Two things I look for when recruiting talent or let’s say in an interview, for anybody, whether it’s an actual real estate agent, or somebody who’s wanting to be on the staff of the company. But two things I’m always looking for is number one, how big is their why? And do they have real clarity on it? Do they just give me the generic answer, and it’s like, “Oh, I want to do this because I want to make enough money for my kids.” Or, are they being a little more specific with me? Can they go deep? I want to be able to pay this amount of money for tuition with a check.
But that commitment to their why, their purpose, them having clarity excites me. It’s not, of course, like, “Oh well, they don’t have a commitment to their why, so they’re not going to be hired.” It’s not the defining thing. But it is one of the things I’m looking for is their commitment to their why, how clear it is for them. I guess you might want to say passion. How much passion do they have behind their reason to be there, a reason to do what they want to do? I’m looking for that energy, that excitement, that passion. It’s not something I think you can put on a piece of paper in a little test. It’s just that something, you know?
I love asking questions about difficult moments in their life and what it took, or what they learned to get through them. Anything where I get a sense of passion. That grittiness that some people have, that others don’t.
The other thing that I look for is how prepared they are for the interview. Did they do any research prior to getting there? Let’s say that you wanted to be a writer for fresyes.com, you wanted to tell the stories of the people, the places, the lifestyle and homes of Fresno. And I ask you to tell me what your favorite article we’ve written in the past was, and you don’t know. You haven’t read any. Well, that’s not showing up very prepared. So, you know, I guess knowing a little bit about me, or a little bit about our culture. A little bit about the history of our company. That would demonstrate to me that you’ve done a little bit of homework. It’s not just a, “Oh, I heard they’re hiring, let me go show up.” And for how prepared they are.
I heard a lot of interesting things over the years on what employers look for. There was one company, I actually think it was Grant Cardone who says that as soon as somebody gets there he has one of his right-hand people go down and look at their car. Not to see what type of car it is, but to see how clean the interior is. That tells them a lot about the person, and whether or not they have their shit together. That’s an interesting thing to consider for me. I mean, I think a lot of real estate agents kind of live in their car, and so I know that I bring with me several changes of clothes for my day. I’ve got nutritional supplement products in the back of my car. Try to stay hydrated, so I’ve got lots of water bottles in my car.
But I immediately have had people I’ve hired that haven’t worked out. I thought they were going to be wonderful based upon that initial meeting, or maybe what I saw online about them. And then I hired them, and it’s not a good fit. And then of course because of who I am, I’m always thinking I can coach them and help them be better, and maybe it will turn into a good fit.
Sometimes that’s worked for me, other times it hasn’t. Today my hiring process is much different than it was years ago. I think it’s a product of what I’ve learned, good and bad over the years. But now I look at a DISC profile. I like to see what the DISC profile says about them. Again, it’s not like oh well, the DISC says they wouldn’t be good for this, so I’m not going to hire them. But it at least gives me some indication up front.
I don’t just look at the resume and take it for what it says anymore. Now I’ll actually ask for examples on the spot. Let’s say that you want to be a graphic designer and you want to work for CX4, it’s great that you’re going to bring me examples of your work, but now I’m actually going to have you show me your process behind doing some of that graphic design, so that I know that you didn’t just farm out your work. A lot of people I’ve learned will do that. They’ll walk in with this impressive resume like a book, and it’s full of examples of, “their work,” and the reality is it wasn’t their work at all. It was just the work that they hired. So they were more like a project manager than someone who actually did the work.
So, finding the right people is tough, for sure. I think it always has been. But in this day and age when we really want A players, the best, it’s become more difficult.