturing
PBX operations
Electronic equipment installation and maintenance
File clerks
Loan clerks
Clerical staff

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point. My gut is that 60% of America’s workforce could eventually live the same scenario.

Growing older has its challenges.

But wait…there’s more…Just this last week I placed a friend of mine who I’ve known for more than 22 years. He has been a candidate of mine. He has been an employer of mine. He has hired a number of people from me over the years. He has even owned his own business for a number of years… been the president. He sold that company a number of years ago and most recently has been a senior salesperson with a medium-size software company.

His company was sold and the organization that bought it wanted the technology and not the personnel, so they laid him off. I referred him to one of our clients. Fortunately, and this is the caveat, he had been selling into the same market that our client was. He went to work for $120,000 base salary…he asked $150,000 base salary like he had been making before he got laid off but our client wouldn’t do it. The company is small and there is some risk to it. But he looks at the opportunity with “no expectations.” He figures, that if it grows there’s a chance he could move into management. He is 66 years old and has grandkids just like me.

(Admittedly, we all got lucky here. It never hurts to have a little luck.)

One of the most, if not the most, frustrating things that a job searcher goes through is learning to live with unreturned calls, and un-responded to emails. You are overwhelmed with disbelief. You just can’t believe that after all of those wonderful interviews where you were told that you were, “perfect candidate,” and that “you’ll hear back from us soon” and then NOTHING… nada…zip…
Frustration with this experience leads to downright anger. Jobseekers can’t believe that people in organizations can be so rude. They go through a number of interviews that seem to be excellent but beyond the encouragement at the end of a group of interviews they hear absolutely nothing. Even we, as recruiters run into this…a lot. We communicate with most of our clients over the phone. But it’s becoming more and more common for some hiring authorities to only communicate with email, whenever they decide the timing is best. Emails don’t communicate emotion. There is very little “conversational” give-and-take. It is extremely antiseptic. Well, you and I just plain have to get used to it.
Cursing this experience and getting mad about it isn’t going to do you any good. In fact, the more energy you expend toward a negative event, the more you reinforce that events replication. Expending energy this way detracts from your ability to devote positive emotions toward what you might be able to influence and control.
The first step is to never, ever, ever believe what people tell you until it is followed up with their actions. If someone tells you that you are a great candidate and that they would like to pursue you, only believe it when they follow up with the actions that reinforce yout being a good candidate, by communicating with you and, most importantly, inviting you back for interviews. Actions always speak louder than words, especially in this situation.
The second step, and this is probably the hardest, is to be as understanding and accepting of being ignored as you can. Over ninety nine percent of the time you being ignored is not because people don’t like you, or hate you, or think you’re insignificant or never want to speak with you again. It’s vastly more than likely that they are distracted from you by other things that you have absolutely no control over and most likely have nothing to do with you. Having done this since 1973 and probably been involved with at least 100,000 interviewing cycles, I’ve come to the conclusion that 50% of the time the company has found, in their eyes, a better candidate. In spite of what they told you, that you were a fantastic candidate and you are perfect for the job, they found someone else they thought was better. Twenty five percent of the time, their interviewing process is still dragging on and they don’t have the guts to call you and tell you that they are so incompetent that they just can’t make up their minds about what to do, so their interviewing process is still going on (… even though they told you three weeks ago they were ready to make a decision). Twenty five percent of the time they change their mind about hiring anybody outside the company, i.e. they move somebody from within the organization into the job (…which is probably what they were going to do all along, but wanted to look like they were practicing business intelligence by interviewing externally) or they “reorganize” and don’t fill the job at all, just divide up the duties and responsibilities to other folks. (This 50%, 25% and 25% may not be “statistically” accurate by any mathematical study, but my gut on these things is usually correct).
After you have sent a number of emails… with no response, left a number of voicemails… with no return call over a period of about a week, the third step, and probably the most important one, is to know when to move on. Say prayers for these folks, recognize that they are “spiritual beings acting human,” forgive them for their rudeness, practice “holy acceptance” (Google: St. Ignatius of Loyola), drop the idea that you are going to get a job offer from them and start focusing on other opportunities. That’s it! Don’t expend any emotional or mental effort on the opportunity anymore.
Keep the door open. The fourth step is to avoid any emotional response to “tell them off.” Do not send some ridiculous email telling them they are rude, have no manners or are stupid. In their hearts they know they are being rude, but they are busy with other things. If you are a viable candidate, you never know if their first, second, or third candidate might turn them down or take another job and all of a sudden you are the “#1 choice”. If you write some stupid email or leave a voicemail that tells them they can take their job and stuff it where the sun don’t shine, you may never get the chance at the opportunity if a number of others don’t take it for one reason or another. Always leave the door open for an opportunity to get a job offer. I had a candidate a number of years ago that was offered a job after eight others had turned it down. Twenty years later he was the president and owner of the company. You may not want the job if it’s offered to you, but always leave the door open.
Here is the key: If you have a number of opportunities in the queue, when this happens you won’t be devastated. You might be disappointed, but you won’t be devastated. This kind of, seemingly, insult is emotionally and mentally offset when you are involved in lots of opportunities and interviewing cycles. It may bother you, but you have so many other opportunities that you are looking at, you can’t afford to get lost in the “poor me” or victim syndrome. Get on with focusing on the job opportunities you have in front of you where you can influence the outcome and possibly get a job offer.
In Mark 6:11 and Mark 10:11, Christ gives great job hunting advice, “If any place will not welcome you or listen to you… shake the dust off your feet…” and move on. Jim Rohn used to remind us that we have other signals these days of communicating the same feelings, but the action is the same… move on!
Remember what the doctor says when the patient dies:
“Next.”

