03.21.07

Hiring Etiquette

Posted in Small Business at 23:20 by lnxwalt

Here are a few tips I have learned from being on the applicant side of the desk. If you fail to do these things, no one may tell you, but your business might get the reputation of being jerks, or racists, or sexists, or whatever. Chances are, you will not want to get this reputation, because as soon as there are more jobs than workers, everyone will leave you alone.

• Every interviewee deserves a follow up. If you thought enough of a candidate to interview the person, be sure to call, e-mail, or write to inform the person whether the job is being offered to him or her. If someone clearly did not fit, such as not having the educational or work-experience background that you require, tell them and suggest a way to repair it. I have seen people that have been out of work for years at a time simply because no one would tell them what was wrong with them.
• Tell candidates your target compensation range. I have been places where someone was asking for a Master’s degree (which I have), but the pay was $10 to $12 per hour. A person with that background will have loan payments of $500 per month or even higher. The person can not pay his or her obligations with that amount. So by telling candidates the range you are willing to pay, you will eliminate people who can not accept the job anyway.
• Get rid of any criteria that is not absolutely necessary to do the job. I have seen junior-level help desk positions where the company was asking for several years of experience. We are talking about reading from a little on-screen trouble-shooting script. It takes zero skill to follow the script. The reason behind this is simple: companies use overly-specific hiring requirements to narrow the field of candidates, or to enable a specific person to be “the only candidate that met the qualifications”. This is certainly not what you would do if you want the best candidates, because people have different histories and therefore bring different intangible assets to any workplace where they are. Those unmeasurable, indefinable, intangible assets are what distinguish an unexpected “genius” from a run-of-the-mill “good performer”. Since you really do want to get the geniuses when they are available, do not narrowly-tailor your job requirements.
• Candidates already have too many usernames and passwords to remember. Do not require people applying for jobs with your organization to go to your site and create still another user ID to forget about. If you advertise on one of the job sites, either accept their resume format or accept e-mailed resumes. As an alternative, find a way to harmonize usernames and passwords with whatever services you advertise on, so that they can log into your jobs site with their usernames from Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com.
• People should be able to create resumes using many different software applications. If you accept resumes as e-mailed attachments, do not force users to send .doc format. Accept .pdf and international-standard .odt files also. In fact, a resume should not be editable when you receive it, so you may just tell users to use Lettos to send their document in PDF format. They have a conversion button that you can put on your site, so it is really easy to do this way. If your resume-scanning software does not accept OpenDocument Format (word processor files end with .odt) or Portable Document Format (.pdf), write the vendor and request that functionality. Tell them that you are going to require that in the next version you buy.
• Mix it up. Do not hire or refuse to hire someone because of the person’s ancestry or what body-parts he or she was born with. At the same time, recognize that your business will be stronger if you have a varied workforce. The way to do this is to choose places to advertise your job openings so that you will attract applicants of various backgrounds—the local ethnic or foreign-language paper, for example, is a way to increase the number of applicants that may not read the main local paper. Take an honest look at your staff. Are they all the same race or sex? If so, your business needs people from outside that group. If what you have been doing is not attracting qualified people from outside of that group, then change what you are doing.
• Be willing to train people. It does not matter whether you are hiring a counter clerk at the burger joint or an experienced C++ programmer. Even if the person has done the job for years, you do it differently at your company than they did wherever they came from. Since you will have to train out the old ways and then train in the new ways, you might save time or money by taking someone who is curious, interested, and trainable but without experience.
• Ask why.&bnsp; Why does someone who has done the exact same job, under similar pay and working conditions decide to apply at your business? This should ring some alarm bells. If the person’s background is very similar to the job you are hiring for, there must have been something wrong: a personality conflict (will this recur?), poor quality work, lack of responsibility… why would someone leave company A to do the same job at similar pay at company B? Experience does not mean that the person did the job well, merely that they did the job.
• Ask your customers why they like your company. I worked one place where a good percentage of the customers during certain hours came because of one employee. The district manager was constantly trying to find ways to reduce her schedule and her customer contact, because he did not know that her kindness and attention to the customers’ needs–plus her effort to keep the dining area clean–brought people back again and again. That business needed more employees like her, but they could not see it.
• Provide a clear path to advancement. Often, your employees can not imagine doing the same job they are doing for the rest of their careers. At the same time, not everyone is cut out for managment. This means that you should make a two-track advancement plan, with the ability to switch tracks if the person’s skills show that it is appropriate. Talk about this in the interview, so that the candidate can see how he or she can stay with your company for many years to come.
• Have a clearly-stated performance assessment and rewards program for everyone in the company. At some point, employees will wonder how they are doing. If there are regularly-scheduled interviews where the employee gets a written PA, some of the middle and lower performers are able to see where they need to change. Tie this in with rewards, including money and promotions. Employees give up a lot for most employers. Show them that it is appreciated and many of them will be willing to continue. Again, this program should start during the interview, by briefly discussing what it is, what is measured, and how often assessment interviews are held.
• Be fair. Employees may not say it, but if you are as fair as you can be during the hiring process and thereafter, they will appreciate it more than an unfair boss who is occasionally merciful to them.

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