#spirituality #selfdevelopment #personalitytransformation
Today, we're going to talk about how to hire an employee correctly, what to agree on with them, and how to choose them.
First, I want to say that I've been in business for 20 years, and I've hired thousands of people, fired thousands of people, hired people in all sorts of situations – in startups, big companies, during growth with huge motivations, and in situations with no money, when it was incredibly tough. I've gone through dozens, hundreds of different variations, motivations, approvals, selections, assessments, funnels, HR systems, instructions, orders, regulations. I've had a huge number of problems with hiring, firing, HR management, HR managers, HR directors. I've had great HR directors, HR manager teams, strong, explosive growth teams among sales managers, marketing, hiring general directors, sales directors, development directors, strategy directors, product directors, technical directors, and so on.
The Importance of Hiring for Business
The topic of hiring is fundamentally important for any business owner and anyone managing it. Actually, the topic of hiring is important even for someone who doesn't manage their own business.
In 2010, I was the head of the company Megaplan – the leader in cloud services in the Russian-speaking space, a task manager, now it's about 400 thousand companies using the task management and CRM system. I remember very clearly (it was a big leap for me in terms of developing my skills, standards, approaches, partnerships, volumes, leads, clients, and people too) that after Megaplan, I became the owner of Business Molodost and the main managing partner. Then I was the general director of Business Molodost for a long time.
I've always said that the most important thing in a company is to do two things: constantly listen to the customer, get feedback, and always engage in hiring people.
The Hiring Process
When hiring people and forming your teams, you need to understand how this process works. Basically, hiring consists of two important zones and factors.
The first part is creating a funnel of candidates so that you have people to talk to, offer various positions to, discuss different roles with.
The second part is, of course, secondary hiring, which goes on because many teams need replenishing, especially when you are scaling and growing.
The second zone is a bit different: it lies in your own thinking, perception, and probably relates to a lesser understanding of what a system is. It's the zone of being able to negotiate with these people and select them, feel, know what kind of person is needed at the moment in this or that team.
The Role of HR Managers
People who professionally engage in hiring staff know how the process works and probably relate to the first systematic part; they might sometimes tell you about potential mistakes or help with some documents, they might offer you something. These are certain advisors in terms of "how to choose, hear, and see a person."
Their role is not connected in any way with ensuring your business is successful and achieving the goal you set. If your business goal is to make 100 thousand dollars a month in net income or generate a million dollars in revenue, the HR manager and staff are not connected with this goal at all. Someone might now argue and say: "Okay, let's hire an HR manager, a personnel manager, or an HR director and motivate this HR director from the profit, and accordingly, they will hire people, find the ones we need for our team." This would again be a mistake.
Because the HR manager and HR director's task is primarily to deliver you a stream of these people, to find those whom you, as a business owner, director, will select. Of course, when you have a mass hiring (for example, you need to hire 200 sales managers), you won't review all 200 sales managers.
But if your business is exclusively tied to sales, it's the key competence of the business, the key success factor of your business, the sales department itself. Not the product, not marketing, not development, not strategy, not location, not production, not location, not the store – only the sales department. Probably, if it were so, I would participate in the selection of all these 200 sales managers. For this, you only need to conduct 2-3 mass assessments a day.
About Mass Assessment
What does "mass assessment" mean? 15, 20, 25, 10 sales managers come to me, and among them, I select people. In that day, I would do 2-3 assessments over several weeks and select sales managers. Maybe I wouldn't select them alone, but I would definitely participate in this process and calmly select 200 people. By the way, it would be incredibly great because success in terms of sales managers, the conversion of these people (if you want them to join you and accept your offer) would be significantly higher.
If the owner and the one who runs the company participate in the selection process, then the contact with these people who join you is completely different.