… Simon and Garfunkel, “The Boxer,” 1969. You know how a song will sometimes come to you from seemingly nowhere and it keeps persevering in your head? This song as a single came out In 1969, the year Chrissy and I were married. It appeared on the album “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” In 1970. Someone gave us this album as a belated, casual wedding present. I think we wore the grooves out of that album ( if you don’t know what “grooves” are on an album, ask your elders).

These words come to me probably more often than most old songs do, simply because they apply so much to my profession. Every day… and I mean,every day These words apply to the candidates and the hiring authorities that we do business with. Especially in the interviewing process, people hear what they want to hear and seem to block out lots of stuff they don’t want to hear or should hear.

At least once a day, I have a candidate report to me about how an interview went, Telling me that they absolutely “nailed it,” that it went great and that, based on what they heard, they are a shoo-in for the job. Upon following up with the hiring authority, I find out that, not only did they miss the mark of the hiring authority was looking for, but they performed terribly in the interview. Likewise, I’ve had hiring authorities Who were absolutely thrilled with the candidate and talked about what it would take to hire them, only to find out that the hiring authority gave a terrible impression of the job, the company and, worst of all, himself.They both had “happy ears,” seeing what they wanted to see.

On the other side of the same coin, hiring authorities will often get hung up on one negative aspect of a candidate’s background. Things like one too many jobs in a short period of time or one poor decision in leaving a company can cause a hiring authority to miss some very important aspects about a candidate’s background. Candidates can misunderstand one or two statements made by an employer and all of a sudden become disinterested in an opportunity in the middle of an interview and never listen to some of the quality things about the job that they would really interest them. Both parties forming negative opinions before they had a fair shot.

Psychologists tell us that we only remember 20% of what we hear, in passive listening, 30% of what we see and hear even in active listening. And this is during normal conversations which doesn’t even take into account the emotional strain that goes on both sides of the desk in an interviewing situation. When people are emotionally ill at ease, their memory skills are even worse. So, it’s totally understandable that candidates think they did real well when they didn’t and employers think they sold their job when they didn’t. They both hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.

The implication of this fact requires specific awarenesses and ways of offsetting the downside. First thing, of course, is to be aware of the problem. Simply the awareness of the fact that I may not be listening attentively takes all the difference in the world. Secondly, and this is so simple.. Take notes. Writing down keywords… You don’t have to record every word, just the keywords.. Forces both the candidate and the interviewing authority to pay better attention to what’s being said.

For a candidate, using a structured presentation every time one interviews ensures the fact that the candidate will consciously sell their features and advantages and benefits. So often, candidates go down the rabbit hole when they go into interviews without a structure in mind. They get asked some dumb ass question like, “tell me about yourself” and follow it to disaster.

For employers or interviewing authorities using a structured interview (we’ve recommended this before and have copies of them if someone would like to receive one. Just write me and ask me for one, Tony@Babich.com). The structured interview forces the interviewing authority to ask every candidate exactly the same questions and forces them to take notes so that they can reasonably compare candidates even weeks apart from being interviewed.

What both candidates and interviewing authorities can do that’s also very important, is to summarize what went on in the interview immediately after it taking place. This is especially important for a candidate so that the candidate can write an effective thank you note as well as have great information for second, third and subsequent interviews. These interviews can get spread out over a long period of time… even weeks. No one is smart enough to remember what might be important to one hiring authority or one company two or three weeks after an initial interview.

