Note: it is almost impossible to get on the Ask Havi list. This person got in by a. being one of my clients or students, b. flattering the hell out of my duck, and c. making life easy on me by being clear about what the question was and what details I could use.
“I need to become better at hiring people.
What do you do before hiring someone? Do you have a process? Do you go with your gut? What do you look out for? How do you make sure that this person will be a good fit working with you?”
Oh honey. Yes. This is probably the hardest part of being in business and biggifying what you do. Seriously.
Let’s see …
Process?
Hahahahahaha. Not really.
I write a personal ad. I think about the qualities and values that are important to me. I put a wish out there.
And then I ask everyone I know for recommendations. That’s how I’ve found most of the VAs (virtual assistants) on my pirate crew.
Go with gut?
Yes.
I really have to get a hit that I can trust this person.
Of course, I’ve worked with plenty of people who were absolutely trustworthy and it still wasn’t a good match … sigh.
What do you look for?
Responsiveness.
A sense of humor.
Someone who is at least as weird as I am.
My wonderful friend Kelly Parkinson says that you really have to “match your values”, and I think she’s right.
So what I value is kookiness, personality, passion and hard work. Maybe for you it’s something else. If you look at what isn’t working, that might give you a better idea about what could work.
How do you make sure that this person will be a good fit working with you?
Okay, this is not exactly where I excel, but I will share the absolute all-time best information I’ve ever received on this.
Story time! Plus the best advice I can give you (that’s not even mine).
Remember when I flew to Vancouver for Michael Port’s Beyond Booked Solid seminar?
(flashback to September 2008, weird scooby doo effects)
This is me in a state of complete and utter desperation because my business was turning into the world’s biggest headache.
On top of that, I couldn’t get the VA thing to work. And I was starting to think that I would never find someone who would be able to really help me in my business.
Also, I was terrified that I was turning into Aryeh, the worst boss I ever had. Seriously. Worse than the fall-down drunks who ran the bars I used to work at.
The worst boss and the person I am afraid of becoming.
Always upset with you. Always screaming at you in front of the entire company.
Oh, and he expected you to be able to do three people’s jobs cheerfully, efficiently and flawlessly. Also, without any explanation whatsoever about what those jobs entailed or how to do them.
Perspective? This guy had gone through fourteen executive assistants in the course of one year. Half had gotten canned and the other half had (understandably) run away.
I worked for him for three months, making me by far the one with the most seniority. I know.
And somehow, he managed to think that it was always “them”. Never him. He wasn’t the asshat. They were incompetent.
Now all of a sudden I was the CEO* and — even worse — I had turned into the one complaining about how it’s “impossible to find good help”.
Disaster. And embarrassing. So by the time I got to Michael’s seminar, I was really at a loss.
Luckily he was full of wisdom and smartnesses, which I will pass along to you.
*CEO = Chief Eccentricity Officer
Healthy relationships take time.
Michael reminded me that any good relationship is something that is built over time.
He reminded me that I’m not a horrible person if some of them don’t work out.
Just like with falling in love. You don’t fall in love with everyone you have a coffee with.
Same goes for finding a good therapist or the right yoga teacher. Most combinations aren’t going to work.
Anyway, I was incredibly relieved to learn that Michael had also gone through a very long period of trial and error, emphasis on error.
It gave me permission to keep trying.
Training is everything.
Michael also taught me that it’s my responsibility to train people very specifically in terms of what I want them to do and how I want them to do it.
So I had always looked for a VA who knows my shopping cart system, and then would get annoyed when she’d make ridiculous mistakes.
She said she knew the system, but then she’d get things wrong.
To me it seemed irresponsible and incompetent. But Michael helped me realize that not everyone uses the same systems in the same ways, and that it’s my job to be very clear on how I want things done and why I want them done that way.
His analogy: even Michael Phelps is screwed if he’s out alone in the middle of the ocean.
Skill sets alone are meaningless without instruction, guidance, boundaries. That was useful for me.
Also, I hired the brilliant Cairene to help me clarify and organize my systems, which has helped me enormously. Understatement. I would be lost without her.
Look for someone you like.
The other huge piece of advice I got from Michael –and this was my lightbulb thing— was this:
I should stop looking for a VA … and start looking for someone I really like who gets my business. Someone who really, really gets it.
