A Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft Skills

A Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft SkillsA Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft SkillsA Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft SkillsBy Bruce Tulgan, author of Bridging the Soft Skills Gap How to Teach the Missing Basics to Todays Young Talent(Wiley)Never forget, one very good hire is much better than three or four or five mediocre hires. No matter where you are on the skill spectrum, build in soft skills criteria systematically in every aspect of your staffing strategy and hiring processStep OneFor every single position, build a profile and job description that includes not just the key hard skills for that role, but also the key soft skills. Use our competency model to start your brainstorming, but make them your own.Once you identify the high priority soft skill behaviors for each position, name them yourself. Describe them in detail. Build those criteria into the basic job requirements in no uncertain terms from the very outset. Be prepared to turn away candidate s who do not meet these soft skill criteria, just as you would turn away candidates without the necessary hard skills.Or, if you are forced to hire people without the required soft skills, make sure youhave a plan in place to address those soft skill gaps from the first day of employment, just as you would have a plan in place if you hired an employee without the necessary technical skills.Step TwoLook for talent from sources well known for the strong soft skills you need. If you are hiring out of schools and training programs, definitely find out which ones include soft skills in their standard curriculum.But dont wait for them to come to you. Be proactive about seeking candidates from those sources. Look for candidates If you can build relationships with key influencers in those sources teachers, career counselors, leaders, active members of organizations, military outplacement partienel, and so forth.Step ThreeInclude your high priority soft skills behaviors in your employer bra nding and recruitment campaign messaging. Thats why its so important to name your high priority soft skills to have meaningful slogans to capture them.Remember, the goal of any recruiting campaign is to deliver a compelling message in order to draw a sufficiently large applicant swimming-pool so that you can be very selective. Your goal is not necessarily to draw applicants who are all very smart and great team players but, at the very least, you want to draw applicants who aspire to be very smart and aspire to be great team players.You want to draw applicants who are looking for a job in which they can learn and grow and build themselves up. We call it a self-building job. You want to draw applicants for whom the idea of self-building is a big turn-on, not a turn-off.Step FourIn a tight labor market, the pressure to hire leads to hard-selling a job to a candidate, even if that person is not ideal for the job. In fact, so many employers are so starved for young talent that they jus t cant bear to turn potential employees away, even in the face of huge red flags.If someone comes late for the interview or falls asleep during the interview or has typos in his resume and timeliness, good health, or attention to detail are important soft skills for this job then those red flags are telling you,DONT HIRE THIS PERSONStep FiveBuild a selection process that places a heavy emphasis on high priority soft skills. Heres a shortcut Scare away young job candidates who only think they are serious by shining a bright light on all the downsides of the job.Whatever the worst, most difficult aspects of the job may be, start your selection process with vivid descriptions of those downsides. Then see which candidates are still interested in the job. They are the ones worth testing and interviewing.We recommend using research validated testing whenever possible to get a quick baseline reading of an applicants aptitude in key areas of the job, including high priority soft skills. W hatever test you settle on, just make sure you can implement and evaluate it with relative speed. And make sure you know in advance exactly what you are looking for.What are you testing for? If you need an employee who can write well, simply flosse the applicant a piece of paper and ask him to write something. If you need an employee who can speak well, ask her to prepare a brief presentation and then present it. If you need an employee who can solve problems in spatial relations, give her a puzzle. If you need an employee who can solve math problems, give him some math problems to solve. If you need an employee who can be on time, schedule three interviews, at three different times. And so on. Of course, some soft skills are harder to test for than others.Then comes the job interview, the one employment selection process almost every manager does, but very few do well. When it comes to interviewing, the best practice is still the simple model of behavioral interviewing. Although th ere are entire courses taught in behavioral interviewing, I often teach it to managers in my seminars in three minutes. Behavioral interviewing simply means asking applicantsto tell you a story and then listening carefully to the story.When you are doing behavioral interviewing, make sure to ask applicants, not only about their use of hard skills, but also their use of soft skills Tell me a story about a time you solved a problem at workor Tell me a story about a conflict you had with another employee at work. How did you solve it?Finally, consider one last stage of selection, we call the realistic job preview. This might be a probationary hiring period, or a prereal job internship, during which you can try out the employee and the employee can try out the job for a while. Make sure to assign the person real tasks that mirror the actual tasks, responsibilities,and projects he or she will be asked to do if he or she accepts the job. Make sure to include the grunt work.Another option is a period of job shadowing or tagging along with another person in your organization who is doing the same job this person will be doing if hired. This approach is sometimes used in hospitals.Step SixIf there is any lag time between the time an offer is made and accepted and day one of the actual job, take advantage of that time. Perhaps the employee needs to finish school or the employer must complete a security screening. Use the delay to keep sending the message about your high priority soft skill behaviors Send books or videos or other targeted learning materials. In every way you can, keep sending themessage that those soft skill behaviors really matter.From Bruce Tulgans new book, Bridging the Soft Skills Gap Teaching the Missing Basics to Todays Young Talent (Wiley/Jossey-Bass, September 2015.)Listen to a https//www.youtube.com/ Podcast with Bruce Tulgan The Importance of Soft SkillsAuthor BioBruce Tulgan is an adviser to geschftsleben leaders all over the world and a sough t-after keynote speaker and seminar leader. He is the founder and CEO ofRainmakerThinking, Inc., a management research and training firm, as well as RainmakerThinking.Training, an on-line training company. Bruce is the best-selling author of numerous books including The 27 Challenges Managers Face (2014), Not Everyone Gets a Trophy (2009), and Its Okay to be the Boss (2007). Follow him onTwitter brucetulgan.

