HR Archives - The Resource Collaborative

How to Hire the Perfect Employee

September 9, 2015 by Ellen Shepard

First, why would you want to? PERFECT is over-rated when compared with adjectives like innovative, curious, resourceful, humble, emotionally mature, positive, diverse and a host of others. So, ask yourself when you have listed all of the “hard” skills necessary to qualify for a particular opportunity, what are the “soft” attributes that will allow someone to be successful in this position at your company with their colleagues right now.

Rank your top performers across the organization and list the “soft” attributes they have in common – these are probably success factors for leaders in your company. This is a good way to round out the job description to make certain those assisting with this search go beyond the hard skills in sourcing the best candidates for you to meet.

Now, that you have a group of candidates, how do you conduct an interview to determine, beyond the “hard” skills who possesses these success factors? Here are some tips from team builders that may be useful to you:

1. Ask “why should I hire you?” A great candidate will have given thought to this question and knows how they can add value and how to express it.

2. Give a couple of “what if” or “can you tell me about a time when…” scenarios to see how the candidate thinks and also to see if they are willing to share their experiences – good and bad.

3. Ask for a candidate to explain a time when they felt they had failed or not done their best and what they learned. A good candidate will appreciate that success is often built on the shoulders of failures and will be honest in their reply.

4. Ask them to give you a pitch on what your company does in the world. Great candidates will have done their research.

5. Leave time for them to ask you questions. Great candidates will ask smart questions.

Remember that the formal hiring process is not something most managers participate in more than a couple of times a year and for candidates, even less so. Hiring does not come naturally…do not leave your “gut” at the door…how you feel in your gut about a candidate does matter. Steve Jobs said…”Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needle in the haystack. You cannot know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut”.

ellen.shepard@trcollaborative.com

Let Me Count the “Whys” – Appointing Women to NJ Corporations Board of Directors

August 26, 2015 by Ellen Shepard

The Resource Collaborative is pleased to continue to support the efforts of Executive Women of New Jersey’s mission to educate and promote the addition of talented professional women to the Boards of corporations across New Jersey. We are a women owned business made up of staff who have worked for many years within the halls of corporate America and we know the difference women make in the workplace first hand! Along with all of the diversity and equality reasons for choosing women members for corporate boards, here are a few of our own thinking…

Why should corporations appoint women to their Board of Directors? Having gone from breaking through the glass ceiling to having my own Board of Directors, I feel like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, let me count the “whys”:

1. Organizations are beginning to acknowledge that strategic planning is not enough – at the end of the day, decisions are what moves us to action. Women are decisive – we move plans into action quickly.

2. Millennials are looking for organizations who “care” about their staff, the planet, the future and the lifestyle they will be living. Women are natural caretakers.

3. And most importantly, women drive consumerism – when women speak, boards should be listening!

We are looking forward to the EWNJ’s upcoming event “A Seat at the Table” on October 29th!

We look forward to hearing your comments and do not hesitate to reach out to Ellen via email:

ellen.shepard@trcollaborative.com

Digital Transformation of the Workplace – Impact on Hiring and Retention

June 16, 2015 by Ellen Shepard

Much has been written and discussed about digitization and how it could/would/should impact our lives and our job. As stewards of healthy workplaces, it is critically important that our thinking stretch to understand the impact this will have on the ability of corporations to hire and retain the best employees.

In its research report titled “Predicts 2015: The Digital Workplace Underscores the Benefits of a Consumerized Work Environment”, one of their key findings is that “Digital literacy is not about tool proficiency, but about how well people apply that knowledge to making decisions, cultivating relationships, building reputation, and mobilizing colleagues, teams, communities, or networks to rally around a common cause. Digital literacy focuses on the application of digital insights obtained by mastery of technology, and how those skills become ingrained in people’s behaviors, attitudes and culture”. A key take-away from this is that technology teams need to be encouraged to include employees across the organization in the productive use of their technology and not continue to hold the corporate technology as sacred.

There was a time when this was unthinkable – employees had to deal with many devices in an effort to keep corporate technology separate from their personal technology. The world has become a smaller place and it is just impractical to continue along this path. After all, if you are hiring the appropriate staff and have thoughtful technology guidelines in place, and the staff is productive and the results are present, why should using a personal iPad, a laptop issued by the company or Facebook for research be in question?

In fact, and here is the important kernel of wisdom here… if you do not allow some autonomy in gaining digital literacy across the workplace you will appear arcane and it will be increasingly more difficult to attract top talent and retain them! Here for your detailed pleasure is the Gartner “Predicts 2015: The Digital Workplace Underscores the Benefits of a Consumerized Work Environment”.

http://resources.cio.com/ccd/assets/78349/detail

For excellent Human Capital and Talent Acquisition Services, contact The Resource Collaborative at: info@trcollaborative.com or call us directly (908) 376-2012