As a former athlete and coach, I make a lot of sports references and I think building a company is a lot like building a sports team. A football team will not be very good if the player who can throw the ball the best is playing defense, and the player who can tackle the best is playing quarterback.
In life like in sports, it is good to be well rounded and not a one-trick pony, but we have all been blessed with certain skills and strengths. We will maximize our productivity if we position ourselves so that we can play to our strengths. Getting to know your workers is crucial and begins in the hiring process. Like a coach scouting a potential athlete, you will learn a tremendous amount about an applicant in the interview process.
When you begin your search for your next hire, make sure your post has a detailed job description, and list the required skill needed. Once the resumes begin to flow in you will need to weed through them. It never ceases to amaze me how many applicants you will get that have no business applying. It will take multiple steps to get to a point where you feel you can make a hiring decision. First, you will need to throw out all applicants that don’t match the job description.
At this point, we at Stone Development like to have our applicants fill out a questionnaire, about 100 questions long. Some people don’t see the point of a lengthy task at this point of the process, admittedly there is a risk of running off a qualified candidate who is turned off by such a commitment with no guarantee, but that is kind of the point. If an applicant is not willing to jump through a few hoops, how willing will they be to go above and beyond for your company?
Next, we conduct a round of phone interviews. It is good to have a pre-determined list of questions to ask during the interview which will give you some consistency. Some companies have a pre-determined number of applicants who they will take to the next round of interviews, or a percentage they will cut. We don’t implement a strict cut.
Once we have a group of candidates who have completed the questionnaire and their first phone interview, we will read their answers to the questionnaire in depth. At this point, the second round of phone interviews will happen. In this phone conversation, we are asking more reflective questions and asking the applicant to elaborate on some of their more interesting answers to the questionnaire. By the end of the second phone interview, we should have a good idea of who we would like to bring in for an in-person interview.
As for the first phone interview, it is good to have a predetermined list of questions for your in-person interview. At Stone, this first in-person interview will be conducted by two employees. This allows for different opinions to come up usually making for good conversations. At this point some more, cuts are necessary.
Only the top applicants will make it to our second and final interview. This will be conducted by a single Stone employee, the person ultimately responsible for the hire. Now is the time we ask our applicants to participate in a DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) personality test. This is helpful to assess different personality types that may not be reflected in a typical interview.
It is important to build your team with players who have different strengths. After this final interview, a decision will be made, and the journey begins.