Let's face it, a lot of people are BAD at interviewing on both sides of the table. 

It is easy to understand that candidates or job seekers are bad for numerous reasons. Being nervous, out of practice, and under pressure to do well because of NEED,  create a large margin for error. For seasoned interviewers, it becomes easier to perform because the person has a lot of practice interviewing. That practice is what eventually makes it easier to land a job. 

On the company side, interviewers get a lot of practice asking the same questions as everyone else, but the lack of structure & coordination does very little to uncover evidence to support the decision. The problem with that is that only surface information is gathered and at the end of the day, the hiring decision is made on circumstantial evidence, assumptions, and bias.

Guest Bio:

Varun Puri is the Founder of Yoodli and an Entrepreneur in Residence at Paul Allen's AI Institute. Yoodli uses AI to help people improve their public speaking and interviewing skills without the pressure of an audience. 

Prior to Yoodli, Varun worked on a GoogleX project to bring high speed internet to unconnected regions using invisible lasers. He also ran special projects for Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder.

 Today we discuss:

• Why it is important to practice your interview (or any presentation)

HIRING STORY:

• Struggle getting someone to hire him…

PROBLEM:

• Smart people on both sides of the fence (interviewers and candidates) who miss dream job and miss dream candidate

Challenges today?

• Communication skills are an amorphous training concept. No clear way of measuring progress or diagnosing issues (we’re dealing with peoples’ deep insecurities).  We practice in front of the mirror, camera, and stopwatch. Or worse, avoid it altogether

Why is this important to the company?

• Individual: 

• Land your dream job. Get access to the opportunities you deserve and don’t miss out on them because of how you speak

• Get your dream candidate 

Rick’s Nuggets

• We don’t set Expectations

• Allow people to prepare 

How do we solve the problem? 

• 3 pronged solution needed:

• Be aware of your biases/ way you communicate

• Be aware of your biases/ way you communicate

• Collaborate with your team to ensure you’re all saying the same story

• Time stamped feedback

Rick’s Nuggets

• Interview Structure- expectations

• Timing and Steps in process

• Documentation habits

• How to prepare the candidate

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Align with your team with a set of interview questions you want to ask and follow up with the Why questions to dig deeper.

Guest Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varun-puri001/

Host Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

Show Sponsor:

• www.stridesearch.com

Sometimes an innocent conversation during an interview can have horrific consequences, especially if you end up not hiring a person.

The biggest problem every company faces during the hiring process is the interview. 

Two people go into a room together for a conversation and no one knows what transpires. Conversations flow and curiosity carries the conversation.

As we all know, curiosity killed the cat… and possibly your company.

Let’s replace curiosity with consistency.

Because the lack of consistency is what breeds unfair interviewing practices by promoting assumptions and cultivating bias. By simply eliminating assumptions & bias from the interview, we can create a process where evidence is gathered that supports the decision.

Minimizing your exposure to future litigation.

Guest Bio: 

Victor Xu is attorney extraordinaire in the Fisher Phillips Irvine office where he represents companies in all aspects of labor and employment litigation, from inception through trial, in state and federal courts throughout California. 

 Victor also has significant experience in conducting internal investigations into alleged employee/supervisor misconduct, including harassment and discrimination, and has provided recommendations for remedial measures, including preparation of new company policies.

Today we discuss:

• Ways your interview might be harming your company 

Challenges today?

What gets you in trouble when interviewing

• Telling people “you are a perfect candidate” 

Having a standard in place where interviewers are not just shooting from the hip in the interview

• Mitigate risk 

• Trying to be personal but it is going too far

Why is this important to the company?

• Serial interviewees who doesn't get the job claiming discrimination

Rick’s Nuggets

• Interviews tend to be shallow and decisions are made on assumptions & bias

How do we solve the problem? 

Train people to interview and use trained people exclusively

• Select interview team

Create an interview guide of objective questions

• Consistent & fair process

Honest response for hiring choice

• We are going to pass at this time: Thank you for applying, but we have decided to pursue other applicants.  We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. 

Values cannot be discriminatory, Legitimate business reason- values

• Information to disclose
  • We decided to go with another person

Rick’s Nuggets

Tie your interview questions to values

• Assign the questions to a specific interview position (ie: interview #1) 

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Brewery of the perks that you offer candidates and understand their consequences. 

Guest Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-xu-b43bba25/

Host Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

Show Sponsor:

• www.stridesearch.com

As a company founder you have A LOT on your plate. So much,  that it is often overwhelming so you scramble to delegate the things you don’t like to do as quickly as possible.

At the top of the delegation list is offloading hiring. Today I'm going to challenge you to own your people function for as long as possible because it is so critical to your success!.

Last week our guest, Steve Newcomb, exposed his key principles for building successful companies. The most important element in building a successful company is … the foundation.

