June 18, 2024 • 32 mins
Hiring the right talent can make or break your business growth. Imagine the relief of not overburdening your existing team while seamlessly integrating new members who align perfectly with your organizational goals. In today's Tactics Tuesday episode of Brand Fortress HQ, we guide you through essential strategies to attract and retain top-tier talent. Mike and I discuss how tools like ChatGPT can help you create detailed role profiles, and how services like CriteriaCorp can streamline applicant grading—ensuring you never miss out on the perfect candidate due to a lack of structured processes.
Ever wondered how you can make job postings that not just attract attention but also resonate with the right candidates? We dive into the nuances of refining role profiles using ChatGPT for precise job postings, making it a breeze to list your openings on platforms like Indeed and LinkedIn. By engaging in iterative conversations with ChatGPT, you can tailor job descriptions that truly reflect your business needs. We also highlight the benefits of automating the screening process with CriteriaCorp, which saves time and effort while ensuring a perfect fit in terms of cognitive aptitude and personality.
When it comes to hiring an executive assistant, preparation is key. In our detailed discussion, we share best practices like using Loom videos to assess communication skills and the importance of asking pointed questions about candidates' past experiences. These steps are invaluable for customer-facing roles. Emphasizing structured assessments and surveys, we show you how to efficiently sift through a large pool of applicants to find the most qualified individuals. To wrap up, we provide actionable tips on crafting job postings that clearly define roles and communicate your company's mission, ensuring you attract high-quality candidates inspired by your vision. Tune in for insights that could transform your hiring process and elevate your business growth strategy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome everyone to Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
On this Tactics Tuesday episode, we're going to be talking
about the hiring process.
We've talked a lot in otherepisodes about processes and
when it comes to expanding, adsand conversion rates and lots of
other different parts of ourbusiness, but we haven't spent
nearly as much time on the otherP that's really important for
your business, which is thepeople portion.
(00:22):
So that's what we're going totalk about today is having
hiring good people and reallyintegrating them into your team
so that way you can continue togrow.
And so, with that, I'm going totoss it over to you, Mike,
because I know this is somethingthat you've been working on
quite a bit within your company.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, it's.
It's becoming increasinglyevident to me that that the
biggest bottleneck in ourbusiness is just that we don't
have the people.
I think that's the greatest.
It's the biggest thing thatmost Amazon businesses are
probably not doing right, andthat is hiring enough people to
do the jobs that reallyeffectively need to be done
(00:58):
regularly.
I think there's a lot of jobsthat end up being shunted off
either to the owner or to someother individual that's on the
team that maybe this isn't theirprimary job, but we need
somebody to do it.
So here you do this, and youknow you can do that to a degree
, but I think it's it can onlygo so far and it's definitely
going to bottleneck things.
So we're we're in the processof bringing on.
(01:20):
One of my bottlenecks is is mefor sure, and so I needed an
executive assistant, and sowe've been walking through.
Just you know, shout out toJosh Hadley.
He's got a, you know, an SOPthat he's put out for hiring.
That I think is terrific andwe've been walking through that.
So I just thought I would givekind of an update as to how that
process is playing out for usin the business.
(01:41):
And you know the things thathave gone well, the things that
maybe aren't going quite so well, or that we've learned
something from.
And I would say, one keytakeaway that I really like from
his SOP and, by the way, EcomBreakthrough, I think is his
podcast and his deal.
But one of the things that hementions in the SOP as kind of a
(02:02):
critical piece is that he usesa software called, or a service
called, CriteriaCorp andessentially that service allows
you to grade your applicants.
So, in other words, the processis on the front end.
First of all, make sure youcreate a really good role
profile for the job that you'rehiring for, and one of the
(02:26):
things that we did find was, inthat process of kind of creating
that role profile, one of thesimplest things that we did that
helped a lot was just askingchat GPT what that role profile
should look like.
You know what are the KPIs thatyou should measure for that
(02:46):
profile, what are the jobresponsibilities that that
particular position would likelyhave in most companies?
What does that look like?
What's their day-to-day looklike?
Things like that and everythingthat spits back isn't going to
be right for your business, butthe point is it gives back a lot
of information that you mightnot have thought about because
you've never had this positionin your company.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So just to clarify what would be the difference
between this role profile thatyou're talking about versus a
job description, which mostpeople are probably maybe a
little bit more familiar with.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
To be perfectly frank , I think the difference is
really just one of a degree ordepth.
It's not as if you created areally good job description.
I think, essentially, you'vecreated a role profile.
The problem is, I think, thatmost especially Amazon business
owners, because many of usaren't trained in business this
(03:40):
isn't our background, you know,so we're learning this as we go.
Right, I think most of us arenot very good at recognizing,
first of all, what shouldactually even go into a job
description, much less once wedetermine what those portions
are, what the important aspectsof that are, then what goes into
that portion.
So, in other words, you know,even if we were to think through
(04:00):
and we were like, okay, thereprobably should be some KPIs
associated with this role, whatshould those KPIs be?
In other words, you know, evenif we were to think through and
we were like, okay, thereprobably should be some KPIs
associated with this role, whatshould those KPIs be and what
levels should there be, and howshould we measure them, and
those sorts of things, right,like you, get really granular,
and so one of the things aboutJosh's SOP is that everything
stems from the development ofthis role profile.
(04:23):
So the first thing is, obviouslyyou need to determine who do
you need.
So you know you kind of need towalk through this process of
figuring out where are thebottlenecks in your business.
So, in other words, you've goton two sides right.
You've got on the one side,what are the big goals that you
have right now in the businessthat are going to take you to
(04:44):
the next level?
And then, okay, if those arethe goals, what do we need to do
to meet those goals?
And then, beyond that, thenokay, what pieces of that puzzle
can we not effectively do withthe team that we have now?
Who do we need on our teamthat's going to help us get to
that next level?
Because there's going to becertain pieces of that puzzle
you probably don't have thepeople for.
And be really careful with that,because it's really easy, I
(05:06):
think, to make the decision,like I was talking about earlier
, to say, well, so-and-so coulddo that, you know, and so-and-so
could do this and so-and-socould do that, when in reality
you probably I need a brandmanager, or I know I need an
executive assistant, or I know Ineed a supply manager, whatever
(05:27):
that is, the good thing is isthat ChatGPT is really good at
then giving you ideas about whatthat should look like.
So if you feed it and say Ineed to know what are the
various things about this jobthat are critical, so what are
the KPIs we should be measuring?
How should we measure them?
What does success look likewith those KPIs?
(05:49):
What should the regularday-to-day responsibilities be
for that individual?
How would we describe that ifwe wanted to post it on a job
site?
All of those things?
Chatgpt gives back a lot ofgreat information, especially
with the newest version, the,whatever it is 4, omega or
whatever it is.
It's really good.
And also, josh has put out anew custom GPT that's an HR
(06:13):
manager, which I think wouldactually take that even further.
I haven't had a chance to useit yet, but it looks like it
could be really useful for that.
