New-Hire Training: SO important, but is it URGENT?

You know you should do it.

You know how much better your life will be when it’s done. 

But somehow, you can never quite muster your team’s time and focus to finally document your company’s processes and create a Business Playbook and get clear on what a new hire needs to know and do. I often hear my clients lament that even though they know how important this project is for their business, it’s just never quite been urgent enough to tackle.

Remember Eisenhower? 

And his Matrix? It’s that pesky chart that helps you categorize the tasks and projects you need to complete based on their urgency and importance. The idea is that if a task falls into Quadrant 1 (Urgent AND Important), you should do it first. If it falls into Quadrant 2 (Not Urgent, but Important), you should schedule it as a priority to get done. If it falls into Quadrant 3 (Urgent, but not Important), you should delegate it, and if it falls into Quadrant 4 (Not Urgent NOR Important) you should get rid of it altogether. 

It’s a useful way of getting some clarity on which projects really need to get tackled in a given quarter, month, or week. The problem is that sometimes projects that seem non-urgent actually are. 

FACT: For businesses that hire frequently, developing a consistent and easy-to-deliver training program is more urgent than you think.

You could keep putting off building your training program, thinking about it as a nice-to-have. But think about the hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars flying out your office window every single time you haphazardly train a new employee. Costs like…

• The time your A-Players have to spend reinventing the wheel – figuring out yet again what to train the new employee on, putting together the training materials, and delivering face-to-face training. (Time they could spend on generating revenue, improving processes,, or delighting your clients!)

• The extra days you’re paying your new hires to be “trainees” instead of contributing members of the team.

• The potentially expensive mistakes your new hires may make as a result of not having been trained to do it the “right way.”

When you add up all those dollars, over and over again, you can see how important it is to document your business. And the more new team members you onboard every month, the more urgent this becomes.

It’s not easy to stay focused on projects that seem non-urgent, but just keep thinking about those dollars flying out your window. That’s real. 

Lucky for you, documenting your business doesn’t have to be as painful as you might think! We’ve built an awesome 90-day program to help fast-growing, mission-led businesses do this work. Complete our survey to see if you’re a good fit for the program.

How to Hire Someone With the Right Talents - Part IV (Conducting Screening Calls)

Photo by Chevanon Photography from Pexels

This blog post series about hiring based on talents and core values just never stops! If you’re just now joining us, you can start here with Part I to get caught up. I won’t go into all the details of why a talent-based approach is my favorite because I covered that all in Part I, but to summarize, it’s a way to define the innate human qualities and values you want your ideal employee to possess and then work backwards from that. If that sounds pretty good, then read on.

SO.

Last time we talked, you had received a ton of fab applicants (due to the purposeful job post you’d created) and you’d carefully scored each of them, according to the talents and core values that are most important for the role and for the company. Many of you might be thinking it’s time to move onto the interview phase. But that’s not how I roll.

Instead, I like to move candidates onto the phone screening phase. Goodness knows you don’t have hours and hours to waste interviewing the wrong people, so we want to save those precious interview hours for only the best-aligned candidates. And we discover who those people are by conducting very short screening calls. This post is all about how to do just that.

What is a Screening Call?

I’m so glad you asked. A screening call is a very short, targeted mini-interview meant to further assess a candidate’s alignment to the pre-identified talents and core values for the position. Typically, the call only lasts 10-15 minutes, and candidates are scored according to the same exact metrics as were used to evaluate their application. In fact, you even enter the scores directly on the same scorecard you already made! Talk about a timesaver! After all screening calls are complete, only those who meet a minimum threshold for their score get to move onto the interview round. (Which we’ll cover in our next installment!)

Steps for Conducting Screening Calls

Now that you know what this phase of the hiring process is all about, I’ll lay out the step-by-step directions for how to go about it. The screening calls are my favorite step in the process because they’re super-short, fun conversations and you can typically score them easily. (Scoring applications and interviews always feels more tedious…but TOTALLY WORTH the effort.)

Here’s how to screen…

Step 1 - Set up a Self-Scheduling Link

Once you’ve identified the people you want to invite to your screening calls, you need to have a clear plan for how you’ll get them all scheduled for their calls. The first step is to set up a self-scheduling software account and sync it with your calendar. I personally love and use Calendly, but there are a ton of other options out there. Using this application, you will be able to generate a link that can be embedded into your email invitation text and candidates will be able to self-schedule their screening calls, based on your availability.

