Hire With Your Team in Mind
“Any time you hire a new employee, it changes the chemistry of your entire team,” Fleming says. That’s why, after an applicant has passed an initial interview and taken a personality assessment test, Fleming brings them in to be interviewed by his entire 12-person staff.
“Six people will interview for a half an hour, then the other six will interview for half an hour,” he says. Then they sit down and discuss: Will the candidate be a good fit? Can he or she learn the necessary skills for the job?
Finally, the team takes a vote on the candidate. According to Fleming, the vote is usually unanimous. “A lot of times, new hires can threaten others in the organization. Doing it this way ensures that the whole team has bought into it, and there’s no dissension among the ranks,” he says. “If the new hire is successful, then great. If they’re not, then there’s no finger-pointing later.”
Pickell brings a similar attitude to his interview process. All prospective hires in his company (at least, those who would work in the office) are interviewed by the hiring manager and a colleague. He likes at least three people to interview applicants, and prefers at least one of them to be a woman.
“Culture is assembling a group of people who share the same or similar values,” he says. “The biggest values in our company are honesty and integrity. The most important thing for potential hires is that they match the company values.”
Pickell says that in evaluating applicants, he’s also looking to assess their core competencies and experience, though he doesn’t believe in hiring on experience alone. “It’s all about attitude, aptitude, values,” he says. “We can train them once we have them.”
Fleming agrees, pointing out that he’d much rather hire someone with more “soft skills” — how motivated and enthusiastic someone is, and how they interact with people — even if they are thin on “hard skills” such as estimating or running a saw.
“They are self-motivated and have the desire to learn and grow. They make the people around them look good,” he says. “Usually, if a person has the right soft skills, you can have them up and running with the hard skills in no time.”
Hiring field employees is a much different process than hiring for the office (both Fleming and Pickell tend to be more stringent when hiring for the office, since it’s easier to hire field workers on a trial basis). But Mark Scott, owner of Mark IV Builders, in Bethesda, Md., still likes his key employees to participate in the interview process.
“If a guy doesn’t get past his co-workers, he’s not getting in,” Scott says. “[The staff interviewers] are even harder on potential hires than management is. The staff are very concerned with personal interactions, problem-solving skills, organization, and so on, whereas management tends to focus on the [applicant’s] goals and salary requirements.”
Scott also points out that social skills should be taken into account when hiring for the field. “It’s not so important in new construction,” he says, “but as soon as you start putting carpenters in homes that are occupied by clients, you have to set a standard for your field crew as well.”
Do Your Homework
“When hiring an employee who’s going to be in or around a client’s home alone with them, or inside the office handling the finances, or in a position of authority, you should do a background check,” says Berenson, noting that an applicant’s litigation history should also be reviewed.
In order to conduct a background check, you must first obtain permission from the applicant. According to Berenson, permission should be obtained through a separate document that coincides with state and federal law — more than just a checkbox on the application.
Before running the background check, Scott asks applicants whether anything will turn up that will be cause for concern. “If they tell us the truth, then we won’t discriminate against them, [depending on the nature of the charge]. If they lie though, they’re gone,” he says.
Scott says he runs background checks because the employees that he puts in clients’ homes are ultimately his responsibility. “We need to be able to put something forth that shows we’ve done our due diligence when it comes to putting our trust in these people.”
Perhaps just as important as running a background check on potential applicants is thoroughly exploring their references. Often, this requires more effort than simply calling the names and numbers provided by the applicant. “A lot of times they’ll give me the name of a supervisor who’s their friend, and we’ll call them and get a glowing report,” Tabor says. “Then I’ll make another call to the company owner and get a completely different view. It usually takes a bit of digging on our part.”
Pickell agrees that it often takes some work to get to the truth of an applicant’s employment history. “If you call anyone who doesn’t know you, you’re going to get the standard company line,” he says. “But sometimes, if you can talk company owner to company owner, you’ll get the straight scoop.”
Pickell stresses the importance of learning as much as you can about an applicant’s past employment. “Their future is very well-predicted by past performance,” he says.