But the point is then you'regenerating this role profile
that gives you a really clearpicture of what this person's
role is, how they fit into yourbusiness, how you're going to
measure their success, what,also, what skill set do they
(06:35):
need to do this and what shouldtheir personality profile look
like, and those sort of things,right.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, what I like about that too, that I think may
not be obvious on the surface,is sometimes having like yes, at
the end of the day, we want tohave the positive information of
like hey, here's what I wantfor this role profile or
position description or you know, whatever it is that we're
using as kind of that framework.
But the other thing is is alsonegative.
(07:01):
Information can be very helpfulas well, and I just want to kind
of double click on what yousaid, which is, when you put it
into ChatGPT, there might bethings that you're like hey,
this doesn't fit for my business.
Actually, I want it more likethat over there or I need to
tweak this.
But rather than starting withsomething that's completely
blank, it essentially is givingyou options so that way you can
continue to narrow down whatyou're doing and giving you a
(07:24):
lot of data to work with, tokind of figure out what's right
for you, rather than trying tofill in those holes yourself.
So I think that's just asvaluable, looking at what chat
GPT gives you in this case thatmay not be a good fit for your
company to make sure that, topoint you in the right direction
, to know, hey, this is where Iwant to go with this position.
Make sure that to point you inthe right direction, to know,
(07:45):
hey, this, this is where I wantto go with this position.
So even that data that may notbe a hundred percent precise or
right for your company is stilluseful.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
And even taking that, takingthat another further, like so
for me, I, the VAs that I'vehired in the past, and we've
I've talked about this veryopenly on the episodes that
we've done already on hiringpeople, like I haven't had great
experiences, but it was muchmore because of me and either
the expectations that I had onthe person that I hired or me
(08:11):
not really having any sort ofdocumented process for that
person to walk into.
But what I would use this forand, john, something that you
just touched on is like if I'mlooking for a very specific role
, like an executive assistant,but then I use ChatG, gpt to
what are the skills, what arethe KPIs, what are the type,
what is the, the personalitytype of a person for this role,
but then I try to put thatperson into a lead generation
(08:34):
role where it's a completelydifferent job, completely
different skillset.
That person is going to beunhappy and using this sort of
process that can stop me, as abusiness owner, from I don't
want a jack of all trades Like Iwant a very specific type of a
person that fits a very specificrole and I don't want to put
things on that person that isn'tin their zone of genius and
that's this role.
This kind of walking throughthe chat GPT process can help
(08:56):
with that.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Well, and I think too there's.
You know it's interesting, youknow that you bring it up in
that way because, obviously,giving Chet GPT the opportunity
to flesh out what this personlooks like and who they are,
that's going to perform best inthis position.
Not only does it help you toknow and well, okay, it helps
(09:19):
you to know two things and Ihadn't actually really even
thought about it this way, but Ithink it could help in both
ways.
And that is A it helps you torealize that I shouldn't be
using this person and thisperson and this person who are
already on my team to do thesethings, because it's clear their
skillset and their personalityand whatever.
Like I know them, they've beenworking with me long enough.
(09:41):
I kind of know these things.
That doesn't fit this right, sothat's the wrong person.
But by the same token, it mightactually help you figure out
that there's a person on yourteam who maybe you should
consider for this role.
Like, maybe they're alreadydoing this, but it turns out
like if, if chat GPT is tellingme the right information that
this is what this person lookslike, that's Joe.
Like Joe is the man for this,for this project, and maybe I
(10:03):
should be thinking about whetherI promote him into this or
slide him into that role or takehe takes on a portion of this
role.
But it gives you information.
You know that you didn't havebefore and, like you said, john,
a lot of it.
You know probably not a lot ofit, but but certainly some of it
isn't going to apply to yourbusiness in specific, but also
going back to previousconversations that we've had
about just how to use ChatGPT,and to remember that it's a
(10:26):
conversation it's not like geniein a bottle, exactly.
You give it a prompt, it givesyou back information.
Then you respond back with well, I don't really want this, or
our business actually onlyfocuses this area and I don't
really need this.
It will regenerate, you know,or you can ask it what are
(10:46):
because it's interesting withChatGPT, interestingly, it'll
give you a certain amount ofinformation, which oftentimes is
really good, but there's someinformation it didn't put in
there and so, even justresponding back with what are
some other things that I shouldknow, what are some other KPIs
that we might use?
Like, these KPIs don't reallywork for us.
We can't really measure thoseeffectively.
What would be some alternativeKPIs that we could use that
(11:09):
would measure things that areimportant for this role want?
You know, reinforcing thethings that you do want or that
you think are important will getyou to that point where you've
got a really good role profile,and we've spent a lot of time
talking about that.
But the realization that I hadwas it is critical that you get
(11:34):
the role profile really dialedin, because once you get that
very dialed in, it makes it mucheasier to write an actual job
posting, you know, for Indeed orLinkedIn or Upwork, wherever it
is that you're going to putyour job posting.
But it makes it much easier towrite that job posting and get
(11:55):
it right so that the people thatare responding to your ad are
the right people.
Because the first thing is youdon't want a whole bunch of
people applying that reallyaren't fit for the job or that
aren't going to like workingwith you.
So giving them as muchinformation as you can to
establish this is what the jobmeans.
This is how we're going tomeasure you.
These are the skills we expectyou to have, and we're not going
(12:17):
to hire you if you don't havethese skills.
And this is the way ourbusiness operates.
This is our company vision.
If you don't fit with that,please don't apply, but if you
do, we want you, and so that's agood first step.
And then CriteriaCorp.
The nice thing about that isthat once people start
responding to that, you canessentially automate the process
(12:38):
of weeding out the individualswho really aren't a good fit,
because Criteria Corp has a lotof different tests available
through their system that youcan automatically have any
candidate put through, and thenyou get back the data and
Criteria Corp will evaluatebased on that data.
They'll say their personalitytype doesn't match the job that
(12:59):
you're describing.
Their cognitive aptitudedoesn't really match the job
that you're describing.
Their cognitive aptitudedoesn't really match the job
that you're describing.
But also the interesting thingis is that if you run them
through the right tests,criteria Corp won't just tell
you what they're not qualifiedfor.
It will also tell you the jobsthat they are really qualified
for, so that even if you have acandidate that doesn't fit this
(13:21):
job that you're hiring for, youcan maintain a database of
individuals who have applied tothis position but weren't right
for it but are really right forsome other position that maybe
you might need in the future.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
What do those quizzes look like?
I'm just curious Do you have anidea of how long does it take
in a candidate in order to fillthose out?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So they're not super long.
They don't take forever forthem to fill out.
I'll be honest that I don'tknow as much of the specifics as
you might want to know, becauseI've got a person on our team
who basically kind of set a lotof this stuff up and kind of
walk through that processbecause I just didn't have the
time for it.
So she would be able to tellmore specifically, like exactly
what the questions look like andexactly how long.
(14:03):
But from what I could rememberfrom her describing it to me, it
didn't sound like it was anexcessively long process for
them to take those tests and youget to decide which ones you
actually want to run themthrough.
Now, criteria Corp is not supercheap.
