Got People? Why good hiring is the flip side of successful retention
by Miki SaxonCongratulations! You got funded! Your new product is a hit! You’re ready to grow!!! No problem. There are tons of resumes on the web-just help yourself, right? It’s free, right? And easy, right? Wrong!
First, start with time—everybody’s time. You have to find the resumes and screen them. Then you have to interview them—three, four, five, more? Oops, blew the in-house compensation curve because you offered an out-of-sync package and sign-on bonus? Whoops! Lost one to the competition because the process took too long?
Get the wrong person and you’ll yell for disaster assistance; get too picky and you’ll have late product releases, missed deadlines, or lost business opportunities. That’s why the average real cost of hiring one $60K IT professional starts around $75,000-and goes up. You may not even know the final figure for a year or more.
So, what do you do?
- Motivate! Tie incentives, whether cash or stock, to accomplishing company goals as opposed to individual ones. Used this way, incentives short-circuit negative feelings and politics—people ignore anything or anyone that gets in the way of their bonus—and that keep’s your people’s focus where it belongs.
How? If four developers are each working on a piece of code for the same project, tie the bonus for on-time completion to the whole project. That way, each of the developers has a vested interest in helping and motivating the other three.
- Prepare! Don’t staff by comparative shopping. Know before interviewing what you really need.
How? Take the time to write a really complete job req (requisition), including
- your culture—because the person has to match, or, at the very least, be synergistic, to it;
- management style—the type you have and/or the type you want;
- description of the job—a complete overview including all responsibilities;
- synergy—compliment the current team, don’t duplicate in-house expertise;
- likely interaction—both the intra- and inter-departmental interfaces;
- trade-offs—if you got X, would you give up Y;
- reality check—would you want the job when you were at that point in your career;
- experience—what “been there – done that” do you want or need; then
- Shrink it—our Minimum Hiring Rule states: “Hire the first person through the door who meets the minimum requirements for the position.”
How? Reduce the wish list to the absolute minimum in attitude/style/experience required to get the job done before you start interviewing; then stick to it. The person who has 150% of one minimum and 5% of another is not a fit; neither is the person everyone really likes, but who lacks half the minimums.
- Save time! Our 70% Rule: “Be 70% sure you want to hire the candidate and have the candidate 70% sure she wants to join, before the on-site interview.”
How? Have multiple, key people do full (1+ hour) interviews by phone, not quickie screenings, and do them conveniently (outside working hours), and fast (no more than a day between calls and preferably less). As long as you never invite a candidate on-site who doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, in most cases you will need only one on-site interview to make the hire.
- Sell, sell, sell! Know your culture, the job, the people, everything, and tell it like it is. Don’t fudge!
Why? The best way to guarantee a bad hire and low retention rate is to fudge about the company, job, career path, management style, future, people, hours, market, technology, etc. Fudging isn’t just outright lies, it includes omissions and spin. Why hire somebody who won’t stay? Money is about number five on most people’s “reasons to join” list, so know your culture and use it to your advantage—because the person who joins you for money will leave for money!
- Speed wins! The entire process, from seeing the résumé to candidate acceptance, should take no more than 10 working days, and fewer is better.
Why? Speed is the cheapest, simplest way to impress a candidate! Remember your own feelings when you couldn’t get a response? And that includes saying “no.”
To wrap-up, here are the main points to remember: Be fast, know what you need before interviewing, don’t lie, spin or fudge, constantly sell, and remember—the flip side of successful retention is good hiring.
