Lee Rust, Florida Corporate Finance
Not long ago, I saw a cartoon which showed two men on either side of a desk. One, who had grabbed the other by the tie and drug him half-way across the desk, was saying, “You advertised for an aggressive salesman?”
Hiring excellent people is one of the more difficult jobs faced by any business person. The success or failure of your company will be largely defined by the talent and dedication of its managers and other employees. As important as the hiring task is, however, I have never found a method of determining with much accuracy if a person can and will perform well without giving them the position and measuring their performance. Even with that limitation, there is much you can do to improve your odds during the hiring process.
Today, finding qualified applicants is easier than it has ever been. In addition to the conventional sources of personal recommendations, employment agencies, trade press advertising, and simply advising various market participants of your needs, the Internet has become a particularly effective source of candidates. For one of my clients, I recently posted a position on Monster.com for a comptroller. Within a few days, I had received almost two hundred resumes. From that group, I interviewed ten by phone. My client and I then interviewed three candidates in person and hired one of those three.
Of course, one of the problems with that process is reviewing two hundred resumes, not a pleasant task. It’s possible, however, to condense the work by establishing a few specific criteria that you judge to be prerequisites to success in the job. Go through the resumes quickly looking only for those criteria and eliminating those that don’t qualify. Once you have a manageable number, read each one to decide whether you should talk with the candidate by phone and, for the ones who pass that test, eventually hold personal interviews.
In regard to such interviews, I have developed, over the years, a generic list of questions that I now always use in the interview process. In each case, I add a few questions to the list which relate specifically to the job being filled and to the industry or market participation by my client company.
■ What salary do you expect to receive?
■ What was your salary in your last job?
■ Why do you want to change jobs or why did you leave your last job?
■ What do you identify as your most significant accomplishment in your last job?
■ How many hours do you normally work per week?
■ What did you like and dislike about your last job?
■ How did you get along with your superiors and subordinates?
■ Can you be demanding of your subordinates?
■ How would you evaluate the company you were with last?
■ What were its competitive strengths and weaknesses?
■ What best qualifies you for the available position?
■ How long will it take you to start making a significant contribution?
■ How do you feel about our company: its size, products and competitive position?
■ What interests you most about the available position?
■ How would you establish your primary inside and outside lines of communication?
■ What would you like to tell me about yourself?
■ What are your greatest strengths?
■ Greatest weaknesses?
■ What is your job potential?
■ What are your career goals?
■ Where do you want to be in five years?
■ What is your credit standing?
■ How aggressive are you?
■ What motivates you to work?
■ Is money a strong incentive for you?
■ What do you look for when hiring people?
■ Have you ever fired anyone?
■ Will you sign a noncompete agreement?
■ Do you expect an employment contract?
■ Why should we hire you?
■ Do you want the job?
Another method of finding and hiring relatively high level managers is to turn the task over to an executive recruiting firm. There are hundreds of those from the five or six large, major, international recruiters to individuals working out of a home office on a regional or individual city basis. In addition, some recruiters specialize in specific industries. On several occasions, I’ve had good results using Robert Half International to find accounting personnel for my clients at the CFO or manager’s level. That recruiting firm has local offices in most large U.S. cities and works extensively in the areas of accounting and finance.
As with any service, however, executive recruiters can be effective or simply a waste of time depending upon the talent of the individual recruiter. In the case of the most effective recruiters, they attempt to locate job candidates who are not looking for a job and would not respond to an Internet posting or help wanted ad. They do this by calling industry participants with appropriate
positions and asking if they or one of their associates might be interested in moving to a new company. That process, of course, has earned these recruiters the well-known nickname as “headhunters”.
In addition to finding qualified candidates, executive recruiters also conduct the initial interviews and, if they are good at their jobs, present you with only three or four well qualified candidates. That process can save time by delegating to the recruiter all of the work up to the personal interview. As their name implies, however, executive recruiters are generally suitable only for relatively high level positions. They are expensive, generally charging up to 30 percent of the annual salary for anyone you hire through them. That expense is cost effective only when you are recruiting for a manager’s level or above.
Once you’ve found and agreed to employment terms with the final candidate, you should then have a background check conducted. There is much you can’t determine in an interview that a background check might disclose. In addition, in today’s litigious atmosphere, if you don’t have a background check on management level employees, you’re exposed to litigation in the event you’ve hired a convicted felon. Worse, you don’t want to hire a CFO, for instance, who has a record for embezzlement. I’ve seen it happen.
There are a number of national firms that offer background checks. I use Sure-Hire, a small company in Sarasota, Florida that offers two-day service at reasonable prices. You only need to tell the job candidate that you intend to have a background check performed and ask for their social security number. I’ve never had an applicant question the advisability of doing that. If I did, that alone would be a warning sign.
After you’ve found the right person for the job, make sure they agree with you as to the parameters for the job, the early stage problems that need attention, and what you expect from them. You should also measure their performance, particularly during their first few months on the job. Confirm that you have found the right person, then give them the responsibility and authority they need to succeed. Hiring good people is time consuming, difficult, and not usually much fun. Having the right people in the right positions, however, can make the difference between success and failure or between excellent and mediocre results.
Lee Rust, owner of Florida Corporate Finance, specializes in Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate Sales, Strategic Planning, Financing and Operations Audits. He can be reached by phone at 407-841-5676 or by email at hleerust@att.net.
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