Make Real Choice The Basis For Success In Hiring The Right People

Act in haste and repent at your leisure. Who of us hasn't at some time acted in haste and later regretted a hasty decision? I suspect we all have done that. Lots of little decisions can be made quickly based on personal experience, intuition, biases, and our body of knowledge without much damage being done. But when it comes to hiring the right people for the right job, acting in haste will have long term negative consequences.

To make real, considered, job focused choice the basis for hiring the right people three Elements need to be in place.

1 – Start with a written blueprint of the position. Not just a Job Description, although that's an important part of the blueprint. I mean a profile of the job and what attributes and qualities are needed for success. And a written statement of the top 3 to 5 accountabilities of the job is a must, as is the participation and buy in of the stakeholders to the development of the profile of key accountabilities, attributes and qualities.
2 – An active recruiting campaign to provide choice in the form of vetted candidates that meet the “Must Have” requirements developed in Element 1.
3 – A process for selection that relies on the skill, experience and a shared understanding of what's needed for the job on the part of a selection team using tools and techniques that help select the right people for the right jobs.

These three elements create the space for choice to work and guard against the kind of snap decisions based on biases and emotions that often lead to failure.

The following is a real world hire decision that illustrates the negative consequences of acting in haste.

A newly hired Division President needed a General Manager for one of the five operating units reporting to him. He filled the position very quickly. He selected a transfer from another division of his new employer who had been mentioned as a candidate by a corporate HR person. The basis for the HR recommendation was the candidate having asked what it took to get promoted. The President was impressed with the way the candidate arranged his transport to the interview – all the way from Hartford CT to Boston MA, his fast walking and fast talking, and his immediate availability. On that basis the President hired him. For the candidate it was a big promotion into a troubled business that needed technical and leadership expertise if it was to survive. Contacts in the division he had come from were mystified at his promotion. He was described as a “dud.” He lasted two years, never relocated to Boston, and finally resigned just before he was going to be fired. The damage he and his boss did resulted in the operation being consolidated with another operation in a western state, and over 200 employees in Boston losing their jobs.

This new President had a pressing need, he had very little knowledge of the organization, and he had no developed contacts or processes within his new corporation to help him vet candidates. He also had as a model a former boss who routinely made snap hire decisions and then fired people as soon as it became apparent he had made a mistake. Absent any other information, this new President assumed that behavior was the way to do things.

The three Elements – a job blueprint, a recruiting campaign, and a selection process can create choice and protect from the kind of snap decision this President made. When it's tempting to act in haste, the three elements can be a real aid to creating space for a reality check – and providing the tools for real choice.

It's surprising how often hiring decisions are made in haste based on pressing needs and biases that have nothing to do with success in the job. Inventory your own choices in selecting the right people, and then use the three Elements to improve your success in selecting the right people for the right jobs.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph & Fax: 602-795-4100;E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com;Website:www.coxconsultgroup.com; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved

Finding The Right People Now Is Tougher - The Key To Success Is Preparation

Employers say that finding the right people has always been a challenge. But high unemployment has made it even tougher. That doesn't seem to make sense. But our clients place as much if not more emphasis on preparation for recruiting and selection of critical positions in high unemployment markets as in tight labor markets.

Careful preparation is necessary to overcome certain beliefs and behaviors that always seem to show up at times of high unemployment. The behaviors and beliefs our clients cite most frequently as needing to be overcome by careful preparation are the following:

The belief that critical positions should be easier to fill in this economy. With so many people out of work, shouldn't it be easier and quicker to hire the right person for the right job? That expectation and the pressure it places on recruiters and hiring managers can result in taking short cuts in the selection process.

The high number of applicants has made it harder to separate the qualified from the not qualified. It's not uncommon to get 500 resumes or on line applications for a position that, a few years ago, may have seen one or two qualified applicants.