I think we might have paid Idon't know, it might have been
$1,500 for the year or somethinglike that but if you expect to
(14:24):
hire for you know even just acouple of positions that are
important positions within yourbusiness and you can, part of
the nice thing about this SOPthat I think is really critical
to understand is you only haveso much bandwidth within your
business, whether it's you orwhether you actually have an HR
person who's going to be the onethat's hiring for this position
(14:44):
.
They only have so many hours ina day and so if you don't have a
fairly automated process on thefront end of this to weed out
the candidates that reallyaren't good candidates, then you
can only take in so manycandidates because you have to
manually process and evaluatewhether they're a good fit.
So in that case maybe you onlytake in 10 or 15 or 20
(15:05):
candidates because you justdon't have the bandwidth.
But if you use this process ofgetting the role profile really
nailed down, writing up a reallygood job description so that
the person knows exactly whatthey're applying for, so that a
lot of people aren't going toapply if they really don't feel
they're appropriate for it, andthen you run them through
(15:25):
CriteriaCorp so that you get allof this data and it can weed
out the ones that are definitelynot you know within, you know
applicable, you can get a couplehundred 300 applicants you know
and whittle it down to like 15or 20 at the end that those are
the only ones you really have topay attention to.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, I'd be curious.
I don't know if you've ever soIndeed has.
I'm not as familiar withCriteriaCorp but Indeed does
have like some of these skilltests and stuff like that.
And so a couple of things justfrom my experience has been one,
like you said, first of all,you know, get your, you know
your role description and allthe other pieces that you talked
(16:03):
about downright.
I think that's so important inthis process to have a good hire
.
That from a strategicperspective.
Then, at a tactical level, myexperience has been because we
use Indeed quite a bit is it'sgreat to have a couple of these
kind of questionnaires orsomething for somebody to fill
out as far as skills, especiallyif it's crucial for the
(16:25):
position.
With that said, you know, thereis kind of a GoldieBlox zone
that we have found in thisprocess where having one or two
of those is great because you doweed out a lot of candidates or
a lot of people who, like theyjust don't bother to take you
know the quiz or you know theaptitude test or whatever it
happens to be Well, great.
If you're not willing to put infive to ten minutes, then you
(16:47):
know it's probably not a goodfit because I'm not going to
have me or somebody on my teamput in you know 15 to 30 minutes
to have an initial interviewWith.
That said, there is also aGoldilocks of like if you put
ten of those on there, well nowyou're only getting the
candidates that most of them are, quite frankly just desperate
for a job, that they're willingto go through those hoops.
And people who are reallyskilled might see hey, if I've
(17:10):
got to spend two to three hourstaking these questionnaires and
aptitude tests just to see if Iqualify for this position, my
time might be spent betterelsewhere.
So I just am curious.
My experience has been thatthere's definitely a Goldilocks
in that process.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I'm curious what Matt thinks on this also because
what I'll tell you from ourexperience and we've only walked
through this once this is thefirst position that we've hired
in this way and I will say wehaven't gotten to the higher yet
, but we had hundreds of initialapplications that came in.
We have whittled it down to a.
(17:51):
We had a final list that camethrough Criteria Corp at the end
with and I should say toclarify, we ran them through I
think two or three of CriteriaCorps, like I think, the
personality and the cognitiveaptitude test and maybe one
other on criteria corps.
But then we also had a projectLike if they made it through
(18:14):
that and it seemed like theywere good candidates, there was
a project and I will say theproject wasn't a five-minute
project.
So essentially for the EA, ourproject was we had four
components to it.
One was we gave them threecustomer service scenarios and
we asked them to respond in theway that they would respond to
(18:34):
the customer, because part ofthis EA position, there'll be a
little bit of customer serviceinvolved in it.
They'll have to take some ofthat on.
There'll be a little bit ofcustomer service involved in it.
They'll have to take some ofthat on.
And then we asked them I gavethem some a sample of, like, my
list of priorities, you know,for a week in terms of meetings,
projects, you know, ideas thatI've got, things that need to be
researched.
(18:55):
You know, put this into aschedule for for me and also for
you, because some of this stuffyou should be taking off of my
plate, like not just schedulinginto my day, but you should be
saying, no, that's something Ican do, you shouldn't be doing
this, I'll do this.
So they had to, you know, redothat into some sort of
functional, you know schedulefor the both of us.
(19:16):
Then we had them record, andthis was important to me.
I had them record a short Loomvideo.
That was just an introductionof who they are.
You know, what have they done,why do they think they're
qualified, why do they want thisposition.
You know that sort of thingbecause it told me a number of
things.
One, it told them about them.
But also I get to hear thembecause the job that they're
(19:36):
hiring for, you know they'regoing to be talking on the phone
to customers.
Obviously, we need to be ableto communicate with them as a
team.
So if their accent is superthick.
That's going to make it tough,things like that.
So I wanted to hear that.
And then the fourth one was Ijust asked them a question which
was describe for me the mostdifficult transition you've had
to make in becoming theexecutive assistant for some
(20:00):
executive.
Why was it difficult and howdid you navigate that process to
make it, you know, functionalfor you and for the executive so
that everything worked out?
So it wasn't a super short, youknow, project.
It wasn't like a three-hourproject but it wasn't five
minutes.
We had, like I said, we had afew hundred applicants.
(20:21):
We had 15 candidates whosubmitted all of that.
They went through all theCriteria Corp stuff and they
submitted the project thing and,to your point, john, some of
them weren't very qualified.
I think they probably weredesperate for a job.
But at the same point we haveeight fairly solid candidates
(20:44):
that I'm going to do, I'm goingto do two separate group
interviews with, and then thetwo candidates, one or two
candidates that are standoutsfrom those two I'm going to put
into a third and walk themthrough.
Unless I do those two andthere's really only one or two
standing, you know, like, ifthere's obviously one, then I'll
go with them.
But the point is it's been afairly lengthy and involved
(21:04):
process and I feel like at thispoint we actually do have eight
really solid candidates that Ifeel pretty confident at least
one of them, if not more of them, are probably going to be well
qualified for the position.
Pretty confident, at least oneof them, if not more of them,
are probably going to be wellqualified for the position.
So it seems that maybe we havesomewhat distinct experiences
with it and maybe that's onlybecause we threw a wider net.
(21:25):
I don't know.
You know we had a lot of peopleyou know apply and we weeded
out a ton.
Maybe we lost some in theprocess, maybe there were some
really good candidates in therethat we lost.
But the point is we've only gotso much bandwidth.
So I'm curious, matt, what areyour?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
thoughts on that.
I mean it's well worth theamount of time put on the front
end to set all this up, becausehow much time you save not only
in picking the applicant andweeding out ones that you didn't
even want to interview, butthen also dealing on the back
end with making the wrong hireand that's that's been my story
(22:01):
pretty much every single time isagain a lot of it was my fault,
but even if it was, wasn't theright person for the role.
That was that's my job to, to beable to figure that out before
I get them hired.
And in a lot of cases I wasjust as desperate to fill the
role as they were to find a job,and maybe even more so.
So, like you know, what I'velearned in this conversation and
(22:23):
we've had it, we've had partsof it before is that every
single thing that I did when Imade it, my hires, was wrong,
and I wasn't.