“Do the big things right and then everything becomes exponentially easier”. This means doing the hard things first because if the foundation isn't right, everything else will be more difficult.

Getting really good at the things you hate… recruiting, interviewing & hiring, translates into onboarding the strongest people early and builds personal credibility in you as a leader.

Today we’re going to discuss:

• Why you as the founder needs to own hiring as long as possible

Challenge today?

• Founders can't wait to delegate hiring

Why is this important to the company?

• To Build a company:

How do we solve the problem? 

• The Foundation

• Pre-determine the Interview questions

• Start with the Discovery Call

• Determine Positioning & Value

• Communicate expectations to team

• You can hire a-players

• Easy to gain evidence to support a decision

• Hell Yes….. or No

• Real life problem that will give an accurate experience of how the team will work together to solve problems

• Empower people to make the decision at each stage

Key Takeaways -Value:

• Strong foundation makes everything exponentially easier

Host Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

Let’s talk about why your company is not stacked with A-players. It is not because you cannot afford them.

At its root, the reason is narrowed down to one thing, your foundation

We tend to think of hiring as an activity rather than an essential function like product or finance or even your pitch deck. So much time is invested into these activities.  Yet, hiring is the most critical component of building a successful business. In fact, most investors' decisions are heavily influenced by the people who are onboard.

Solidifying a foundation for hiring requires the same amount of care and work as do the other components of your company. It cannot be outsourced. Hiring needs to be owned by leadership, documented and taught to everyone in the organization. 

Foundation is what attracts high performers to want to join your company, not the paycheck.

Guest Bio:

Steve Newcomb is a product/engineering led serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four successful venture backed mission-driven startups. He’s best known for co-founding Powerset (now Microsoft Bing) and scaling its engineering team, culture, and operations. 

He is the author of some of the most fundamental essays on hiring, culture, and scaling engineering teams, including the original “Cult(ure) Creation” and “In Defense of Introverts”

Today we discuss:

• Building a strong hiring foundation

Challenges today?

Foundation: Do the big things right and then everything becomes exponentially easier

Be the valedictorian of Stanford. Do the hard things early

• Money tier 1 VC

• Purpose above just flipping the company

• excellent at recruiting- study how to speak to people, how to talk to introverts & inspire them. How to be inspiring. 

• Have a founder that is excellent at recruiting and is a Super A

• Friends that want to be founders- get them to help 3 days a week?

Without this?

• How to hire good people? 

• Lie to them & pay them a lot of money

Rick’s Nuggets

Chad Walters from Powerset

• Foundation = Structure & Process

How do we solve the problem? 

Principles of doing good interview process. Treat everyone like gold.

You interview me

• Earn your job first

• Change the power dynamic 

• Pay should be at the 50th percentile not pay above market

Creative Tactics: Don't work without good fundamentals 

• Look for “Thank you’s” in IRC/stack overflow

• Already interested in what you have to say. Know who they are

• Ask who they know, names

• Hack reactor- meet everyone and ask ”who is the best engineer is”

• Don't need a unanimous vote to say yes

The interview

• Assign jobs

Rick’s Nuggets

• Purpose is to get to the TRUTH

• Positioning & Impact

• Do behaviors align with the values, mission & vision of the business

• Real life scenario of how the team will work together

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• If the foundation is right. Everything else becomes easier

Guest Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenewcomb/

Host Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

Let’s talk about what really draws people to your company… and keeps them there. Trust

Trust is what drives better decision making, customer experience and profitability. But trust is not gained after a person starts working for your company. It is established during the interview process.

You see, people’s job mindset has evolved over the past few years.  We are being judged throughout the process for clarity, purpose and structural integrity.  Elements that demonstrate that you take your business seriously and are playing to win.

When hiring, start with the end in mind. Focus on retention, with the intention of building trust through the experience for maximum engagement & long term growth.

Guest Bio:

Ville Houttu is the Founder and CEO of Vincit USA. Previously, he helped Vincit Finland to reach 350 employees and make it public on Nasdaq First North marketplace. After the IPO, Ville moved to California to start Vincit’s local subsidiary. 

Ville and the company have been recognized by several notable institutions, including 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies in America List. In 2020, he led the company to rank top-50 on the FAST Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators list.

Ville is a known public speaker and his leadership has been featured in several leading publications, including TechCrunch, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and Entrepreneur. 

Today we discuss:

• Why and how to build trust

Challenges today?

• title wave of people leaving your companies

• Let your people build the culture 

Why is this important to the company?

• It builds trust 

How do we solve the problem? 

• CEO for a day every month

• One person who will be the first CEO of the day

• Open discussion agreeing to not get involved

• Decision based on what you feel the people need 

Here’s how CEO of the Day works:

1. Every month we select one employee to be a CEO for the Day.  

Rick’s Nuggets

• What if someone (me) wants to buy a Ferrari?

