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The Busy CEO's Short Guide to Attracting & Hiring World-Class Product Managers

The Busy CEO's Short Guide to Attracting & Hiring World-Class Product Managers

7 Key Ways to Avoid a Mis-hire

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Anyone responsible for hiring employees for a company will sometimes get it wrong. They may select a candidate that simply doesn’t work out or isn’t the best fit for the work environment. For a large company, this is a common and troubling occurrence. It’s a hiring mistake commonly known as a “mis-hire.” 

In a 2012 study, it was found that the average cost for a company to hire a skilled employee is between 10 to 17 weeks of their salary. With highly skilled hiring, this can rise to as much as 24 weeks. This is clearly a significant expense.

A mis-hire also has a cost to the overall work environment. The actions taken to address a mis-hire will have a direct impact on the perceptions of existing workers. Relationships have been built between the new hire and other employees in their team. Often, employees will see the company as being unfair or disloyal to their colleague.         

If you want to better understand how much a mis-hire may be costing you, there is a great online resource from Topgrading.com. They offer a free Cost of a Mis-hire Calculator tool that you can refer to.

Fortunately, there are some things that you can do to avoid hiring the wrong person. Here are seven of the most effective ways to avoid a mis-hire.

1. Slow Down the Process

Slow Down the Process

You might be hiring to fill an urgent gap or support a new project. You feel the need to find a person right now and get them started right away.

That’s understandable, but rushing the hiring process is one of the biggest reasons for mis-hires. The sense of urgency causes you to ignore your standard procedures and overlook key hiring measures.

When you are in a big hurry to hire, you likely will interview only a few candidates. As soon as you find a warm body that half-meets your requirements, you will hire them.

Unfortunately, hiring just anyone that can fill a role will almost certainly lead to a mis-hire. You filled a gap, but it will soon open again. The new project has a new team member but that too will soon change.

Slow things down. Even if the recruitment takes a bit longer, a mis-hire can be avoided. The project can wait for the perfect resources and will be better off in the long run.

Line managers are usually the guilty party. They want you to move quickly. But they don’t understand the potential cost of trying to go fast. When the whole thing blows up, they will blame it on you and insist you fix it quickly.

The line manager’s job is to run the project, but yours is to hire properly.

2. Define the Role Correctly

If every role is just like any other, then every candidate is perfect for the role. How ridiculous is that?

You’ll always have a list of basic characteristics that you want every candidate to possess. Don’t mistake these as being about the role. They’re not. These characteristics are about the company culture.

Another mistake that hiring managers often make is to think the roles are the same as departments. In other words, they presume that every role in the IT department has the same definition.

Carefully define each role before you recruit. Understand the key competencies required and the duties to be performed. Prepare a detailed job description. All of this allows for the matching of candidates to individual roles.

3. Actually Contact References

Start with the terrible assumption that all candidates exaggerate or outright lie. They need the job and they want you to think the best of them.       

Usually, candidate references are checked just before the hiring process has concluded. Decisions have already been made and the right candidate selected. Checking references is almost a formality just before hiring.

Even when references are checked, it is just to confirm that the candidate did work for the employer.

You need to check the references for all of your shortlisted candidates as a further method of screening. Don’t just ask “Do you know so and so?” or “Did they work for you?”

What you want to be asking is, “What role did they perform and how well did they do it?” You want to learn as much as you can about the characteristics of the candidate. You should ask, “Would you hire them again if you had the chance?”

This information can help you make a great hire – or save you from a terrible one.

4. Make Use of Behavioural Questions During The Interview

Make the interview with the candidate more effective by asking behavioural questions rather than factual ones. Behavioural questions will give you far more insight.

You might ask, “Do you know Adobe Illustrator?” A better question would be, “Can you tell me about your experience using Adobe Illustrator?” Phrasing the question in this way will result in a candidate telling a story and demonstrating their knowledge.

You can use this same technique with the candidate’s employment history. For example, “Tell me about a project where you…”

5. Assess the Fit With The Corporate Culture

You might have found a candidate that has all of the needed skills for the role. They have a great track record. They’re perfect!

Knowing if a candidate is going to match your company’s culture is just as important as their skills. You can provide training to build skills, and they will also learn from their colleagues.

When a potential employee just doesn’t fit in, then they are likely to leave or cause morale problems. If it isn’t the right place for them, they may simply want out.

Sometimes, the best way that you can assess the fit with the company is to let them determine it for themselves. Show them the area where they will be working. Let potential team members chat with them. It shouldn’t be formal, but just a casual part of the interview process. You’ll be able to gauge candidates. Most importantly, the candidate can get a feel for things.

If the candidate can’t tell you anything about your business, then they are likely not the right choice. They should have done their homework. They should at least be able to talk about what your company does or discuss its recent achievements.

6. Find a Great Talent Partner

Sending a job description out to a bunch of recruiters rarely proves effective. They don’t know what you are looking for or understand the culture of your business. You’ll get a vetted list of candidates, but only ones that match the skill profile.

As we’ve already seen, hiring is much more than finding a person with the right skills.

You should find a great talent partner to work with you. This partner should be able to learn what exactly makes a great employee for your business. They will come to understand your culture and what increases the likelihood of an employee sticking around for a while.

7. Learn from the People You Hire

Just because you’ve hired someone, that doesn’t mean your job is over.

After a bit of time, the people you hire will be able to give you a ton of valuable information to guide you in your next hire.