I wasn't spending the time theright time in the right places
in order to make that transitionfor me as a business owner
easier to bring a person on.
So I mean the amount of timethat you're spending on the
front end developing thisprocess is well worth, and I
(22:46):
think that $1,500, whatever itis to for that, for that, for
those surveys, I think it's wellworth the money expense,
because I wasted more than thatin making bad hires.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, and I think you know listening to the process
that you're describing, mike, isactually not that different
from how we do our process.
I think it's very similar, alittle bit different tools, but
at the end of the day, you know,the end process is what matters
, because exactly what you'retalking about I mean, we put
them through.
You know one or two kind ofskills types of tests,
especially if we're doingsomething like Indeed, and then
(23:17):
we have the same thing where youknow we'll have 300 people
apply and there's just no waythat one could we if we wanted
to interview those, nor is thatprobably a good use of our time
or the candidate's time tointerview all 300.
And so, coming up with easyways to kind of narrow down, you
know who are those goodcandidates and those surveys can
(23:38):
work well.
Again, I would just encouragepeople to look at you know, kind
of going back to what you weretalking about with that position
of have those surveys reallyconnected to what are the KPIs
and what are the primary dutiesof that position.
So that way you've got a coupleof surveys to get a good
picture of what you need,instead of putting them through
a couple hours worth of testing,because you may not get what
(23:59):
you want out of that.
And then the other thing that wefound really useful is just
asking the simple question ofhey, what interested you in this
position?
Because to me there's notnecessarily a wrong answer, but
it is always very interesting tome to see how long is that
answer from somebody.
Is it three words, or is it,you know, a well-written
(24:20):
paragraph?
Is it all about what they wantout of the position or is it you
know them talking about howthey're excited about the work?
Like there's just a lot ofdifferent components and, from a
scalability standpoint, likeit's pretty easy to ask that
question and then again half thepeople don't even respond.
Well, that makes it really easy.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, I think I think the only other, the only two
other things that I that I wouldprobably add to this
conversation that I think arevaluable that we've learned is,
first of all, I think, in inresponse to you know that that
concern over losing goodcandidates because you've got
them jumping through too manyhoops, I think, a making sure
(25:00):
that the hoops that you'rehaving them jump through seem
relevant to the job that they'rehiring for, so that at least
they recognize no, this makessense.
I can see why a business wouldwant me to do this.
Secondarily, though, andprobably even more important
than that, probably even moreimportant than that, is the job
(25:21):
posting, because if I'm aquality individual and I'm
looking to work for a qualitycompany, I should expect, if an
actual quality company is hiring, that they probably are going
to have some pretty stringentrequirements that I meet in
order to be qualified for thatposition and be brought on, and
so I think part of it isqualifying for this candidate
(25:45):
that you are actually a qualitycompany to work for right.
So if you don't do that in thejob posting, if you don't make
it really obvious that they'reapplying to a really good
company, that's going to treatthem well, treat them with
respect, pay them appropriatelyfor the work that they're doing,
reward them for the things thatthey're doing that move the
(26:07):
company forward.
Then, if you have them jumpingthrough hoops, they're going to
just give up on it and say, well, this isn't worth it.
You haven't proven to me thatyou're worth the amount of time
that you're requiring me toinvest.
But if you give them enoughinformation about your company
and about the position and aboutwhat you're going to do for
them and how you care for youremployees and those sorts of
things, I think you generateenough goodwill.
(26:29):
On the front end of that, thateven a really good candidate who
maybe has a lot on their platethey've got a really good job,
they work, you know, maybesemi-long hours they still would
potentially be interested injumping through the hoops that
you've set in front of them,just simply because it looks
like a good opportunity andthey're willing to put that time
in.
The only other thing I would sayis, on the back end of this,
(26:50):
one of the things that we needto walk through right now is
evaluating because ChatGPTexists.
A lot of the materials thatwe're getting back from
candidates that are writtenmaterials are chat GPT generated
, and some of it almost entirelychat GPT generated, and so part
of our interview process isgoing to be having some
(27:11):
conversations about chat GPT andwhy they use it when they use
it, how they use it when theyshouldn't use it, because I want
them to be well-versed in howto use it, but I also want them
to be just as well-versed inwhen should I and when shouldn't
I use it, when is itappropriate and when isn't
appropriate.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
And how do I navigate ?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
that, and that's actually going to be a part of
the interview process, becausethere are a few candidates that
look like pretty qualitycandidates, but they answered a
couple of questions with almostentirely GPT generated content.
That concerns me a little bit,because I kind of wish they
hadn't done that, and so I needto have a conversation to find
out what the details are aroundthat.
(27:51):
So just pay attention to it.
It's a big issue.
Right now, a lot of the contentyou're going to get back is
going to be GPT generated.
It's not necessarily a badthing, but just be aware of it.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Well, as we kind of wrap upthis episode, what are maybe a
couple of action items that youwould recommend for listeners?
And I guess we'll start withyou, Matt.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I mean, there were so many gold nuggets in this
conversation I would first thingI would do and I'm you know
we've talked about me gettingready to hire make another hire
this time.
But with all of these, these,this insight behind me, I'm
going to go back and personallyand listen to this episode and
make a bit of a checklist of allthe things that Mike
implemented in order to preparemyself for the next one.
(28:35):
But the biggest one is I'mgoing to jump in and figure out,
like I'm going to give you know, make a list of all the things
that in the day that I do makesure to make a star next to the
ones I think can be outsourced,and then throw those into chat,
gpt and find the right personfor that, so I can create a
pretty good job description anda role description of that role.
So those are going to be my ownaction items that I would also
(28:57):
suggest other people take too.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Very nice.
And how about for you, Mike?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, I think I mean first of all, obviously.
I mean AI obviously is the bigtopic for everybody chat, gpt,
you know among those.
So it's a bit of a buzzword,but you know, don't skip it.
If you're not really usingChatGPT effectively, you need to
learn it because it helps in somany areas and I really do
believe in this process ofgenerating that role profile.
(29:25):
It's really critical that youunderstand how to use it and
prompt it and have a discussionwith ChatGPT to get to the
endpoint that you're looking for.
So I think that's absolutelycritical.
I would also say there's a lotof value in looking what other?
people have already done thatworked and applying what you can
to your business, and so Iwould absolutely say that if you
(29:50):
can get your hands on JoshHadley's SOP, head over to Econ
Breakthrough, see if you canconnect with him.
I think it's a tremendous SOP.
I think it's very effective.
We're implementing the majorityof it for this hire and I feel
like at this point it's reallymaterializing into something
positive, so I would definitelypoint people in his direction.
(30:10):
I think it's super valuablestuff and it's free he's giving
it away.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes
since, like you said, it is sucha great resource.
The last action item that I justfeel like maybe didn't get as
much airtime, but, mike, youactually brought up a really
(30:36):
good point, which is is thathaving a well-written job
posting that is first clear onwhat the role of the job is, but
then also really sharing themission and vision of your
company, because I feel likewe've gotten high quality
candidates and people have toldus hey, I want to work for your
company because I thought yourjob description was really good
(31:00):
and I really liked the visionthat you guys had for your
company.
