Find Talent & Get Hired!

I just received an email from a client who had some questions around employee selection.  You may find this post insightful if you are the hiring manager and/or if you are currently searching for a new position.  Enjoy!

 Q:  Is it better to hire someone who has the skill sets, but not our culture or vice

      versa?

·     It is my professional opinion that you establish the skills that successful candidates are required to come to the table with .  These are the skills that you are not willing to invest the time and resources into developing within the successful candidate. If the candidate comes to the table with those skills, I would then assess their fit within the organization.  Reviewing their personality assessments and conducting panel interviews to include key business leaders is very important. You are looking for cultural fit, location fit, and fit regarding the position accountabilities. 

·     Culture Fit is really about assembling a team that will complement each other by striking the proper balance regarding personalities and skills sets.

·     Location Fit is ensuring that the candidate has been educated about the region if they are new to the area and determining if they are truly comfortable with living in the specified region.  This extends beyond the candidate.  Candidates have become retention risks due to family members not feeling comfortable in the specified city or state.

·     Job Fit requires that you provide the candidate with a realistic job preview so that they don’t take the job and resign citing this is not what they “signed up for”.

Q: If we hire someone fitting to our organizational culture, how can we expect them to

    do the hard steps of pruning, disciplining and growing our sales distribution?  In
    other words, we have shied away from implementing those exacting management
    moves, how can we expect someone with our cultural aspects to be able to execute
    better than us?

·     Hiring for Cultural Fit is not the same as hiring with a “similar to me bias”.  You want someone who complements the team.  If you have a lot of Adapters its good to throw in a mix of Negotiators and even a Challenger or two.  Assembling a diverse team is going to create maximum and ideal synergy.

 Q:  At what point do we draw the line between fitting our culture like a glove and
      living with some cultural dissonance so as to get optimum performance?

·     At the end of the day, no matter who you hire you are going to have to implement performance management strategies for any deviant or outlier type behavior that presents contrary to what is best for your organization.  The hope is always that this looks like coaching and not disciplinary action.  Be prepared to put on your coaching hat as you expand and grow outside of your family nucleus.  As you select a diverse team, watch the ratios of challengers to adapter, high wanted to control to low expressed control, introverts to extraverts for example and the dynamics that accompany those ratios.  Being armed with this data is going to make all the difference in your effectiveness as a People Leader.

For more information please check out the following websites: 

www.whatsleadership.com
Blog:  http://job-portunity.blogspot.com
Job-portunity Book Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=512dK0RVriY

Developing True Self Awareness

Have you ever had a boss or a co-worker who consistently spoke out of turn?  Perhaps you have had a boss or a co-worker who dresses inappropriately or has a bizarre hair style.  Maybe they had a problem with burping out loud or body odor. You may have even encountered a boss or a co-worker that is extremely arrogant or abrasive when it come to interacting with others.  Even more disturbing, have you ever known someone at work who believes their performance is stellar when the reality is this person is a very poor performer.  Maybe, just maybe, this paragraph somehow describes YOU but you just don't know it.  How others see you is critical in terms of how you see yourself.  In fact, if there is a significant gap in how others see you and how you see yourself, your career could very well be in jeopardy.

Personal Aptitude can be defined as understanding and managing your own behavior, emotions and attitude.  Personal Aptitude requires self control. 

 Social Aptitude can be defined as being able to pick up on how other people are feeling and using that awareness to manage relationships with others.   High levels of Social Aptitude require intentional observation and intuitiveness.  In other words, you have to have enough awareness to be able to see what is not obvious. 

The key to increasing both your personal and social aptitude is being willing to receive feedback.  This is why leaders go through 3-5 360 Degree Feedback assessments over the span of their careers.  However, there has to be a strong element of trust to say what needs to be said and to hear what needs to be heard.  Developing this trust means developing an openness to tough messages and the humility to change. 

Start your journey to increasing your self awareness today by reading Job-portunity:  Your Career GPS - Going Places Successfully in the World of Work.

www.whatsleadership.com

Job-portunity official book trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=512dK0RVriY