The employee’s skills will already have been put to the test. That’s the easy part and is not usually the biggest contributor to a mis-hire.

How happy is the new employee six months down the line? What is their level of job satisfaction? These are the important questions and sometimes the hardest answers to hear.

The retention of an employee is directly related to their job satisfaction. When an employee leaves shortly after being hired, you might as well consider that a mis-hire. Companies define a mis-hire in terms of a failure of their hiring practice, but it can be more than that.

A great employer will create a culture where employees feel free to give their feedback. For the hiring process, you can conduct a post-hire interview and learn everything you can to guide you going forward.

Summary

Mis-hires are a huge cost to businesses. The time and money spent on the hiring process have been flushed down the toilet. Company morale takes a hit. Company output suffers, and so does the bottom line.

By seriously looking at the pattern of mis-hires in your organization, you can prevent them from happening in the first place.

Avoiding mis-hires involves making changes to your hiring process and how you introduce new workers to your business. After all, it is your workers that have the greatest impact on your success.

How to Recruit Top Talent for My Startup?

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Let’s be honest – procuring talent is difficult at every organization. However, hiring for brand-new businesses can be significantly harder. 

As a newer organization with limited income, bringing on a bad hire can conceivably break your startup. As a result, getting hiring right is arguably the most significant activity for a business owner or manager. 

To compete with the big players in your space, you should spend more time focusing on the opportunities and experience your organization offers applicants.

Here are some tips to remember as you look to recruit top talent for your fast growing startup.

Offer a Mission and Vision

To persuade top talent to come and work for you, you have to assemble an organization with an extraordinary strategic vision that energizes them. 

As an author, you should have the option to impart your long-haul vision to your potential representatives and present your organization in the most positive light. If you’re not ready to offer huge pay rates at the beginning to people with great ability, you have to get innovative. 

At that point, you have to concentrate on getting the individuals who will support this crucial mission and breathe life into it – more than just a statement on the divider in your hall.

“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” 

– Simon Sinek, author and motivational speaker

Be Unique

When your startup is just starting out, you may need to do everything yourself to minimize expenses.

However, you know you can’t do it all alone forever – that’s why you need to have a team rather than individuals. In terms of being unique, I don’t mean that you should begin going into work shoeless or quit washing up. 

I’m talking about separating yourself from different bosses in a deliberate, significant way. An extraordinary aspect concerning a startup is that the culture is still a work in progress. You’re still setting the standards, and you can turn it into what your ideal employees actually need and want. A unique culture can be a huge draw for talented workers.

Prefer Attitude over Experience

Experienced employees may get lured away with the development openings that accompany working with the “newcomer.” However, with experience comes desires, and usually, these desires are monetary.

Nowadays, candidates are well prepared for questions like “What is your best quality and why?”, “What motivates you?”, and “Why are you interested in this job?” 

Rather than asking these kinds of questions, dig deeper and put them in a difficult situation to test their creativity, attitude, and ability to perform under pressure. This will also give you a fair idea of whether the candidate believes in what you believe.

So, change your recruiting questions to:

  • "On the off chance that you were made the director in your last position, what might you have changed?"
  • "Would you be able to talk about a period where you utilized abilities that fell outside of your set of working responsibilities to finish a project?”
  • "Three years from today, what needs to occur for you to feel satisfied on the job?"

Go Remote or Hire Freelancers

If you are struggling to find talent in your immediate community, remote employees are an option. Enlisting remote methods, you have a whole world brimming with capable workers you can choose from. 

Maybe fully remote employees are not a feasible route for your startup. Instead, consider offering greater flexibility, for example, giving them the option to work from home at your organization. You could even establish this in a job offer, requiring three days in the office and allowing two days from home.

Freelancing is also a great option. It helps you stay within a tight budget, lets you give individuals a try before they go full time, and ensures you have a backup plan for overflow work. This could be valuable if your company has a specific task that requires additional support or simply needs to give someone a trial run before committing to a full-time hire. 

There are numerous sites, such as Upwork, that make hiring consultants extremely simple. Frequently, you can have a stranger working on a project for you in minutes.

Consider Online Platforms

As we mentioned, there are many online platforms to recruit talent according to your requirements. Almost every job has a discussion forum where individuals who carry out that responsibility go to discuss work – it’s not a bad idea to reach out to these groups. 

Another option is to create your own corporate blog and contribute guest content on significant online platforms, such as Medium or LinkedIn.

Share the experiences you’ve learned throughout the startup process. If you’re transparent about your mission, goals, and challenges, then it’s possible that gifted applicants who read your blog posts will reach out and apply.

Network Often

You can grow your ability to attract great candidates by agreeing to speaking engagements and attending meetups. Public speaking is an extraordinary opportunity to make your organization and vision known to potential future collaborators. 

There’s one caveat to finding great candidates – you can’t hire them all. It’s always enticing when you’ve discovered your ideal applicant to disregard every other person, hire the individual you need, and ignore the rest. Try not to do that.

In addition to the fact that you should send a pleasant message to declined candidates once you’ve made a hiring decision, you should stay in contact with other great applicants if you can. They’ve indicated enthusiasm for working for your organization, and even if they don’t have the experience you need right now, they may be the top talent you’re looking for in the future.

Conclusion

The success of any startup is dependent on human capital. If the people you work with are competent and supportive of your business, then success will come for sure! 

Hopefully with the tips above, you can recruit all of the top talent for your startup business that you need.