Make each appointment 15 minutes in length and be sure to include a field where they enter their phone number so you can call them at the appointed time. Be sure to allow at least a 10-minute buffer between sessions so you’ll have time to score each candidate after the call. Most scheduling software, like Calendly, will allow you to do this. It’s also a good idea to enable automatic email reminders so candidates are sure to be available for their calls.

Step 2 - Draft an Invitation Email

Now that you have your scheduling link ready to go, you can insert it into the body of your invitation email. I usually say something like…

Hi [candidate’s name]!

Thanks so much for your interest in the [position name] position at [name of company]! Based on your application, we’d love to schedule a short screening call to get to know you a bit better. Please use the scheduling link below to find a time that works best for you. Someone from our team will call you at the number provided at that time.

[insert scheduling link]

We’re looking forward to it!

Thanks,

[your name]

Soon, your calendar will magically be filled with screening calls!

Step 3 - Write Your Questions

Remember in Part II of this series when we wrote some pretty unconventional application questions to encourage our applicants to reveal their talents and core values? Well, we’re going to do some of that again.

But this time, our goal is to get them to blab on and on so we have lots of juicy data to evaluate. And so we’re looking to write questions that encourage such behavior.

While you definitely don’t want to craft questions that have a “right answer” that aligns to your identified talents and core values (Why do we insist on writing these???) it is a good idea to think about how you might get someone with your identified talents and core values to reveal that truth.

And those two things may sound like the same thing but they are subtly different.

For example, if you say “Tell me about a time when you had to stay organized when things were chaotic,” a savvy candidate will know that you’re looking for someone who’s hyper-organized under any conditions. SO THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE GOING TO TELL YOU.

On the other hand, if I say, “Tell me about a time when everything went wrong with an important project.” Someone who has a talent for staying organized in the face of chaos is going to reveal that in the way they answer without you coming right out and asking for that talent. Perhaps they’ll tell you about the checklists they made or the way they rallied the team for a quick status update every hour. The point is that if that talent is part of their DNA, it’ll come spilling out.

Screening questions should…

• Ask candidates to tell a specific story, rather than to give generalizations about “how they are,” when possible.

• Not include any of the words from your identified talents or core values for this position or be obvious as to the “right” answer.

• Be broad enough that a candidate could take it any number of ways. (The direction they take their answer can reveal a lot about the person’s talents and core values, in-and-of-itself.)

Here are a few of my favorite screening questions for identifying talents and core values. (I recommend choosing no more than 6):

• What are your career goals for the next year? 3 years? 10 years?

• Tell me about a time working with someone who drove you crazy. Give an example of something they did. How did you deal with that?

• Tell me about a “work bestie” you’ve had. What made that relationship work so well? Give an example.

• Describe a “perfect” day at work. Walk me through it.

• Tell me about a time when you got some feedback from someone at work.

• Whats the work accomplishment you’re most proud of?

• Tell me about a time when you totally messed up something.

• How do you decide what to work on each day?

Do you see how you could use the same set of interview questions for a high-powered sales rep and a ultra-organized executive assistant and still be able to uncover some key truths about what makes them tick? That’s the whole idea.

Step 4 - Conduct the Screening Call

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: Time for your first screening call. Take a deep breath and remember that your goal here is to be as friendly and conversational as possible so the candidate relaxes and opens up about who they are.

If at all possible, have someone else sit in to take notes on the call or record the call so you can have a record. (Be sure to ask for permission!) But if it’s just you, don’t stress…you can just jot down notes as you go along. I like to have my candidate scorecard in front of me the whole time so I can be thinking about how the candidate’s responses are aligning to the talents and values I’ve identified.

The golden rule of the screening call that everyone has the hardest time with is this: You are not allowed to ask follow-up questions. And it’s super-awkward and uncomfortable. But here’s the thing: We humans are biased creatures and helpful ones too. So when someone we like isn’t quite answering a question the “right” way, we’ll often give them a little hint by asking clarifying follow-ups. You’re giving away the answers when you do this, people.

Instead, make a rule that you will ask NO follow-up questions to anyone. This makes the playing field even and allows you to be as objective and fair as possible during this phase of the process. Remember, if someone strongly possesses a given talent or core value, they will let that shine through, no matter what questions you ask.

Here’s the exact agenda I use for my quick 15-minute screening calls:

• Hello & Introduction, including my position

• A disclaimer that I’ll be pretty quiet throughout…not really asking follow up questions, but not to be weirded out by that. They should feel free to say as much as they like about a particular question. Rambling is fine.

• Are you ready?

