TKO Hiring!

Ten Knockout Strategies for Recruiting, Interviewing, and Hiring Great People

Dave Anderson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780470171769
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781118761380
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Practical business guides that pull no punches

Dave Anderson's TKO series presents no-nonsense, down-in-the-trenches management strategies that work in the real world of business. Each of the three informative books in this series offers easy-to-follow, step-by-step guidance on developing the specific skills great managers needs

These quick and to-the-point guides feature detailed techniques and effective strategies presented in user-friendly chapters that are packed with checklists, examples, and practical resources. In each book, readers will find real-world advice in a fast and powerful format that includes:
* Words of Wisdom or "Right Hook Rules"-bite-sized memorable quotes
* Case Studies or "Opening Bell" Stories-real-life business lessons
* Effective Strategies or "Left Hook Laws"-all-meat, no-fat business strategies
* Incisive or "Standard Eight Count" Questions-insightful inquiries that prompt the reader to action

Quick or "Knockout" Summaries-bullet points that sum-up each chapter and offer easy reference

Dave Anderson (Agoura Hills, CA) has led some of the nation's most successful car dealerships and is President of Dave Anderson's Learn to Lead and LearnToLead.com, a Web site that provides free training resources to thousands of people in more than 40 countries. He is also the author of the Wiley books If You Don't Make Waves You'll Drown (0-471-72503-X), Up Your Business! (0-471-44546-0), and How to Deal with Difficult Customers (0-470-04547-7).

Round 1

Understand the Cost of Hiring Recklessly

Let’s Start with Tough Talk

Have you ever given serious thought to the cost of hiring just one poor performer in your organization? I don’t think you can quantify it with any degree of accuracy. Oh, I suppose you can quantify the cost of lost production between a top and bottom performer. That’s the easy part. But how do you calculate the cost of broken momentum that the wrong people inflict on your team? You know what I mean by broken momentum: when dysfunctional employees create distractions and make messes that you have to clean up; or the extra time you must spend trying to motivate them or getting them up to speed. And what about the cost of lower morale? Nothing personal, but the fact is that poor performers lower the collective self-esteem of the whole team. Everyone, especially top performers, feels a bit cheapened and diminished when they’re forced to share the workplace with those who can’t cut it, don’t do their share, or refuse to help the team reach their goals. As high as these costs are—lost production, broken momentum, and lower morale—I haven’t even presented the highest cost yet that the wrong people inflict on your organization. Care to take a guess as to what it is? It is your own personal credibility as a leader. That’s right. Your employees hear you talk big: “We’re number one,” “we have high standards,” “not everyone can be one of us,” and “this is a special place to work.” But then they take a look around at the people you’re allowing to remain in the workplace and, quite frankly, they’re confused! “Number one?” “High standards?” “Special place to work?” they exclaim, “but Larry, Curly, and Mo still work here! The boss is talking right and walking left. He talks like a big dog but walks like a piss ant!” And make no mistake about it: You will lose the respect of the best when you don’t deal effectively with the worst! Go ahead and try to lead effectively when you’ve lost the respect of the best. It’s one tough task.

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Right Hook RULE

People are not your greatest asset—the right people are. The wrong people are your greatest catastrophe. Mediocre people are your greatest drain on resources. We may all have equal value as human beings but we don’t all bring equal value to the workplace.

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They Hurt Worse When You’re on a Roll

As costly as poor performers are, there are certain times when they hurt you far more than other times. Think of it this way: If you’re the driver of a bus that is idling in neutral and one of your tires blows out, you will certainly have some damage but it won’t be too drastic because you didn’t have much speed or momentum. However, if your bus is humming along at ninety miles per hour and you have a blowout, you have a disaster on your hands. And that’s the way it is with poor performers: They hurt your business most when you’re rolling along because when you lose your momentum while traveling at a high speed it devastates your results and diminishes your culture. Bearing this fact in mind, please understand that the problem is compounded by the fact that it is precisely when we’re doing well that we’re also least likely to deal with the derelict, dismal, or depressed, thus ensuring they hang around long enough to bring us down right about the time we’re at the top of our game.

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Right Hook RULE

Train your managers how to recruit, interview, and hire. Hiring should not be a “learn-as-you-go/trial-and-error” experience.

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TKO Tale

My Old Strategy

In my first management job, I received very little training for the first 18 months I was in charge of my department. Thus, I had no real hiring strategy. Well, I guess I did have a strategy, it just wasn’t very effective. Let me share it with you: I’d wait until we were short-handed. Then, I’d run a dumb ad in the newspaper. The ad would bring in a bunch of morons and then I’d lower the bar so a few of them could clear it. I could then declare that we were fully staffed and had “coverage.” Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that many managers have stolen my strategy over the years!

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The Toll Keeps Rising

One cost for hiring the wrong people that many leaders fail to consider is the price paid when they must divert their time, attention, and resources away from their best people in order to try and rehabilitate poor performers. When key employees are ignored they can become indifferent and lose their passion. When you neglect your best people their attitudes become negative and their productivity declines. Since all business leaders and organizations have limited resources they are obligated to invest them where they gain the highest return, but this is made impossible when you are forced to engage in damage control and in plugging holes created by the lazy, the lousy, and the lost.

