(Note: the last three posts talked about making a character trait list, posting better job descriptions and help wanted ads, and crafting insightful interview questions. You’ve done your interviews. Now what?)

I got a phone call. “I’m doing a background check and one of our applicants listed you as a former employer. Can you verify when this employee worked for you?”

I have made this same phone call. As employers we have rules of what we can and cannot say during one of these phone calls. Each state has its own rules. A former employer can confirm dates of employment, roles/titles, and usually answer one simple question … “Is this employee eligible for rehire?” 

It kinda sucks when you’re checking someone’s background with these limitations. If they were honest about when they worked and what they did, and they are still eligible for rehire, you learn very little. In fact, most background checks are done not to confirm a potential hire but to derail that job offer. Give me one reason to say No.

Even though they rarely ever confirm a good hire, background checks are still necessary. It is better to have exhausted all the reasons to say No. Background checks still tell you something. They tell you if someone is honest. They tell you if someone has neglected to tell you everything about themselves.

Along with calling former employers I also check the court sites. One applicant had three six-month gaps in his employment record. He told me in the interview he was working for a friend doing odd jobs. His friend must have worked at the county jail each of those stints. Another applicant was being considered for a warehouse and delivery position until the list of speeding tickets and two reckless driver tickets appeared.

Sometimes, however, a background check can surprise you. I called one former employer who said, “Wait, are you telling me she’s looking for a job? I need to call her. I’d love to have her back!”

One time when someone called me about one of my former employees the caller asked, “Is there anything else you can tell us?” He knew the answer was likely No—especially if you call a big chain store. My answer surprised him …

“If you don’t hire her, you will have made the biggest mistake in your HR life.”

Sure, seasonal retail help is one of the lowest rungs on the employment ladder. These aren’t confirmation hearings for lifetime positions so you likely won’t need the Senate or FBI. But your store deserves to have the very best. Almost all my full-time employees started as seasonal staff. If you do the proper job identifying the right team members at this stage, you’ll create the team and culture you want for the long run in no time at all.

WHEN TO CHECK THEIR BACKGROUNDS

Some employers check backgrounds before doing interviews. For big positions with tons of qualified applicants, I can understand vetting before interviewing. If you have more good applicants than you have time to interview them all, do a quick search of your District Court, State Felony, and Sex Offender websites. If that doesn’t eliminate anyone, then go to social media and see what they are posting on FB or Instagram. Chances are good that might knock out one or two people.

I preferred to check backgrounds after the interview. I only checked on the people I liked, looking for some reason to sway me off hiring that person. If they didn’t show the character traits I wanted through the application and interview process, I wasn’t wasting my time checking their backgrounds.

Although I have been used as a personal reference several times (and written several letters of recommendation), in my early days of hiring I rarely ever checked those references. I only called former employers who weren’t chain stores. I also made a few bad hires in my day and twice heard from someone who had been listed as a personal reference that told me they wouldn’t have recommended that person to work for me. I learned that lesson the hard way.

References are mainly for filling in holes in the details and finding reasons to say no. It is worth checking them. Otherwise Buyer Beware.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Check with your state’s hiring laws to see what you can and can’t ask in a reference check (and also to know what you can and can’t answer when someone calls you). Bookmark your local District Court site, your state’s felony site, and your state/local sex offender registry sites. Your customers deserve that from you.

PPS The former employee of mine got the job. She told me her boss said it was my comment that won him over. She’s been there 12 years now. I hired the employee whose former employer wanted her back. That was all the reference I needed.

I jumped the gun yesterday. I started talking to you about interview questions before we even discussed how to get the right applicants through your door in the first place. My bad.

Did you know you can “pre-qualify” your applicants? No, I don’t mean by writing, “Only people with [ __________ ] need apply.” That’s lazy and useless. You can pre-qualify your applicants by writing a better job description and a better help-wanted ad. That traits list we created helps.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Most job descriptions follow the same pattern. First a bullet list of duties and responsibilities. Second a bullet list of qualifications. It is that second list that pre-qualifies applicants. Most companies get that part wrong by listing all the required schooling and experience, without talking about whether you even have the right traits for the job.

A typical list might include:

• [Level of schooling required]
• [Minimum years experience doing the actual job as listed in the title]
• [Minimum years experience doing the tasks for the job]

Just because someone did the job doesn’t mean they were good at it or had the right traits to do it well.

Instead you should be listing the traits of the person you want to hire. Here is a list I helped a fellow store owner create as the qualifications for a manager position:

The Store Manager must be someone who:

• Can manage and motivate employees
• Can build and foster teamwork and collaboration
• Can stay calm and level-headed in tense and hectic situations
• Can juggle multiple tasks during the course of the day
• Can keep a high level of energy throughout a long day, a long week, and a long season
• Can listen carefully and learn quickly
• Loves to help other people grow
• Loves to be part of the community
• Loves to encourage and foster creativity in the team
• Loves to play and have fun

Notice all those “can” statements? Those are the traits for the job. All of those “love” statements are the Core Values of the company. Someone who has these traits will instantly see themselves in that job description. You also have your basis for your “Tell me …” questions.