• Question 1

• Question 2

• Question 3

• Question 4

• Question 5

• Question 6

• Thank you for your time and interest! Here are the next steps in the process.

• Do you have any questions?

I go through the above steps, listen carefully, type like a madwoman to capture everything they say, and do my best to keep my mouth shut in-between questions. As I said before, most of the time, this call only takes 10-15 minutes, if you behave yourself.

Step 5 - Score the Screening Call

Immediately after you hang up the phone, get to scoring.

It’s time to be a robot, once again. Just as in Part III, if something they said showed evidence of a particular talent or core value, give them a score of “1” for that talent/core value. (If they already had a “1” in that area, you can just leave it as a “1”…don’t add additional points.) It doesn’t matter if you want to be their best friend after getting off the phone. They ONLY get points if they show evidence of a particular talent or core value.

By the end of scoring, the person may have revealed an even greater alignment to your identified talents and core values. Or they may not. Either way, you’ve learned more about whether this person is a good fit for this position and your organization which takes you one step closer to meeting your ideal new-hire.

Keep repeating steps 4 and 5 until you get through all of your candidates. Once you do that, you’ll be able to sort them from highest to lowest overall score so you can see who the best fits are. Based on the results, decide the minimum score they have to have in order to move onto the interview phase and eliminate the rest. That might mean you have ten interviews, or it might mean you only have three.

Now you have a nice, short list of candidates to interview! AND you know exactly which talents and core values you still need to validate in order to decide whether they’re a good fit for your team.

Isn’t it a relief to have a clear plan for finding just the right person to join your team?

The next post in this series will be all about the interview, so be sure to check back next week! (OR you can subscribe to my posts so you never miss one!)

Until then…happy screening!

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How to Hire Someone With the Right Talents - Part III (Evaluating the Applicants)

If you're just tuning in, I'm in the middle of a multi-part post series to walk you through every step of using a talent-based hiring process. If you'd like rewind and read from the beginning, start here. The big idea is that we’re being intentional about identifying what we care about most in our new-hire and building a system to select for exactly those things. What I'm outlining here is the actual process I use to recruit rockstars for my own teams and for Process Mentors' clients.

In the last post, I told you everything I know about writing a great application that will attract the right kind of team member while simultaneously giving you the information you need to make an informed decision about who gets to move forward in the process. It's a step that really does matter.

In this post, things are going to get real nerdy as we build a system to evaluate your applicants and then put that plan into action. And, spoiler alert, there are robots.

Let the fun begin!

How to Evaluate Your Applicants Without Getting Tricked

Since we last met, you have crafted a beautiful application. It quickly filters out deal-breakers for your position, forces them to show their true personality, asks them to tell you some of their talents, and even has them responding to some real-life scenarios they might encounter in their role.

I know I kind of glazed over the whole "where to post" part, but honestly the answer to that riddle is highly dependent upon the type of role you're hiring for, your location, the technical or educational requirements of the job, and a number of other things. Maybe we'll revisit that subject in another post, but for now, I'm going to trust that you'll experiment with some different places to share your job posting and see what happens. Remember…it'll never be perfect. The only pointer I'll give for now is never underestimate the power of sharing posts with your social network - especially with those who you already know are A-players. A-players hang out with other A-players. It's science.

As I mentioned, in this post we're going to build a system you can use to evaluate all of the applicants who come rolling in after you post your position. I've found that it can be very exhilarating when the first few applications start trickling in, but that excitement can quickly turn to overwhelm if you don't have a plan for how to triage the situation in a way that yields clear front-runners and easily eliminates the rest.

This post will give you such a plan.

Step 1: Create Your Applicant Scorecard

Ok, remember allllll the way back in Part I when we defined our core values and key talents for this role? Now it's time to take those core values and key talents and turn them into a scorecard that will make evaluating your applicants a no-brainer. But to get to that place of no-brainer bliss, you do have to do a bit of thinking. Sorry.

I recommend that you build this scorecard in a spreadsheet-style application like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. I use Smartsheet, of course, because I can have all of my applications automatically show up in my scorecard and immediately filter out those who don't meet minimum requirements. But don't stress if you don't have Smartsheet. You can totally do this with a plain old spreadsheet. I've even made a template for you to use as a jumping-off point.

Step 2: Add Your Core Values and Key Talents

To start, you'll list each of your core values (shown highlighted in orange) and your key talents for the role in separate columns. I like to highlight the two categories in different colors because it helps to highlight when a candidate is a great fit, talent-wise but not a good fit for the company culture or vice-versa. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I chose three core values and three key talents for this example, just to keep things simple, but you might have up to six for each. I've included columns for more in the template I provided. Be sure to give them clear and descriptive names so you’ll remember what they mean later.

