Growing a successful business involves so much forecasting and visualization, you’d almost expect to see crystal balls on the desks of the world’s top entrepreneurs. Just think of all there is to think about; venture funding, revenue predictions, office space.

Unfortunately, one area often overlooked is forecasting your business’s hiring needs. Stakeholders get caught up in the day-to-day running of the business and scramble to fill needs as they arise.

Not good.

As I say in my book, Double Double, if you’re scrambling to hire, it’s game over and you lose.

When I worked at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, I had our staffing plans mapped out by the month three years out. I had no choice, we were coming off our sixth straight year of 100% revenue growth. Things were expanding so fast that scrambling for new hires could have put us in a hole from which we never could have recovered.

I can’t stress it enough: You too should have your hiring needs forecast at least a year out. This gives you plenty of time to identify the role, define its requirements, seek ideal candidates and whittle them down in a robust, pragmatic recruiting process.

Filling holes as they open often leads to compromise, quick decisions and less-than-ideal hires. It also puts undue pressure on your existing staff who must work extra hard to fill the widening void as you go through the hiring process.

Have a plan for low growth, average growth and hyper-growth, so you’re prepared for all contingencies.

A lot of people scoff at this idea. “We’re an awesome place to work,” they say. “Great candidates will throw themselves at us.”

It’s foolish logic that can really get any company in trouble. If your business truly is a great place to work, you will likely have a lot of great people clamoring to work with you. But you’ll also have hundreds if not thousands of other candidates throwing their hats in the ring. The process of weeding out the duds is exhausting, and time consuming. You might eventually find the perfect fit, but you’ll the process will take a lot longer than you think, and put you further behind.

Then there are the problems faced by young, inexperienced companies. Even if the leaders forecast their hiring needs, they often severely underestimate the difficulty they’ll have in filling it.

I had one client who determined he needed to hire 12 teachers for his chain of bilingual preschools. Great, I said, how many resumes do you think you need to fill those roles, and where do you plan on getting them?

As I took him through the process, I showed him he’d need well over 500 applicants to have a realistic chance of finding 12 great fits. And as a small company that lacked any real ‘buzz’, reaching that number would be a challenge.

Finding the right candidate is hard enough; you need every advantage you can get. Being prepared gives you a chance to recruit on your terms, with no stress and no compromise. Just the way you like it.

Do your employees help each other like this ?  Do they take pride in helping others in different business areas ?  Are they motivated by seeing others succeed ?

Hire people who care.  Hire people who want to see others succeed.  I’ll tell you what, the player with the #2 on his jersey will show those same caring traits as an adult as he does in this video.  And if you had a team filled with people like him, imagine how much faster your company would grow.

Hire people with the behavioral traits you want…

For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture and Leadership at 100MPH.

Other than thoroughly reviewing a job candidate’s past employers online, dig around on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to see how they portray themselves. Social Networks are public domain, so don’t feel like you’re infringing on anyone’s rights.  Some of the things you find may surprise you!  Read on, and get more insights here too.

Formulate a list of questions related to the preferences you’ve already decided you need in a candidate. Your preparation should give you a list of areas to delve into deeper. I love making my questions right on their resume and then, once I’ve got a ton of questions written down, putting a number beside each in the order I’ll ask them to ensure I cover it all.

One-on-one interviews should always be two hours and can often go as long as four hours if you’ve really prepared and really grill the candidate, asking multiple questions around each area.

The setting for the interviews should be appropriate. Use your intuition to know whether a more or less formal atmosphere is appropriate.

The interviewer explains this stage of the process to the candidate. Build rapport with the candidate, but don’t do all of the talking. The interviewer has to stay in control of the discussion, so don’t let the candidate control the time or the questions. They’ll have their turn to ask questions later.

Always look for transition points in their job history because that’s where the most illustrative stories lie, and if a candidate shares them, you’ll begin to see more of them as a person. Moving between jobs, schools, career changes, and marriages help you get a better idea for who the candidate is as a person.  Probe into the transitions –respectfully – and find out why they happened. Don’t assume all transitions are bad – ask the candidate why they made the choices they did in order to get a comprehensive picture of them as an individual.

I have been recruiting thousands of employees for 25 years now – and this is easily the best recruiting tactic I’ve ever heard of for getting true A Players.  It’s a twist on the old internal referral bonus…

I cover a ton of other systems on recruiting and interviewing here – but this one is fantastic…

• All employees are eligible.
• Any employee referring another person from outside the company who gets hired earns a bonus of 100% of that employees starting salary.  i.e. refer a person who earns $120,000 and you earn a bonus of $120,000
• The bonus is paid out 10% a year, for 10 years.  So you’ll earn $12,000 a year for the next 10 years…
• Caveat is – both of you need to be working for the company for the bonus to keep being paid out.  If either of you leave for any reason – it stops.
• Keep referring new hires, and you’ll keep adding new bonus amounts on top of the others.