So I think, of all the thingsthat we've talked about today,
that is one of the gold nuggetsthat I've taken away, and I
encourage our listeners to spendsome time thinking about that
job posting and how one they'resharing, that vision of what
their company is doing and whatthat looks like over the next
few years, and then being reallyclear on what that position is
(31:22):
and what they need that personto do.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
All right, well, with that, I think that's a great
place to wrap for this.
Tactics Tuesday.
A couple of just fantasticaction items for listeners out
there.
If you're in hiring mode, thisis an episode that you'll
probably want to talk toProbably want to listen to at
least a couple of times, likeMatt's doing.
Make a checklist for all thethings that you need to do in
order to have a successful hireas you expand your brand.
Welcome everyone to Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
On this Tactics Tuesday episode, we're going to be talking
about the hiring process.
We've talked a lot in otherepisodes about processes and
when it comes to expanding, adsand conversion rates and lots of
other different parts of ourbusiness, but we haven't spent
nearly as much time on the otherP that's really important for
your business, which is thepeople portion.
(00:22):
So that's what we're going totalk about today is having
hiring good people and reallyintegrating them into your team
so that way you can continue togrow.
And so, with that, I'm going totoss it over to you, Mike,
because I know this is somethingthat you've been working on
quite a bit within your company.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, it's.
It's becoming increasinglyevident to me that that the
biggest bottleneck in ourbusiness is just that we don't
have the people.
I think that's the greatest.
It's the biggest thing thatmost Amazon businesses are
probably not doing right, andthat is hiring enough people to
do the jobs that reallyeffectively need to be done
(00:58):
regularly.
I think there's a lot of jobsthat end up being shunted off
either to the owner or to someother individual that's on the
team that maybe this isn't theirprimary job, but we need
somebody to do it.
So here you do this, and youknow you can do that to a degree
, but I think it's it can onlygo so far and it's definitely
going to bottleneck things.
So we're we're in the processof bringing on.
(01:20):
One of my bottlenecks is is mefor sure, and so I needed an
executive assistant, and sowe've been walking through.
Just you know, shout out toJosh Hadley.
He's got a, you know, an SOPthat he's put out for hiring.
That I think is terrific andwe've been walking through that.
So I just thought I would givekind of an update as to how that
process is playing out for usin the business.
(01:41):
And you know the things thathave gone well, the things that
maybe aren't going quite so well, or that we've learned
something from.
And I would say, one keytakeaway that I really like from
his SOP and, by the way, EcomBreakthrough, I think is his
podcast and his deal.
But one of the things that hementions in the SOP as kind of a
(02:02):
critical piece is that he usesa software called, or a service
called, CriteriaCorp andessentially that service allows
you to grade your applicants.
So, in other words, the processis on the front end.
First of all, make sure youcreate a really good role
profile for the job that you'rehiring for, and one of the
(02:26):
things that we did find was, inthat process of kind of creating
that role profile, one of thesimplest things that we did that
helped a lot was just askingchat GPT what that role profile
should look like.
You know what are the KPIs thatyou should measure for that
(02:46):
profile, what are the jobresponsibilities that that
particular position would likelyhave in most companies?
What does that look like?
What's their day-to-day looklike?
Things like that and everythingthat spits back isn't going to
be right for your business, butthe point is it gives back a lot
of information that you mightnot have thought about because
you've never had this positionin your company.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So just to clarify what would be the difference
between this role profile thatyou're talking about versus a
job description, which mostpeople are probably maybe a
little bit more familiar with.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
To be perfectly frank , I think the difference is
really just one of a degree ordepth.
It's not as if you created areally good job description.
I think, essentially, you'vecreated a role profile.
The problem is, I think, thatmost especially Amazon business
owners, because many of usaren't trained in business this
(03:40):
isn't our background, you know,so we're learning this as we go.
Right, I think most of us arenot very good at recognizing,
first of all, what shouldactually even go into a job
description, much less once wedetermine what those portions
are, what the important aspectsof that are, then what goes into
that portion.
So, in other words, you know,even if we were to think through
(04:00):
and we were like, okay, thereprobably should be some KPIs
associated with this role, whatshould those KPIs be?
In other words, you know, evenif we were to think through and
we were like, okay, thereprobably should be some KPIs
associated with this role, whatshould those KPIs be and what
levels should there be, and howshould we measure them, and
those sorts of things, right,like you, get really granular,
and so one of the things aboutJosh's SOP is that everything
stems from the development ofthis role profile.
(04:23):
So the first thing is, obviouslyyou need to determine who do
you need.
So you know you kind of need towalk through this process of
figuring out where are thebottlenecks in your business.
So, in other words, you've goton two sides right.
You've got on the one side,what are the big goals that you
have right now in the businessthat are going to take you to
(04:44):
the next level?
And then, okay, if those arethe goals, what do we need to do
to meet those goals?
And then, beyond that, thenokay, what pieces of that puzzle
can we not effectively do withthe team that we have now?
Who do we need on our teamthat's going to help us get to
that next level?
Because there's going to becertain pieces of that puzzle
you probably don't have thepeople for.
And be really careful with that,because it's really easy, I
(05:06):
think, to make the decision,like I was talking about earlier
, to say, well, so-and-so coulddo that, you know, and so-and-so
could do this and so-and-socould do that, when in reality
you probably I need a brandmanager, or I know I need an
executive assistant, or I know Ineed a supply manager, whatever
(05:27):
that is, the good thing is isthat ChatGPT is really good at
then giving you ideas about whatthat should look like.
So if you feed it and say Ineed to know what are the
various things about this jobthat are critical, so what are
the KPIs we should be measuring?
How should we measure them?
What does success look likewith those KPIs?
(05:49):
What should the regularday-to-day responsibilities be
for that individual?
How would we describe that ifwe wanted to post it on a job
site?
All of those things?
Chatgpt gives back a lot ofgreat information, especially
with the newest version, the,whatever it is 4, omega or
whatever it is.
It's really good.
And also, josh has put out anew custom GPT that's an HR
(06:13):
manager, which I think wouldactually take that even further.
I haven't had a chance to useit yet, but it looks like it
could be really useful for that.
But the point is then you'regenerating this role profile
that gives you a really clearpicture of what this person's
role is, how they fit into yourbusiness, how you're going to
measure their success, what,also, what skill set do they
(06:35):
need to do this and what shouldtheir personality profile look
like, and those sort of things,right.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, what I like about that too, that I think may
not be obvious on the surface,is sometimes having like yes, at
the end of the day, we want tohave the positive information of
like hey, here's what I wantfor this role profile or
position description or you know, whatever it is that we're
using as kind of that framework.
But the other thing is is alsonegative.
(07:01):
Information can be very helpfulas well, and I just want to kind
of double click on what yousaid, which is, when you put it
into ChatGPT, there might bethings that you're like hey,
this doesn't fit for my business.
Actually, I want it more likethat over there or I need to
tweak this.