Step 3: Add Descriptions for each of your Core Values and Key Talents

Here’s where you need to put some real effort in...you need to brainstorm things that would be true about someone with each of these core values and key talents. You could even list things that would NOT be true about someone with that particular core value or key talent. For example, “Would not look the other way if he/she felt something was wrong.” I definitely recommend enlisting your team to help you with this to give additional insights.

Here’s what I came up with for descriptions for the sample core values and key talents:

Some of my descriptions may be totally different than what you would’ve put down for that particular core value or key talent. And that’s the point. Your version of “connector” might be about being an extrovert and always wanting to be with others, while mine is more about making meaningful connections. That distinction matters because you’ve chosen your talents to be aligned to this role and you’re about to measure people against those standards. You need to spend time to clearly identify what you’re looking for so you can then notice it (or not) when it shows up on the application, and then later during the interview process. Additionally, if you have multiple people who will be helping with screening applicants, it ensures that everyone is on the same page with what a given core value or key talent actually means.

So although this step can take some time, I recommend slowing down and doing this part thoroughly. Think about people on your team or in your life who exemplify these traits. What would they write on an application that might tip you off? Write those descriptions down messily and imperfectly. Remember, all of these tools will continue to evolve as your process evolves.

Step 4: Make a Scoring Formula

During the applicant evaluation phase, we’re going to try to make things as objective as possible. Which may seem impossible, given the fact that we’re evaluating based on such “human” traits, but trust me...it’s doable.

I create an “Overall Score” column and place a formula that averages the score for that candidate, based on the scores listed in all of the core values and key talents columns. Here’s what that looks like: (Don’t worry...the formula is set up for you on the template, if formulas aren’t your thing!)

The idea here is that as you score “Sally Sue” against your pre-defined criteria, it’s going to automatically calculate how close of a fit she is to your position. Later, this will allow us to quickly filter out the cream-of-the-crop. (But more on that later.)

Step 5: Eliminate Deal-Breakers

Equipped with your super-clear, super-detailed, talent-based applicant scorecard, you’re almost ready to start scoring, but first, there’s one layer of filtering you need to apply.

If your application software didn’t automatically filter out people who didn’t meet the minimum requirements for the position (AKA the “deal-breakers”), you’ll want to make sure the very first thing you’re doing is to check for those as you’re sifting through candidates. Since you made all of those questions Yes/No responses, it should be pretty quick to do, but it will save you a lot of time scoring people who will be a waste of time in the end.

There are two other types of “deal-breakers” I’ve encountered with applicants that you can also filter out:

First, the “applicant with an attitude” feels the need to use your application as an opportunity to criticize or berate you, your company, your application, or the hiring process. I don’t fully understand why one would do this, but I eliminate them on the spot.

Second, the “one sentence responder” does just that...responds with one sentence for each question. Some may value that kind of brevity, but I find it very difficult to score them based on so little information. So I eliminate these guys too.

Step 6: Start Scoring

Now it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for...it’s time to score. The mantra here is “Be a Robot.” What I mean by this is, you’ve done the hard work to make the core values and key talents you’re looking for as objective as possible. Now it’s time to rely on that system and do everything in your soul to ignore your “gut feelings.” At this phase, it’s SO easy to get sucked into being impressed with people who are just good at the game of job applications, so it’s essential that you stay robotic.

The question I use to score each of the core values and key talents is a simple one:

Do they show evidence of this quality?

That’s it. No feelings. No emotions. No “I like them” or “I don’t.” Simply, “Do they show evidence of this quality?”

If they do, they get a “1” in that column for that core value. If they don’t, they get a 0. That’s absolutely it.

You go down the line of applicants and you score each and every one against each core value and talent and give them a score. The formula you set up will give you an overall score and when you’re all done, you’ll have a sense of who your top applicants are.

And before you start yelling at me, YES…

I realize these are humans and we’re being kind of cold about the whole thing. But you’re a human too, and that’s the trouble with hiring in the first place!

AND

I KNOW THIS IS NOT PERFECT SCIENCE! We’re still being objective and using imperfect descriptions to score candidates based on limited information. Here’s what might help you feel better…

The values and talents that people most strongly possess tend to come out in their writing and interactions, whether they want them to or not. If you give them a chance, they will cue you in. Also, no one is expected to tick all the boxes at this point! This is only the very beginning of the process. You’ll have ample opportunities in later steps to see if they display other core values and key talents. But if someone is coming out guns-a-blazin’ with evidence of 5 out of 6 of your core values and key talents (and meeting your minimum requirements) just from the application, chances are that’s a person you might like to meet in an interview.