The best part of this is, internal employees will work to keep people happy so they stay, you’ll have a built in happiness machine.

Seems expensive at first blush – but it will drive great new people into the company, and the longer people are with you, the more skills and culture they’ll build up for you.

More great tools about recruiting here…

For information on this topic, check out: Leadership at 100MPH.

I don’t get it.

When you KNOW that you have someone in your company that has to be let go – do it today.  Stop being such a chicken shit poor leader.

Do it with empathy.

But do it today.

The data says, that the cost of keeping the wrong person is 15x their annual salary.  It costs you WAY too much money to keep them.

ALL the reasons you give for not letting them go, are likely a sign that you’re simply nervous about doing it.  But do it you must.  Today.

If you want more info on how to fire people properly – these DVDs on Culture & Leadership both cover it.  As does the sections on People in Double Double.

Even at the employee recruiting stage, your company’s Painted Picture helps ensure alignment.

Have your potential employees read your Painted Picture before their first interview so they’ll know if the job/culture will feel right to them.  Doing this ideally weeds out unqualified candidates.

One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. You don’t want an employee that doesn’t want to make your Painted Picture a reality—not only will they be a drain, but they’ll bring others down, too.

How do you ensure that you don’t hire someone like that? I tell the CEOs that I coach to set up an email auto-reply so that all candidates sending their resumes to your company via email instantly get a response that says, “Thanks for applying to work for us.  Please read the attached Painted Picture that describes what our company looks and feels like three years out.  If this sounds like the kind of company you’d like to help build, send us an email with the words, ‘please interview me’ in the subject line.”

It’s an awesome system that saves everyone so much time by not interviewing candidates that don’t like what the future has in store for them. It also shines a spotlight on candidates who are paying attention, and take the time to send a reply back following your directions.

Also, have all of your employees and suppliers re-read the Painted Picture every quarter.  When every employee reads it, the process of alignment starts taking place. Every quarter, have each person read the Painted Picture quietly and circle the key words or sentences that resonate with them. Then go around the room have each person read out the areas they like.  It provides alignment for the whole team before the brainstorming process takes place, and can assist in planning and prioritizing future projects.

More great tools for recruiting here…

For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.

Here are some of the typical questions I’ve used in group interviews. Keep in mind that I’m only looking for cultural fit and leadership at this stage.

• What are your favorite books/magazines?
• What is your favorite movie/why?
• What car is most similar to you & why?
• What was the most stressful time of your life and why?
• What was the most complex project you ever led and why?
• What stresses you out?
• Why do you want to work here?
• Who is the best candidate in the room?  Why?
• If we hired two people, who in this room would you want us to hire to work with you?
• When could you start and how much do you need to make year one? Year three?

I love this last question because candidates will actually give you the real dollar amount they’d work for versus an inflated number they’d give if no one else were around.

If you follow this process properly, you won’t overlook star candidates whose resumes you’ve already reviewed prior to inviting them to the group interview. The purpose of the group interview is to screen for cultural fit and leadership—that’s what gets candidates into a second interview.

I like to compare this process to a similar practice Steve Jobs initiated at Apple. He’d show a prototype of the Mac computer to prospective employees and if he couldn’t see the sparkle in their eyes when they first saw it, he didn’t bother interviewing them any further.

The following interview questions are from a survey I found years ago and also include a bunch of my favorites.

I only listed the ones I really like best, categorized according to personal background, skills and abilities, academic preparation, and other topics.

This list of questions would be an excellent resource to use when preparing for interviews with prospective employees.

ABILITY TO DEAL WITH ADVERSITY, THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

• What are your personal goals, and have you achieved them? If not, why?
• Who was the most difficult person you’ve dealt with? How did you respond?
• Describe a frustrating experience from work. How did you deal with it?
• What are some of the greatest personal challenges you have faced?
• How do you handle rejection?
• What aspects of your past jobs were most frustrating?
• What life experiences have given you the greatest reward?
• Can you tell me about the toughest job you’ve ever had?
• What was the most difficult aspect of obtaining a college degree?

CAREER GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

• What are your career interests?
• What are your standards of success/goals for a job?
• What are your goals and aspirations for the next three years?
• What are your long-range goals and how are you preparing to achieve them?
• If you could create the perfect job for yourself, what would you do?
• Please tell me about your plans for the future.
• What work would you like to do that really interests you?
• What is your timetable for achievement of your current career goals?

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

• What skills do you possess that will help make you successful in this job?
• Why should we hire you?
• Have you ever worked in a similar position with another organization, and what did you enjoy most about and least about it?
• Please discuss some of your past jobs and what you accomplished in them?
• What prior work experiences have you had?
• What were your accomplishments in these prior work experiences?
• Please tell me about the duties/requirements of your last job.
• Elaborate on one of the work experiences listed on your resume.
• What did you enjoy most about your previous job experiences? Least?
• In addition to your educational and professional experiences, what else would you like us to know about you in order to make an appropriate decision?
• What skills will you bring to the job that will enhance our team or company?