The high volume of job applicants hasn't changed the fact that at least 90% of them will continue to be unqualified for specific positions. Except now it can take a lot longer to sort that out, and the exposure to lawsuits based on discrimination in hiring increases. With so many applicants, the number of discrimination and bias complaints has grown.

There's a real temptation to hire “overqualified” people for jobs – opening the possibility of higher turnover as soon as the job market for their particular qualifications improves.

It's tempting to “raise the bar” for applicants in high unemployment markets. As a conscious choice in a strategy to upgrade a workforce, it may be OK. As a choice based on the assumption that more people, and, therefore, better people are available, it's not so good.

It's easier in today's market for hiring managers to take the “throw them up against the wall and see who sticks” approach to selection. It's a lazy approach to hiring, and speaks poorly of the organization that allows it.

Many of the unemployed got that way by being “cherry picked” by their previous employer. Problems of behavior, performance and other issues that were allowed to fester in good times become the reason for laying them off in bad times. Those issues often carry over to a new employer – and reference checks rarely uncover the real reason for their being laid off or terminated. Prepare to do the digging yourself.

The “cast a wide net” theory of recruiting is hard to resist. With so many people out there, why not throw out the biggest net and get the most applicants and then sort them out? The assumption that a larger applicant pool will somehow result in better selection is false. The large applicant pool is not nearly as valuable as one right person for the job.

It's human nature to see people from the outside as better possibilities than people from the inside – there are no warts on the outside applicant – yet. The temptation to take a chance on hitting a home run with a new hire rather than promote from within is greater in a high unemployment market. The results can be lower morale and commitment and a loss of trust. It's tempting to take the existing employees for granted in high unemployment. After all, with few jobs available, they'll sit tight, won't they?

With so many applicants, it's tempting to not do the homework before recruiting. But lack of preparation slows down the process. Good people don't last long, even in a high unemployment market. Without the confidence of knowing what the right person will bring to the table, it's likely that decision making will be slow – and that right person ends up going somewhere else.

To manage these behaviors and beliefs, and at least a few of them exist in every organization, the key is good preparation.

Here are six elements of good preparation that create the benchmarks of the job – not the candidate - that are key to success in selection.

1 - A written job description covering the who, what, where, when, how and why of the job is critical – not just some boilerplate piece that hasn't been updated for years, but an up to date description that can be shared with all those involved in the selection process – from recruiters to interviewers to applicants.

2 – Separate from that description, but even more critical is a statement of the top 3 to 5 Key Accountabilities for the position. What are the things that this job will contribute, and how will performance be measured? It's amazing how often this key step in preparation uncovers substantial disagreements between stakeholders. Without agreement and alignment on these KA's, how can a selection team possibly make the best decision on candidates?

3 – The stakeholders and those with significant knowledge of the position need to be part of the job description and Key Accountabilities discussions and development. Don't expect a staff person with no real skin in the game to be able to give the same depth of input as a hiring manager or a person who was successful in the position or a person who will depend on the position to support their own.

4 – A profile/benchmark of qualifications including education, experience, industry knowledge, specific skills and other relevant hard data needed for success is developed. This is critical to avoid letting particularly attractive candidates - for reasons other than criteria critical to the position - introduce irrelevant criteria into the process. At this point focus needs to be on the job – not the applicant.

5 – A profile/benchmark of the Behaviors, Attitudes and Motivators, and the Personal Skills critical to the job is developed by the same stakeholders that developed the Job Description and the Profile of qualifications. The best way to accomplish this is to have the stakeholders use the same assessments that will be administered to candidates of interest.

6 – The selection team is briefed on their roles in evaluating candidates, and are given training in the interview and evaluation of candidates.

Once these six steps are taken, attention can be focused on candidates. The focus on the candidates is in the context of a well developed and communicated understanding of what the job needs.