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Join the movement of companies making their employees CEO’s of the Day, and TRUSTING them to build a culture that FITS. Because when you do, you will see that BY TRUSTING your employees you will EARN their trust and LOYALTY in return. And with employees like that, there’s no STOPPING where your business can go. 

Guest Links

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vhouttu/

Host Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

In 2021 38 million people left their jobs and found new ones. This accounts for 57.3% attrition for US-based companies.  It seems as the trend continues as 4.3 million people quit in January of this year as well.

A lot of companies are experiencing turnover today and It makes one wonder, who is winning?

The companies that are winning today are those that focus on their people. Focusing on setting systems to enable productivity, fostering personal growth, career-pathing, and quite frankly, listening to what their people want.

Gone are the days of providing free snacks and providing a ping pong table. What people want is much deeper now and requires more effort. what are you doing that is improving their lives and professional growth? If you are unwilling to provide it, they’ll just go somewhere else.

 Guest Bio:

Nicolas Vandenberghe is the co-founder and CEO of Chili Piper, a SaaS platform helping B2B companies double their inbound conversion rates. Since its founding in 2016, the SaaS platform has thrived with a 100% remote work culture. 

Nicolas is a four-time serial entrepreneur, in diverse verticals from consumer software to biometrics. He builds his companies under the principles of flexibility, professional growth and communication.

Today we discuss:

• What makes people stay or jump ship

Challenges today?

• Great resignation

Why is this important to the company?

• Internal promotions keeps people growing

How do we solve the problem? 

• Flexibility

• High performers - no barriers

• Quality of the work focus

•  Method to rethink your engagements

Rick’s Nuggets

• Career pathing - Huge retention 

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Professional development. Work on the foundation

Guest Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nvandenberghe/

Host Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

Show Sponsor:

• Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/

Today I’d like to start with a question: What if you could 15x your company in 24 months?

We all understand that this is virtually impossible as a solopreneur. As delegation creates the space for growth. 

It is very possible for you to 15x your business by dedicating yourself to becoming really good at hiring. This starts with changing your attitude. “I hate hiring”, or “I’m not good at hiring” or “I'll delegate this to someone else” will not get you where you want to go. It also sets you and your team up for failure.

Today is your wake-up call to embrace getting really good at hiring.

Because the lifeblood of Your business is WHO you hire.

Guest: 

Johnny Robinson is owner of Orange Window Cleaning & Mary & A Mop (Maid Service).

During his freshman year of college, Johnny and his best friend Sergio started a window cleaning company by going door to door to small mom and pop businesses. As they continued to pound the pavement, the business started to grow through word of mouth. They started to see the potential for an actual business by building a great reputation, and doubling down on digital marketing. 

Fast forward to today, Orange Window Cleaning has AT LEAST doubled every year since starting the business. One key component to this rapid growth has been hiring for performance.

Today we discuss:

• Why it is important change your relationship with hiring

Hiring Story

Johnny’s Story - employee doing cocaine at the customer's house. Left residue in the bathroom. 2 months of problems ignored. Operated out to the scarcity mindset and kept them.  Confronted and they wouldn’t own up to it. The customer sent pictures. Fired them on the spot.

Shifted mindset- take hiring process more seriously

Challenges today?

• Running off emotion over kpi’s

Why is this important to the company?

• Hiring is hard

Rick’s Nuggets:

• Don't hate hiring if you are good at it

How do we solve the problem? 

• Listen to podcasts related to industry
  • Home Service Expert

• Vetting with pre-qualification questions tied to core values
  • Situational questions

• Always be hiring
  • Funnel full of applicants

• Performance based pay structure
  • Incentive based- review bonus, upsell bonus, 

Rick’s Nuggets:

• Hire power radio?? 

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Performance based pay structure - making sure our employees were aligned with the companies goals - growth

Guest Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnny-robinson-a2b632120/

Host Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/

Show Sponsor:

• Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/

How does one evaluate a subject matter expert when you have limited knowledge or expertise in that discipline?

Most individual technical/skills based interviews last about an hour. Where time is wasted quizzing on subject matter that may or may not be relevant to the actual role itself. Scratching the surface on the level of depth that is brought to the table.

Consider another option. What I like to call a “working session”.

Invite the person to collaborate on a real problem that is relevant to the opportunity. This gives you unbridled insight into how a person thinks, communicates and solves problems within the context of real life.

This allows you to really drill down to gain evidence to support the hiring decision either way.

Today we’re going to discuss:

• Why should I care about a working session

Challenge today?

• Skills not matching up to what someone claimed (faker)

• Hiring Maintainers for builder or improver roles

• How many quarters can fit in a VW van

• Not knowing what to ask

Why is this important to the company?

• Too shallow conceals the truth

How do we solve the problem? 