LEADERSHIP

• What are your major strengths and weaknesses?
• What did you see as your major strengths and/or weaknesses on this job?
• What would your last two employers say about you, good and bad?
• How would you describe your supervisory/leadership style?
• Who or what had the greatest influence on your life?
• Describe the difference between motivation and inspiration, and how these apply to you in the work environment.

INITIATIVE AND FOLLOW-THROUGH

• What are your greatest achievements at this point in your life?
• Tell me about your accomplishments during college that make you proudest.
• If friends/colleagues were to describe you to a stranger what would they say?
• What do you consider most important when evaluating yourself?
• What were your most significant achievements?

COMMUNICATION

• How would you describe your style of communication?
• Tell me about a time you had to sell an idea to someone else.
• What do you enjoy doing most?
• Tell me about a time you had to present information to a large group of people. How did you feel and how successful were you?

WORKING EFFECTIVELY WITH OTHERS

• How well do you work with others?
• What are some of the pros and cons of working on a team project?
• When have you led a team to achieve a specific goal, what were the results?
• What have you admired in people who have previously supervised your work? What haven’t you admired in these individuals?
• How would you resolve conflict in a group situation?

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

• What changes would you make in your school’s academic program?
• Tell me about a time you found a new and better way of doing something.
• What was the largest, most creative project you’ve been involved in to date?
• Tell me the most creative solution you have come up with to solve a problem.
• Tell me a time when you had to bring out the creativity in others.

DECISION-MAKING

• Please tell me about a conflict and how you resolved it.
• Tell me a time you had to make an important decision with limited facts.
• Tell me a time you had to make an unpopular decision.
• Tell me about a bad decision you made and what you would do differently?

DELEGATION AND ORGANIZATION

• How do you organize your day?
• Tell me about a time you delegated a project effectively.
• Describe to me a time when a supervisor delegated a task to you when you had a full workload. How did you handle the situation?
• Describe what your closets and garage look like today.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SALES

• What personal qualities do you bring to this firm?
• Tell me about when you dealt with an irate customer.
• What does the term “the customer is always right” mean to you?
• What’s the best example of awesome customer service you’ve provided?

GENERAL

• What starting salary do you expect as an employee?
• When comparing one company offer to another, what factors will be important to you besides starting salary?
• Please tell me about yourself. How would you describe yourself?
• Name three people who have inspired you and why.
• What personal qualities do you bring to this firm?
• What do you know about our company?
• Why are you interviewing with us?
• Why do you want to work in the position you are seeking?
• What are your expectations of us?
• Why did you select us?

Most top performers work for really average companies.

Your job is to find the amazing people that work somewhere else and get them to work for you.

Don’t make a habit of recruiting and hiring unemployed people.  Find the go-getters that have jobs right now!

On the day Intrawest Ski Resorts were acquired by Fortress, I was on the phone to all the top people at the company telling them I wanted to hire everyone good because it was going to implode.

I eventually hired five of their key people over the next three months because I knew that these people had already been working for a high performance organization. I just went out and got them. It was as easy as that.

Getting the right people can be easy if you’re willing to make it happen.  I often see entrepreneurs struggle because they don’t know how to seek out exceptional people or they don’t work hard enough searching for the gems.

My grandfather, Cam Shortts, who recently died at 96, taught me how to hire great people. He owned a hunting and fishing resort in Northern Ontario called Lift-The-Latch Lodge, and he’d take me duck hunting as a teenager.

Grandpa always knew exactly what kinds of ducks he wanted before we set out to hunt: blue-winged teals, mallards, wood ducks and canvas backs. He also knew what kind he didn’t want: fish ducks. Before we set out on any hunting expedition, he made it clear what his goals were, and that our reward was only as worthwhile as the ducks we’d selected.

Recruiting the right people is just like duck hunting: you must have a crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly what you’re looking for, and good aim.

You also need to be sure that all new hires will truly impress every person they interact with, whether it’s customers, strategic partners, vendors, the media, or the public at large.

So know exactly who you want to hire, go find them, and shoot them out of the sky.

For information on this topic, check out: Leadership at 100MPH.

If you’re not currently setting goals to be in better shape, you know what you need to do.

Trust me – your back problems and evolving double chin will disappear faster than you think.

“Ya I just don’t have time to work out.” Neither does Barack Obama, but he’s hard in the gym for an hour in the morning, 6 days a week.

Don’t you hate it when I’m right?

Also, when recruiting, look for athletes and hire people who play sports actively.

Look for team players.  Look for those with athletic goals as adults.  Those who wake up working out hard will work hard in their jobs.  Those who sit on the couch watching TV that makes them dumber will produce similar results at work.

pic Eden Prairie News