This kind of selective hearing… hearing what we want to hear Can kill a great opportunity for everyone.

I have been through literally thousands of hiring processes. And I am often asked about the biggest and most frequent mistakes hiring authorities make in the recruiting, interviewing and hiring process. So much time and effort is spent discussing mistakes that candidates make that it is really easy to forget that hiring authorities make just as many mistakes in the process. Here they are:

1. Not having a clear idea of what they are looking for. . . that everyone understands. Hiring authorities often aren’t specific enough about the duties, skills and competencies they need. They confuse amount of experience with competency…”8 to 10 years of experience.”Does that mean someone with six years of experience can’t do the job? Or what about the candidate that has had one year of experience ten times. Putting any kind of numbers of years of experience limits them. What is important? Employers would be better off defining the functions they
want done very specifically, and then finding someone who can do it. This may mean someone who has done it well before or someone who has the potential to do it well. The specifics need to be written by the hiring authority that has the “pain,” i.e. the person who needs the help and
is going to be responsible for the new employee. Concocting “wish lists” of superhuman attributes and unrealistically low pay scales relative to expectations of the experience needed will create havoc in a talent search. Hazy, ambiguous descriptions along with generalities like “good written and oral communication skills” don’t help either. Know your target.

2. Having an unrealistic idea of what kind of candidates might be available and the money it may take to hire them. Just because everyone would like to hire Superman or Wonder Woman doesn’t mean they are available or will go to work at your company. There is no perfect candidate and waiting for one is as unrealistic as searching for one. The only way to become realistic about what the market might bear is to interview enough candidates to know what is available and the commensurate earnings expected. It may take quite a number of interviews. The number of quality candidates is drastically lower than it was a few years ago. Our clients are often shocked that the salaries they are locked into won’t allow them to
hire the quality or experience they wish for. And just because you believe that your company is
wonderful, doesn’t mean: (1) everyone wants to go to work there, (2) they will accept any amount you offer, and (3) there aren’t four or five other firms like yours trying to hire the same candidates.

3. Too many people involved in the interviewing process. . . and the wrong ones. More than a few studies have shown that hiring is just as successful when one person, the one with the “pain,” (i.e. the direct manager) is the only person involved in the hiring process as opposed
to more than one. In fact, other studies have shown that once the number of people in the interviewing and hiring process exceeds three, the probability of a bad hire is greater. The reason so many people are usually involved in the interviewing and hiring process is that people, naturally, want to spread the risk. So, if it turns out too be a poor hire, people can justify their decision with, “Well, you interviewed him too!” Few people have
the courage to interview and hire alone and take the responsibility one way or the other, even though better hiring decisions would probably be made.
. . . and the wrong ones. Relying on people to screen, interview or have a say in the hiring process who have no personal, working benefit from the potential new hire’s performance (i.e. their position is in jeopardy if a poor hire is made) is a big mistake. Most managers
will claim that hiring good people is the second or third most important function they have, right behind making a profit. If this is so, we can never figure out why
hiring authorities will delegate screening or interviewing of candidates to other people who may be wonderful people but have no direct experience, knowledge, or
“skin” in the position to be filled. “But I don’t have time to look at resumes and interview all those people,” is what we hear. Well, if hiring is one of a manager’s most
important functions, he or she should take the time and effort to do the whole job from start to finish. How can they afford not to?

4. Process takes too long. The average manager thinks that it takes about 30 days to fill a vacant position. Try the truth . . . between 90 and 120! Why? Because folks drag things out that should be simple . . . not easy, but simple. When the hiring process takes too long, good candidates are lost to more decisive companies, managers look inept at hiring and it gets harder and harder to fill the vacancy. Managers, again, often don’t give hiring the high-priority status that is needed . . . shown by action, not lip service. Time kills! The “shelf life” of quality candidates is shorter and shorter.

5. Poor interviewing techniques. If hiring authorities would simply write out a simple ( . . . or complicated) list of questions and ask every candidate the same questions, record the answers and compare each candidate’s responses in a timely manner, hiring decisions would be
easy to make. “Tell me about yourself,” is the first question down the wrong road. Most employers start with that, ask random questions to “get to know the candidate,” make notes on
the resumes and then, three weeks later try to compare the candidates. They often spend hours with candidates and don’t remember the differences between them.
A structured, disciplined interview technique that is applied to every candidate in exactly the same manner is the only real way to compare candidates. It is so simple
and yet so seldom practiced. (We have samples of structured interviews for the asking.)

