How to Take the Guesswork Out of Hiring

Hiring the right person starts with the interview.

This week on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, Doug Jenkins talks with Bryan Little of Kata Solutions and EOS Worldwide about how structured interviews help business owners and managers make better hiring decisions and avoid costly turnover.

Bryan breaks down:

• Why unstructured, conversational interviews often lead to bias and bad hires.
• How to use a scorecard system to evaluate candidates consistently.
• Ways to balance data and intuition so you can confidently choose the right person for the right seat.

Doug and Bryan also talk about common interview mistakes, how to prepare performance profiles before you ever sit down with a candidate, and how to make team-based hiring decisions that stick.

Bryan recommends one of his favorite resources for anyone ready to take the next step: Right Seats, Right People by Johnathan D. Reynolds. You can listen to Bryan's previous appearance on Chamber Amplified here. 

Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

0:00:05 - (Doug Jenkins): Hi, everyone, and welcome to Chamber Amplified, brought to you by the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host, Doug Jenkins. Are you looking for ways to grow your business, navigate new challenges, or are you just trying to stay in the loop on what's happening right here in our community, both from a community and business standpoint? Well, then you're in the right place. Each week we're talking about the issues that matter the most to local business owners and managers. We whether that's attracting great talent, improving workplace culture, and even getting more out of the team that you already have. We're going to touch on a little bit of all of that today.

0:00:37 - (Doug Jenkins): This week, we're talking about one of the most important steps to building your business and getting the right people in your business. You have to interview effectively. It's like the first step of the process. We'll get into that. My guest is Brian Little of Kata Solutions and EOS Worldwide, who helps companies put structure and strategy behind the way that they run their organizations. Whether that's meetings, whether that's operational onboarding, whether that's management development.

0:01:01 - (Doug Jenkins): And today we're talking about hiring. We'll discuss why unstructured interviews often lead to bad hires and how you can go about fixing that, how using a scorecard system takes the guesswork out of candidate selection, especially if you have a whole team interviewing someone, that's a really big help. We'll discuss all of that and we'll talk about how to balance data with intuition. You can't go all analytics. You can't go all by your gut. We'll talk about how you merge the two sides.

0:01:28 - (Doug Jenkins): That way you find the right person for the right seat. So if you've ever left an interview wondering whether you ask the right questions or maybe how to avoid costly hiring mistakes, you want to get that person in. You don't want to repeat the interview process. This is the episode that will help you sharpen your process and your instincts. And of course, before we dive in, if you enjoy Chamber Amplified, take a quick moment and leave us a rating or review on Apple podcasts or Spotify or just share this with a friend.

0:01:54 - (Doug Jenkins): It really does help spread the word to more local business owners in finding the show. Now let's get into it. Before we get into it, we had you on the podcast a little earlier in the year as we talk things, all, all things organizational when we talk to you when it comes to people's businesses. But let's just get a feel for things you're able to help people out with.

0:02:14 - (Bryan Little): Absolutely. As the eos, which stands for the Entrepreneurial Operating System. It's a business system for small to be needy businesses to run on. And basically it starts out with identifying a clear strategy in the future and then basically breaking that down to the day to day business operations. We work on things like good meetings, good meeting agendas, great scorecards, getting the right people in the right seat as well, good process.

0:02:43 - (Bryan Little): And we help, you know, clients also get really good at problem solving because every business has tons of problems they need to solve. So we have a nice structured way to teach them how to get those issues out of their business once and for all.

0:02:55 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, structuring meetings is what we talked about last time and we'll link to that episode of the podcast in the show Notes today talking about, as you mentioned, getting the right people in the right seats. And that starts with hiring the right people. And to hire the right person, you got to interview the right person. Brian, where do people go wrong in the interview process?

0:03:16 - (Bryan Little): Where do they go wrong? I think it's a, there's a multi, multiple, multiple, multiple items there answers basically. But what I see is that, you know, businesses tend to focus just on the day of the interview, right where they should be building a plan of action actually before that so that they're ready. So when they interview somebody, they get the right person. What I'm talking about is really building a performance profile for any kind of new person they want to hire.