How to Make the Right Hiring Decision

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If you work as a hiring manager, it is your duty to find the best potential employees for your company. New applicants should meet or exceed all the criteria and qualifications that you need for any job that you’re hiring for in the future.

For this reason, you have to be able to discern whether or not any final hiring decision you make is the right one. Here are a few simple tips on how to make the right hiring decision based on measurable data and pointers.

1. Be Aware of Significant Criteria 

First, you have to know what you’re looking for in your new hires. Be certain about the criteria that you want in an applicant. If you are hiring for a certain position within the company, it is your duty as the hiring manager to learn all that you can about the specific job requirements before interviewing applicants. This way, you can weed out those that don’t have the right qualifications for the job easily.

2. Avoid Professional Biases During Interviews

Secondly, try to avoid any professional biases that you might have against or for an applicant during the interview and hiring process. This way, you will not be limited by how you perceive the applicant on a more personal level. Instead, you will be able to decide based on an individual’s skills and overall personality. 

In addition to this, a hiring manager should not be influenced by their connection with one applicant over the others or any personal preferences. If this happens, you will not be able to make a fair or informed decision regarding your final hire.

3. Conduct a Systematic Interview and Testing Procedure 

The next tip that you should keep in mind using systematic interview methodologies for hiring applicants. You should be able to employ assessment methods that could help you determine an applicant’s aptitude for the job. 

Here are some of the major tools that you can use to aid in your official decision making:

  • Scorecards
  • Phone interviews
  • Personal interviews

These are just three of the most effective ways for you to gauge whether or not an applicant is fit for the job. You should also make sure that he or she passes medical exams – as well as any physical tests that you might have in mind – to gauge his ability to adapt to the physical demands of the job that you are hiring for.

If you can do this, you will have found the best applicants from your available talent pool as soon as possible.

4. Ask the Right Questions

In order for you to make a sound decision regarding any potential hires, you should ask the right set of questions about the client, both on the professional and personal level. 

Here are some sample questions that you should ask an applicant before hiring him or her:

  • Why did you decide to apply for this job?
  • What are the highlights of your career and how did you achieve them?
  • What are your main limitations and strengths when it comes to working?
  • What do you like or dislike about your previous job compared to this one?
  • What were the specific reasons for dismissal from your previous employment?
  • Can you describe your previous supervisor? What can you say about him or her?
  • Aside from your skills and talent, what else can you contribute to the company as a whole, if we decide to hire you?

These questions will help you decide whether or not to hire someone for a job because the responses from these questions are designed to gauge the applicants’ attitude for work. It is also designed to measure their capabilities when it comes to establishing interpersonal relations with their fellow employees.

5. Check References

To make an informed decision regarding who to hire, it is also important for you to check on any available references regarding the applicants’ work history and experience.

The good thing about this is, with the advent of the Internet, you can easily pull out any kind of information that you need to know about potential applicants without difficulty.

6. Communicate With Previous Employers and Colleagues

You can also use online methods to connect with previous employers that can help you get to know your applicant as soon as possible. Do not hesitate to ask the most pertinent questions regarding their work ethic and personal lives so that you know how they could handle work-related situations and pressure in the future. 

From these interviews, you will be able to learn more about each applicant through the eyes of their peers. You will learn a lot from these other individuals regarding how your applicants work and handle daily and continuous amounts of stress.

This is truly effective to weed out the weaker applicants from those who are capable of great success in their line of work. You should not hesitate to use this method, especially if you are already down to five applicants left or fewer.

How to Make the Right Hiring Decision Wrap-up

These are just some of the major points that you need to remember in order to make the best decision in hiring for your company. The extensive recruitment process is surely something that you should invest your time and effort, because an outstanding company reputation and performance depend on the people that work within the company.

This is why you should choose the right staff and ground workers to work for the establishment. Once you are able to do this, everything else will follow for sure. It would also help you to consult other trusted members of your inner circle to see if they have the same opinion as you do about certain applicants.

However, make sure that you have the final say in the hiring decision.

How to Complete Topgrading: The Significant Steps

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Do you work in human resources? If the answer is yes, then you should learn everything that you can about topgrading as an interview process. With this particular tool, you will be able to weed out any unscrupulous characters that might end up not being able to do the job you are hiring for down the line.

Before we discuss how you can use employee topgrading as part of the rigorous interview and recruitment process, let’s take a look at what this term actually means and how it applies to building harmonious office interpersonal relationships.

In this context, the chairman available refers to their viability and probable job competency. It also involves a 12-step process which includes the following:

Phase One: The Initial Assessment

In this first phase of topgrading, you will be able to formulate the criteria for what you want to  see in a potential employee.

1. Forethought – Here, you start by thinking about the specific candidate that you are trying to look for. What qualifications do they need for the job? You should also define the type of personality and work ethic an applicant should have.

2. The Scorecard – Once you know the specific qualifications that you are looking for, you can create a scorecard for these qualifications during the interview. This will help you determine if an applicant is a right fit for the job much more quickly. Create a list of the most important criteria, and if you find any  applicants who tick everything on the checklist, then you know you should hire them right away.

3. Utilize Your Network – Before outsourcing new recruits, you should look into your current talent pool for potential hires. This way, you will increase the chances of hiring someone you already know and trust. This will also cut down your training time, because you’ve hired someone who already has experience working for the company itself.

