Your approach to hiring is all wrong — neither your gut nor peer advice will get you the caliber people you need.
Most owners trust their gut to determine how to locate and hire the best possible candidates for any job opening. Others seek advice from more established colleagues. Neither one is a sound basis for hiring future superstars, if you wish to build an A-team. And, if you’re seeking a tech or cashier on the basis of experience, that, too, is the wrong reason to select any individual. You can give any one the experience.
The question is, does she bring to the workplace several important innate characteristics, which will immediately indicate that she has “success” written all over herself.
No, experience is not the right basis because it may be the wrong experience. Your culture and how you want things done matter far more than somebody’s adverse experience, especially if it were in a chain store or big box store. Also, experience in the past has little to do with long rang success.
Certain qualities indicate that the individual will succeed no matter what type of job you are hiring her for. Her attitude towards learning and success are most important. They should be explored thoroughly because they will reveal mountains of evidence about what she can achieve.
Indeed, drive and determination, plus an attitude towards learning can be the most important information you can discover about her.
What Now?
The same approaches to recruiting candidates that you were using ten years ago, no longer succeeds very well, especially during this period of peak employment when the barrel of labor supply is almost empty.
Here’s what you really should be doing:
• Advertising online, as well as in the local newspaper, where the largest number of applicants seek new employment. When properly done, you can entice even individuals who are currently employed but are seeking a better opportunity.
• Describe the benefits they can receive by coming to work for you, as opposed to somewhere else. And make certain those benefits are what most people are seeking today i.e. health, babysitting assistance, etc.
• Additionally, give good people reasons to leave their current jobs. Survey after survey shows that as many as 67% of those gainfully employed are unhappy in their current positions. Would prefer to move to a better job opportunity. Make sure you extol all the benefits and opportunities you offer.
• Offer flexibility arrangements i.e. days of week, hours, etc. as long as they are compatible to your needs.
• Show that you are interested in helping them make a career of working for you. Emphasize the fact that training is a way of life in your firm, and make certain such training becomes a reality, even if you have to designate someone else to do most of the training.
More Hiring the Smart Way
Once you receive summaries in your email, do you:
• Place a two-minute call to ascertain how well qualified the individual is, using the well-prepared short questionnaire?
• Put a qualification score at the top of each page so that you have a relative basis for comparing each phone interview several days later?
• Interview the top 3 candidates to determine which one is most well qualified?
And finally, do you do a reference check to determine that the individual really has the qualifications you are seeking? Sometimes, you may learn something about that individual that you could not discern from any conversation.
In one instance, according to The Pharmacy Sage, the employer was very interested in hiring a particular individual. But a reference check disclosed that he was thief! Another was hired, proving that doing a reference check is mandatory.
By following this proven method for hiring the most qualified can you succeed in selecting people who will be future stars on your team.
The Pharmacy Sage can be reached at (518) 346-7021 or thepharmacysage@rxresultsnow.com.
Lester Nathan
Lester Nathan has turned around the fortunes of people in over 24 different industries. Currently, he specializes in independent pharmacies. As such, he is known as The Pharmacy Sage. In addition to being a turn around expert, he is an author of over a dozen books relating to entrepreneurship, leadership, and management, as well as strategies and marketing. He has saved over two dozen pharmacies from bankruptcy, and continues to help owners with any and all business related problems. He also assists pharmacists who wish to establish their own pharmacies with a well tested and highly acclaimed process for establishing their own pathway, taking them from concept to opening their doors in approximately 5 months.