Sales managers have fixed not only the company name but also that there is an owner or general director in this company, what he looks like, that he participated in this process, told us, and provided information. When in the future you intersect with them (even if you don't interact with them weekly), they will already have some trust in you. Most likely, they will have an authoritative position towards you in terms of understanding that you are the owner and boss in this business. This has incredibly important significance. Therefore, if you need to hire a lot of people, others can participate, but if you need to hire 200, 300, 400, 500 people, of course, you need to be involved and participate in the selection process.
We did AGRO24 with Andrey Rogachev. At some point, we had 50 people working, I personally participated in their hiring and many other people – marketers, programmers, analysts, salespeople, different directors, designers. Andrey Rogachev and I constantly participated in hiring people together. Why? Because it's only 50 people, and from them (or 20, or 15, or 30) your entire business and success depend. I decided to do business, and whether I participate in hiring depends on my life. My life depends on these people, if, of course, this business is primary for you.
Methods of Selecting Employees
When participating in the selection of people, you encounter such a moment: how to determine if a person suits you? How to choose them? Here, I always act by two methods. One, let's call it systemic, strategic, clear. The second is a creative approach.
What is a "systemic approach"? Systemic approach: you hire a person based on some parameters or criteria. You can give a test, check their resume or work experience, you can hear and note some parameters, how the person behaved during the interview or communication with you.
The second side is creative: you decide based on your intuition, your own feeling, whether you need this person right now. I always recommend combining both sides.
The thing is, if you hire only creatively, you take everyone randomly, there is a high chance your entire team will be formed "very randomly." If you hire only systematically, there is a chance you won't hire anyone: you can review 30, 40, 50, 100 people, and by the parameters you initially set, no one will suit you. You will endlessly search. And in such situations, I always recommend hiring, bringing the person on board.
If you see that someone is needed in this position, just bring this person on board. I've done this many times in sales, analytics, design, with programmers, in management, in various directions within the business. When I just saw that it seemed like a good person, I told them: "Come, start." I didn't delve into any super details. Why is it important? Why is it important to have a quality inside yourself when you can just on some feeling offer a person to join?
The thing is, the success of people who were before, or behavior during the interview, or those tests they did – it's very conditional and relatively related to how the person will behave in the future. Even if a person was late for an interview, it doesn't mean this person is bad. There are situations in life when you are late, and it can happen once in 10 years. Imagine, this person was late precisely to you, such circumstances turned out. I, as a person who practically never is late anywhere, of course, see what people's behavior is and what they do. At the same time, I allow for situations when a person is late. Nothing wrong if you are such an important and cool business owner, and an employee came and was late for the interview. The same goes for experience.
There are people who come and say they made 50 million dollars for the company. You say they weren't general directors. The person answers: "I was the sales director, and the whole company made it exclusively because of me. I made sure the company had cool automation, processes, great partners, a system." You think: "Oh, so he made 50 million dollars for this company, he'll make 50 million dollars for me too." There's no such connection at all. First (even if he made 50 million dollars for that company) – it doesn't mean it will happen again. Second – he might have just said he made 50 million dollars, the circumstances were completely different at that time, which influenced this. Right earnings, market, niche, competition of a certain team, circumstances that were precisely at that moment.
I've seen countless businesses and situations where incredibly smart people didn't succeed because of certain circumstances, or vice versa, they did succeed because of certain circumstances. There were circumstances where I succeeded because the market was better, the competition was more favorable, the right clients came to me at the right moment, we guessed right with the pricing system, our marketing scalability system developed additionally, meaning it was a certain time. And there were times in some projects when you do everything right, very systematically and creatively, with a super cool product, team, but everything goes wrong. Therefore, when hiring someone, it’s important to have two big areas of observation. First, hire people systematically based on specific criteria and parameters needed for your company. And second, with a creative approach and intuition.