4. Work History Forms – Next, you want to make sure that your applicants fill out the work history form. This will include basic information about the applicants, as well as data on their previous salaries and reasons behind their dismissal from their previous employment. This document and the information provided can help you compare and contrast each applicant to gauge their competency when it comes to answering interview questions later on.

Phase Two: The Interview 

This is the part of the hiring process where you get face-to-face interaction with the applicant and gauge whether or not he is right for the job.

5. Telephone Screening – This works to further enhance the interview process. It occurs in conjunction with the work history forms, where an applicant is asked to verify the information that they have written on the form through phone conversations. During this process, their calls are compared with those of other applicants to ensure the validity of their information.

6. Competency Testing – This particular type of interview works in conjunction with the scorecard from step two. The interviewer will then compare the actual skills of the applicant against their own scorecard of the ideal qualifications. If the points tally, the applicant will have passed this section of the interview.

7. The Topgrading Interview – The official interview can last up to 4 hours. It involves an in-depth review of the applicants’ work history, as well as each of their personal qualifications. It begins by scrutinizing their educational background, goes through each of their job titles and experience, as well as the many work-related situations that they have encountered. In the end, the interview should focus on how the company can benefit from the skills and personality traits of the applicant himself. Here, you can also be thorough by checking the references that the applicant provided.

8. Feedback – This section focuses on interviewer feedback. The applicant will be given 1 to 3 points of consideration for improvement. They will also have to enumerate the areas where the interviewee excelled. This process is done to help the applicant understand what he needs due in order to improve themselves as a potential employee in the future.

9. The Executive Summary Draft – This particular document refers to the extensive report that you should write after the interview itself. Here, you will be able to identify up to 50 behavioral traits that can help compare each candidate’s skills and professional aptitude. This will help you classify each applicant into the ABC class.

Phase Three: The Field Test

In this final phase, you will be able to find out how well the applicant actually performs in the field. You provide him with simulated tests that measure his professional skills in action as it relates to the job.

10. The Reference Calls – In the reference step, you will be able to gauge whether or not the applicant will be able to handle calls in the field. You can ask them to arrange valuable caller information according to fixed company systems within a certain timeframe. This step will ascertain their speed and accuracy in gathering information.

11. Applicant Training – This is the part where you personally train your chosen applicants about the integral points of company procedures. This step is usually reserved for no more than the top three applicants of your choosing.

12. Annual Measurement of Hiring Success – You ought to regularly have a benchmark for your interview success. In this step, you can use sales analytics to determine if you made the right choice in hiring certain applicants over others. You can also conduct interviews – both formal and informal – with other office staff to help you gauge whether or not the new recruit is getting along with his peers and colleagues. Reflecting on applicant performance on the job will help you refine your interview process.

With these 12 steps, you can certainly end up with the best applicants for any job that you might have in mind in the future. As with any manager, it is your duty to find the best of the best when it comes to potential members of the company that you’re working for. It’s worth it to take this job seriously.

Conclusion

These are the most important points that you need to remember about topgrading. It is crucial that you are able to do this when interviewing applicants, mainly because it will help you make an informed decision regarding who you should hire for your company in the future. 

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and give the process a try. You’re sure to see better applicants and employees on the other end!

How To Hire A Players

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Introduction

Finding A Players can be quite a challenge.  Employees can differ from one another as much as night differs from day.  Two employees might have the exact same educational and experience level and yet their performance and ability to fit in with your company will be much different. 

This is because everyone does not have the same level of work ethics and personality also plays a huge role in their ability to adapt to your business vibe. 

In this handy guide we will give you tips on how to hire A Players.  Our guide focuses on finding these awesome employees who will make running the business a lot easier and also allow you to create a positive work-friendly environment that benefits everyone’s morale. 

The Pre-Hire Phase

As an employer, you are looking for creative ways to grow your business to the point where you will need to hire more people. Not only will you need to hire more employees, you will also need to work with various external entities such as suppliers, clients and associates as your contact list expands. Handling everything by yourself can be quite tough.  And that is where your most trusted employees with their professionalism and can-do come into play. Those with the right skills can take more workload off your shoulders so you can stay flexible. Here are a few ways to get prospective candidates to work for you. 

 

Post on job boards: These days, online job boards have become a reliable resource for anyone looking for work. Places like Indeed, Monster, and even local job boards are visited frequently by job seekers. If you are posting a job opening, it’s important to give the description of what it entails. Include skill and educational requirements as well. And yes, it’s always good to target those with experience (but at least give a chance to those who may not have it to apply as well).

(If you’ve already been to a job board and can’t find your ideal product manager, that’s when we recommend that people come to us) 

Job Fair Recruitment: One of the best places for an employer to find the right people are at job fairs. You can do these yourself or have some of the higher level management members do the recruiting for you. This is your chance to meet face to face with those who might be more of a good fit for your business and the work environment. And it gives you a chance to use your instincts and get a good read of the person on how they act, if they can be trusted in “crunch time” situations, and so on. 

Consider Referrals: There may be a time where someone in your business will be able to refer a job seeker to you. In that case, you’ll need to make sure they go through the proper application process. By the time you get the application (and the confirmation about the referral), it will be up to you to honor that referral and give that person a chance to be looked at and possibly interviewed. 

Find A Specialist Headhunter: It’s best to think of a headhunter as an investment instead of a cost. Making a mis-hire is the most expensive mistake that your company can make. The right product management recruiter can prevent you from losing time and money. Reach out to us if you’re tired of wasting your time, money, and company with the wrong hire.