To look for qualities over skills, personality over ability and willingness to learn and get dirty over experience.
Find the person you like and then train them to do what you want them to do.
And very, very, very soon after that, I found my dear First Mate Marissa.
I never would have approached her before because she wasn’t branded as the thing I was looking for.
But in the meantime I was filling out long and complicated forms for these fancy VA sites and they weren’t even getting back to me.
If you love them and they get it, you can figure out the rest.
All along I’d been hiring these super-fancy, super-expensive, assistant-to-the-stars, works-with-all-the-biggifiers sort of VAs, and it wasn’t working.
Yes, they were competent, but they didn’t get me or what I was trying to do.
Realizing that I need someone in my business who really and truly gets the feeling and the essence of what we do and who my Right People are … that was what changed everything for me.
And hooray for that.
Because without Marissa, I wouldn’t have been able to go on email sabbatical or to take an emergency vacation or to run my business with repetitive stress stuff that doesn’t allow me to type.
Recommendations?
Well, definitely write a personal ad.
That’s always a good thing.
- If you have a holistic good-for-the-world business, I recommend that you talk to Joy Slaughter (she’s @JoysLaughter on Twitter).
-
If you need someone who is super social-media savvy (and also a total sweetheart), I recommend that you talk to Michelle Wolverton (she’s @ChelPixie on Twitter).
- And of course I highly recommend Marissa (she’s @MarissaBracke) but just make sure to leave about 60 hours a month for me because I can’t live without her.
Hope that helps!
I’m sure there’s more, though. So … thoughts? Suggestions? Things I forgot to add?
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Oh my. I’ve hired literally thousands of people in my lifetime (corporate life and all). And trained and coached a whole bunch as well. So I could write a novel. Or I could point to a bunch of other people who are really good at hiring. But there’s so much to say….I really can’t.
I will say this though. While I could never use ‘gut instinct’ in corporate life as a reason for anything….it was pretty much always dead on. Listening to your gut is generally a good thing.
All the best!
deb
Deb Owens last blog post..leading a life of quiet desperation? (finding purpose & passion)
Havi, thanks for this wonderfully comprehensive approach to hiring your right people.
“Realizing that I need someone in my business who really and truly gets the feeling and the essence of what we do and who my Right People are … that was what changed everything for me.” Yes! Without that resonance, it just doesn’t work. And with it, you have a pirate crew that can really take your business safely through uncharted waters.
A couple of things to add, although they are implicit in your post: Be the kind of employer your right people will want to work with for a very long time. And hire people who love what they do.
Hiro Bogas last blog post..Barefoot Business
One could wish more companies and HR people were as enlightened as you. Find someone who loves what you do and train them to do what you want. Seems simple, but clearly it’s not!
Barbara J Carters last blog post..Art in Thousand Oaks… this weekend!
Thanks Havi for being the coolest!
I recently picked up a couple of tricks from how Zappos hires folks.
* They ask the person: how weird are you on a rate of 1 to 10. Anyone who does not consider herself even a little weird isn’t hired.
* They check for humility by asking about what the person’s job title was in the past. And if it fit her work or not.
* One other trick I use is – take the prospect out for coffee. And see if they reach out for the cheque. (I’ll always pay though. Just want to see their reaction when the bill arrives.)
* I think what you say and what Deb says is the most important of all though. Listen to your gut. Even a slight inkling of something not being right – and get out.
Ankesh Kotharis last blog post..Rewarding the Bottleneck for Efficiency
Actually….this has been bothering me all afternoon. With years of experience behind me, there is an art form to hiring. There are ways to interview. There are ways to know that people can do what they say they can do. There are even ways to identify what behavioral type (someone more detail oriented) that you need….and if that person fits that role. There are ways to know if a person has the attributes you’re looking for and are ‘train-able’ on the rest….or not.
If people are truly at the point where they’re ready to hire people, and are unsure how to do so, I’d recommend any number of HR and recruiter sites that offer information on just this type of thing.
It really is more complicated.
If it wasn’t, everyone would be ‘a natural’ at it.
I’d have just let it go, except for my attempt at a supportive earlier comment. And I just didn’t feel right leaving it at that.
Sorry.
All the best!
deb
Deb Owens last blog post..leading a life of quiet desperation? (finding purpose & passion)
@Deb – you’re right that it’s super complicated. It’s not a question I feel comfortable answering either.
