Interview Effectively

I'm reading a book called Hire and Keep the Best People by Brian Tracy. Here's a few things that stood out to me from chapter five:

• Write out a logical sequence for the interview. The first questions are aimed at getting information about the WORK EXPERIENCE of the candidate as it applies to the job under consideration. Then ask questions to ascertain the SKILL LEVEL of the candidate. Then you'll want to know what his or her CAREER ASPIRATIONS are with regard to this job and your company. Finally, you want to know about his or her work HABITS and attitudes toward this job and toward his or her future.
• Start the interview by putting the candidate at ease and helping him or her to relax. Tell the candidate that this is just an "exploratory interview" and that your mutual goal is to see if what you are offering and what the candidate is looking for are the same thing.
• Here is another rule: "Don't start selling until you have decided to buy." In other words, resist the temptation to begin the interview by telling the candidate what a great job is being offered and what a great company you have before you have concluded that this is the kind of person you want to hire in the first place.
• The key to good interviewing is for you to ask good questions and then listen carefully and patiently to the answers. Use open ended questions that begin with the words who, how, why, when, where and what to elicit as much information as possible.
• Remember that the person who asks questions has control of the interview. Be sure that is you. The more a person talks, the better feeling you will get about whether or not he or she is a good candidate for the job. You don't learn anything when you are talking about yourself, the company, or the job.

SWAN FORMULA by John Swan says that the four ingredients you are looking for are: Smart, Work Hard, Ambitious, and Nice

• SMART: IQ alone will account for fully 72% of a person's ability to do the job. Perhaps the simplest way for you to assess intelligence is to listen to the number and type of questions that he/she asks. Intelligent people are usually curious and continually ask you about yourself and the company.
• WORK HARD: You don't want a person who is intelligen, ambitious, nice and lazy. A good question to ask is, "How would you feel about working evenings or weekends if there was an important job that had to be done on a tight schedule?"
• AMBITIOUS: A good question to ask to check for ambition is, "Where would you ideally like to be in your career in three to five years?"
• NICE: An optomistic person is generally warm and friendly throughout the interview. A pleasant personality is perhaps as important as any other quality you can find in a good job candidate.

OTHER QUALITIES TO LOOK FOR

• Look for achievement. The only real predictor of future performance is past performance.
• Listen for intelligent questions. Ask, "What questions do you have about the company or the job?" A good candidate will probably have a list of questions written out.
• Look for a sense of urgency. A good question you can ask to test for a sense of urgency is, "If we were to offer you this job, how soon would you be prepared to start?" The right candidate will want to start as soon as possible.

Remember, fast personnel decisions are almost invariably wrong personnel decisions. Proceed slowly. Be patient.

Cast a Wide Net

I'm reading a book called Hire and Keep the Best People by Brian Tracy. Here's a few things that stood out to me from chapter four:

• Recruiting and hiring is an ongoing responsibility of management. Every day managers must be looking for new people.
• A lack of talented people is the only real constraint on your ability to get more and better results.
• The first place to look is within your own company. Conduct an internal search before you consider going outside. Other sources of job candidates are as follows: your personal contacts, executive recruiters and placement agencies, newspaper ads (Sunday employment section is best), the Internet, local community colleges (ask to speak to the placement officer).
• Circulate the written job description throughout your company and tell everyone that you are looking for someone who fits this description. You could even offer your staff a cash bonus reward for finding someone. This will actually SAVE you money because you won't have spend larger amounts of money on advertising and placement fees.
• Recruiting should not be left till the last minute. It is an activity that you should get started on immediately, preferably well in advance of when a particular person or skill will be required.

For Our Good

God's laws are for our good. Or as Moses put it - "for our own prosperity and well-being." Deuteronomy 6:24, "...the Lord our God commanded us to obey all these laws and to fear him for our own prosperity and well-being..." (also see Deuteronomy 10:12-13). This means that God's commands are for our good! Yet often times we have this weird mentality that God is keeping us from good things when he forbids us to do something. Nothing could be further from the truth! Jesus came to give us a rich and satisfying life (John 10:10, NLT). And as we obey God's commands we get to experience that rich and satisfying life (I know I have!).