• Build Interview Structure

• Only need one technical/skills based interview

• A current problem that needs to be solved (reason to compensate $)

• Goals review - (5 minutes max) 

• Candidate

• Everyone should act as to the standards of the company values

Key Takeaways -Value:

• Build a working session for each role. Becomes really easy when you get used to doing it.

Host Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/ Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/ Podcast: https://www.stridesearch.com/hire-power-radio Authored: Healing Career Wounds (Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094TL14CD/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 HireOS inquiry: [email protected]

This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/

10 business days is the optimal time to bring an interview process to a successful outcome. 

The way to achieve this is to tighten timelines from stage to stage and cut down the number of people involved in the process. Now I know what you are thinking, that more people should be involved. Which is incorrect.

The reason we involve more people in the interview process is because we value their “opinion” or “input” on the individual. But opinion has no value when it comes to making a hiring decision. And opinion is what you get when your interview questions are not tied to gathering evidence. 

Opinion breeds assumptions, bias & personal motives. Which do NOT serve the growth of the business.

I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. We help Entrepreneurs and executives WIN-WIN the strongest hires. 

By sharing insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, game-changers & industry leaders. Like our guest today:  Nick Livingston 

Nick is the Co-Founder & CEO of Honeit Software. 

Formerly the Head of Recruiting at TubeMogul (Adobe), Nick and his team scaled the company from 60 to 360 employees through a successful IPO ($TUBE) in just over 26 months. 

In the same two years, he attended business school at UC Berkeley, started a family (three daughters) and co-founded Honeit Software, which is the all-in-one interview platform designed by recruiters to schedule, record, transcribe, search and share interview answers for quick collaboration and higher quality hiring.

Today we discuss:

• Why anything more than 3 interviews it too much

In today’s market, a candidate doesn’t have time to speak with 8 different people in your organization. 

Challenge today?

• Interview simplification

Why is this important to the company?

• Interview data gets lost

Rick’s Nuggets

• Value of the discovery call is lost

• What a person desires

How do we solve the problem? 

• Interview conversations as business intelligence conversations

• Competitive intelligence

• Questions related to core values

• role of the recruiter was to give ‘time back’ to hiring managers

• Record the interview

• Do we still need 8 separate 45-minute conversations for 8 people to be involved with the interview process? NO!
  

Rick’s Nuggets

• Discovery call

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today! (Value):

• Interviews are two-way conversation… Candidates are interviewing YOU and your team.

Guest Links

Host Links: 

Show Sponsor: Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/

The two biggest complaints I hear today from entrepreneurs are “I can't find good people” and “when I hire people, the skills don’t match up”.

The first issue, not being able to “find good people” is an easy one to solve. You're fishing in the wrong ponds! Posting & praying may be working for some roles but the more crucial roles require that more creative tactics be deployed. Go to where your audience is interacting regularly. Hint: Not job boards.

The second issue, “skills not matching” with what a person represented in the interview, is a HUGE indicator of a poor interview process.

Too often we hear what we want to hear (confirmation bias) and we quickly move to get the person to accept the position. Never digging deeper to understand the what, when & how of a person’s work.

Remember the purpose of the interview is to understand the truth of the person across the desk from you.

I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. We help Entrepreneurs and executives WIN-WIN the strongest hires. 

By sharing insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, game-changers & industry leaders. Like our guest today: Ashish Rampal

Ashish serves as President and CEO of All Imaging Systems. He brings nearly 30 years of experience delivering high growth among, Service and Green Tech companies. 

His passion for bringing strategy and innovation together has fueled a long list of leadership accomplishments. Ashish has risen to complex challenges where he has crafted growth strategies, tapped new emerging markets and energized global teams – with many successes coming within turnaround environments. 

His leadership approach reflects his deep expertise in creating and leveraging teams that are driven to innovate and excel.

Today we discuss:

• How to find the right people outside of job boards

Hiring Story

• Hire - skills did not match the skills for the job

• Right person on the wrong bus

Challenge today?

• Finding people through social networks who are not on LinkedIn

• Resources are not digital natives

Why is this important to the company?

• People are the path to which we scale

• To be a relevant business need to bring value over the OEM’s

Rick’s Nuggets

• Sources
  • Passive referrals

How do we solve the problem? 

• Bring complex challenges into the company

• Unique business - OEM agnostic, lot of learning opportunities and exposure to different technology

• People Feel respected

• Trust through empowerment

Rick’s Nuggets

• Competency digging

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today!  -Value:

• You are the custodian of the culture - you define

Guest Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishrampal/ Company: https://allimaging.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/all-imaging-systems/

Host Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-girard-07722/ Company: https://www.stridesearch.com/ Podcast: https://www.hirepowerradio.com Authored: "Healing Career Wounds" https://amzn.to/3tGbtre HireOS inquiry: [email protected] Show

Sponsor: Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/