But rather than starting withsomething that's completely
blank, it essentially is givingyou options so that way you can
continue to narrow down whatyou're doing and giving you a
(07:24):
lot of data to work with, tokind of figure out what's right
for you, rather than trying tofill in those holes yourself.
So I think that's just asvaluable, looking at what chat
GPT gives you in this case thatmay not be a good fit for your
company to make sure that, topoint you in the right direction
, to know, hey, this is where Iwant to go with this position.
Make sure that to point you inthe right direction, to know,
(07:45):
hey, this, this is where I wantto go with this position.
So even that data that may notbe a hundred percent precise or
right for your company is stilluseful.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
And even taking that, takingthat another further, like so
for me, I, the VAs that I'vehired in the past, and we've
I've talked about this veryopenly on the episodes that
we've done already on hiringpeople, like I haven't had great
experiences, but it was muchmore because of me and either
the expectations that I had onthe person that I hired or me
(08:11):
not really having any sort ofdocumented process for that
person to walk into.
But what I would use this forand, john, something that you
just touched on is like if I'mlooking for a very specific role
, like an executive assistant,but then I use ChatG, gpt to
what are the skills, what arethe KPIs, what are the type,
what is the, the personalitytype of a person for this role,
but then I try to put thatperson into a lead generation
(08:34):
role where it's a completelydifferent job, completely
different skillset.
That person is going to beunhappy and using this sort of
process that can stop me, as abusiness owner, from I don't
want a jack of all trades Like Iwant a very specific type of a
person that fits a very specificrole and I don't want to put
things on that person that isn'tin their zone of genius and
that's this role.
This kind of walking throughthe chat GPT process can help
(08:56):
with that.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Well, and I think too there's.
You know it's interesting, youknow that you bring it up in
that way because, obviously,giving Chet GPT the opportunity
to flesh out what this personlooks like and who they are,
that's going to perform best inthis position.
Not only does it help you toknow and well, okay, it helps
(09:19):
you to know two things and Ihadn't actually really even
thought about it this way, but Ithink it could help in both
ways.
And that is A it helps you torealize that I shouldn't be
using this person and thisperson and this person who are
already on my team to do thesethings, because it's clear their
skillset and their personalityand whatever.
Like I know them, they've beenworking with me long enough.
(09:41):
I kind of know these things.
That doesn't fit this right, sothat's the wrong person.
But by the same token, it mightactually help you figure out
that there's a person on yourteam who maybe you should
consider for this role.
Like, maybe they're alreadydoing this, but it turns out
like if, if chat GPT is tellingme the right information that
this is what this person lookslike, that's Joe.
Like Joe is the man for this,for this project, and maybe I
(10:03):
should be thinking about whetherI promote him into this or
slide him into that role or takehe takes on a portion of this
role.
But it gives you information.
You know that you didn't havebefore and, like you said, john,
a lot of it.
You know probably not a lot ofit, but but certainly some of it
isn't going to apply to yourbusiness in specific, but also
going back to previousconversations that we've had
about just how to use ChatGPT,and to remember that it's a
(10:26):
conversation it's not like geniein a bottle, exactly.
You give it a prompt, it givesyou back information.
Then you respond back with well, I don't really want this, or
our business actually onlyfocuses this area and I don't
really need this.
It will regenerate, you know,or you can ask it what are
(10:46):
because it's interesting withChatGPT, interestingly, it'll
give you a certain amount ofinformation, which oftentimes is
really good, but there's someinformation it didn't put in
there and so, even justresponding back with what are
some other things that I shouldknow, what are some other KPIs
that we might use?
Like, these KPIs don't reallywork for us.
We can't really measure thoseeffectively.
What would be some alternativeKPIs that we could use that
(11:09):
would measure things that areimportant for this role want?
You know, reinforcing thethings that you do want or that
you think are important will getyou to that point where you've
got a really good role profile,and we've spent a lot of time
talking about that.
But the realization that I hadwas it is critical that you get
(11:34):
the role profile really dialedin, because once you get that
very dialed in, it makes it mucheasier to write an actual job
posting, you know, for Indeed orLinkedIn or Upwork, wherever it
is that you're going to putyour job posting.
But it makes it much easier towrite that job posting and get
(11:55):
it right so that the people thatare responding to your ad are
the right people.
Because the first thing is youdon't want a whole bunch of
people applying that reallyaren't fit for the job or that
aren't going to like workingwith you.
So giving them as muchinformation as you can to
establish this is what the jobmeans.
This is how we're going tomeasure you.
These are the skills we expectyou to have, and we're not going
(12:17):
to hire you if you don't havethese skills.
And this is the way ourbusiness operates.
This is our company vision.
If you don't fit with that,please don't apply, but if you
do, we want you, and so that's agood first step.
And then CriteriaCorp.
The nice thing about that isthat once people start
responding to that, you canessentially automate the process
(12:38):
of weeding out the individualswho really aren't a good fit,
because Criteria Corp has a lotof different tests available
through their system that youcan automatically have any
candidate put through, and thenyou get back the data and
Criteria Corp will evaluatebased on that data.
They'll say their personalitytype doesn't match the job that
(12:59):
you're describing.
Their cognitive aptitudedoesn't really match the job
that you're describing.
Their cognitive aptitudedoesn't really match the job
that you're describing.
But also the interesting thingis is that if you run them
through the right tests,criteria Corp won't just tell
you what they're not qualifiedfor.
It will also tell you the jobsthat they are really qualified
for, so that even if you have acandidate that doesn't fit this
(13:21):
job that you're hiring for, youcan maintain a database of
individuals who have applied tothis position but weren't right
for it but are really right forsome other position that maybe
you might need in the future.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
What do those quizzes look like?
I'm just curious Do you have anidea of how long does it take
in a candidate in order to fillthose out?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So they're not super long.
They don't take forever forthem to fill out.
I'll be honest that I don'tknow as much of the specifics as
you might want to know, becauseI've got a person on our team
who basically kind of set a lotof this stuff up and kind of
walk through that processbecause I just didn't have the
time for it.
So she would be able to tellmore specifically, like exactly
what the questions look like andexactly how long.
(14:03):
But from what I could rememberfrom her describing it to me, it
didn't sound like it was anexcessively long process for
them to take those tests and youget to decide which ones you
actually want to run themthrough.
Now, criteria Corp is not supercheap.
I think we might have paid Idon't know, it might have been
$1,500 for the year or somethinglike that but if you expect to
(14:24):
hire for you know even just acouple of positions that are
important positions within yourbusiness and you can, part of
the nice thing about this SOPthat I think is really critical
to understand is you only haveso much bandwidth within your
business, whether it's you orwhether you actually have an HR
person who's going to be the onethat's hiring for this position
(14:44):
.
They only have so many hours ina day and so if you don't have a
fairly automated process on thefront end of this to weed out
the candidates that reallyaren't good candidates, then you
can only take in so manycandidates because you have to
manually process and evaluatewhether they're a good fit.
So in that case maybe you onlytake in 10 or 15 or 20
(15:05):
candidates because you justdon't have the bandwidth.
