Hiring Great People

May 26, 2017

I put out a question to my Facebook friends: ‘What professional issue keeps you up at night?’ Oh, the responses! Instant and plentiful! So much so that what you shared has inspired a number of VLOGs.

Here’s the first one: ‘How do you hire a great assistant?’

It’s a great question. After all, you trust your schedule, your bank account, your whole life in somebody’s hands. And same goes for a great nanny, housekeeper, bookkeeper, accountant. You hand over so much of what you hold dear to sometimes a virtual stranger! How do you make sure that person deserves it? And really, isn’t that true of so many of us? There are only so many resources we have. We need to make sure that we have the best people on our team.

The great news is only 30% of Canadians are actually satisfied in their job. Okay, so maybe that’s not great news, but it’s great news for you! If you need to hire someone, chances are they’re not particularly loyal to the folks they are working for right now, and frankly, their current employer may not have given them a reason to be loyal.

The question still remains; how do you actually attract them away from the security that they have or at least break status quo? How will you be appealing to them? I have three unique and creative ideas that will help you to attract great people.

3 Ways to Attract Great People

1. Know Your Brand

What makes you unique and different? You need to know your brand.

If you work for yourself, then goodness knows, you should be doing that, because otherwise, how are people going to know to hire you? Even if you are on a team, part of a large organization, what is unique about your team? What is unique about your corporation that people want to be a part of?

Please don’t tell me the same things that everybody else does: we’re fiscally responsible, we use resources wisely, we are environmental stewards, we like our people. Honestly, so many people say these things and don’t practice it.  These words mean virtually nothing anymore. How do you live it?

So, what’s unique about what you, your team or organization does that’s appealing, awesome and awe-inspiring? Once you know that, you are able to start cultivating an experience, not just a job.

2. Know Your Strengths

You need to know what your unique strengths are. What are those strengths you have that need complimenting? Somebody else can offset the strengths you don’t have or are less dominant than your business or team needs.

It is not against hiring regulations to have somebody do a strength based tool, like the one I have offered in the past: the Via Signature Strength Survey  It’s a free tool. It’s not something you would say: “Oh well, unless you have these five strengths, I’m not going to hire you.” That’s when you get in trouble. What you can do is use a tool like a strengths inventory to verify there’s a good fit and your impressions in the interviewing process are spot on. It’s a great thing to do once you are into that hiring process.

3. Get Creative

You need to make sure you ask for somebody to join your team in a really enticing way. What does your job description or how you advertised it say about you and your team? How will they know through the process they’re a good fit?

Here are some creative ideas during the hiring process to help folks deselect themselves from your team as much as there are ways to help someone opt in.

• Start the job interview with a presentation that’s generic enough to see their process and output
• Issue a challenge or provide an assignment before or after the interview (e.g., as a speaker, I could ask them to source five great conferences I should speak at and produce the materials they would use to communicate why I’m the best fit)
• Request a 5-minute max video “pitch” of why they’re the perfect candidate

It’s not hard getting great people. They’re out there dying to do great work for great people! It’s about how to know if one person is a rock star for us versus somebody else, and they get why they’d be so much more fulfilled sharing their talents with you and your clients! Just try even one of these strategies and see if it helps you.

Be well and be great.