And at the same time I’m pretty sure that people who are already terrified about how they’re going to pay for a $35/hour or even $60/hour VA are not even going to look into the option of hiring someone to help them choose.
Most of us hire help when we’re already way past the point when we should have considered it.
Ideally, we’d have people who have tiny businesses already testing out help before they needed it and “growing into it” a few hours a month. Practically, I don’t know if that’s going to happen either.
But I wish they would. You are absolutely right that it’s not something that we can necessarily learn to do (or even want to — I was wishing for a fairy godmother pretty much the whole time). 🙂
@Ankesh – that is very cool. I had no idea.
Coffee idea is a good one too except that I’ve never actually met any of the people who work for me. Will consider it if I decide to hire local!
@Barbara – wow. That just brought back the memory of a hundred miserable interviews. 🙂
@Hiro – excellent additions. Super helpful. *blows kiss*
All this is true. It also helps to ask people what they’ve done before, specific examples, because if they did it for someone else, they will do it for you… If they have to be able to deal with angry customers, for example, get them to tell you about a time when they dealt with an angry person… how did they react, what was the result? That way, you’ll hear not just how they do their job, you’ll hear the values and beliefs they have about people…it’s a good way of checking out ‘fit’.
marion barnetts last blog post..Workshop Fun
Speaking as a hiree, I have to say I look for that “fit” as well. All my bestest jobs have been ones I didn’t necessarily have experience with, but where I was a good fit mentally/emotionally with the company and believed what it was doing in the world was a good thing.
I can learn anything with the right training.
Okay, maybe not playing linebacker – I guess I have to consider physical limitations. But I’d get the theory just fine.
Anna-Lizas last blog post..Pollyanna Is Way Out of Touch
I, too, have hired a gazillion people in my previous lives. And one terribly important thing that I discovered is that the ability to “give great interview” seems to have absolutely no connection to whether or not someone will be successful on the job. (Unless, of course, you’re hiring someone to be interviewed for job openings all day.)
In fact, there’s often an inverse relationship between “talking” and “doing” — I’m a good example — because the very skills that make me able to charm you in an interview mean I’m not very good at stacking all your boxes in neat little rows, day after day. Day after mind-numbing, head-exploding, personality-draining — whoops!
I’ve found that if you want to judge “customer service” skills, just role-play a difficult customer on the phone. If you want to judge sales skills, get them to try to sell your desk stapler to you. If you want to judge organization skills, give them five minutes to outline a plan for a surprise birthday party on the whiteboard and talk you through it.
DOING trumps TALKING almost every time, unless you’re hiring them for talking.
(BTW, I’m available to give absolutely AMAZING interviews by appointment for a very reasonable price.)
Dick Carlsons last blog post..Amazing Content Twix To Gain Traffic
(Hi, Havi *smile*)
Ugh … the horrors of hiring. *grimace*
I spent years in a job where turnover in my assistant position was pretty high. I was there 9 years and had 5 assistants. A big cause of the turnover was that the job was too much. Too many skills (bookkeeping, graphic design, writing, event planner) from too many diverse areas (advertising, production, admin support) to exist in one person (at least a person who was willing to work for the salary we were able to offer).
Things got so much better when …
a) we got clear about what the job actually was (not what we wished it could be!)
b) we got clear about how long training would take (About 6 mos, not 2 weeks)
c) I was given greater authority in choosing the final candidate.
d)I added much more weight to my answer to the question “How would it feel to sit in a meeting once a week with this person?”
e) I followed my friend R’s advice — Hire smart, capable, likeable people and teach them how to do what you want. (I guess it worked, he recommended me for the job I eventually took there!)
Thanks for sharing your “process” (*smile*).
singingly,
sg
Sarah M. Greers last blog post..Food for Thought #6
Thanks for the recommendation. It’s huge coming from you!
Anyone looking to hire for the first time or maybe for the second or third (or…) and are just scared about getting it right, Havi has nailed it.
Great relationships even with employees, assistants, and others takes time. When you do get to hiring, be very specific about the task that you need done and the time frame you have in mind. Clear communication will help tenfold to build a new (and great) working relationship.
Chel / chelpixies last blog post..A small trick to save you time when moving your WordPress blog (and backup advice!)