Knowledgeable retail buyers are gauging how much to buy based on the quantity that will sell through to the consumer and still keep the pipeline flowing with more products as well as enable the retailer to pay for the shipment with the money collected from retail sales on each order before the payment comes due to the supplier.

Knowledgeable hiring managers are gauging which person to hire based on the match of talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, potential, long-term success, and personal goals between the person and the job.

Sometimes an applicant’s knowledge can make an applicant the wrong person hire.  In most states, companies can take the measure of having new hires sign contracts in which the new hire agrees not to go to work for a competitor.  I am not an attorney and I am not offering legal advice.  What I have seen is litigation against people who have violated these “non-compete” contracts.

The types of contracts have different legal basis depending on the state.  In California, non-compete contracts are not binding.  (See “noncompetenews” article on Marissa Mayer’s move from Google to Yahoo.com).

In Texas, the non-compete contract is now limited to those cases where trade secrets would be involved in a person’s going to work for a competitor.  (See “faircompetivelaw.com.”)

In some cases, companies have pursued the company that hired an employee away. One of the more famous international cases involved a General Motors’ lawsuit against Volkswagen, who hired one of the GM executives. See Newsweek.

In a bit of a tangent, I recall that one of the most famously guarded pieces of knowledge is the recipe for Coca-Cola soft drink.  Time, Inc. ran an article on a possible revelation of that trade secret.  Coca Cola’s success and efforts in protecting this recipe has become part of marketing legend beyond the importance of the secrecy of the recipe.

So in the category of hiring for knowledge, the best hires will be based on industry knowledge, general knowledge, task-related knowledge, but not the knowledge of a competitor’s daily activities, plans, patents, and trade- or customer-specific activity.

In some cases, companies steer away from employees who have the exact set of job knowledge for the position for which the company is hiring.  They prefer to hire someone who has terrific business knowledge and industry knowledge, but prefer not to hire people who come to their company with the knowledge of how to perform the exact duties of the position.  These companies do not want to “untrain” new hires and then retrain them to perform the duties for which the person is being hired.

So knowledge for the hiring manager is a critical aspect in interviewing and deciding on a new hire, and talent, skills, and knowledge are just three elements on the check off list for making a great hire.

Personality!  The next decision for discussion is personality.  The next article will look beyond charm school personality to job-fit personality.

Here is to making great hires, for the hiring company and the new hires!

The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personal Goals

Once a hiring manager extends an offer, an applicant may know on the spot whether to accept.  On the other hand, if during the recruiting process, neither the hiring manager nor the applicant has considered the personal goals of the applicant, matters can get sticky.  At the point of the offer, the hiring manager should be certain of the talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, and potential for long-term success of the person receiving the offer.  The hiring manager and the applicant should have established openly at the beginning of the interview process the goals of the applicant and evaluated these goals against the opportunities of the available positions as the process proceeded.

People accept jobs for three reasons:  money, responsibility, and location.  Money, responsibility, and location are the personal goals of the applicant.

The more emphasis a person puts on one of these three areas, the greater the person may find it necessary to reduce the emphasis on the other two areas.

If a person will only live in a specific city, that person may find it necessary to accept the income and the type of positions that are available in that city.

If a person insists on holding a particular responsibility among the areas of responsibility this person is capable of holding, the person may find it necessary to relocate to a place that has those types of jobs.

Oil roughnecks find jobs on oils rigs.  Zookeepers find jobs at zoos.
The connection between money and jobs and job and locations and locations and money can make one factor rise as another factor falls in value or preference.

Understanding the three reasons people change jobs helps employers select applicants based who fit.

Hiring managers who help applicants understand these personal goals during the interview process make better hires. These managers can also be better at assisting applicants who may not understand until deeper into the interview process, perhaps even after several interviews and an offer, that the position available is not one that the applicant is going to want once the applicant receives the offer.  These applicants can be expensive to the recruiting process, especially if these applicants have to discover from an exit interview at their current employer that they already have the job that is the best fit for their personal goals.

For some hiring managers, the interview process is intuitive.  For other hiring managers the interview process is a matter of method.  I find that I am most successful in any business matter when I start the day with methods and follow those methods every day.  The intuition seems to guide me better after I gain focus from the method.

To follow a method process in hiring, a manager examines the applicant for the match between the requirements of the position and the talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, potential for long-term success, and personal goals of the person receiving the offer.  If the match exists in these areas, making an offer is the logical final step in the Seven Decisions in making a hire.

On the surface, it would appear that a person who has tremendous talent, skills, knowledge, and personality, and has everything to ensure long-term success.

These factors are all very important in how well a person will do long-term.  Equally important to long-term success are punctuality, attendance, conduct, trustworthiness, self-confidence, demeanor, personal appearance, loyalty, determination and flexibility, independence and team skills, and possibly other traits that appear on school report cards, military evaluations, and can be assessed through observation and question and answers in interviews.

Also, ask about these traits when conducting reference checks.

I had a secretary who worked for me for fifteen years.  I rarely looked inside her desk drawer.  When I needed something from her desk, I ask for it.  After she had gone home one evening, I needed a paper clip or piece of tape or something, and went to her desk, because whatever it was that I needed, I did not have it at my desk.  When I opened her desk drawer, I saw a note to herself that no one on earth would likely have ever seen except for this secretary.  The note read, “I owe Jay two stamps.”  She was not only honest; she took steps to ensure that she repaid what she owed.  She was very trustworthy, always punctual, consistently at work.  She had the self-confidence to greet people who came to the office.  She had a personal appearance appropriate for the office.  She had enough determination to finish the job and yet had the flexibility to let go of the job when asked to switch to new assignments.  She worked when I was away as though I was in the office, and she had a loyalty that kept her at my office as an employee for fifteen years.  When I hired her, she had the potential for long-term success for the role for which I had hired her.

Does the applicant have the talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, potential for long-term success, and the personal goals  to fit the job?  In the next discussion, I will look at personal goals.