I'll give another example regarding the creative approach and intuition. Imagine: we are hiring analysts and doing an assessment of 15 people. Fifteen people come in, sit down. What are the odds that I will make the right choice of a sales manager? My odds are about 50-50. What are the odds for an HR manager to make the right choice? About 20% that it will be normal, 80% that it will be abnormal. I’m not talking about HR managers who have been in sales, have been doing it for a long time, hiring thousands of people professionally. I'm talking about how it usually happens from the perspective of different businesses. Accordingly, if the HR manager’s odds are 20, and mine are 50, then combining, complementing, and listening to each other allows me to make a decision with a probability of maybe 60, which is very cool. If there's someone present (for example, my sales director) when hiring sales directors or my deputy or operations director when hiring analysts – this increases the chances of making the right hire. Another person, listening to the candidate, will say they see certain parameters, characteristics, qualities in their behavior, and so on.
Recruitment life hacks for a good candidate
I've had so many interesting situations when we conducted mass assessments. At one assessment, both my partner and HR manager and HR director were there. Ten or fifteen people were sitting, and we were marking checks and crosses about who we liked and who we didn’t. In the end, you take all the sheets and see they are different: one liked these people, the second liked those, the third liked others. You look for who three people liked. If three people liked someone, there’s probably a chance that this person is slightly better than the rest. First, it’s not a fact that they will fit you because all the candidates could have been very bad, and this person was better against the others, but in reality, they are very bad. Second, this person could have just presented themselves very well, and you, your partner, and the HR manager liked these qualities. Therefore, it’s great when you select a person and have another opinion during the selection. This is from the perspective of creativity.
But here’s the important thing about such a creative and intuitive selection: some business owners want to hire someone but don’t have a flow of potential candidates. Because there is no flow of potential candidates, they hire "creatively" in quotes. What does this mean? They take whoever shows up.
Many people face a situation when they want to hire someone and, for example, feel very bad during the interview in terms of emotions, mood, it’s hard for them to sit in the interview, they don’t know how to communicate, it’s hard for them to select. Sometimes, the candidate takes the initiative and becomes cooler than you, then you automatically feel a certain state where you either block everyone or want to hire the first person you meet. Agree to hire them because for you it will be fulfilling your hiring task. I’ve done this many times when I hired people because for me it was some additional stress. I think: "Again, searching, dealing with this task. It’s impossible to do it." As soon as this story starts, it immediately slows down, saying people won’t be hired because I feel a little out of my element in terms of hiring.
I remember what a hiring system is, where there are systematic parameters, assessments, candidate lead generation, calls, funnel, proper offer, everything clear and systematic; where there is such a creative choice and trust when you adapt the interview to the person you’re talking to, when you ask the person the necessary information in terms of communication.
The Most Important Hiring Rule. About the Candidate's Values and Meanings
But there is an incredibly important rule to consider when hiring someone. It provides a fundamental basis and leads to the most effective selection and choice of a person.
The rule consists of two zones, parts.
First: you need to try to find out what is important to this person when they start working, why they are here now, what their goals are in terms of their professional activities and life. Your task is to put the puzzle together and see what matters to this person.
For them, it might be a high salary, bonuses, and a well-structured motivation system. Maybe the product itself is key for them; it should be some kind of innovation, or they simply love selling coffee (they need to work with coffee), or they work in automation, CRM systems, that's their field. It's important to do just that in life. Or maybe it's important for the person that their spouse approves their job at home: it's not the person choosing the job, but they go where their spouse told them to go. And it's precisely the spouse who will transmit whether the job is good or bad. Should they worship this job, worship this boss, and work day and night? Or should they just protest and leave? Or maybe the team is what's important to the person. They come to work, and what about the team? Who are these people? The team they interact with daily. Or maybe it's the clients that matter. The person says they definitely want to interact with clients, it’s important who the end client is. "I want to work with the government. It's important to me that the end client is the government because I need that experience. In 5, 7, or 10 years, I want to work in some government structures or engage in specific projects. I need to gain this skill of interacting with the government and communicating with these people." Each person has a goal, you need to understand it and see these parameters, what is primary and secondary.
