Hire for Profit

Did you know the average cost to a business to go through the hiring process and then have the person leave in three months is around $4200? I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to take too many of those hits to my balance sheet.

In his book, Winning, Jack Welch reminds us that when hiring we need to do the “acid test,” which is to first check for integrity, second for intelligence and third for maturity.

When it comes to integrity, I believe you start by looking at character. I have dedicated the last two years focusing on identifying true character, and I’ve found that character is developed in the first 13 years of life. It recently dawned on me that businesses only ask interviewees about their adult life and their work experience—and rarely, if ever, about character.

Could it be that your character is developed that young? It’s a programming thing. For example, we were taught to believe cheating or lying to be right or wrong based on how our parents and role models behaved.

Winning also instructs us to look for the four E’s: Positive ENERGY, the ability to ENERGIZE others; the EDGE, which refers to the courage to make tough decisions; and finally the ability to EXECUTE and get the job done. If the candidate possesses the four E’s, the next thing you look for is passion.

Hiring the right people is core to accomplishing great things.

Joe Kiedinger

ACTION PLAN: Practice the four E’s in your future interviews, but make sure candidates pass the acid test first.