Misery on the Installment Plan

The American Management Association estimates it costs 3.5 times the annual salary of a departed employee to replace him or her. This includes time and resources spent in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring; lost production of the person while he or she gets up to speed; lost customers the departed employee takes with him or her; and lower productivity from other employees while they help the newcomer.

Yes, the cost of hiring recklessly is staggering! And it’s not a one-time penalty either. It is misery on the installment plan! You and the rest of your team—and customers—pay for it over and over. This is why TKO Hiring will suggest to you that hiring should be an elimination process, not an inclusive process, and that the best time to fire is before you hire. Quite frankly, you must make it more difficult for the marginal, mediocre, and moronic to sneak on board your team.

In my book, Up Your Business: 7 Steps to Fix, Build, or Stretch Your Organization (Wiley, 2003), I titled the first chapter, “Always Remember: It’s the People Stupid!” I inserted this not-so-subtle reminder to put in perspective that until you bring the right people on your team everything else is mostly irrelevant. After all, training, coaching, and motivating the wrong person brings little or no return on your time and energy. Think about it: Regardless of how brilliant your vision and strategy may be, you won’t be able to attain it or execute it when burdened by bunglers. This makes hiring the highest leverage center of gravity on your job description. And that fact makes TKO Hiring your newest best friend.

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Right Hook RULE

“Hire slow and fire fast.”

—Harvey Mackay

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Standing Eight-Count Questions

1. Do you have a written hiring policy for your organization?

2. What is the average annual salary in the job positions where you have the highest turnover?

3. What is the most noticeable cost that poor performers have on your organization: lower production; broken momentum; diminished team morale; lost personal credibility; other?

4. Do you normally wait until you’re desperate before you look for employees to hire?

5. Does your organization have more voluntary or more involuntary turnover?

6. What can you do right away to begin making it tougher for the wrong people to get on board your team?

7. Do you personally get as involved as you should in the hiring process?

8. Do the hires that don’t work out in your organization normally fail because of production issues or failing to live the values issues?

Round 2

Become a Proactive Recruiter

Opening Bell—You’re not Unique!

In the past several years, I’ve averaged giving over one hundred speeches or seminars annually in thirteen different countries and nearly all fifty states. It seems that whether I’m in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, London, Palm Springs, or Podunk, I hear the same cop-out: “Dave, let me tell you about our area. Where we do business, we’re a little different. We have a unique situation. There is a shortage of talented people in our particular area.” Not that you’ve ever resorted to this type of whining, but in case you ever consider using it as an excuse, let me be the first to kick the crutch out from under you: There is no shortage of talented people in any particular area. The Creator didn’t get ticked off at your area and stop putting talented people there. The fact is that the most productive, talented, and successful people already have jobs! They’re not showing up at your place, hat in hand, looking for work. Thus, you must create a proactive recruiting strategy that addresses and attracts passive job candidates.

The Right Recruiting and Hiring Mindset

I want to give you a one-word recruiting strategy that sums up the essence of this Round: proactive. Quite frankly, if you want to build a great team of people you’ve got to stop sitting back waiting to be hunted and turn into a hunter. You must look in the right places and for the right traits; but you must look! You will never make great hiring decisions if you only look for people when you’re desperate—when your back is against the wall and your vision is clouded by crisis.

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Right Hook RULE

Hiring is a lot like dating: As desperation rises, standards fall!

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Focus on Performance Not Your Personal Preference

Before I get into the actual hiring strategies, I would like to suggest that to recruit the absolute best people for your organization you may have to subordinate your personal prejudices or biases to the good of the organization. Effective leaders care more about people’s character, competence, and track record than their color, gender, or national origin. They also realize that driven, mature, older citizens shouldn’t be eliminated because of an age bias. After all, would you rather hire a 55-year-old person that will give you 10 great years of performance or a 25-year-old fast talker that will provide you with 40 years of mediocrity?

Left Jab Laws for Proactive Recruiting

The worst time to recruit, interview, and hire is when you are desperate. You must be proactive and recruit year-round to build a pipeline of talent for your business. But you will never build this pipeline of talent if the only time you recruit, interview, or hire is when you need someone.

Develop a strategy for recruiting passive job candidates into your workplace: those workers already employed and productive in other jobs for other companies. These are the best candidates for the job, not those reading the want-ads. If you want to hire great people you must first talk to great people, and the best people are working.

The want ads are estimated to attract the bottom 30 percent of performers in any field. Thus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Round 1: Understand the Cost of Hiring Recklessly
• Round 2: Become a Proactive Recruiter
• Round 3: Create a Potent Interview Structure
• Round 4: Ask Tough Interview Questions
• Round 5: Effectively Check References
• Round 6: How to Use Predictive Testing Hiring Profiles
• Round 7: How to Get New Hires Off to a Great Start
• Round 8: How to Retain Eagles Once You Find Them
• Round 9: Differentiate Your Employees for Development and Retention
• Round 10: Knockout Summary for Follow-Through
• Bibliography
• Index