7 TED talks to watch if you want to start your own company

7 TED talks to watch if you want to start your own company7 TED talks to watch if you want to start your own companyIf youve ever watched a TED Talk, you probably remember how touched or empowered you felt afterward. The distinguished speakers definitely know what theyre talking about, and sometimes you just need a third-party perspective to get your own life moving. Ready for some TED Talks that will get you thinking about your aspiring business adventure? Maybe youve always dreamed of opening your own bakery or starting a tech company. Whatever the dream, these seven TED Talks will help get you started.1. The Surprising Habits Of Original Thinkers - Adam GrantWhat it will teach youTo learn how other creative thinkers find their best ideas, and how to break through the bad ideas.2.Creative Problem-Solving In The Face Of Extreme Limits - Navi RadjouWhat it will teach youTo consider a new problem-solving technique calledjugaad, which comes from the Hindi word for an improvised fix, to help you reach your goals.3.How To Get Your Ideas To Spread - Seth GodinWhat it will teach youTo consider not necessarily whether your idea is the best since sliced bread, but whether it has the ability to resonate with a lot of people.4.5 Ways To Kill Your Dreams- Bel PesceWhat it will teach youTo recognize the five myths most entrepreneurs tell themselves that have kept them from reaching their true potential, and how to avoid those same pitfalls.5.Why Its Time To Forget The Pecking Order At Work- Margaret HeffernanWhat it will teach youTo reconsider your definition of success instead of using your own accomplishments to elevate a company, you need to focus on the success of your team.6.What It Takes To Be A Great Leader - Roselinde TorresWhat it will teach youHow industry experts shaped themselves into great leaders by asking the right questions, and how they took their companies off the ground by becoming models of what truly good leaders are.7.Dare To Disagree - Margaret Hef fernanTrue leaders will help move their companies forward by being honest in their differing opinions, even if they oppose a business partner or a crucial employee.This article first appeared on Swirled.

Boosting your Talent Acquisition in a Challenging Economy

Boosting your Talent Acquisition in a Challenging EconomyBoosting your Talent Acquisition in a Challenging EconomyBoosting your Talent Acquisition in a Challenging Economy Chinsky MatusonTalent acquisition is critical for business success, especially in a down economy when plenty of candidates may be available, but few to none with the skills you need. This is particularly true for small businesses, where making new hires countcan impactthe entireorganization.Small business owners can recruit great hires in a down economy with the right hiring process in place. Here are some tips to guide your talent acquisition process.Clarify your hiring needs before you begin Ask any business owner what they want in their next new hire and most will respond by telling you what they dont want. To successfully recruit new hires, you must define what a great hire looks like for your organization.For example, an employee who is extremely detail-oriented may be the perfect fit for an accounting jobwher e clients expect a high level of accuracy from their service firms.However, will this trait actually be a detriment to your hiring process if the goal of your talent acquisition is to hire top sales people? Most likely yes, as most successful sales professionals are onto the next sale before the details of the last deal are ironed out.Analyze the behaviors of your top performerswho are most successful in your organization and then describe the traits they possess. Do you landsee a pattern? Are your most successful people self-motivated, strong team players, customer-focused? Look for similar traits in your next hire.Seek talent where no one else is looking Even though we are still experiencing a high rate of unemployment, there are still many jobs going unfilled because of worker shortages in those fields. Many firms have made a conscious decision to hire only people who are employed. Thats good news for the small business owner who can leverage this short-sighted approach and hire the best talent available, regardless of their current employment status.Many great hires may be back in the job market due to circumstances out of their control. They may have been victims of a merger or a plant closing, or their retirement nest eggs may have cracked with the stress of the volatile stock market. These people are willing and able to begin work tomorrow.Some have successfully navigated their companies through previous recessions people who can help your organization steer clear of land minds that may be in front of you. They are also quite happy to have a job and provide employee loyalty to those who give them a ritterlich chance.Seek value Evaluate candidates in terms of the value they can bring to your organization. Someone with a few years of experience, who has implemented systems that have resulted in business growth, is much valuable than a candidate with more longevity on the job.Ask interview questionsthat dig for specific examples of how they have helped pr evious employers reduce costs and grow revenues. Then dig beneath the surface with interview questionsto ascertain if they can do the same for your business.Be decisive Thinking that a better candidate will come along when you have a terrific hire in front of you will result in loss of an excellent prospect. The order in which candidates come in to interview has bedrngnishing to do with whether or not they are the right hire for you. Go back to the list of traits you are seeking and when the right candidate comes along, be prepared to close the deal,and do so quickly.Do your homework upfront Research compensation information beforehand. This way youll know up front what you can and cannot afford to pay. For example, ideally you may want an experienced candidate with ten years of experience.However, your research shows that you will have to pay 40 percent more than what you have budgeted. It makes no sense to waste your time or the candidates time recruiting overqualified candidates who are out of your league.Involve your team Its easy to fall in love with a candidate, especially if hiring someone this week means you can join your family on vacation. Remember love is blind. Select a few people in the organization whose judgment you value and do a post-game reviewof candidates. Be open to their feedback and use this information when making the final hiring decision.Stay the course Hiring doesnt usually the top of the list of fun things to do for small businesses, unless of course they are in the business of recruitment. Most will do whatever it takes to make sure this process ends quickly, including hiring friends or family.This approach often results in hiring decisions that have long-term negative consequences. Be patient. Consider hiring temporary help until such time as you can find the right person for the job. Your patience will pay off and in the end, you will be thankful that you found a great hire who could turn out to be the best employee youve ever h ad.2011 menschenwrdig Resource Solutions. All rights reserved.Author BioRoberta Chinsky Matuson is the President of Human Resource Solutions and author of the highly-acclaimed book Suddenly in Charge Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around, a Washington Post Top-5 Leadership pick. 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