0:03:46 - (Bryan Little): And so what I mean by that basically is identifying specifically what that person needs to accomplish within the first, you know, 30, 60, 90, you know, 12 months worth of doing the job. A lot of clients tend to just focus on really what the hiring somebody for the present role to really get the right, you know, a player per se or the right person for that role. They're typically going to be an overachiever or they want to be challenged. And by identifying what you want from that role in the future will help them get the right person in place at the very beginning.

0:04:18 - (Doug Jenkins): That's an interesting perspective on it, one that I imagine you can't just throw together 15 minutes before you sit down to interview someone.

0:04:27 - (Bryan Little): That's correct. That's, that's, you can't do that, right? It's taken, taken more time ahead of the, ahead of the interview. I, you know, and I'd like to put it almost in a smart, you know, type of statement, you know, specific, measurable, achievable, relative, and also on timely, if they're able to do that like, specifically, okay, I want this person to reduce, you know, absence by 12% by the sixth month of their. Of their work. Right. Or I want this person to achieve sales goals of additional 10 by the third month. You know, it's all specific and measurable.

0:05:01 - (Bryan Little): And if they spend that time ahead of time before the interview, they're actually going to save time in the long run because they got the right person now identified and the right person, that role. They don't have to hire somebody again and, you know, six months and go.

0:05:12 - (Doug Jenkins): All over the entire process again, I like this concept. Let's kind of put it into action here. So, for instance, you talked about the sales goals. So one thing you have to do, as you just said, you have to outline what your goals for this position are going into the interview. Once you have that, then you form your interview questions based off of that. So let's just use the sales goal one as an example. If we want sales to increase 10% within six months, how do I go to structure that as a question for the person that I'm interviewing?

0:05:42 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, I think that situational questions are really important. You know, give me a specific example of when you were able to put a strategy together, when you're able to achieve the. The target of meeting your sales goal. Right. And, and digging down into that, I. I think what a lot of clients will do, they'll have discussion. We need our sales to be at a certain mark, say, within six months, and we're having these issues, these challenges.

0:06:09 - (Bryan Little): And the discussion is fine because you're laying the groundwork. But ask specific situational questions for that person and ask them continued questions as well, to dig even deeper to how they actually put that strategy together, who they work with, what are some of the challenges they. They had to work through, what kind of plans they made, how they got the entire organization together. Those kind of deep questions will actually help get the right person as well hired.

0:06:32 - (Doug Jenkins): I really like that. And then I'll be honest, Brian, it's the first time I've ever thought about the interview process like that. And I'm already making notes for the next time we. We need to hire someone here at the chamber. We don't have a whole lot of turnover. So I may have to refer back to this. There you go.

0:06:48 - (Bryan Little): There you go.

0:06:48 - (Doug Jenkins): That's.

0:06:49 - (Bryan Little): That's awesome.

0:06:50 - (Doug Jenkins): So that's a great way to frame it. Why should people stay away from questions? What do you think is your greatest strength? That's one that comes up in interviews all the time. That's One that I think people being interviewed hate, and I feel like interviewers should hate asking.

0:07:07 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, I mean, that's in a. People that are interviewing for jobs are used to that question, honestly. And I think it's okay to ask that question. There's nothing wrong with it. But the important part is, is to listen closely to the answer. Because you want a candidate basically to say, this is my biggest strength, but this is my opportunity to get better. Right. How to improve my weaknesses and, you know, and give again.

0:07:33 - (Bryan Little): Look for specific examples of when that person actually showed action for their biggest strength or their issue they had to work on to get better as well. I, I believe when you're, when you're talking to somebody, it's kind of a three phase for me. One is, first of all, you know, do they, do they get the job that they're going into? Right? And when I get it by the standpoint of do they know what's, what's needed from that job? Do they know what, what the company needs from that person and do they want it from the standpoint of, okay, I want to wake up every morning and do this job, right, I want to be in this role.

0:08:03 - (Bryan Little): And then honestly, the third thing is capacity from the standpoint of, okay, this person has the experiences and the knowledge and the training, you know, and the degrees or whatever the experience is to, to do your job as well. So it's not just focusing on if the person can do the job. It's those kind of three buckets that I, that I put for new candidates are actually looking for a role as well.