“Tell me about a time you had to motivate someone to do something they didn’t want to do. How did you get him to do it? What was the result?”

HELP WANTED AD

Your ad is the other place to really highlight the traits you want to hire. Once again, most help wanted ads fail to pre-qualify because they talk about the job and the duties, not the character traits. But what if you wrote an ad that looked more like this?

“Are you a team player looking for the chance to take that next step? Do you have the skills to help other people grow into their best? Do you get fired up at the chance to lead a high-performing team that gets to solve problems and bring joy to others?

You might be the perfect candidate for GTS.

GTS is looking for innovative people with true leadership skills to join us to help create and manage the kind of team everyone wants to be on, the kind of team that has fun working together, has fun being a part of our wonderful communities, and has fun finding new and better ways to serve our customers.

Yes, you will work weekends from time to time. Those days are the most fun.”

Notice how we incorporated all the can and love statements from the above description into one ad? We posted this in November for a toy store. (Yeah, November is not the best time to be hiring new managers, but such was the case.) Not only was this store owner able to find new managers and assistant managers for all three of her locations instantly, all were a perfect fit.

The first year I switched to this style of help-wanted advertising at Toy House I noticed two things. First, I had fewer overall applications. Only the people who saw themselves in the ad applied. Second, I had far more people worthy of an interview. The pre-qualifying with character traits gave me a better pool of applicants than before and made the interviewing process even easier (if slightly longer).

It all starts with the character traits you identify for each job. When you get a good list and use it to describe the job and the applicant you get better applicants from which to choose.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS We used Indeed.com for the store manager posting above. We also used Indeed for seasonal positions but she got several applicants from social media and signs in her store.

PPS Since I closed Toy House I put my hat into the ring for job searches on LinkedIn. Several times I have seen jobs I know I could do incredibly well, but the first two qualifications were often “Must have a 4-year Marketing Degree” and “Must have 3-5 years working as a Marketing Manager or similar title.” I had the traits (and even the experience) to do well in several of those jobs, but they missed out on me even applying because I didn’t have the degree or the title. I would hate for you to miss out on some qualified people for the same reasons.

PPPS Here is a job description using the traits from yesterday and my Core Values of Fun, Helpful, Education, and Nostalgia

• Engaging – Can meet and greet people with ease
• Friendly – Can build meaningful relationships with others
• Caring – Can show empathy and caring for others
• Creative – Can find creative solutions to interesting problems
• Determined – Can find ways around objections and stick to a problem until it is solved
• Fun – Loves to have fun on the job
• Helpful – Loves to help others
• Education – Loves to learn new things
• Nostalgic – Loves to celebrate births, birthdays, and Christmas

Are you a fun-loving person who loves to meet new people? Do you care deeply for others and just want to help? Do you have the creativity and determination to find solutions when none seem possible? Are you the kind of person who celebrates holidays with a passion. Do you love to learn something new every day? You might be the perfect candidate to work for Toy House.

It takes a lot of guts to tell Harvard you think they are wrong.

But that’s exactly what I was doing through the aughts as I was developing my own hiring philosophy. In the late 90’s I read the Harvard Business Essentials book Hiring and Keeping the Best People. Like all the other business books on hiring, it said the most important thing to hire for was experience.

Except I had one problem with that statement …

You can have decades of experience in retail sales and still suck at it.

I knew salespeople in retail. I had hired people with several years of “experience.” I had worked with retail salespeople at the stores I visited frequently. Some were good. Some still sucked.

The reason they sucked is because so few retailers have any type of formal training or continuing education for their team. Experience alone does not teach you what you need to be successful as a retail salesperson. College doesn’t prepare you for retail sales either.

The skills you need to be successful at retail sales are those traits we identified yesterday.

• Engaging
• Friendly
• Caring
• Knowledgeable
• Creative
• Problem-Solver
• Determined

Two of those traits are teachable (Knowledge and Problem-Solving). The other five, however, are not. The first key to being successful at retail is what your new hires already bring to the table in the way of the non-teachable traits.

The fastest way to raise the bar of customer service in your store is to fire every salesperson who isn’t Engaging, Friendly, Caring, Creative, and Determined, and start over. Add your Core Values to that list and go hire people who have those non-teachable traits. You’ll have the foundation for a rock star staff in no time.

IDENTIFYING THE TRAITS

How do you identify those non-teachable traits? Through the interview process. Let’s call it a “process” rather than just an interview because it is far more than just simple questions and answers.