But if you use this process ofgetting the role profile really
nailed down, writing up a reallygood job description so that
the person knows exactly whatthey're applying for, so that a
lot of people aren't going toapply if they really don't feel
they're appropriate for it, andthen you run them through
(15:25):
CriteriaCorp so that you get allof this data and it can weed
out the ones that are definitelynot you know within, you know
applicable, you can get a couplehundred 300 applicants you know
and whittle it down to like 15or 20 at the end that those are
the only ones you really have topay attention to.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, I'd be curious.
I don't know if you've ever soIndeed has.
I'm not as familiar withCriteriaCorp but Indeed does
have like some of these skilltests and stuff like that.
And so a couple of things justfrom my experience has been one,
like you said, first of all,you know, get your, you know
your role description and allthe other pieces that you talked
(16:03):
about downright.
I think that's so important inthis process to have a good hire
.
That from a strategicperspective.
Then, at a tactical level, myexperience has been because we
use Indeed quite a bit is it'sgreat to have a couple of these
kind of questionnaires orsomething for somebody to fill
out as far as skills, especiallyif it's crucial for the
(16:25):
position.
With that said, you know, thereis kind of a GoldieBlox zone
that we have found in thisprocess where having one or two
of those is great because you doweed out a lot of candidates or
a lot of people who, like theyjust don't bother to take you
know the quiz or you know theaptitude test or whatever it
happens to be Well, great.
If you're not willing to put infive to ten minutes, then you
(16:47):
know it's probably not a goodfit because I'm not going to
have me or somebody on my teamput in you know 15 to 30 minutes
to have an initial interviewWith.
That said, there is also aGoldilocks of like if you put
ten of those on there, well nowyou're only getting the
candidates that most of them are, quite frankly just desperate
for a job, that they're willingto go through those hoops.
And people who are reallyskilled might see hey, if I've
(17:10):
got to spend two to three hourstaking these questionnaires and
aptitude tests just to see if Iqualify for this position, my
time might be spent betterelsewhere.
So I just am curious.
My experience has been thatthere's definitely a Goldilocks
in that process.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I'm curious what Matt thinks on this also because
what I'll tell you from ourexperience and we've only walked
through this once this is thefirst position that we've hired
in this way and I will say wehaven't gotten to the higher yet
, but we had hundreds of initialapplications that came in.
We have whittled it down to a.
(17:51):
We had a final list that camethrough Criteria Corp at the end
with and I should say toclarify, we ran them through I
think two or three of CriteriaCorps, like I think, the
personality and the cognitiveaptitude test and maybe one
other on criteria corps.
But then we also had a projectLike if they made it through
(18:14):
that and it seemed like theywere good candidates, there was
a project and I will say theproject wasn't a five-minute
project.
So essentially for the EA, ourproject was we had four
components to it.
One was we gave them threecustomer service scenarios and
we asked them to respond in theway that they would respond to
(18:34):
the customer, because part ofthis EA position, there'll be a
little bit of customer serviceinvolved in it.
They'll have to take some ofthat on.
There'll be a little bit ofcustomer service involved in it.
They'll have to take some ofthat on.
And then we asked them I gavethem some a sample of, like, my
list of priorities, you know,for a week in terms of meetings,
projects, you know, ideas thatI've got, things that need to be
researched.
(18:55):
You know, put this into aschedule for for me and also for
you, because some of this stuffyou should be taking off of my
plate, like not just schedulinginto my day, but you should be
saying, no, that's something Ican do, you shouldn't be doing
this, I'll do this.
So they had to, you know, redothat into some sort of
functional, you know schedulefor the both of us.
(19:16):
Then we had them record, andthis was important to me.
I had them record a short Loomvideo.
That was just an introductionof who they are.
You know, what have they done,why do they think they're
qualified, why do they want thisposition.
You know that sort of thingbecause it told me a number of
things.
One, it told them about them.
But also I get to hear thembecause the job that they're
(19:36):
hiring for, you know they'regoing to be talking on the phone
to customers.
Obviously, we need to be ableto communicate with them as a
team.
So if their accent is superthick.
That's going to make it tough,things like that.
So I wanted to hear that.
And then the fourth one was Ijust asked them a question which
was describe for me the mostdifficult transition you've had
to make in becoming theexecutive assistant for some
(20:00):
executive.
Why was it difficult and howdid you navigate that process to
make it, you know, functionalfor you and for the executive so
that everything worked out?
So it wasn't a super short, youknow, project.
It wasn't like a three-hourproject but it wasn't five
minutes.
We had, like I said, we had afew hundred applicants.
(20:21):
We had 15 candidates whosubmitted all of that.
They went through all theCriteria Corp stuff and they
submitted the project thing and,to your point, john, some of
them weren't very qualified.
I think they probably weredesperate for a job.
But at the same point we haveeight fairly solid candidates
(20:44):
that I'm going to do, I'm goingto do two separate group
interviews with, and then thetwo candidates, one or two
candidates that are standoutsfrom those two I'm going to put
into a third and walk themthrough.
Unless I do those two andthere's really only one or two
standing, you know, like, ifthere's obviously one, then I'll
go with them.
But the point is it's been afairly lengthy and involved
(21:04):
process and I feel like at thispoint we actually do have eight
really solid candidates that Ifeel pretty confident at least
one of them, if not more of them, are probably going to be well
qualified for the position.
Pretty confident, at least oneof them, if not more of them,
are probably going to be wellqualified for the position.
So it seems that maybe we havesomewhat distinct experiences
with it and maybe that's onlybecause we threw a wider net.
(21:25):
I don't know.
You know we had a lot of peopleyou know apply and we weeded
out a ton.
Maybe we lost some in theprocess, maybe there were some
really good candidates in therethat we lost.
But the point is we've only gotso much bandwidth.
So I'm curious, matt, what areyour?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
thoughts on that.
I mean it's well worth theamount of time put on the front
end to set all this up, becausehow much time you save not only
in picking the applicant andweeding out ones that you didn't
even want to interview, butthen also dealing on the back
end with making the wrong hireand that's that's been my story
(22:01):
pretty much every single time isagain a lot of it was my fault,
but even if it was, wasn't theright person for the role.
That was that's my job to, to beable to figure that out before
I get them hired.
And in a lot of cases I wasjust as desperate to fill the
role as they were to find a job,and maybe even more so.
So, like you know, what I'velearned in this conversation and
(22:23):
we've had it, we've had partsof it before is that every
single thing that I did when Imade it, my hires, was wrong,
and I wasn't.
I wasn't spending the time theright time in the right places
in order to make that transitionfor me as a business owner
easier to bring a person on.
So I mean the amount of timethat you're spending on the
front end developing thisprocess is well worth, and I
(22:46):
think that $1,500, whatever itis to for that, for that, for
those surveys, I think it's wellworth the money expense,
because I wasted more than thatin making bad hires.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, and I think you know listening to the process
that you're describing, mike, isactually not that different
from how we do our process.
I think it's very similar, alittle bit different tools, but
at the end of the day, you know,the end process is what matters
, because exactly what you'retalking about I mean, we put
them through.