Hiring Phase

Now that you have a pool of interested applicants, it’s time to whittle them down to a certain number. This is where you’ll be playing a process of elimination. And it can come down to a good amount of factors. Here are some things that you as an employer may potentially disqualify a particular applicant:

Lack of experience: The experience requirement may be subjective depending on the employer. However, you may be stringent about it. But it all depends on how bad you want the role filled. If you are indeed willing to train the right person and they have less than the required experience, you can do so.

Lack of problem-solving skills: There will be times when an employee will be faced with problems that are not as complex as they should be. You will be able to put this to the test during the employee interview process. Be creative and ask questions about a certain problem scenario.  

Not possessing a positive attitude: An employer knows a thing or two about a positive, professional attitude. And you might pick that up in an instant during the interview process. If the prospect doesn’t feel enthused or excited, that is a red flag and a good indicator to move on to the next applicant. 

But here’s what you need to look for in order to hire A Players for your team:

Decent competence in certain skills: Let’s face it, you are not going to find someone who is the grand master of Microsoft Excel. But you can find someone who is decent enough to know the basic ins and outs. Competence is important because you can trust that person to get the job done properly rather than an employee who has no idea what they are doing. 

Have a positive, can-do attitude: This is key. If an employee has a positive attitude it will eventually spread throughout the entire team. The happier the employees are, the higher their willingness to work will be. And that morale building environment does start with you as well. 

Find out what kind of value they can provide: While you might find an applicant that talks about themselves constantly about how they can do this or that, it’s important to challenge them with this question: “What kind of value do you believe you will bring to [your business]?” The answers may vary, but you can use your better judgement on how well an applicant can ask that question.

Final Thoughts

As an employee, it’s always important to find reliable employees who are willing to show up on time and be ready to work with a positive mental attitude. The hiring process may be tough at first (as will finding the right people). But over time, you will be able to figure out what consists of a good employee so they will be easy to work with (and they will be happy to work for you in the process). There is nothing more effective than employees who put their fellow co-workers and you over themselves every time.

Topgrading Interview Questions?

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Topgrading is a technique of enrolling, meeting, choosing, and retaining top ability candidates. This strategy has been prescribed to Rhythm customers for a long time. We even use it ourselves, so we know first-hand the intensity of topgrading. 

This system can be utilized to talk with an outer possibility for a job, just as inside for advancements inside an organization. Topgrading is an ordered meeting where applicants unveil their qualities and shortcomings as they describe their achievements, disappointments, choices, and key connections for each activity all through their career. 

Topgrading brings about clear execution data on your competitor that reference checks essentially can’t measure.

Topgrading: The Definition of Terms

The term topgrading refers to the process by which an applicant is hired by a corporate entity using this specific type of methodology. It has to do mainly with being able to identify the top applicants even before the initial interview commences.

The process usually has at least three candidate types or “players” as they’re called within the system. 

These players are as follows:

  • A Players - Those people who are deemed to be in the top 10% of available applicants for the job.
  • B Players - These candidates belong to the next available 25% of the talent pool.
  • C Players - These applicants belong to the remaining 65% of the talent pool.

Preparing for the Topgrading Interview

First of all, utilize a thorough social-based meeting approach. One normal meeting idea is to pose speculative or obscure questions. One of the worst is: “Tell me about yourself.” Instead, pose inquiries about genuine circumstances and results with a conduct-based meeting. 

On the off chance that you utilize theoretical or canned inquiries, even simply normal up-and-comers can make up great sounding answers. Firms use a one, two, or four-hour meet with the whole official group, utilizing creator Brad Smart’s organized, Topgrading meeting guide, which incorporates getting some information about the up-and-comer’s professional history. 

With a more drawn-out meeting, you get additional information to effectively evaluate your applicant. You’ll see that individuals who you may choose to hire after a 45-minute meeting can’t keep up the veneer for a two to three-hour meet. Their answers become obscure and vague, which is the sign of the B or C player. Surprisingly, A players love the force of this procedure because their answers are explicit, they find a workable pace with your firm, and they can tell that you are not kidding about only wanting top ability. 

During the real meeting, see if you can get the names of key supervisors they have worked with through the span of their professions. The best applicants will be glad to set up reference interviews for you with these directors.

Questions to Ask in the Topgrading Interview

With this information in mind, here are a few specific topgrading interview questions you should be sure to ask.

What are your professional objectives?

This is an approach to decide whether an up-and-comer is driven or not. The most determined applicants know exactly where they might want to be in the coming years. Less determined competitors will make statements like, “I simply need to work at a good company,” or “I don’t really know yet.”

What did achievement look like in your past job?

Regardless of whether their past job was for the same position or not, it’s imperative to see how they saw achievement. You’re searching for whether this individual thinks increasingly about their achievement or their group’s prosperity. 

Can you introduce us with a present or previous manager for additional perspective?

This question is a piece of the topgrading strategy and works as a truth serum for every single question in the rest of the interview. When an up-and-comer realizes that you will be looking to speak with their current or previous boss, they will be far less likely to exaggerate their accomplishments.

What do you think achievement looks like in this company?

This is like the other question, in that it asks whether a candidate thinks about the group or themselves. Be that as it may, it gives you a greater sense of how well they understand your business.

What was the greatest disappointment in your past job, and how did you grow from it?