I always went up front to greet applicants and walk them back to my office. The walk back gave me an early glimpse into how friendly and engaging they might be. Sure, many were nervous, but just the act of walking and talking not only calmed their nerves—which made the rest of the interview go better—and it also got me the chance to view them in a less formal setting. If possible I would introduce them to staff along the way and see how they interacted.

In the interview I asked questions only about what they did, not what they thought or believed. My favorite questions started with …

“Tell me about a time when …”

• Tell me about a time when you were the most creative on the job. What did you do? How was it received?
• Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond what was expected of you? What did you do?
• Tell me about a time when you made friends with a customer. How did it happen? Are you still friends now?

When you ask questions about actual events in their life you get more authentic answers, not something they think you want to hear. You also gain better insight. You learn what they consider to be “above and beyond” or “creative” on the job.

When I switched my hiring process over to focusing on non-teachable traits instead of experience and actions instead of beliefs, I found the results changed dramatically for the better. None of that was in the Harvard Business Essentials book.

Experience plays a role only when that experience is “better” than the experience you are offering. Then again, if you are running your business correctly, there won’t be anyone else offering a better experience, better training, or better work environment. So don’t worry about experience. Hire for character traits and fit (Core Values). You can teach them the rest.

Sorry, Harvard, but from my experience and the experience of so many other retailers, you’re wrong.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You’ll still need to have Knowledgeable people who know how to solve your customers’ problems. Those are the teachable traits. Knowledge is simply learning all the features and benefits of the products you sell (as well as the products your competitors sell). Problem-solving is simply the process of turning a customer into a relationship into a sale into an evangelist for your store (The Ultimate Selling Workshop). 

PPS It takes a lot of guts to write your own book on hiring when it flies directly in the face of all the other hiring books out there. I did that back in 2008 and it got rave reviews. I still have a few copies left if you’d like to read it. (Sorry, only hardcover, no electronic versions.)

I’ve taken several versions of the Myers-Briggs test and so far they all have resulted in ENFP (The Campaigner). But my N score is fairly close to the S and my F is barely across the line from T. There are definitely moments in my life when I am more of an ESFP (The Entertainer), especially when I’m playing guitar at Poison Frog Brewery or standing on stage leading a workshop or presentation. In conversations, especially debates, my ENTP (The Debater) personality kicks in and I gladly take on the role of devil’s advocate. (Not surprisingly, the ESTP personality is called The Entrepreneur. Go figure.)

I’ve also taken the Enneagram Personality tests. I have always scored as #7 The Enthusiast, but I share some tendencies of #2 The Helper and #3 The Achiever.

The point I want to make is that these personality tests are fun, fascinating, and insightful, but dangerous when you use them to pigeonhole or label someone. For instance, while reading this description of a #7 The Enthusiast, it says that one of my weaknesses is my ability to stay focused. An employer might read that in the description and immediately assign that label to me. Yet most of my bosses throughout my life have talked about my ability to stay focused on the task at hand as one of my overall strengths.

Black Friday is only 45 days away. You’re in the process of hiring and training your seasonal staff. You’re looking for anything to speed up the process and help you find good people.

I want to implore you not to use the personality tests to hire people.

No one can be truly described by these tests in a perfect way, yet as a shortcut we often use the labels and descriptions to pigeonhole people and assign them characteristics they don’t have. The other downside is that there is no single personality type in these tests that fits perfectly to the characteristics you need for the job for which you’re hiring.

THE BETTER APPROACH

Rather than using shortcuts, the best way to find the perfect people for your team is to create your own “personality profiles.” Identify the most important traits to describe the perfect person for each position. For instance, if you are looking for a Salesperson, you might want someone who is:

• Engaging
• Friendly
• Caring
• Knowledgeable

If the job requires them to find unique solutions to interesting problems, you might also choose:

• Creative
• Intuitive
• Problem-solver

If you sell items that require a lengthy sales process you might also add:

• Patient
• Determined

Then list your Core Values. These also play a role in finding the right people for your team.

Get your list together. The more clearly you identify the person you want to hire before the hiring process, the better you will recognize him or her when you start that process.

Tomorrow I’ll show you what to do with that list and how to attract a better group of applicants.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I asked my salespeople to play many roles including stocking shelves, answering phones, giftwrapping packages, and running the cash registers. My list included:

• Engaging
• Friendly
• Fun-Loving (core value)
• Helpful (core value)
• Creative
• Desire to Learn (core value)
• Decent Math Skills
• Nostalgic (core value)

Notice how I left off Knowledgeable. I’ll explain why tomorrow.

PPS Personality tests can play a role with your team, but only after the hiring is done. If you have a full understanding of the personality test shortfalls and limitations, and are willing to use them only as a guide rather than a definitive description, you can understand people’s tendencies and preferences better, which helps you position them and motivate them for better results.