0:08:24 - (Doug Jenkins): What are some of the successes that you've seen from businesses who are laser focused on how they do their interview process?

0:08:32 - (Bryan Little): So typically, and the stats will show you this, you can, you can go out and research these stats. Typically, their multiplier will double if they use structured interviews, structured questions, situational questions, and scorecards to hire the right person. Conversate. The opposite of that are conversational kind of interviews where you're just talking to the person, you're not really asking questions, you're just having good discussion. And that's where intuition and bias come into play.

0:08:58 - (Bryan Little): Right? So you can get rid of intuition and bias by having a structured, situational kind of interview along with a scorecard to actually measure each candidate against each other and how they answered the questions as well.

0:09:10 - (Doug Jenkins): I'm glad you brought up the bias aspect of it. That's one place that I wanted to go with this. I don't think anybody goes into an interview thinking that they're going to be biased. But people have those unintentional biases. You kind of illustrated where those tend to creep in, where you don't have a structure. Are there any other places where people have to watch out for that?

0:09:30 - (Bryan Little): Bias comes into play when I've seen it this many times, is that when they compare the new candidate to the previous person in that role. Right. So in other words, you were. Yeah, you were just like the previous person I just terminated, you know, which is, which is bias. Right. And that's something you cannot do because, you know, comparing that person to somebody else, it just, you know, it's not going to give you the right outcome or the right look as far as if you got that right person or not. And also, bias comes into play whenever there's multiple people on the interview team.

0:10:00 - (Bryan Little): Right. And so they each have their own opinions on what they want in a person. So a scorecard that each member completes as far as the questions, as far as like leadership abilities, business development abilities, a scorecard will help them get rid of that bias altogether across a team that's interviewing.

0:10:18 - (Doug Jenkins): That's. And that's a really good point. If you can sit down with your team and agree on what that scorecard is and what the, the measurables are, I think that eliminates a lot of headaches. I'm thinking back to previous jobs that I've had where, boy, I wish I had this information right now.

0:10:32 - (Bryan Little): Brian. Yeah, correct. Well, it goes back to, like I said before, which if you identify the performance profile, what you want this person to be in the future of your business, then now create situational questions and scorecards around that. Okay. Then once you have that and it comes easier and the data becomes clear. And by using that data, like I said, it's going to double your chances of hiring the right person.

0:10:55 - (Bryan Little): It's going to lessen your chances that person is going to leave your company in six months to 12 months as well. So you actually reduce your turnover all overall by having good interview structures in place.

0:11:06 - (Doug Jenkins): So we've talked a little bit about the things that you want to include, and I think this goes along with the bias conversations. There are questions that you need to avoid asking. Obviously there are the ones that if you have a good HR department, they'll, they already know that. But what are some sneaky ones that people ask? Maybe they feel like it's a good question, but it kind of unintentionally exposes that bias.

0:11:27 - (Bryan Little): So one is that, and I've had this before, this is A tough question to ask. You know, basically somebody is maybe senior in their years in the work environment. Right. And basically you're worried about their, their age. Right. And, and so some clients will ask you, you know, about your age. Right. Okay, well, I see you're getting along in your career. You're a little bit older. You know, where do you see yourself?

0:11:49 - (Doug Jenkins): That's a.

0:11:50 - (Bryan Little): No, no, don't, don't ask that question. There are ways to get around that. Right. You know, where do you see yourself 10 years from now in your career? Where do you see yourself 15 years from now in your career? But the age one is definitely something you don't want to, you know, ask questions around. Even asking questions around like, well, how many kids do you have and how old are they? You know, it kind of gives candidates, you know, like, okay, why are you asking me questions around that relate to my age? Right. So those are ones you want to avoid.

0:12:18 - (Bryan Little): And then, you know, basically another question as well, I think from a bias standpoint is again, like I mentioned before, which is I'm going to ask you something that the previous person did not do. So they were terminated for that. I want to make sure you're not going to do this again. Right. And so they focus on that actual thing they did before the previous person did. And that's also a biased question as well because they're again, they're comparing that new candidate to the person in that role before.

