One of my favourite long term clients has got his business sussed.

He spends most of the day reading the newspaper. The rest of the time, he networks, delegates the stream of new business to his team and develops his managers. He’s smashing business targets.   

This business owner has found the secret to business success - surrounding himself with talented, motivated people who are better at delivering the service than he is.

The real breakthrough was 5 years ago, when he realised that he wasn’t as good at recruiting the right people as he’d like to be. He’d made a few costly mistakes and brought in people who didn’t share his values and weren’t motivated to work hard and help him achieve business goals.

As with many business owners, he loved an unstructured interview, ie a bit of a chat. But research shows it is one of the worst predictors of performance.

One of the most effective ways of assessing individuals is the combination of a:

• structured interview, (using a standard set of questions and probing answers consistently without deviating)
• learning agility test
• work sample or skills assessment

This multistage process is used by many large organisations and assesses:

• how motivated someone is for the job and to work with your organisation
• what makes someone tick
• how quickly they pick up new tasks and concepts
• how they build relationships
• how they solve problems
• how they organise themselves

It’s tried, tested and proven to assess candidates fairly, consistently and objectively resulting in the hiring of talented, motivated and diverse teams.

This is exactly what my business owner client uses that has put him in such an enviable position. Recruitment is no longer a headache and a guessing game. He has built a team that is entirely capable and willing to provide an excellent service to the ever increasing flow of new and existing clients.

My mission is to provide small business owners with this game changing process so that they can select the right people for their business too. It’s cost effective, impresses candidates and delivers you kudos with your team.
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Please get in touch if you’d like to put your feet up more often. 

Recent news of the discovery of Ernest Shackleton's ship, at the bottom of Antarctica's Weddell Sea is a reminder of a gruelling expedition, when he and his men endured entrapment, hunger, freezing weather conditions and furious seas—verging on insanity.  
 
As the story goes, Shackleton ran a job advertisement for his Endurance expedition.
 
‘Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.’
 
The crew he recruited got what they were expecting.
 
This is one of the most famous advertisements and included the three key components that make up a great job ad.
 

1. Building a sense of purpose or mission
2. An accurate explanation of what the role entails
3. Promise of reward

 
The challenges crew members would face on this expedition were spelled out right from the start and only the very bravest would dare to send in their applications.

A frequent reason stated by people leaving their jobs is that: ‘It wasn’t what I expected’.

People need to know what the highs and lows of the job will be. What are the goals and how will achieving these be celebrated? What are the challenges and what support will there be for overcoming hurdles?  

Many job ads are dry, dull and far too long, leaving the reader unengaged and the application form untouched. And they don’t contain these 3 essential ingredients.

Fail to tell your candidates the whole story, and you risk them growing disillusioned as employees and leaving. 

If you’d like to learn how to be more Shackleton please get in touch.

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