One of the most difficult, yet most important elements of any business is the hire strategy. The question is how to accomplish hiring the right people.
Formulating the hire strategy and during the hiring process, you really must take into consideration personality.
Even the person who is talented, sometimes they don’t have the right team personality because they are too disruptive. So you hire the right people who will most easily fit and you hire quality to build a strong team.
But hiring the right people isn’t necessarily the same as hiring those who look the best on paper. Tuning in during the interview process to gauge how well a person would fit in the office every day, where they’d inevitably interact with their colleagues and be part of the office ecosystem, matters quite a bit.
It is about team chemistry.
Avoid the high costs of turnover, and keep your company culture secure by asking these five questions in your next interview:
What activities do you do outside of work that benefits your day-to-day job?
Whether it’s an exercise to let off steam or attending local networking events to get involved with the community, someone who has his own personal development strategy is someone who takes charge of his own destiny.
You’re looking for someone who is inspired outside of the office — because that inspiration will trickle back into your agency and the work.
Hire strategy … can you give me a random bit of trivia about yourself?
This question will reveal how comfortable a person feels chatting with you. If he answers with something short and standoffish, you know he might take some time to warm up to the team.
If he answers with something he perceives as embarrassing, like he runs a Harry Potter fan site, he just might fit in with your eccentric crew.
How do you feel about our company values?
An interview is a two-way street, so the candidate should have done his part to discover key facts about your company. He should know if it is a good fit for him.
Ask this question to see how much pre-interview research the candidate did, and use it to open up a conversation about your company’s culture and why you value it.
Remember: You want the interviewee to be honest, so award him the same courtesy by painting an accurate picture of what your company culture is like today. Avoid using aspirational buzzwords when describing your company, and be as authentic as possible.
Tell me a time about when you encountered a conflict with a co-worker. How did you overcome it?
Employees must have solid interpersonal skills; otherwise, your company culture will lose its flavor faster than a piece of Dubble Bubble gum. There will always be times when co-workers disagree, but it’s how they handle situations and move on that matters.
Would you be willing to take a DISC assessment?
DISC is a personality assessment tool based on the DISC theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston. A DISC assessment allows co-workers to understand each other in a profound way.
It reveals what people are motivated by, their ideal environment dislikes, communications do’s and don’ts, and even hidden desires. DISC offers fascinating insight, but it won’t tell you everything. Trust your gut, and bring promising applicants back for a second interview with another manager if you’re really unsure.
Related post: People Are Your Business, So Recruitment Is Lifes Blood
Part science and part gut check, hiring a new employee is an exhaustive task that can be made easier — and exponentially more successful — when you analyze if candidates are great culture fits, not just whether or not they can do the job.
The bottom line
Look to build good team chemistry as a top priority.
And that’ll help greatly in keeping your team focused, engaged, and passionate.
Do you have any stories from your hiring experience vault that you could share with this community?
Need some help in capturing more improvements in your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
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Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of a business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More hiring material from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Recruitment Process … Avoid These 5 Killer Hiring Mistakes
