How to Hire Employees

Scenario: "Dude, we gotta hire Jimmy. He had a kick-booty interview. Yay! Yay! Yay!" Two types of people exist in this world:

1. Those who interview well.
2. Those who suck at interviews.

Often, it's the former that end up with sweet jobs. Yet, consider this sucka: No correlation exists between:

• (1) those who interview well, and:
• (2) those super-rock-star-in-the-making who-eventually-kick-butt-if-given-the-chance people.

So, hiring employees based on their interviews -- and other bull-crapola like "resumes" that 43127939153271 people embellish anyway -- is one-huge-freakin' risk. (Think turnovers, culture corruption, intellectual property, tremendous costs, resources, yadda, yadda, yadda.) How do you mitigate that risk? Trash conventional hiring techniques; instead, do what we do:

Use the "Test-See-Decide" Hiring Method

We affectionately it TSD. (When it comes to hiring, TSD's our drug of choice. Yes, we're pretty clever around here, huh?) That is, give Jimmy a trial period -- and if Jimmy kicks butt, offer him a sweet full-time position. During most trial periods, you won't need to cover his health benefits, payroll expenses, social security, worker's comp, and all the other tremendously costly expenses associated with hiring a full-time employee. That strips the fat, and lets you focus on what matters: seeing if they can kick some major booty for your company. Who adopts TSD? Oh, just some of the most talented workforces in the world: including Google, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Bain.

"So, how do I freakin' give them freakin' test periods?"

Giving test periods could mean:

• You hire them as contractors/consultants.
• You recruit them as interns.
• You hire them as temp-to-perm workers.
• You "test" them during the job process (e.g. "Bake the best cake you can.")

If they shine during their test periods, proceed accordingly.

"So, do I give everyone a trial period?!"

Not quite, unless you want to drain time, resources, and your crazy business. For us: Instead of focusing on who to hire, we focus on who not to hire. For instance:

• If their values don't match ours, we don't go any further.
• If their resumes raises big questions, we don't go any further.
• If they're answering our questions unfavorably, we don't go any further.
• If their references can't make them shine, we don't go any further.

Of course, that's our way of eliminating potential hires; please customize the process to your kick-ass business. Eliminating as many people as we can lets leaves us with people "who-we're-not-sure-will-rock-but-could-rock." So, we'll proceed by using TSD on them. The take-away from all of this:

Hiring is Like Dating

Unless you're some crazy desperate whacko who likes blue pie, you won't ask the first attractive person you see to marry you. Instead, you go through initial test periods -- culminating in something permanent:

1. "Yo! You = fine. You blow my mind. Let's date."
2. "Whoa. Wow. Dating you is so sweeeeeet! Be my current_entity.official [boy|girl]friend."
3. "Oh-mutha! Will you marry me?"

Test periods rock. It ensures you recruit amazingly awesome people who will rock your company.

TSD's a helluva drug.

If you enjoyed How to Hire Employees, get a complimentary subscription to our freshest articles through email or through your feed reader.