This question evaluates coachability and genuineness. Everyone has fizzled, yet the significant part is what the up-and-comer gained from it? Do they blame another person for a past failure?

Why are you looking for a job, or why did you leave your last position?

This ought to be a direct question to reply, yet it can catch the interviewee by surprise. Probably, they are searching for a new position since they need to propel their profession forward and get a place that permits them to develop as an individual and a worker. But you may catch them focusing more on things like pay and benefits, which is undesirable and can make them sound like a hired soldier. 

What applicable experience do you have?

Ideally, on the off chance that they’re going after this job, they should have a great deal of related understanding. If that is the situation, they should specify everything. However, if they’re exchanging professions or having a go at something somewhat unique, their experience may at first not seem to match.

What other place have you applied to?

This is a decent method to judge whether they’re sought after or not. In any case, you should show that you’re truly searching for a skilled worker.

Steps for Topgrading Interview Preparations

1. Evaluate Your Current Contracting Achievement

Few people should hurry through this progression. At the end of the day, following your contracting metrics to discover what’s working will save time. The job scorecard is useful for both the business and the applicant. It guarantees that everybody is on the same page. 

2. Work Experience

There must be some specific forms related to work history which should be provided to the candidates to collect the information, like their previous salary, relationship with previous managers, and why they left their previous job.

3. Telephone Interview

This step should be utilized to limit the field of competitors. While meeting the up-and-comers, ask them topgrading inquiries about their expert objectives, experience, and present or ongoing occupations. 

4. Give Feedback

The association should utilize the topgrading interviewer feedback structure so that procuring chiefs can utilize the input to improve.

5. Make Report

Analyze information gathered from previous meetings to recognize patterns in the candidate’s job history and experience. Review a report on every possibility and provide it to the hiring manager. A report will help contrast different candidates and make the overall hiring process simpler.

6. References

This progression lets employing specialists see who the superior workers are since a quality applicant ordinarily doesn’t leave past positions in poor standing.

7. Development Plan

At the point when a candidate acknowledges an employment offer, let them know how they can improve. For this, the new hire should sit down with questioners and utilize a topgrading layout to make an Individual Development Plan.

8. Hiring Success Each Year

It’s essential to persistently gauge enlisting achievement. With topgrading, you should see enhancements in contracting achievement rates.

Conclusion

A topgrading meeting, led after careful screening, provides you more in-depth knowledge into an up-and-comer’s expert excursion by accumulating true responses to testing questions. So, the considerations above have helped us enroll and employ some top employees for our customers.

Even though it might be tedious, the topgrading procedure merits time and effort to forestall a terrible contract. In the long run, the slower you are to hire and the faster you are to fire for terrible showing, the more likely you are to improve where it matters most: results and customer loyalty.

How To Hire The Right Product Manager

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Introduction

If you are a business owner, hiring the right kind of people is crucial to your overall success. Finding the right candidates often isn’t the easiest of tasks.  In this guide we are sharing some great tips and hints to help you identify the most skillful and best suited project manager for your position. 

What Is A Product Manager?

A product manager is mostly responsible for the development of various products that are created by the company itself. They will be also focusing on various key aspects of a product (including the business strategy itself). They must also specify how the product will function for its users and manage the launch of the features and the products themselves. They will be able to determine whether or not such ideas are fitting to the business model or philosophy. 

What Is A Product Manager’s Role?

The product manager has some responsibilities that will fit into their role. They are as follows: Overall Strategy: The product manager will lay out the strategy with the development team. The communication will help the team understand the intent behind the product and the release. The product manager must develop a road map that begins with the start of developing the product all the way up to its initial release.  Handling Releases: A product will likely be released in phases. And it might not be available to the general public just yet. It is the responsibility of the product manager to set a certain timeline and schedule so the development team can be able to engineer the intended features by a certain time period. This also includes testing and even making revisions if and when needed.  Developing and Executing Ideas: Every product is born from an idea. So it is important for a product manager to find the right kind of ideas that will form into a new product. This will mean that the product manager must communicate with the appropriate people in the business. For example, the product manager should consider communicating with the marketing department over the course of time. The marketing department will often perform some kind of market research that will determine their target customer’s needs, desires, problems, and so on.  Managing and Prioritizing Features: It is important for a product manager to arrange the features in order of priority. The more there is a need to solve a customer’s problem, the quicker a feature will be released within the product in order to solve it. This is where the product manager and the engineering team must work together to ensure that each feature is working properly with little to no flaws. 