There is no rule about the importance of certain parameters for a person, everyone is different. For some, "perks" in the social package are more important than the motivation system in terms of salary and bonuses. For others, the office and its location are fundamentally important and are number one. For some, working from home, online is fundamentally important, and that’s crucial. And those who think everyone wants to work from home are very mistaken. Some people categorically do not want to work from home, they want to work offline: they are sick of being at home, they can't stay in a certain space or with the people they live with. It could be friends, acquaintances, random people, or family. They want to go to another place, and for them, it's more important than any money. There are many teams and companies built on this.
When you know the person's goal, believe me, you will select this person differently. There’s you, your goal, there’s where your company is going, there are the company’s expectations. You need to tell the person about both the negative and positive qualities of your company and your goal. Not everything needs to be told to everyone, you don’t need to tell absolutely every person how many billions of dollars you want to make and how you want to buy 18 houses, 16 cars, or invest this money in something. You need to maintain balance.
Imagine you want to maximize profit from the business. A development director or general director, operations director, marketing director, sales director comes to you who basically feels that in such a business, for one, two, or three years, all the money should be invested in development, and only then can the money be taken out. Inside your company, there will be an unsafe state because every time you take profit, your financial manager or sales director or marketing director will feel like you’re bankrupting the company. Their internal state says that money must be endlessly invested. You need to align in this, come together, state this right away or, conversely, state right away if you know, for example, there will be no profit for 3 or 5 years. And the sales director or general director comes, who has always worked and earned from profit, and they are sure that all motivation systems are built from profit. You need to explain that in your company, the motivation system will be built slightly differently because there will be no profit for the next 3-5 years. You can, of course, include them in a percentage of the losses, but, for example, this has no significance. What matters to you is the market volume you get or the revenue you generate; this is the most important and key parameter for you.
Positive and Negative Qualities of Your Company for the Candidate
Show the goal, tell about the company’s negative qualities, I always tried to do this.
Calmly, easily say: "We have different corporate problems: often issues with employees' workplaces, or we lack automation in many places, or we don’t know how to do great marketing, or we have no PR, or we have a bad brand, or clients complain about us, we have returns, and it’s generally unclear what's happening with money, our financial accounting is not set up, or the market is very complicated, you don’t fully understand how to move on it," and so on.
This doesn't mean you pour your pessimism on them if you have it, and many people do. I’m talking about real solid things and talking about them neutrally. Not from the position that because of this, everything is terrible, but from the position that some things are simply not done here. If you plan to continue working in some bad areas, which might be important to the person. For example, you want everyone to come to the office. Or, on the contrary, plan for everyone to be at home, or for everyone to come to work only in black, white, or red. Or you plan for people to work until midnight on Fridays. It makes sense to discuss this calmly and explain it, not be afraid to talk about it. Believe me, it’s better for the employee to find out about this from you in advance and calmly discuss it during the interview than to encounter this and realize it in six months or a year.
On the other hand, during the same interview, you convey super cool things about your company, show that things here are much better, higher quality, cooler, share why you are proud of this company, what you consider truly great, interesting, important, and what advantages you have.
You've found out the person's goal, shared yours, talked about the negative and positive parameters of your company – this will significantly move you forward to making the right choice of person.
When both of you know about each other – you reduce expectation barriers, come closer to each other, see the other better. It’s important not only for you to see the candidate better but also for the candidate to see you better. This exchange is the most important thing in selecting a person. Spend time on this. As a business owner, you must constantly engage in this.
Now imagine: as a business owner, you often don’t know the goal of the business, you don’t know your strategy. You just move forward and work. Or you know the goal for the next year. And in three years, five years? Imagine: your employee or director comes and hires another person. For what purpose are they hiring them? Are they hiring them for their narrow or personal goal? Or for the goal of the business? A huge number of people you ask to help hire others hire for themselves and their own tasks and interests. They can radically differ from the interests of the business. Be careful and very cautious.