0:12:41 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, it feels like you can work around that. By, I mean, when you put together your goals for the candidate and what they'll be doing six months from now, obviously one of those goals is going to be whatever the previous person wasn't doing. So instead of being it from that negative standpoint, you're a little bit more proactive. And it doesn't, I think it works probably better that way.

0:13:01 - (Bryan Little): Yeah. And most likely the person previously that was not effective or were terminated was probably because they didn't have clear goals and strategy in the first place as far as what they wanted them to do in the job to be successful, which is the majority of the time, I, I fully agree. I fully believe that most people, 90 of the people want to do a great job. But if you don't have a clear focus for them, a clear strategy and a clear goals for them, then it's going to be challenging for them to actually hit, hit that point. And so you're, then you're not happy with that person.

0:13:30 - (Doug Jenkins): That makes a lot of sense. I want to go back to the, just the the actual interview itself you, you talked about. Sometimes we get too conversational in the interview, or if it's not structured, you get to talk. I suppose, depending on the industry. You do want somebody who can do that back and forth with you. Maybe you don't need an engineer to be as back and forth and conversational as maybe someone working in a communication type of role.

0:13:54 - (Doug Jenkins): How do you find the balance? Because I don't think people want to just machine gun questions at people, but they, they want to have that conversation. I imagine there's a happy medium somewhere.

0:14:04 - (Bryan Little): There is, there is. And, and there's. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with, with having conversations or, you know, having that type of interview. You need to have that because you also want to make sure that you're a good fit from that standpoint. Are they going to meet with your culture? Right. And having that conversation? So. But there's a limit to that. And that's why basically having structured questions ahead of time, then having your team ready to answer those structured questions, like each person is going to take one question and that's their job to ask that question.

0:14:31 - (Bryan Little): That helps create that structure. And the conversation typically happens after you've asked the question. You dig a little deeper into it. That's when the conversation kind of hands back and forth. Well, tell me an example of that. Oh, did you run into any issues with other people that didn't want to do that? Right. And so then the conversation starts to happen. I also think too, you know, kind of an interview structure is. I see many times like a client will say to the candidate, run me through your resume. It's the first thing they say on the interview. Right, right.

0:15:00 - (Bryan Little): What they should do first of all is kind of outline their, you know, their company, talk about their company, maybe even their core values, their culture. Introduce each of the members of. On the interview team into that interview as well, and then ask the question. Just run me through your resume real quick. Right. And then get down to the situational questions after that.

0:15:20 - (Doug Jenkins): That's, that's a good point. Do you. This is always a joke that shows up, I think, in forms when people talk about interviews and things like that. We're like a family here. Should you avoid that one? Because I. That's another one where I feel like maybe some businesses are, maybe they aren't. I think most interviewees probably could care less one way or another. Maybe I'm off there. But that's one that comes up in.

0:15:43 - (Bryan Little): Memes that, yeah, that comes from a good place when people say, this is my work, family, you know. Right. It really comes from a good place. But at the end of the day, you're running a business, you're there to do a job, so there must be accountability, discipline in place. And if you. If you're coming here for friends and family, you know, find that outside. Right. But there's a better way to say that. The better way to say that is to focus on your core, core values and what kind of person meets those core values.

0:16:11 - (Bryan Little): And if the fit is there as well, that's how you, you know, get that kind of feel for somebody from the soft side of things. Not just experiences, but more about, okay, are you going to be a fit here? And the core values, how do they. How does the core value of integrity resonate with you? And give me an example of when you had to show integrity in your job. Those kind. That's how. That's how you cover the family question.

0:16:34 - (Doug Jenkins): That's a good way to do it. It really seems like a lot of the. I don't know what you would call the. Just the structure that people maybe have traditionally thought about in interviews and the things that we typically say, things like that, they're not necessarily bad advice, but they just need to be structured differently so that it works better for you and you're not just saying the same thing that every. Every interviewee has heard in asking the same questions that they've all heard.