6. Interviewing or not interviewing a candidate based on the resume! 40% of hiring a person is based on personality and chemistry! Then why do people rely on resumes instead of interviews? Because they don’t know how to use a resume. I can’t tell you how many phenomenal candidates get eliminated because of a resume and how many poor performers get interviewed because of a well written resume. “But I can’t interview every resume I get!” OK,
right. But if a candidate even looks like a possibility of being a good one, at least pick up the phone and spend 15 or 20 minutes with him or her. Or, better yet, spend 30 minutes face to face with them. Get a quick take on who they are and what they can do. Do this with a number of candidates. You can then thoroughly interview the ones that are the best for your situation. This method is quick and efficient, but it takes discipline . . . no more than 30minutes on the first one! Hiring authorities and screeners put way too much emphasis on what is on a resume. They try to judge the total quality of a candidate by a resume. A resume is a “go by.” It should simply define a candidate as a “possibility” . . . and a broad possibility at that. The interviews have to be the qualifiers. People who “qualify” a candidate and decide how he or she is going to perform should read Tony Romo’s resume . . . a nobody . . . or Kurt Warner . . . a bagger at a grocery store . . . or Abe Lincoln . . . many failures. Don’t rely on resumes!

7. Not interviewing enough candidates . . . or interviewing way too many. Most hiring managers err on the “too few” end of the spectrum. “I want to talk to the three best candidates!” . . . ”I don’t have time to talk to everybody!” No one person other than a hiring authority can
tell who is “best.” Three or four is usually too few. The “bell curve” for most professional hires is about nine or ten candidates. This, of course, depends on the level of job and the availability of certain types of candidates. The key is to know what kind of availability there is in the marketplace for the kind of person being sought. Our banking division, for instance, may be lucky to find three or four qualified V.P.’s at any one time. A mid-level sales position may require ten or twelve candidates. Even recruiting a number of quality candidates for administrative
positions that traditionally would yield many quality candidates isn’t as easy to do in this market. The key is to interview a range of quality candidates and know what is available. If you want to wait for superman or superwoman, we guess that’s OK. It just depends on how badly you need to hire someone. Just be sure you know, first hand, the quality of candidates who are on the market, and the only way to do that is by personally interviewing the necessary number of available candidates. The other end of the spectrum is the hiring authority who wants to interview forever, thinking unrealistically that the quality of candidates will get better as more are interviewed and more time passes. All too often, we hear from hiring authorities, “We have interviewed 20, 25 or 30 candidates.” There is something wrong here. They exhaust themselves in a “process,” forgetting the result. . . and then complain about it. It doesn’t yield a good employee. They confuse activity with productivity. Interview the number of candidates necessary. Don’t make the mistake on either end of the spectrum.

8. Not communicating with candidates after interviews and not giving honest feedback. For some reason, certain hiring authorities don’t mind being rude . . . even to candidates they are interested in hiring. Everyone is busy. The truth is, to a candidate looking for a job, whether
presently employed or not, finding a job is the very highest priority. To a currently-employed interviewer, in spite of the lip service paid to the importance of hiring, it is simply one of their functions. Hiring is a risk. Most employers don’t really like doing it. So the process often
gets postponed, sloppy and rather unprofessional. As the market tightens, quality candidates will have many suitors. A good candidate will simply lose interest in a possibly good opportunity if they are treated rudely. We have had many candidates elect to pursue specific opportunities simply because they were treated with respect and courtesy. Also, if the candidate isn’t going to be considered, he or she should be told as soon as possible. We are amazed at
how frequently a candidate can’t get their call (or calls) returned . . . just to find out if the company has found a more suitable candidate. We never know when a lack of courtesy will come back to haunt us. Years ago, I had a candidate who was rudely ignored by a hiring authority. A few years later, the roles were reversed. The ignored  candidate was now the hiring authority and when I tried to get him to see my candidate (the hiring authority who
had once ignored him), my client laughed and said “no” with a vengeful glee. He remembered how he had been treated. What goes around often comes around.

9. Not selling the job and the company. Although this isn’t the biggest mistake hiring authorities make, it is certainly the most prevalent one. We can never figure out why, in trying to find the best talent available, some hiring authorities act as though they are doing someone a favor by granting them the privilege of an interview. They act as if they have the only job on the planet and candidates are begging to work there. Wrong! Good candidates will have
many choices. The days of the early 2000’s, when there were endless numbers of candidates, are gone. The company and the hiring authorities that sell their job the most effectively will hire the best talent. It is a candidate driven market. We can also forget lowball offers, poor benefits or a “take it or leave it” attitude when making an offer.

