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.