Let me illustrate. Pretend one of your young children has a plastic bag over their head. As a loving parent you would take the plastic bag away. The baby might cry and scream and beg for it back, but you still won't allow it. Why? Because as a loving parent you know what is best for your baby and won't allow them to engage in activities that are dangerous. As a loving parent you only want GOOD THINGS for your kids.

Similarly, God only wants good things for HIS KIDS (us!). And when he forbids something it's for our good! We may cry and scream and not understand why whatever it is that we want is forbidden. But that's like a baby not understanding why a parent took away the plastic bag. We are children and can't see things from our heavenly Father's perspective. If we could, we'd see what he sees - DANGER, TROUBLE, TURMOIL. And we'd stay away. This is where faith comes in to play. We have to TRUST God that if he says something is bad for us - IT IS (even if we don't understand).

Again, God's law are FOR OUR GOOD! :)

Hiring: Write Out the Job Description

I'm re-reading a book by Brian Tracy called Hire and Keep the Best People. Here's a couple highlights from chapter three:

Write Out the Job Description

• Something amazing happens between your head and your hand when you write a list of all the qualities that the ideal job candidate would have.
• Practice idealization for the purpose of this exercise. Imagine that you could write a description of the perfect person and hand it over to a special service, and the service would deliver that person to you, exactly to your specifications.
• Write the job description by making a list of every task the individual will be doing from the time he or she starts in the morning until the time he or she finishes in the evening. What will the candidate be expected to do?
• List every function and responsibility that the individual will have to fulfill to do the job properly.
• Once you have a description of the ideal candidate and a clear description of everything that the candidate will be expected to do, set priorities on both lists. Decide what is more important and what is less important to success in the position. Use a simple scoring method of one (low priority) to ten (high priority) for each item.
• The clearer you are about your priorities for the job and the ideal person you are seeking, in advance, the more competently you can interview and the better hiring decision you will make.
• Think about the people with whom the person will be working. This is as important as any other factor. Everyone has to fit into a team of some kind, and it is absolutely essential that whomever you hire gets along well with his or her coworkers and is accepted by them. A mistake in this area alone can be fatal to the selection process.
• A positive, optimistic, and open-minded attitude is best. As a rule, you should refuse to hire negative or unhappy people, no matter how good they might be technically. They almost always become the cause and source of most of your problems in the workplace.

Hiring: Think Through the Job

I'm re-reading a book by Brian Tracy called Hire and Keep the Best People. Here's a couple highlights from chapter two:

Think Through the Job

• Before you begin your search for new employees, take sufficient time to think through the job carefully.
• Think through the exact output responsibilities of the job. Think in terms of measurable results that are clear and objective.
• Any job description has three parts: 1) There are the results expected of that position. You must be absolutely clear about these. 2) There are the skills necessary to achieve those results. What are they? 3) There are the personality characteristics of the ideal person for the job (i.e. someone who is honest, positive, hardworking, energetic, focused, and open minded) and how well he or she will fit in with the rest of the team.
• Hire people for what they have already done successfully rather than for what they think they can do if given a chance on your payroll.

Hiring: Make Selection Your Top Priority

I'm re-reading a book by Brian Tracy called Hire and Keep the Best People. Here's a couple highlights from chapter one:

Make Selection Your Top Priority

• Nothing is more important to your future than your ability to select the right people to work with you to make that future a reality.
• Fully 95 percent of the success of any enterprise is determined by the people chosen to work in that enterprise in the first place. If you get this right, everything else will usually work out all right as well. If you select the wrong people, nothing else will work.
• Hire slowly and fire fast. Take your time to make the right decision prior to hiring in the first place.
• Hiring is an art. It cannot be rushed. You must take your time if you really want to hire well. Fast hiring decisions usually turn out to be wrong hiring decisions. The basic principle of going slow whenever you can is solid and irrefutable. It will greatly increase your overall success rate in hiring.
• The very best companies and the best managers have the best selection processes.
• Sometimes the best hiring decision you ever make is the one you decide not to make in the first place.