How To Hire The Right Product Manager

The hiring process to fulfill a position (be it management or low-level position) is a daunting task. But you can be able to make it easier on yourself by learning how to take the necessary steps that will make hiring a lot smoother on your end. Here are some things to do when you are looking for the right kind of product manager: Be patient: Keep in mind that hiring someone to fulfill a position is a time-consuming process. It won’t be filled at the snap of a finger. That’s because you need to find the right person who is competent, qualified, and able to perform the task without any trouble.  Consider experience and competence: If you are posting a job or recruiting potential applicants, it is important to know of two things: how long have they been involved in product development and how much of an understanding do they have of it. Someone on a development team may rise to the role of product manager after developing a few products here and there. The better experienced a candidate is, the more likely a fit they might become.  Find someone who can solve problems, no matter how complex: A product manager must be a problem solver. Things can go wrong during the product development phase. It is up to the manager to look them over and determine the best solution going forward. He/she must be creative and have ideas: It’s always a good idea for a product manager to always be in search of ideas. They can find one when they least expect it and be able to relay something to the marketing team or anyone involved with customer research. Remember, every successful product comes from an idea that is aimed to solve a customer’s problem (and not create some kind of marketing hype).  Find someone who is OK with failure: In business, no one ever gets it right on the first go. And if they say otherwise, they’re probably lying. It’s OK for something to fail over and over again. A great product manager must be prepared to go back to the drawing board and try again if things go south. If you find a candidate with that level of patience, they should be a high priority in your book.  Scout LinkedIn references:  LinkedIn is a great tool for finding suitable candidates.  On this social site you can seek candidates based on their qualifications and skill level, check out background information and even invite candidates to apply for your opportunities. Ask friends and colleagues:  The best candidate for your job isn’t necessarily one who is without employment at the moment.  In many cases, the right employee might not be in the market for a job at the moment. Asking colleagues and friends about prospective candidates with the right skill level is a great way to find those hidden gems who never even applied for your advertised positions. Use a headhunter: A headhunter is someone who seeks out suitable candidates and approaches them with an attractive job offer.  These experts are superb for negotiating terms with prospective employees or to convince them to abandon their current position and make the switch to your firm.  Shortlist your candidates:  It is important to keep a file on all available candidates and to shortlist your candidates as you continue scouting for talents. Shortlisting and making notes on all the strong points and positive attributes of candidates is a great way to weed out your list and to identify the best from the rest.  

Final Thoughts

Your product manager will be someone who will be taking on a crucial role in your business. And they will be the point person when it comes to the development of products. They might be one of the central people that will be filled to the brim with ideas that may excite you enough to learn more. Find someone who will fit the mold in becoming a great product manager and your business may propel to new heights. Be sure that your hiring someone who is competent, knows how to manage a team, and is able to communicate and collaborate regularly with various levels of your company.

How To Make The Right Hire

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Introduction

Every employer or recruiting agency wants to employ the best, highest qualified and most suitable candidate for a job.

But the hiring process is not easy. Candidates who say the right things and offer the best resume are often a wrong choice resulting in nothing but misery to their colleagues.

The main goal is obviously to find employees who are willing to work hard, cultivate a positive attitude, and play a role in meeting your business goals. In this guide we are sharing some advice on the best way to find candidates that fits your business and projects to perfection.

Tips On How You Can Find The Best Hire

Keep in mind that there are different ways of how the hiring process goes. It is also important to be creative in the process when it comes to finding the right kind of people. Here are just some things to consider when you are tasked with the responsibility of hiring people to work for you:

Know their real aspirations and goals: If there is one thing that a hiring manager must know about, it’s the job applicant’s goals regarding their future. What are their professional goals? What do they see themselves doing a year from now? Five years from now? You are looking for someone who might be willing to grow within the company. That way, they can be able to stick around for a long time and work in various high-level positions (or if they feel like it, they can take on a high-level position elsewhere but leave on a positive note if and when the situation warrants it).

Screen them right: There are hiring managers that won’t even bother contacting a job applicant’s references. And that’s not a smart thing to do. No matter how desperate you are looking to fill a position, it’s good to get in contact with the applicant’s references so you can gather intel on who the candidate really is and whether or not they are really a good hire or not. The applicant can say what they can say, but the references can either match it or tell a different story.

Get them to discuss their past successes and failures: Knowing about a job applicant’s handling of their past successes and failures can tell you a bit about them. So it’s important to make a note of what they have accomplished. But don’t take a lot of stock into their past. Anything could have changed between then and now. And a job applicant may have learned their lessons of the past and applied them to the present.

Use your better judgment without saying a word: We all know not to judge a book by its cover.  But this is easier said than done. Many candidates you interview will be quite the opposite of what you might expect from their resumes.  Many resumes are also altered to seem impressive when the actual skills are lacking. It is important to test a candidate’s competency through comprehensive questioning.  It is also important to communicate directly with a candidate to see if the candidate is a suitable personality for your business vibe.

Test their competence: To test a candidate’s competency you will need to compile a questionnaire prior to the interview.  This is especially important if you are a recruiting agency who might not contain in depth knowledge on a specific career or job.  The questionnaire should test the candidates’ understanding of the job as well as relevant concepts surrounding the position. You can also include questions about the candidate’s experience with specific scenarios to see if they are worthy candidates.

Ask them thought-provoking questions: It’s important to make the interview process as thought-provoking as possible. Get them to take a simple challenge that involves a problem that can be solved with ease. You can also ask them questions relating to situations that could occur assuming they were already hired. Be creative with the questions but don’t make them complex. You can be able to get a good read on their character, their problem-solving abilities, and anything that may be pertinent to the job at hand.

Drop any bias you may have: Sure, going to a fancy Ivy League school is nice. But that doesn’t mean they should have favorability over someone who went to a four-year college that isn’t Ivy League or prestigious. This is another reason why you should dig below the surface when interviewing or screening a job candidate. One of the best ways to find out if a candidate is worth their salt is to question the experience level.  In many cases, experience is better than book knowledge. For young candidates who might not have much experience you could compose a questionnaire that tests their understanding of duties relevant to the position.

Don’t be afraid to use your instincts: Let’s say the interview is going well. But something doesn’t seem right. You feel a bit uneasy and could not put your finger on it. At this point, it would be ideal to just wrap up the interview when necessary. If anything, when it comes to the hiring process it’s always good to trust your gut over logic each time. So if your instincts tell you that this might be the right fit for your business, act on them.