The more critical the job, the more critical preparation becomes. What it does is ensure the investment of time, effort and money spent on acquiring the right talent in the right job is maximized. The proof of the effectiveness of this kind of focused effort in selecting talent is seen in lower turnover, more successful hires and promotions and transfers, and a reduction in the costs associated with selection. An added benefit of this approach is in the acceptance of the person selected. When people in an organization see careful attention being spent on decisions that will directly affect them - in terms of new bosses, new peers and new support talent - they know they are part of a special place, with special people. There is a lot of pride and commitment in knowing that.

Take inventory of how the high unemployment labor market may have influenced the behaviors and attitudes toward selection in your organization. Then compare your preparation steps with the six steps described in this article. Then decide the best way you can use preparation to gain a competitive advantage in the selection of talent for your organization.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph & Fax: 602-795-4100; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com;Website:www.coxconsultgroup.com; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved

How To Hire The Right People

"The first thing you have to do is hire the right people." Have you ever heard that profound piece of advice? Of course you're going to hire the right people - if you know who the right people are. If that's the case, why isn't more time spent defining what the job requires of the right person as the first step in any talent selection?

If you Google the keyword phrase "hire the right people" you will get 76,000 responses. If you Google the keyword phrase "hire the best" you will get 872,000 responses. You will find the great majority of responses deal with ways to evaluate candidates. Lots of information on tools - checklists, questions, how to structure an interview, how to write a job description, recruiting practices, and so on. But very few of those 948,000 Google responses address the key question - How to define the best person for the job - the right person for the job - based on the job, not the applicant?


Most organizations focus on the technical benchmarks. education, experience, industry knowledge, certifications, level of accomplishment and contribution, recommendations - hard information of high value - fairly easily obtained. And so these technical benchmarks and the intuition of the interviewers become the basis for the selection decision.

But the benchmarks critical to success or failure are often treated with a few statements about working in teams, ability to communicate, listening skills, sense of humor, and so on. Hard to define, describe and agree on. So the benchmarks that make the difference in success and failure - ever more so the higher up in the organization the job is - remain only vaguely identified - certainly not agreed to by the interviewers. And that is the weak link in the selection process.


It doesn't have to be that way. The stakeholders of the job, the people that have done the job, the people to whom the job reports, the peers the job works with, all have knowledge of the Behaviors, Personal Skills, and Motivators that make the difference between success and failure. Getting that information in a form that could be used in selection has been a real challenge. But now there are tools and processes that can benchmark Behaviors, Motivators or Attitude and Personal Skills that those in the know feel are necessary for success. And those benchmarks can then be used in the selection process - to see how candidates measure up to the job, not to some measure of "good enough," or "best we could find." And let's face it, no person will bring the ideal profile to the job. The benchmarks can then be used to develop the person selected so they can be more successful, quicker.


Intuition is the force guiding most selection decisions. But intuition is influenced by many different inputs, as well as the biases created through life and work experience. By adding to intuition the benchmarks of Behavior, Personal Skills and Motivators, and the consistent application and comparison of those benchmarks to the selection process, intuition can be much more secure in its decisions. And that leads to commitment toward the person selected - and that's a good thing. The "throw them up against the wall and see if they stick" approach can be replaced with a commitment to success. And when that happens, turnover goes down, retention and productivity go up. And the right people for the job - the best people for the job - strengthen the organization.

With so much more talent available, it's a good time to examine selection practices to ensure the right people are being selected for the right jobs. It's tempting to hire the best people - whatever that means - out of a large talent pool. But it's critical to select the best talent matched to the right job for that talent.


If you would like more information on how to benchmark jobs in your organization, and multiply the success of your selection efforts, give me a call.

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com;Website:www.coxconsultgroup.com; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved

Excellent Customer Service Starts With Excellent Employee Service

Nothing sets the standard for excellent customer service more than excellent employee service.

