Hiring Remarkable Employees: Henry Lopez and David Begin discuss process, tips, techniques and best practices for hiring remarkable employees for your small business. This is part 2 on this topic. This episode focuses on assessment tools to help you screen employment candidates and the 2-step interview process to help you select the right employee for your small business.

Hiring Remarkable Employees – Part 2:

• The As small business owners, we are busy and responsible for all aspects of our small business. The challenges with hiring employees include:
  > Hiring is not our full-time job, and we may not be very good at it.
  > We tend to rush the process because we need to fill a position as soon as possible and we need to get back to running our small business.
  > We often have a tendency to hire people we like and who are like us. This can result in overlooking their qualifications and skills. But there does need to be a balance on this since we do have to like these employees with whom we will likely be working with closely on a daily basis.
  > We want to claim victory at the hire. But, we must understand that it’s a process that does not end at the hire.
• We recommend that you consider using assessment tools, like PDP ProScan (a tool for measuring and defining personal strengths) and Kolbe (gives you greater understanding of the person’s natural instincts and helps you determine if they are fit for a particular position) as part of your hiring process. In this episode we describe what we think about these tools and how we use them to help us hire exceptional employees at our small businesses.
• The 2-Step Interview Process: 1) Phone Interview – used to screen the candidate and primarily to assess their skills. 2) In-Person Interview – the more traditional interview used to assess overall fit and to determine personality fit. By focusing on skills assessment in the first interview, you minimize the impact of liking the person which can then cloud your judgment on their skill and experience fit. Liking the person is important, particularly in small companies where you work together closely, but it’s important to also clearly and objectively assess their skills and experience.
• The R-Factor Question® (the “R” stands for relationship) developed by (and a registered trademark of) Dan Sullivan, Strategic Coach: “If we were meeting three years from today—and you were to look back over those three years to today—what has to have happened during that period, both personally and professionally, for you to feel happy about your progress?”
• Invest in the Process: Entrepreneurs are goal driven, and often are looking for the fastest way to complete a task. This can result in hiring the first candidate you like, short-cutting the process and potentially selecting the wrong candidate.
• The process does not end at the hire. It’s an on-going process that “ends” after the probationary period (30-90 days). Training is critical to the success of all employees and your small business. Some new employees may be afraid to ask questions for various reasons.

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