Hiring smart: reviewing resumes and screening candidates

May 18, 2015 Comments

When you post a job advertisement you will hopefully start receiving lots of resumes and you need to go through them quickly as top candidates are the most sought after.

If you have asked the candidates to write a cover letter explaining why they would be ideally suited for the job as I suggested in my last article, you will immediately get a sense of how motivated they are and also see their writing skills.

When reviewing the resumes you want to check for the skills that are most essential for the job and eliminate the resumes that lack those critical skills.

Once you have a sufficient number of qualified resumes you can conduct short telephone interviews. This will help you get a feel for the person over the phone and also assess language and communication skills. I like to keep these telephone interviews to no more than 10 minutes.

If I want to go further with the candidates from the telephone interview I will ask them to complete an online assessment that will provide more in-depth information about their past work history and their honesty.

“Forty-two to 55% of resumes have some type of embellishment or inaccuracy” according to Theresa Preg at Atlanta based background screening company First Advantage.

I use the STEP ONE SURVEY II from Profiles International to provide more structured and detailed information about their past work history as well as issues concerning theft of property, data and time. It also measures their attitude in three dimensions, integrity, reliability and work ethic.

What I particularly like about this assessment tool is it provides structured interview questions to use in the first interview. It pinpoints things I should look out for and develops interview questions so I don’t need to spend a lot of time formulating my own. It also tells me if the person was frank when they answered the questionnaire so I know if I can rely on the information.

When hiring a top performer you want to consider three components, the past, the present and the future. The resume and Step One Survey will help gather information about the past and if the person has the knowledge and skills to fit the job. The interview will provide information about the present and give insight into how the candidate will fit with the company fit. To evaluate future performance you want to look at the past present and incorporate further assessment tools to determine job fit. Reference checking will also further validate the information from the resume and interviews.

In future articles and videos I will cover the interview, reference checking and more in depth assessment tools to ensure that you’re hiring the right person for the job.

Stephen Goldberg

Finding top employees for your company

May 04, 2015 Comments

Prospecting for candidates

Hiring the right person for the job is the first criteria to ensure top performance and productivity. Attracting and hiring the right candidate can be challenging and the first step is to advertise the position.

Drafting a job posting

A good job posting or advertisement must stimulate interest to attract your top candidates. The advertisement must be clear and explicit and should contain information on the following three points:

the company
the job/opportunity
the candidate

The information should be drawn from the job description. Consult my article and video on writing a good job description.

Marketing

Once you have drafted your posting or advertisement circulate it to the following sources:

your employees {internal notice via email or bulletin board)
personal contacts
employment centres
professional associations
your company website
social media(LinkedIn, Twitter etc.)
Online forums and groups
publications
specialized journals
suppliers
customers

For best results you should use a combination of these methods. You need to act quickly as the job market for top employees is very competitive.

Probably 50% of jobs are filled through personal contact rather than through advertisement so it is a good idea to send out the job posting to your personal contacts, employees and suppliers as quickly as possible. Perhaps even a phone call to personal contacts who you think could be most helpful would be good.

In upcoming articles I will cover the interview and selection process, so I suggest you subscribe to my newsletter or blog.

Below are two examples of job advertisements. One is a traditional press release and the other takes a sales/marketing approach with the goal to stand out from the crowd. The second uses great sales copy and also asks the candidates to write a one-two page letter stating why they think they would be great for the job. This shows who is really motivated by the job opportunity.

Sample press release

Date:

From:

Re:

History of our company

Founded in 2001 Optimus Performance provides training, coaching and consulting services for hiring top employees, developing teamwork and managing performance to small and medium size companies. The company is affiliated with Profiles International, a global leader in employee and workplace assessment tools.

Our vision

We see a world where employees are empowered to work collaboratively in building a successful organization.

Our mission

To be a service provider of choice to small and medium-size businesses seeking to have the best performance from their employees.

The candidates function

To provide support to our clients in using our assessment tools to their full capacity when hiring and developing their employees.

The offer

The prospect of developing a long-term career that would result in a full partnership for the right candidate. A competitive and performance based compensation package.

The requirements

Practical knowledge of best human resource practices for hiring, training and managing employees. Measured experience in providing support and coaching to both executives, business owners and human resource specialists. The ability to quickly build trust and develop long-term relationships with customers. Mastery of written and spoken French and English. Autonomous, entrepreneurial attitude and complete self-confidence.

Please send your resume to the human resources department.

This next type of job advertisement was inspired by the book Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson.