All this process does is focus your attention on the things you said were important in the first place. Remember, we’re trying to hire someone who will LOVE their job and LOVE your company and want to stick around for a very long time. Let’s look for those core values and key talents in them, shall we?

How to Hire Someone With the Right Talents - Part II (Writing the Application)

When we last met, I shared the low-down on why I love talent-based hiring, and exactly how to define your ideal candidate and write a killer job description to lure them right to you. We built the foundation for the hiring process you can use again and again and again. Because that’s what we Process Mentors do.

Oh, but there’s more. So very much more.

So this time, we’ll dive into the next step in the process: Creating a killer job application that gives the right person a chance to shine and sends the wrong person packing.

But before we even start, I want you to take a minute to ask yourself what this application is for in the first place. As Seth Godin asks, “It may very well be that this programmer or that cleaning person or this animator is absolutely terrible at the things that make it easy to get hired. Is there anything wrong with that?”

Well, is there?

Our goal here is not to make a generic application that has candidates jumping through the typical BS hiring-hoops to prove they’ve mastered the skill of...filling out a job application. Instead, we’re trying to assess their ability to actually do the job well and love it. That “why” should inform absolutely every choice you make as you build your hiring process. Give yourself permission to make your application read nothing like any you’ve ever read before.

OK...Let’s not waste anymore time...here we go!

How to Write a Job Application that Actually Results in Useful Information

In Part I of this series, you did a lot of hard work to identify the core values of your organization and the talents (Remember...not just the skills!) that would be required to do the job. You also used those two nuggets of information to write a breathtaking job description that strategically used those core values and talents to entice those who fit the bill and hopefully scare away ones who don’t. Cool.

Next comes the application. What many managers do at this point is request a resume and use the application as a place to torture the candidate by making them basically re-type their entire resume all over again in application form. Not cool.

Instead, the application phase is an opportunity to save yourself precious time by eliminating people who “look good on paper” or are great at selling themselves, but are actually a poor fit for your organization or role.

But you have to be strategic about it. Here’s how…

Step 1: Filter for Deal-breakers

Remember back in the job description phase when we added the true non-negotiables to the “minimum requirements” section? You should have a “yes/no” question to correspond with each of those non-negotiables at the very top of your application. For example, if you have to be a Montana-certified biology teacher to get the gig, one of the first questions on the application should be, “Do you have a current Montana biology teacher certificate? (Yes/No).” Since this is an actual requirement for the job, anyone who says no is an automatic bye-bye. Some software will even automatically disqualify people who don’t answer certain questions “correctly.” This can save you a ton of time doing initial screenings.

You’ll also want to make sure to ask for a resume, so you can check up on the details of the candidate’s job history and check for any other deal-breakers you might see.

Step 2: Get Them “Real-Talking”

Most job applications are boring and an exercise for applicants to see who can be the most generic-yet-professional in their response. And this tells a hiring manager exactly nothing useful, because everyone’s just saying the words they think the hiring manager wants to read. We can’t do that, because we’re trying to uncover the actual core values and talents of this applicant. So we’ve got to get them talking. Real talking. That is, you want them to write like they actually talk and to reveal a bit about their personality through their responses.

The best way to generate some real-talk-inspiring application questions is to brainstorm a list of questions you’d ask someone if you were first getting to know them at a party.

Questions like…

What’s your story?

What do you love doing most?

Who inspires you?

Who/what drives you most crazy?

Who is your hero? Why?

What was the last book you read? What did you think?

What do you most enjoy doing on vacation? Why?

What’s weird about you?

I recommend including at least two “real-talk” style questions that don’t explicitly have anything to do with the candidate’s work history in the application, but that will generate some interesting and potentially polarizing responses. As long as the question itself is aligned with your core values, feel free to ask it. Nobody said job applications had to be fancy.  

Step 3: Ask them to Brag

Since you’re screening for just a handful of talents for this position, it’s essential that you get laser-focused on plucking out the candidates who show strong evidence of them. So you need to ask them, straight-out, what they’re awesome at. You can get at this answer in an endless number of ways, so the only thing that’s important is that your question sounds like you and your company.

Here are just a few ways you can get someone to declare their talents…

What would your last boss say about you?