0:17:00 - (Bryan Little): Yes. And people. And. And don't forget, that candidate's also interviewing you as a. As a business, you know, and the structured interviews, the situational questions, the conversations as well, that helps candidates also get a good feel for what. How you run your business. Right, right. And if. How you run your business from the standpoint, is it structured? Is it. Is it focused on the right things? Is it focused on, you know, fit and culture and things like that? And I want to work there.

0:17:28 - (Bryan Little): Right. If you're all over the place from one end to the next in the spectrum, like, I really don't want to work there. So it's probably kind of a dumpster fire every day. Right. So you have to remember it goes both ways when you're interviewing.

0:17:38 - (Doug Jenkins): That's a good point. So you get the interview done. Let's say you interviewed with the team. Obviously, you have your scorecard. What do you do in the debrief when you have your hiring team together and start to talk about the candidates?

0:17:52 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, the scorecard makes it pretty easy, honestly, because now you have. You have scores. Everybody scored these candidates individually. So now you talk about the scores and basically the gaps and the major gaps in between those score numbers as well. And then you have also in addition to that kind of your intuition discussion as well, you know what I mean? Where that's where like soul intuition on its own from an interview standpoint is not good.

0:18:15 - (Bryan Little): But using the scorecard along with intuition at the end of that is also a good thing as well. So have that conversation with your team, make sure you're all on the same page with who you want to, with who you want to interview and then hopefully I'll land on the right person and you make the job offer. But you'll be, you have much higher chance of hiring the right person by following that process.

0:18:36 - (Doug Jenkins): Of course, once you get the right person, you need to onboard them. That's a different question for a different time. We'll have you back for that. But if people want to have that discussion with you now, Brian, I'm sure that's something you'd be happy to help them out with. What's the best way to get in touch with you for a sit down to talk about all things interview onboarding, meetings and everything else. When it comes to organizational structure, they.

0:18:58 - (Bryan Little): Call my phone 419-722-0268 if they want. My email address is Also Brian Little, EOS worldwide.com Very good Brian, we appreciate.

0:19:10 - (Doug Jenkins): You joining back again. We're going to have you back on at some point again to talk about things like onboarding and who knows what else. So thank you for your time today.

0:19:18 - (Bryan Little): Hey, you're welcome Doug. Good to be here.

0:19:21 - (Doug Jenkins): Just a few takeaways from today's conversation. Structure beats spontaneity. Now it depends on your industry. If you're in more of a communication field, you do need that person who can go back and forth with you. But again, if you're hiring for engineering something like that, you may not need that. But the consistent interview process helps you compare candidates objectively and that helps you avoid hiring based on gut feelings alone. That's an important part of the process.

0:19:46 - (Doug Jenkins): Use a scorecard and maybe it's something you already do, but maybe it's a process that you need to refine. But if you don't, that scoring really helps you focus on candidate skills, experience, it helps your hiring team identify gaps and you can all get around the same standards that you're looking for. And then you can have that discussion before you go into the interview on what you're all looking for. And you're going to go in and probably have a better process identified anyway.

0:20:10 - (Doug Jenkins): And again, we talked about it in the intro. Balance, data and intuition. That intuition, not all bad. You got to have a little bit of that. I mean, we're not robots. Not yet anyway. It just works best to structure that a little bit better, have those data points that you want to identify, and then combine the two for better hiring decisions. By the way, when we were done talking, Brian recommended a good book for you to dive deeper into the topic. It's called Right Seats, Right People by Jonathan D. Reynolds. I'll link to that in the show Notes for you, as well as the previous episode that Brian was on here with us on Chamber Amplified and that'll wrap up this edition. The podcast Chamber Amplified, brought to you by the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. We make it a free resource for the community thanks to the support of our members.

0:20:57 - (Doug Jenkins): Their investment drives everything we do, from business advocacy to leadership programs to providing timely local information that helps your business thrive. If you'd like to strengthen our community and grow your business at the same time, we'd love to talk about how a Chamber membership can help with that. Just let me know you're interested. Or if you have an idea for a future episode, send me an email anytime.

0:21:18 - (Doug Jenkins): Djenkinsindleyhancockchamber.com thanks again for listening. And don't miss the next episode of Chamber Amplified.