Be patient: Not every job opening will be filled at the snap of a finger. It’s important to take your time when you are covering your bases. Talk to the references, screen an applicant’s past work history, go over the interview notes that you took, and make sure that you weigh what you like or didn’t like about each candidate.

Final Thoughts

Nothing is easy to do when you are trying to hire the right kind of people. And it will be in your best interests to use the tips above so you can be able to screen and hire the right people who will be a great fit for your company. Keep in mind that the hiring process may take some time depending on how it’s all set up. But with just enough patience and the ability to screen each candidate at a steady pace, you will find someone who might fit the mold soon enough.

How To Create A Scorecard For Topgrading

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Introduction

If you are interviewing job applicants by way of topgrading, then it might be a bit difficult to make the determination between Applicant “A” or Applicant “B”. To make the process easier so you can make the best decision, it’s important to consider using a scorecard.

This guide will show you how to create a scorecard for topgrading and how you can use it appropriately so you can choose the right high-quality hires each time you are tasked to find the right people to fill certain positions. 

What Is A Topgrading Scorecard?

A topgrading scorecard is used internally within a company. The layout is similar to what you see in a job description. The only difference is the latter is often used in outside recruitment. Typically a scorecard may consist of the following elements:

Job purpose: This is basically an executive summary of the job and the responsibilities that will be fulfilled by the person who has assumed the role. It will describe some of the key roles of that job and who the person in that position will report to.

Topgrading

Responsibilities: This section of the scorecard will outline the specific responsibilities that will need to be done. The employee must fulfill these responsibilities on a regular basis. Since this is described on a scorecard, they will be “graded” on how well they perform the tasks.

Specific Measures Of Success: This will be an outline of goals that you need to determine so they can be met by your employees. Depending on the industry or type of business, these elements of success can be measured by revenue, cost, customer satisfaction and so on.

For example, one specific goal that could be set and achieved would be to increase revenue by 25% from the previous quarter or obtaining a customer satisfaction rating of 90% or higher. 

The Scorecard itself: The scorecard is used by all managers to keep track of employee achievements.  This report lists all achievements or accomplishments that the employee handled or completed successfully.  The scorecard can include various types of data such as the following;

Strategic agenda – This is the focus point or agenda of each achievement.  For example a target amount of sales for a sales agent.

Measurements – Scorecards can also include measurements so employees can monitor the achieved performance against the desired performance. A good example is a sheet that offers information on how much a projected sales target was exceeded or missed.

Data – Financial and non-financial data items that might relate to a specific responsibility or goal in the achievement.  For example; for a sales agent this would indicate the target sales amount, actual sales amount and the difference between these two amounts.

Impact – A portfolio which might display the impact that the achievement has for the company or project. For a sales person this impact can be quite huge.  Positive sales promotes the overall well being of a company a great deal.

Topgrading

Why Use A Topgrading Scorecard?

Here are a few good reasons why using a topgrading scorecard might be a good thing for your business:

Makes performance reviews easy: Topgrading is useful in not just the hiring and training process, but it can also be used on an occasional basis to help determine an employee’s overall performance. If you are an employer that does performance reviews on a regular basis (like every quarter), then a topgrading scorecard can be useful in determining an employee’s strengths and weaknesses. From there, you can also be able to let your employee know of which areas may improve between now and the next review (if need be).

It helps you filter out the good from the bad: This is key in the hiring process. You can keep score of your job applicants and be able to set a minimum total score. If they fail to reach a certain score, then they will be disqualified. You can also determine the percentile of how well each job applicant will score if they have attained a passible score (i.e.– top 10%, 25%, or other).

It can decide who is more ready for a higher position: Consider the following: you have a sales manager who just accepted the position to become a district manager for a different company. Now that the position is open, you can go to your topgrading scorecards and determine which employee might fit the mold in becoming the new sales manager. This could give you a good idea of who might be a worthy candidate to interview and eventually elevate to the position.

How To Create A Topgrading Scorecard

If you are planning on creating a scorecard for the purpose of using it for the hiring process or evaluating your employees, it’s important to know the basic layout of it. Here are some things that you need to consider adding to your scorecard when creating one from scratch:

Set a clear job purpose: This will give those who are responsible for scoring a clear understanding of what the job is. The hiring manager and the applicant must both have an understanding of what the job entails so the latter will be able to perform it with competence.

Responsibilities: This is pretty self-explanatory. This section should have specific descriptions of how the applicant (and later employee) should perform the job. Be sure to list key responsibilities and not create a long laundry list that might be considered overwhelming.

Consider your business goals: How much revenue are you looking to generate this quarter? How high should your customer satisfaction rate be this month? It’s up to you to determine which goals need to be set and achieved so your employees will take their jobs seriously in order to meet those said goals. These are known as the “specific measures of success”. And you can be able to pinpoint who might be able to go above and beyond and determine which employees may be underperforming and why.

List competencies: You must know what competencies are needed in order to hire or employee to perform the job properly. From there, you can be able to score them on a scale of 1 to 5. Determine which factors may dock an employee a point. While you are scoring employees or hires, use your better judgment on how well they perform a certain task.

Final Thought

If you are looking to make sure that every employee in your business is performing at high-quality levels, it’s always good to have a scorecard for topgrading handy. Once you have one structured and set in place you can use them to determine who will be the best possible hire and also who are your best-performing employees as well.