What do your friends love most about you? Give an example.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

What kind of non-work projects have you enjoyed and been most successful at?

What kind of advice do you usually get asked for? Can you give an example of some advice you’ve given?

Notice that each of these examples gets the person to reveal their talents in the context of a real-world situation, instead of just saying, “What are your strengths?” They’re reflecting on how they show up in the world in real-life and how that looks to others around them. And you’re fishing for specific evidence of said things. This is important.

Step 4: Give Some Scenarios

You’re going to want to get a glimpse into how your candidates will think and make decisions on-the-job and there’s no better way to do that on an application than to give scenario-based questions.

A simple way to do this is to ask your team for a list of the problems they’ve solved in the last 48 hours that this new-hire might encounter. Find a few simple-yet-compelling ones, and turn them into scenario-based questions.

For example, if this person would be handling customer service requests, perhaps you would write a question like this one:

A customer has sent an angry message requesting a refund for a course they've purchased because they can't log in. How would you respond? (Please include the email you would write in the space below.)

This provides an opportunity to assess their decision-making, empathy, writing style, formality, attention to detail, and probably about six other things. Like, do they write like a human or a robot? It’s a simple task. It doesn’t take long. But it has the potential to reveal a whole lot about the talents and skills of your potential new-hire. As an added benefit, it also gives the candidate a taste of what they’ll do day-to-day.

I’d include at least one, but no more than four scenario-based questions in your application.

You Might Not Get it Right the First Time

If you follow the steps above to generate your application, you’ll definitely have a unique application that stands out from the crowd and will likely deter any slackers who prefer the resume cut/paste style of application they’ve grown accustomed too. However, I will tell you a bit of bad news.

It might not be perfect. (gasp!)

The hiring process is an iterative one and you have to constantly reflect on what’s working and what’s not and tweak the process for the next go-round. This knowledge gives you tremendous freedom because you can let go of trying to make your job description or application perfect. You already know it’s not going to be! Instead, come up with some interesting questions you’d actually like to know the answers to if you were getting to know another human and see what happens. You might even enjoy it.

So to recap, when designing a job application…

1. Filter out people who don’t go against your “deal-breaker” criteria by asking some simple yes/no questions.

2. Ask some fun/personal questions that you might ask someone at a party to snap people out of the “business-speak” and get them sharing a bit of their personality.

3. Try to make people brag about what they’re most proud of.

4. Provide examples of real-life scenarios they’ll deal with on-the-job and ask how they’d handle them.

5. Don’t be a perfectionist! Experiment with different questions and see what happens...you can always adjust them as you get better at this.

In Part III, I’ll show you exactly how to evaluate the responses you’ll get from your application, so you’ll have a deep understanding of whether or not your questions are “working” so you can adjust them for next time.

Until then, it’s time to write that imperfect application and get it posted! Just promise me you won’t start calling or emailing candidates until you read the next post in the series. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it…

How to Hire Someone With the Right Talents - Part I

Hiring the right people is a complicated process.

And a high-stakes one.

After all, you’re deciding who you’ll entrust to help make the vision for your business a reality. No big deal, right?

It’s not something to take lightly, yet I find that many managers rely on uninspiring job descriptions, generic interview questions and gut-based decisions to bring new team members into their organization. Best Case Scenario: They’ve identified specific job responsibilities and have a well-thought-out process for how they’ll interview candidates (Which may or may not be working). Worst case scenario: They schedule interviews with people that “seem qualified on paper,” ask a bunch of questions off the top of their heads, and go with their gut on who to choose.

And I’ve SO been there.

No one teaches you how to hire the right people…you’re just expected to know, once you’re a manager. I personally started out by reverse-engineering what I had experienced as a candidate and then Googling for ALL the templates.

But every time I needed to hire someone, the process felt like a crap-shoot.

It all came to a head when I was charged with making an important strategic hire for my team. Miraculously, I found a candidate who had worked for our biggest competitor in the exact capacity as my position for several years. Furthermore, this person was charming, funny, kind, and had a positive attitude. I was thrilled! How could I have such luck to have met this experienced-yet-available person who knew just what our competitor did to solve our problems?!

I happily hired him.

And then I found out I had made a big mistake.

Although he was experienced and charming and funny and kind and positive, he did not possess the specific talents this job required. Even worse, the situation was taking its toll on my team. I felt awful, but I had to let him go after only a few short weeks.

I knew I had failed him and my team by hiring without a plan.

And I vowed to never let it happen again.

