There you are, sifting through a pile of over 100 resumes looking for that “ideal” person who will help you grow your business and provide great service to your clients. You spend countless hours just reviewing the resumes with your management team and you narrow it down to 6 people you want to interview. After months of searching and interviewing you finally find that perfect person. They have a great deal of experience and education. You check their references and people cannot say enough good things about your candidate. So you move forward, make them an offer and they accept.
Your new employee is highly motivated and brings creative and innovative solutions that your clients love. They keep bringing value to your company and your clients. However, around the 8-month mark you notice their motivation starts to dwindle and they are showing up to work, but they are not engaged. You notice they start to come into the office after 9 a.m. each morning, and they leave at 5 p.m. You are left wondering what happened to your superstar hire that you put so much time and resources into finding.
Most hiring managers spend a lot of time developing the ideal job posting for which they hope they will find the ideal person. They focus a lot of attention on matching resumes with the job posting and the interview process. They meet people and complete the checklist to see who best matches the job posting (looking at education, work experience, membership in professional associations etc.). However, what is very often overlooked are the performance skills and values this person has, as they are not typically listed on a resume.
Here are a few performance values you might want to consider looking for during your next hiring phase. Note that they might not be listed on the resume, but with some creative and authentic performance conversation during the interview (different from the usual interviewing questions), you will quickly discover who has the right performance skills and values for your business or organization.
Performance Values
Never content
High-level performers are never content with “just getting by” or doing the same as usual. They can win a piece of business one day and turn around the next day and be looking for another piece of business. They are never content with their own abilities or successes.
Focused on learning
High-level performers are passionate about learning – and not just formal learning such as obtaining degrees or certifications. They are constantly seeking out new knowledge and in the information age they are often acquiring knowledge from a variety of sources. And it doesn’t stop with just learning. High-level performers are all about using their new knowledge to improve their performance and live by the rule “wisdom applied”.
Keeping things simple and efficient
High-level performers always keep things simple (I think they are the originators of the KISS principle) and work efficiently. They continuously look for ways to improve and often are the innovators within your business or organization.
These are some of the performance values businesses and organizations need to consider when hiring new people. Start to include performance conversations in your interviewing process and you will soon begin to see a different caliber of new employees coming through your front door.
Turn Your Knowledge into Action
1) Develop a list of the performance skills and values that are essential for your business or organization to reach its performance goals and objectives.
2) Take one action this week to ensure you are continuing to develop your performance skills.
NEXT STEP
If you would like to learn more about how I can assist your organization in elevating their performance, please contact me at 416-429-1247 or email at paul@actusperformance.com.
All the best in achieving your highest performance.
Paul
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net