The Key to Godly Living

Why use up valuable time each day reading your Bible and praying? The apostle Peter gives us a great answer in 2 Peter 1:3, "As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life." This verse teaches that as we spend time with God through Bible reading and prayer, God's divine power comes into our lives, and this is the power we need for living a godly life. This verse helps me know what to do when I'm losing the battle against temptation. Spend more time getting to know Jesus better! The more time I spend in prayer and Bible reading the more power is released to help me live a godly life. Temptation can be resisted, but it comes at a price. The price is taking time each day to know Jesus better. James 4:6 teaches that God gives us more and more strength to stand against evil desires. And that strength comes as spend time getting to know Jesus through Bible reading and prayer.

My Testimony

Imagine this...You're sipping a soda at a restaurant with a friend who doesn't know God yet, and you finally get your chance...your friend asks you why you've dedicated your life to God. Maybe he/she didn't word it like that, but that was the essence of their question...Wouldn't it be terrible if God provided you with an awesome opportunity to share your faith and you blew it because you couldn't clearly and succinctly articulate WHY you've dedicated your life to God? That would be horrible to me! That's why I've come up with a little acronymn that will help me do just that - succinctly share with others why I've dedicated my life to God. It's a work in progress so please feel free to leave comments that could help me improve it. Thanks!

TESTIMONY

T: I’ve been Totally forgiven (It brings me great joy to know that if I were to die this very instant I have peace with God through the forgiveness of sins Jesus offers).

E: I’ve been Enlightened on how to best live my life (I have principles, directions, guidelines for living my life).

S: I have a Source of power to live right (Freedom isn’t doing anything you want; it’s knowing the good you ought to do and having the power to do it).

T: I have Tranquility on the inside/in my soul (I have peace because no matter what I’m going through God is working in my situation for my ultimate good. Like the Psalmist I can say: I will lie down in peace and sleep [even during a difficult situation], Psalm 4:8.

I: I have a strong sense of self-worth because God paid Jesus for me (I’d feel great if someone valued my life at $1,000,000 – how much more so when God values my life at the price of his Son Jesus, who he sent to die in my place for my sins).

M: I have Motivation to get up every day because I have a purpose to live for (I exist to bring God pleasure in the way I live and to help to expand his kingdom). That brings meaning to my life.

O: I like the Outcome of my decisions (The Bible says you reap what you sow. And while I haven’t been perfect by any means, I’ve tried hard to follow God’s ways and have reaped the benefits of doing so in my relationships, my finances and my friendships.)

N: No fear of death (I know death is not a period, just a comma. And I know I’m going to heaven.)

Y: The same benefits God offers to me he offers to YOU, and to everyone.

Rough Around the Edges

People who aren't saved yet, or people that just got saved, can be very rough around the edges (to say the least!). How do we, as Christ followers, who are farther along in our spiritual development, respond to such people? I suggest we respond to them as Jesus would.

Here's an excerpt from a book by Bill Hybels called Just Walk Across the Room that speaks to this issue:

Jesus was fierce in his determination to look past ill-timed comments and inappropriate actions. He dreamed about what could happen in a person's life if God's power were released in them - and so he pushed through people's fear and sin, and he kept including people, loving people, and lifting people up to their fullest potential.

As you view people through this lens - you have new eyes to see things as Jesus saw them. You allow peope's foibles and failings and faults to fall away, instead seeing them in their potential, Spirit-infused state. You see filthy-mouthed, party-loving, woman-chasing Joe (or whoever), and you say, "What would Joe - even a guy like Joe - be like if God ruled and reigned in his heart? Joe would be incredible if Christ invaded his world!" You start dreaming of that day, in fact. You begin picturing him in his redeemed state. Your love for him grows and grows as you move toward him, engaging in the good, the bad, and the ugly of his life. You find yourself craving oportunities to be around people just like him - people who are on prayer away from becoming your eternal brothers and sisters.