10. Not having “back up” candidates. This means continuing to interview even though a great candidate may have been found. In fact, we recommend having three great candidates in the queue.  As happens too often, a hiring authority zeroes in onone candidate, and as the interviewing process drags on (see #4) the hiring authority quits interviewing because it is a pain. They get to the end of the process, make an offer and it isn’t accepted. The frustration of having to start all over again is astounding. So, the solution is to keep interviewing until someone is hired . . . and has started the job. We simply expect that a good candidate
is going to get multiple offers.

10 (a) Not firing a new hire when the hiring is obviously a mistake. This is a tough mistake to make. Everyone wants to see a new employee to make it. But too often, cutting the new hire too much slack because they are new is a mistake. The numbers of failed new hires we have seen that were let go or quit six or seven months after their hiring, with the hiring authority complaining, “I saw it in the first week!” would make us all cry. It becomes disruptive to the business, it destroys the chemistry of the employees working with the new hire, and worst of all, everyone can detect it, but the hiring authority chooses to overlook it. Respect for the hiring authority diminishes and eventually the new employee leaves or is fired. The solution adopted by the best hiring authorities is to keep new employees in line in the very beginning, even “over manage” a bit. If disregard for company policies or poor work habits (like showing up late, missing work, or having numerous “personal” problems) emerge in the first fewweeks of employment, it isn’t going to get any better. Besides, the “honeymoon” isn’t even over. There is a big difference between “rookie” mistakes and poor work habits, low integrity, bad manners
or serious personal problems that impinge on work. Even the most rigorous interviewing
process and extensive reference, background and credit checking can’t prevent this from happening. One of the most successful hiring authorities we worked with years ago had a great philosophy.He was the most successful general manager of a nationwide insurance company. And he achieved that for 15 years in a row. He managed 110 people, directly and indirectly. He told me one time that he wasn’t successful because he hired better people than the other GM’s around the country. The difference was that he fired people “when he first got the inkling.” He simply didn’t waste his time on people he knew weren’t going to make it. The sense of when to fire a new employee is personal. Good mangers know when to do it. Hire carefully but fire quickly! If a bad hire is made, eliminate them quickly. The hiring authority will
look like a true manager and everyone is better off.

Every once in a while, we all run into a rather surprising but pleasant situation. I have to admit that I spend a lot of my time listening to well-paid executives complain a lot about their jobs and the companies they work for. Most of the situations I work with, for both candidates and employers, are fairly difficult ones. Finding a job is the fourth most emotional thing people do and I believe that hiring someone is likely to be the fifth. Much of looking for a job and hiring is downright scary. But once in a while I am pleasantly surprised.

One of my candidates, Thomas, recently took a VP position with a mid-size technology firm and he is working for a rather difficult CEO/founder. Now there are a lot of those kinds of guys and gals out there. They are brilliant people when it comes to developing a product or a business system, but absolutely abominable when it comes to managing people. Thomas’ CEO is just that kind. He is always the smartest guy in the room. He has a big ego. He always wants to control. And nobody can do any job as well as he can. But this CEO needs Thomas. He’s already been through a number of people like Thomas and since the company’s board is beginning to question the CEO’s ability to get along with anybody they pretty much imposed Thomas on the CEO. (I know dozens of you out there think I’m talking about your CEO! Right!!)

Thomas is a great VP and even in the short period of time that he has spent at the new company, he has made some positive differences. He was sharing with me some of the challenges that he is having and going to have with the CEO. He said one thing that was really interesting and very gratifying. He said, “It’s my job to change me and to really work with this guy so we can get something done and make the company a lot better. If I change me so I can better work with him it’ll be a good deal for all of us.” We’ll have to wait and see how this works out, because the CEO has been through quite a number of VP’s. But WOW! What an attitude on Thomas’ part.

I have to admit that I have heard very, very, very few managers in my career take an attitude that they were the ones who had to change. Most of us think that if everybody would see the world the way we did and they changed, the world would run very smoothly. Instead of complaining, bitching and moaning about what an idiot his boss was, Thomas was thinking of what he could do and how he could change to work better with the CEO and make the company better. How refreshing. Bet it works!

It made me wonder how much better our companies would be… and how much better we all would be… if more of us thought about how we could change in order to work with some of the people that we work with, rather than wishing how others would change. I get a strong feeling that Thomas is going to do really well in this new job. What a great attitude!