I was reminded of that just the other day. The manager of a fast food restaurant was really giving an employee hell - and in view of customers. The person who waited on me was sullen, slow and seemed little interested in making my transaction a good one. As I sat and ate my cheeseburger and fries I watched the overall behavior of the staff. It wasn't good. Lots of slow walking, no smiles, no attempt at engaging the customers, no thank you's. It's one of my favorite chains, but I won't be going back to that particular store again.

Have you ever noticed the dramatic change in customer service from one store to another? I submit it starts with leadership at the individual store level. Forget all the stuff pumped out by headquarters. If the local store leadership is not providing excellent employee service, then the customer service level will not be excellent. And excellent pay and benefits will not overcome a lack of excellent employee service.

Here are six elements of excellent employee service - at all levels in an organization.

1 - Excellent employee service starts with good selection. It's hiring the right person for the right job. Have you ever encountered a person in a public contact job that just didn't get it? We all have. If you've got a job that requires people skills and optimism, hire an optimistic people person. You cannot train a pessimistic person to be optimistic - it just won't happen. When you're tempted to hire that good looking person with the personality of a stone for a customer contact position, instead of the less attractive person with the ready smile and a good word, go for the smile and the good word.


2 - Excellent employee service creates expectations of performance through leading by example. When that store manager greets everyone who comes into his/her store with a smile and a "How can I help you?" the model for customer service behavior is set. The manager who is too busy to acknowledge their customers cannot expect a high level of customer service - his people will, just like the boss, be too busy to give exceptional service.


3 - Excellent employee service starts with the conviction that every single person is a contributing member of the team - and everyone is held to a high standard of service. Successful leaders know employee service is inclusive - they put their arms around everybody and include them on the team.


4 - Excellent employee service means setting and communicating high standards, training to meet them, and being demanding. High standards bring out the best - they also flush out the worst. They let people know they are in a special place - a place that won't tolerate substandard behavior. People take pride in being part of that kind of organization.


5 - Excellent employee service recognizes accomplishment- in its many forms. I just had an ultra sound. The technician who did the test has been with her employer for 17 years. Two day before my test she had her appendix removed! She was as nice and helpful as anyone could be - she gave me excellent customer service. She also is extremely proud of her attendance record. Is that outstanding? I think so. I suspect she has stayed at the same place for 17 years because she's been recognized in the past - and she's looking for more - and she will get it.

6 - Excellent employee service provides feedback to all. Regular "how are we doing" meetings, passing on customer feedback, providing tips on how to help customers, cross training in different jobs - all lead to better qualified and informed employees who will provide a higher level of excellent customer service.

It's critical to measure the level of customer service. It's also critical to measure the level of employee service. There is a direct correlation between the two. Take the six elements of excellent employee service and see where your organization stands. If you want better customer service, start with better employee service.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website: http://www.coxconsultgroup.com/; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com/

Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

How To Keep Top Candidates From Falling Through The Cracks

Top people are scarce - just ask any organization how tough it is to attract the best, let alone select the best. At the same time, I'm willing to bet that more top people - the right people for the right jobs - slip through the cracks in the selection process than anyone could imagine or admit. After thousands of dollars in recruiting, interviewing, travel and all the other assorted expenses in time, effort and money associated with attracting top candidates, organization after organization drops the ball on top candidates. And they don't even know it!

Here are ten of the top, invisible ways those cracks occur:

• Failure to understand that recruiting is as much a selling process as it is an evaluating process. To get top people requires as much selling as it does evaluating. And top people are doing just as much evaluating as they do selling. It's a two way street - but it's amazing how many people don't realize that, and take a "I've got something you want" approach. Top people slip right through the cracks when they see that behavior.
• Organization's don't know a top candidate when they see one. That sounds funny, but it's not. It means time hasn't been taken at the front end of the process to identify and define what a top candidate will look like in terms of the really important things.
• Superficial knockout factors: A manager I know will not hire a person who smokes cigars - period. I don't mean someone who insists on smoking cigars at work. I mean recreational cigar smoking - away from work. Apparently this manager had a bad thing happen with a cigar smoker early in his career. Everyone of us has biases about the strangest things - they can and do get in the way of hiring top people. The beard, the frayed collar, the wrong college, speech patterns - you name it - they are knockout factors in many organizations.
• Poorly kept restrooms and break rooms and lunch/dining /meeting rooms. Nothing says a poor environment like a badly served public use area. Nothing can chase top people away more than the appearance of a poorly kept facility.
• Lack of preparation. Nothing speaks to this more than unprepared interviewers, repetitive use of the same questions/scenarios from multiple interviewers - the "tell me about yourself" question. Holes in the interview schedule. Lack of interviewing skills and preparation. Bad choices of interviewers.
• Secrecy. The " don't tell them anything that may tip them off to what we are looking for." If you treat a candidate as a mushroom, it speaks to how they will be treated as employees.
• Poor followup and lack of feedback. "What you do shouts so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." When that top candidate leaves the facility, how long before contact is made? It's amazing how often weeks can go by before a followup call is made to the candidate. The excuse is often that the candidate - if truly interested - should get back to the organization. True - but failure to keep that communication door open on the part of the company lets top people fall through the cracks - without a sound.
• Relying on staff people to maintain contact. If you're a candidate for a HR job, then a HR hiring manager should be the key communication link. But HR people should not be the key communication link for other functional areas. They can coordinate and pester and cajole hiring managers, but the Hiring Manager has to be the link.
• Lack of respect for the candidate's time. I had the misfortune to work with a manager who, as a matter of practice, kept candidates waiting for hours beyond the time set up for an interview. The worst case was a General Manager candidate who waited four hours before finally bowing out. We never saw him again - even though we tried to reschedule him. What a waste - of everything.
• Overly long process. There are so many pressing, proximate things that can keep pushing selection to the back of the line. Before anyone realizes it, months have gone by and no decision has been made. I suspect in many cases a fear of making a mistake in selection has a hand in this. In any case, top people don't have to wait around. They slip through the cracks - and then show up working for a competitor.

Take the time to audit your own process. If you see any of these conditions take action to correct them. Top people are tough to get in the first place, without adding self inflicted conditions as a barrier.

Written by Andy Cox, President

4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website: www.coxconsultgroup.com; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com
Copyright 2008 All Rights reserved

Ten Steps To Hiring The Right Person For The Right Job

Hiring the right person in the right job, whether through recruiting from outside, internal transfer, or internal promotion is, by far, the most difficult and rewarding challenge facing most organizations. It always will be. It is also the greatest opportunity to increase the effectiveness of any organization. Here are Ten Steps any organization should take to improve their batting average in this most critical part of their enterprise.

Step 1. Start with the end in mind. Start by answering the question " What would be the perfect match of candidate to job requirements?" Get specific - talk about the job, not the person. Determine the best possible skill, experience, industry knowledge, education and accomplishment combination that would make the best possible candidate. Ask the people with knowledge of the position - the stakeholders - to provide that information - in a structure where it can be captured. Don't let the applicant pool create the job requirements.

Step 2. Get to the heart of the matter: since success is most often created by the right mix of behaviors, attitudes and values, and personal skills, get the stakeholders to identify what mix of those three elements are needed for success in the job. This step becomes increasingly important at higher job levels. There may be a Job Description, but most of those documents simply aren't designed to capture that kind of information. And few are dynamic enough to reflect changes in content. This requires a structured approach to identifying those elements. It can be done - and done well. And if it is done well and becomes a part of the process used to select, it will increase success - a lot.

Step 3. Expand the pool of applicants: the Wall Street Journal ran a first page article on symphonies that had been plagued with a shortage of qualified musician candidates. One symphony started a " blind audition." The candidates played the audition music from behind a screen - the interviewers couldn't see them - but they could hear their music. Funny thing happened - lots more qualified candidates were identified. No more knockouts on gender, race, brand of instrument, hair style, school ties, appearance, fat, skinny, et al. Make sure your organization isn't knocking out people that can "play your music" at the beginning of the selection process.