You know one or two kind ofskills types of tests,
especially if we're doingsomething like Indeed, and then
(23:17):
we have the same thing where youknow we'll have 300 people
apply and there's just no waythat one could we if we wanted
to interview those, nor is thatprobably a good use of our time
or the candidate's time tointerview all 300.
And so, coming up with easyways to kind of narrow down, you
know who are those goodcandidates and those surveys can
(23:38):
work well.
Again, I would just encouragepeople to look at you know, kind
of going back to what you weretalking about with that position
of have those surveys reallyconnected to what are the KPIs
and what are the primary dutiesof that position.
So that way you've got a coupleof surveys to get a good
picture of what you need,instead of putting them through
a couple hours worth of testing,because you may not get what
(23:59):
you want out of that.
And then the other thing that wefound really useful is just
asking the simple question ofhey, what interested you in this
position?
Because to me there's notnecessarily a wrong answer, but
it is always very interesting tome to see how long is that
answer from somebody.
Is it three words, or is it,you know, a well-written
(24:20):
paragraph?
Is it all about what they wantout of the position or is it you
know them talking about howthey're excited about the work?
Like there's just a lot ofdifferent components and, from a
scalability standpoint, likeit's pretty easy to ask that
question and then again half thepeople don't even respond.
Well, that makes it really easy.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, I think I think the only other, the only two
other things that I that I wouldprobably add to this
conversation that I think arevaluable that we've learned is,
first of all, I think, in inresponse to you know that that
concern over losing goodcandidates because you've got
them jumping through too manyhoops, I think, a making sure
(25:00):
that the hoops that you'rehaving them jump through seem
relevant to the job that they'rehiring for, so that at least
they recognize no, this makessense.
I can see why a business wouldwant me to do this.
Secondarily, though, andprobably even more important
than that, probably even moreimportant than that, is the job
(25:21):
posting, because if I'm aquality individual and I'm
looking to work for a qualitycompany, I should expect, if an
actual quality company is hiring, that they probably are going
to have some pretty stringentrequirements that I meet in
order to be qualified for thatposition and be brought on, and
so I think part of it isqualifying for this candidate
(25:45):
that you are actually a qualitycompany to work for right.
So if you don't do that in thejob posting, if you don't make
it really obvious that they'reapplying to a really good
company, that's going to treatthem well, treat them with
respect, pay them appropriatelyfor the work that they're doing,
reward them for the things thatthey're doing that move the
(26:07):
company forward.
Then, if you have them jumpingthrough hoops, they're going to
just give up on it and say, well, this isn't worth it.
You haven't proven to me thatyou're worth the amount of time
that you're requiring me toinvest.
But if you give them enoughinformation about your company
and about the position and aboutwhat you're going to do for
them and how you care for youremployees and those sorts of
things, I think you generateenough goodwill.
(26:29):
On the front end of that, thateven a really good candidate who
maybe has a lot on their platethey've got a really good job,
they work, you know, maybesemi-long hours they still would
potentially be interested injumping through the hoops that
you've set in front of them,just simply because it looks
like a good opportunity andthey're willing to put that time
in.
The only other thing I would sayis, on the back end of this,
(26:50):
one of the things that we needto walk through right now is
evaluating because ChatGPTexists.
A lot of the materials thatwe're getting back from
candidates that are writtenmaterials are chat GPT generated
, and some of it almost entirelychat GPT generated, and so part
of our interview process isgoing to be having some
(27:11):
conversations about chat GPT andwhy they use it when they use
it, how they use it when theyshouldn't use it, because I want
them to be well-versed in howto use it, but I also want them
to be just as well-versed inwhen should I and when shouldn't
I use it, when is itappropriate and when isn't
appropriate.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
And how do I navigate ?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
that, and that's actually going to be a part of
the interview process, becausethere are a few candidates that
look like pretty qualitycandidates, but they answered a
couple of questions with almostentirely GPT generated content.
That concerns me a little bit,because I kind of wish they
hadn't done that, and so I needto have a conversation to find
out what the details are aroundthat.
(27:51):
So just pay attention to it.
It's a big issue.
Right now, a lot of the contentyou're going to get back is
going to be GPT generated.
It's not necessarily a badthing, but just be aware of it.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Well, as we kind of wrap upthis episode, what are maybe a
couple of action items that youwould recommend for listeners?
And I guess we'll start withyou, Matt.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I mean, there were so many gold nuggets in this
conversation I would first thingI would do and I'm you know
we've talked about me gettingready to hire make another hire
this time.
But with all of these, these,this insight behind me, I'm
going to go back and personallyand listen to this episode and
make a bit of a checklist of allthe things that Mike
implemented in order to preparemyself for the next one.
(28:35):
But the biggest one is I'mgoing to jump in and figure out,
like I'm going to give you know, make a list of all the things
that in the day that I do makesure to make a star next to the
ones I think can be outsourced,and then throw those into chat,
gpt and find the right personfor that, so I can create a
pretty good job description anda role description of that role.
So those are going to be my ownaction items that I would also
(28:57):
suggest other people take too.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Very nice.
And how about for you, Mike?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, I think I mean first of all, obviously.
I mean AI obviously is the bigtopic for everybody chat, gpt,
you know among those.
So it's a bit of a buzzword,but you know, don't skip it.
If you're not really usingChatGPT effectively, you need to
learn it because it helps in somany areas and I really do
believe in this process ofgenerating that role profile.
(29:25):
It's really critical that youunderstand how to use it and
prompt it and have a discussionwith ChatGPT to get to the
endpoint that you're looking for.
So I think that's absolutelycritical.
I would also say there's a lotof value in looking what other?
people have already done thatworked and applying what you can
to your business, and so Iwould absolutely say that if you
(29:50):
can get your hands on JoshHadley's SOP, head over to Econ
Breakthrough, see if you canconnect with him.
I think it's a tremendous SOP.
I think it's very effective.
We're implementing the majorityof it for this hire and I feel
like at this point it's reallymaterializing into something
positive, so I would definitelypoint people in his direction.
(30:10):
I think it's super valuablestuff and it's free he's giving
it away.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes
since, like you said, it is sucha great resource.
The last action item that I justfeel like maybe didn't get as
much airtime, but, mike, youactually brought up a really
(30:36):
good point, which is is thathaving a well-written job
posting that is first clear onwhat the role of the job is, but
then also really sharing themission and vision of your
company, because I feel likewe've gotten high quality
candidates and people have toldus hey, I want to work for your
company because I thought yourjob description was really good
(31:00):
and I really liked the visionthat you guys had for your
company.
So I think, of all the thingsthat we've talked about today,
that is one of the gold nuggetsthat I've taken away, and I
encourage our listeners to spendsome time thinking about that
job posting and how one they'resharing, that vision of what
their company is doing and whatthat looks like over the next
few years, and then being reallyclear on what that position is
(31:22):
and what they need that personto do.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
All right, well, with that, I think that's a great
place to wrap for this.
Tactics Tuesday.
A couple of just fantasticaction items for listeners out
there.
If you're in hiring mode, thisis an episode that you'll
probably want to talk toProbably want to listen to at
least a couple of times, likeMatt's doing.
Make a checklist for all thethings that you need to do in
order to have a successful hireas you expand your brand.
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