An Exceptional Job Opportunity for a great Human Resource Coach/Consultant Specialist

This is what you’ve been looking for – an exciting, dynamic yet relaxed atmosphere to develop your coaching and counselling skills and rise to the top in one of the finest jobs; human resources coaching specialist. It’s a great profession for anyone who ever thought about excelling in human resources coaching and consulting. Great pay, high-growth potential and the chance to show how good you are at helping others develop the potential of their workforce. Plus you’ll be working as a team with attractive, intelligent people who are all committed to creating a great company in the human resources training and coaching industry. We are Optimus Performance, a leader in providing human resources training, coaching and consulting services to small and medium size companies. We work with forward thinking owners of great small and medium size companies in Canada are known for our expertise and great service. We are looking for a talented person to provide exceptional customer support for our assessment tools that are used for hiring, training and coaching employees. Experience helps but what we’re most interested in is intelligence strong work ethic, good business acumen and strong interest in people. Great jobs like this come along only occasionally, so don’t let this one slip by. Send us a one to two page letter telling us why you would be good for this job.

Stephen Goldberg

What Rocks your World will make you Happy and Successful

Apr 20, 2015 Comments

What are the big rocks in your life? When you identify those big rocks you become more efficient and focused with your time. We all want to be more focused and manage our time better. But often we feel out of control with the amount of information, requests and tasks we need to process. Putting it all in perspective of what’s important is the key. Here is how to do it. Imagine this container represents the time you have in a day. Time is something we are all bound to no matter who we are. There are only 24 hours in a day. You can multi-task and use productivity tools to get more done but you are still limited by time. So it comes down to focus. But what do you focus on first?

Imagine these big rocks are your goals and the things you aspire to achieve and become. The smaller rocks are important things you need to get done every day to meet your commitments. The pebbles represent urgencies and the sand are mostly unimportant things and time wasters.

If you put all the smaller stuff and sand in your container first there will be no time left for your big rocks. But if you put your big rocks in first, the smaller rocks, pebbles and even sand will find a way to fit in. What does not fit in should be discarded anyways. What are your big rocks? Have you taken the time to figure that out? The big rocks equate to the big goals in your life. You should not have too many at any given time or there won’t be room in the container of time. Start with one or two and get good at blocking time in your daily agenda to work towards them. You’ll still find a way to get the smaller stuff done. If you need help with choosing your big rocks consult my other videos on goal setting.

Things to Include & Avoid When Setting Goals

How to Achieve Success in Life & Business

How to set and achieve any goal using a goal planning worksheet

Go ahead and rock your life and please share this video and subscribe. Thanks for listening. Stephen Goldberg

You Inc., how to use your full potential

Apr 06, 2015 Comments

The key to happiness and success lies within you. Why work harder to get what you want when you can work smarter and achieve the same or more in less time? Imagine if you and your employees were all working smarter and thus producing more in a day. How would that affect your business and make your work more enjoyable?

Rather than looking at yourself as a boss or manager and your employees as staff, think of yourself as a company, You Inc. Just replace You with your first name, so for me it would be Stephen Inc. In this sense, you are a supplier to your company. What do you supply?

Assets

Every company has assets. We use our assets to produce results and those results create benefits. Results are sales, profits, customer satisfaction, innovation etc. and the benefits are how you enjoy the generated results. Benefits could be the home you live in, the vacations you take, the hobbies you enjoy etc.

Talents and Abilities

Our assets are made up of talents and abilities that we use every day to produce the results and gain the benefits we enjoy. Here is an inventory of our talents and abilities that we all use in our work to produce results.

Know-how and skills
Time
Concentration
Decisions-making
Energy

Go through the above list and evaluate your level of satisfaction for each of the talents and abilities on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest level. How satisfied are you with your knowledge requirement for the job and the skills you have to perform the job? How well do you manage the time available to get things done? How is your ability to concentrate on the task at hand and control distractions? How well do you make decisions considering both timeliness and striking a balance between intuitiveness and being rational? Finally how much energy drive and passion do you bring to your work?

After you have scored yourself for each of the talents and abilities, pick one that would have the most impact if you improved in this area.

Now imagine if I had a magic wand that I could wave and instantly give you your full capacity in that talent and ability. Close your eyes, relax and think about how things would be different. What do you see, how do you feel? Write your answers down. How would this translate into results? How would it improve your benefits?

Full Potential

Science tells us that the average person uses only 5 to 9% of their total potential. Let’s say your above-average and you use 15 to 20% of your total potential. This still leaves 80 to 85% of untapped potential.

Set a Goal

What goal can you set for yourself to develop the talent and ability that you identified in this exercise? How could you start tapping into your untapped potential? Start by taking a first step. Focus on one talent and ability at a time.

Continuous Growth

The key message here is to keep growing and develop the mindset for continuous improvement. If you learn to apply this on yourself it will extend to everything you do. If you can teach this to your employees not only will they be grateful to you but they will perform better and stay loyal.

Stephen Goldberg

Posts By: optimus