Step 4. Train a team of stakeholders so they can effectively evaluate candidates in the interview phase of selection. Most organizations do no training in evaluation skills - big mistake. If you have had more than your share of mistakes in selection, continuing to do the things done in the past and expecting a different outcome doesn't make much sense. Provide the interviewers with full information on the position, and assign each interviewer specific areas of evaluation.

Step 5. In 99% of cases, no applicant will be a perfect fit. Define the "must have's," "good to have's," and "nice to have's" before the interview process. Don't let the interviewers rationalize those requirements based on the available applicant pool.

Step 6. Supplement interview evaluations, reference checks and other information with assessments to help define fit. If you currently use assessments, audit their effectiveness and the degree of trust and application they really have. There are great assessments and assessment processes available - the status quo is not a good reason to continue to use what was used in the past.

Step 7. Act quickly, decisively and with purpose in the selection cycle. Nothing impresses top candidates more than a process that communicates organization, purpose and decisiveness.

Step 8. Should the hiring manager say the candidate selected for employment is "the best we could find, " continue to look. That rationalization has caused more selection failures than any other.

Step 9. Select the person that the organization, based on objective measures and intuitive feelings, is convinced is the right person. Then help them succeed - but stay close - no people decision is ever 100% accurate. The best thing to do in a mistake situation is act on it as soon as it is evident that a mistake has been made. People in the organization will know within two weeks to three months if a mistake was made. Unfortunately, in many organizations, it takes a year or more for the "leadership" to acknowledge the mistake and act.

Step 10. Create a final feedback step in the selection process to evaluate what could have been done better or differently. Have successful hires participate in that evaluation.

Ten steps - sounds like a lot - it isn't. The organizations that use the Ten Steps in this process are much more successful in their selections than the ones that don't. If you can see ways to improve your own process by using all or some of these Ten Steps, then get rid of the status quo and change - today.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group LLC, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup; Website: http://www.coxconsultgroup.com/

Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved

What Makes An "A" Player?

I have a confession to make - I have been in situations where I was a "B", a "C", and, yes, even a "D" player. I suspect most people will admit that they have not always been considered "A" players.

My point? I don't believe there is such a thing as an "A" player for all situations. We've all seen it - the top person in one position gets promoted or transferred or hired to another position. And they struggle, and they either fail and move on, or worse yet, stay and survive and become that dreaded "C" Player.

What makes the difference - in one job a top person, and in another a failure or, at best, a survivor? The person hasn't changed - all the skills, knowledge, experience, behaviors, attitudes and skills that added together to create real success are still there, and maybe that's the problem. What works in one situation doesn't work in another - even though they may look like they should.

I submit when that mix of what the job requires and what the person brings to it are a close fit, an "A" player is made. When that doesn't happen, getting to be an "A" player requires adaptation, self knowledge, interpersonal skills and emotional maturity. Rarely do the elements of education, experience, technical skills and industry knowledge make the difference.

Some people have the potential andf ability to be "A" players in more situations than do other people. I submit that is true because of ability to recognize the need to change and adapt, knowledge of the key personal skills they possess and how those fit with job requirements. It's the ability to develop effective interpersonal relationships that can be sustained. It's the ability to see one's own behavior, attitudes and personal skills accurately, and deal with them realistically. It is the ability to maintain a high level of emotional control.

What is an "A" player? The right person in the right job - as measured by results. For some people, it seems they are always "A" players - don't fool yourself. It takes hard work for even the most gifted. But the fact is "A" player potential exists in each of us.

Written by Andrew Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group LLC

4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: andycox@coxconsultgroup.com Website: www.coxconsultgroup.com

Copyright 2006 All Rights Reserved