I needed to get hiring right, so I dove into learning everything I could about the subject. Through my failures, I systematically developed a tried-and-true hiring process that, since implementing, has yet to fail me in finding the right fit. In fact, it’s brought me some of the best team members I’ve ever worked with.

My hiring system is based on combination of strategies: One from a book by Marcus Buckingham called, First, Break All the Rules, another by Tom Rath, called StrengthsFinder 2.0, and finally, a dash of some good-ol’-fashioned instructional design techniques. The basis of the system is sometimes referred to as talent-based hiring.

Here’s the truth…

When you approach hiring the way I did, without a plan and without a clearly-articulated vision for the type of person you want to join your team, you are putting your team and your business at risk. A bad hire, even a kind and well-intentioned one, damages your team and your culture and erodes your team’s trust in you as their leader. If you’re thinking you don’t have time to spend on all these details, I hear you. However, the time (and energy and money) you’ll spend to un-do your next bad hire will far surpass the time you spend up-front to get it right.

I invite you to give this step-by-step process a try. Even if you don’t use every piece, I think you’ll find that going through the process will be enlightening to you and your team as you discover what you’re really looking for in your new team member.

In this first post of a multi-part series, I’ll give the low-down on what talent-based hiring is, why it’s awesome, and how to write your very first talent-based job description.

Talent-Based Hiring: The Philosophy

Before we jump into how to do talent-based hiring, it’s important that we get on the same page with what it’s all about.

The American analytics and advisory company, Gallup, defines talent as “a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that is productively applied.” The emphasis for me is on the “naturally recurring” part. I’m sure there are patterns of thought, feeling or behavior you have now that have always showed up for you - even if you look all the way back to childhood. For me, my drive to organize and optimize things was evident back to age 7 or 8, when I used to organize our kitchen cabinets “for fun.” It’s just always been part of me. These things that have always been true for us are talents.

Now, just because we have a talent for something, doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve fully developed it into a “strength.” That takes practice and hard work to achieve. Rath uses the example of someone being born with the potential for large biceps - if you don’t actually put in the work to build those biceps, they won’t develop. Similarly, those who don’t work on their natural talents, won’t see them develop into full strengths. So the recipe is to take your talent, invest time and energy in developing the related skills and knowledge to develop that talent into a strength. In Strengthsfinder 2.0, Rath writes it this way:

Talent x Investment = Strength

So, since we do have natural talents, it makes sense to hire employees who will mostly be doing tasks that fit within their areas of talent, because they’re already naturally-inclined to do these things well and enjoy them. Ideally, they’ve already developed those talents into strengths, but if not, at least they have the capacity to get there through investing time and energy in their development.

In Contrast: Skills-Based Hiring

Now compare the talent-based hiring philosophy to what many managers do: Focus on job-related skills and knowledge. They concern themselves with making sure the candidate has had experience doing the exact thing they’re hiring for, using the software they’ll need to use, or being able to rattle off a list of “the right steps” for the tasks they’ll need to complete.

Yes, it’s wonderful when candidates come into a new job knowing just what to do. And you should definitely assess for skills and knowledge, especially if you won’t be able to develop them in those areas. But it’s not enough to stop at skills and knowledge. Because what if the candidate has spent his entire career in a series of jobs he hates? He got the wrong degree, felt like he needed to stay in the field because he’d already invested all that time and money, and now he feels like it’s the only job he’s qualified to do. Sure, he can talk the talk and tell you everything you want to hear in an interview, but his talents aren’t aligned to his skills and knowledge. So he’ll eventually become disengaged with your awesome job, because the tasks don’t fit within his naturally recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

If you’re not explicitly screening for talents, you won’t find out you have the wrong fit until it’s too late.

How to Write a Talent-Based Job Description

Now that you’re on-board with why hiring based on talents is so important, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to do it.

Step 1 - Define Your Core Values

If you haven’t already clearly-defined your company’s core values, this is an absolutely required step before you do anything else. If you want to ensure your culture stays strong and vibrant for years to come, every single new-hire must be evaluated to make sure they are aligned to your core values. If you need some inspiration to craft yours, here’s an awesome list of core values to get your juices flowing.

Step 2 - Identify the Tasks and Responsibilities for the Position

The best way to show that you are a caring and thoughtful manager is to have clearly thought through (and documented!) the specifics of what you want your new-hire to do. If you can’t write it down, it’s not a thing.

You might be thinking, “But I need help from them to figure out how to do xyz!” Cool. Then “Define xyz process” just became part of their job responsibilities. Write it down.

Make your exhaustive list of responsibilities and then show it to some team members you trust to get their feedback. You’ve probably forgotten something.

Step 3 - Identify the Necessary Talents

Now that you are clear on your core values and the tasks and responsibilities of this position, it’s time to consider the talents this person will need to possess in order to be successful. Remember, talents are those “naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behavior” that can be applied to your position.

I love Rath’s 34 themes from Strengthsfinder 2.0 for helping me define talents for new positions, but even filling in the blank for the question “The new-hire must be naturally _________________” will usually get you what you need.

Start out by listing every natural-born talent that seems essential, and then share it with some trusted colleagues and ask for their feedback. Together, try to narrow your list down to no more than six talents that are absolutely essential for this position, given the core values and job responsibilities.

Step 4 - Write the Job Description

You’ve already done some great foundational work, so this job description should flow pretty easily. There are two keys to writing effective job descriptions:

1 - Match the writing tone and voice to your company culture and core values. For example, if you are a very formal organization, it should be written very formally. If you’re a bit edgy, the job description should be too.

2 - Your job description should attract the right people and repel the wrong ones. Your job description is not the time to make your company and job sound like Disneyland. Be real about the demands and challenges they’ll face. Someone who has the right set of talents will be excited by it and someone who doesn’t will run for the hills. That’s a good thing.

As far as job description structure goes, here’s how I do mine (in order):

• Company Summary - Start with a paragraph that summarizes your company and core values.

• Job Summary - An introductory paragraph that cuts to the chase of what this job is about and what you’re looking for.

• Key Responsibilities - You already made this list! Just add it here.

• Knowledge & Skills - It might seem funny that we’re emphasizing talents over skills in this approach, and then explicitly asking for skills instead of talents in the job description. Well, what we don’t want is for candidates to just parrot back what we tell them we want, from a talent standpoint. We’ll assess for those things during the application and interview phase indirectly, but we don’t want to come right out and tell them the answers to the test. So in this section, we’ll list any knowledge and skills that would be valuable for this person to have as they come into the position. Think technical skills and other knowledge one would acquire after doing a similar type of position. So if you’re hiring for a web designer, ability to create custom Wordpress templates might be an important skill. Or if you’re hiring a 5th grade teacher, you might want someone who knows how to differentiate instruction. Or maybe there’s a particular methodology you love to use…you can list it here. Remember, these may not all be dealbreakers, since you might be willing to train the right person on-the-job, but they’re skills the person will either come in with at the start or will need to acquire on-the-job.

• Minimum Requirements - If there are any non-negotiables, such as required certifications, degrees, etc., put them here. But be sure to make sure it really is a non-negotiable…can you think of a scenario where someone without this requirement could be a good fit? You might rightly want someone with experience in a particular role if you don’t have someone to train them and need them to get up to speed quickly. Or you might want to give an opportunity to someone inexperienced, but with the right talents to grow into the position. Consider those factors carefully when defining your minimum requirements.

• Summary - I like to wrap up my job descriptions with a bit of personality and an invitation to apply if they feel like the post resonated.

Step 5 - Flavor your Job Description with Your Core Values and Desired Talents

Remember what I said earlier about how this job description’s job is to attract your ideal candidate and repel people who aren’t a fit? Well, it’s time to take one last pass at your job description to overly insert elements of your core values or the desired talents you’ve identified for this job. For example, if you’ve identified one of your core values is “Always have a sense of humor,” you’d want to insert touches of humor throughout the post. If you have identified one of the key talents as “Takes charge,” think about what someone who would naturally “take charge” would love to hear in a job post and add that in. That might be something as simple as, “This is a new position, and we won’t be able to tell you how to do most of your tasks. We’re counting on you to figure out the best way to get xyz done.” Someone who likes to have step-by-step directions for tasks would likely be scared away by such a statement, which is exactly what you want in this situation. This last step in the process is all about making sure you’re scaring away the wrong people.

Stay Tuned for the Next Steps…

Congratulations! You’ve written a compelling, talent-based job description. The time you’ve spent putting the extra thought and effort into this description will shine through to the high-quality candidates you’re trying to attract and will likely intimidate anyone who’s not up to the challenge.

In the upcoming posts in this series, you’ll learn how to come up with a comprehensive application, how to decide who to talk to, how to conduct interviews, how to build a valuable sample task, and how to narrow down your candidate pool and ultimately choose your new team member. Be sure to subscribe to my posts so you’ll get the next installment straight to your inbox!

Happy hiring!