You asked about: Recruiting to rural communities

Question: How do I attract amazing candidates who want to try teaching in a rural community?

Attracting teachers to smaller communities has always been a challenge and it hasn’t become any easier as Canada appears to be experiencing a teacher shortage. What you face reminds me of my first experience recruiting teachers to Fort McMurray Public Schools. 

There was no Canada-wide shortage of teachers, but there was a shortage of teachers in Alberta who wanted to move to what was perceived as an isolated northern community with few amenities and a “harsh climate.”

Over that spring and summer, we succeeded in attracting a sufficient number of applications and interviewing enough candidates to fill more than 100 vacancies. The pursuit of teachers took me across the country, to provinces where shortages of teaching positions produced an abundance of recent graduates anxious to start their teaching careers and willing to go anywhere to do so.

Since that summer of anxiety, I have become an observer of recruitment practices. What works and what doesn’t?

Success seems to depend on the creativity you use to make your organization stand out from the crowd. This should be easy, because in education as in other fields, many organizations rely on a strategy I cynically refer to as, “We’re-Just-as-Boring-As-The-Next-Guy.”

Employers’ advertising state that they are looking for candidates who are dedicated, hardworking, career-oriented team players who enjoy a high-energy environment—which is exactly what every other employer is seeking.

In exchange for an employee’s time, potential employers promise an “attractive remuneration and an excellent benefits package”—just like the other guys are offering.

It’s easy for potential applicants to compare these similar requirements and benefits because everyone advertises where everyone else advertises.

Nothing distinguishes one organization from similar organizations that are hiring. Nothing captures the excitement of their workplaces. “Come work for us. We’re just like every other organization in our field. We’re just as boring.”

Success in attracting applications demands different approaches that will capture the attention of potential applicants.

Humour can be the key. Back in the 1960s, Northlands School Division advertised in the United Kingdom and Ireland for teachers for remote northern communities by warning that, “No Weaklings Need Apply.”

Other organizations combine a mix of humour and vanity to attract applications.

On a screen at the Las Vegas airport a few years, Clark County invited “All Heroes” to apply to teach in its schools—“Cape Included.”  

A recruitment poster in Edmonton’s Block 1912 coffee shop consisted of just a few words—“Qualifications: must be awesome. If this describes you, come prove it.” 

Of course, people applied. Who doesn’t consider themselves “awesome?”

Another factor that may have contributed to the success of those campaigns? They appeared where likely applicants would see them. On the “Fish Where the Fish Are” episode of the CBC radio series Under the Influence, advertising guru Terry O’Reilly describes recruitment campaigns that succeeded because they were creative and were placed where potential applicants would see them.

For example, when recruiting for a new store in Australia, Ikea slipped an extra instruction sheet into every box of furniture sold there. Titled, “Career Instructions: Assemble your future,” the insert advised people who were already customers that they were hiring and provided instructions on how to apply. 

Costs were minimal and the campaign attracted more than 4,000 applications for 280 positions.

My most successful advertisement, as measured by the number of responses,  appeared in the ATA (Alberta Teachers’ Association) News and announced our intent “to hire the 10 best teachers in Alberta.” Anyone who felt they were one of the 10 best was invited  to apply.

Hundreds did!

Another way to “advertise” vacancies is to let parents or customers know you are hiring.

Returning a rental car a few years ago, I was surprised when the person behind the counter announced that, “We are hiring.” I said I wasn’t interested. He was undeterred. Did I know someone who might be interested?

Another potentially productive approach is to ask existing staff, particularly those early in their careers, “Do you know someone who is about to graduate who will be looking for a job?” They just might.

In 2019, McDonald’s restaurants tackled their recruitment challenges with a campaign that invited friends to apply together. “Friends wanted. Be more than friends. Be co-workers.” The US Army has used a similar approach, inviting applications from two friends, married couples and groups of up to five buddies.

I am going to wrap up this article by describing a marketing campaign that we designed for a client that had nothing to doing with recruiting staff but which might be a template that can be applied to attract more applications for jobs in smaller communities.

When a post-secondary institute asked us to develop a smoking cessation campaign targeted at its students, we suggested something that was likely completely different than what they’d expected. We proposed a tongue-in-cheek campaign that focused on what smokers would miss if they stopped smoking.

To their credit, the client took a risk and worked with us to develop posters and bookmarks that focused on the “benefits” of smoking, such as:

• Opportunities to go outside, no matter the weather (illustrated with a picture of a smoker drenched by rain).
• Opportunities to assemble a complete collection of warning labels from cigarette packages.

Based on this experience, I believe that a recruitment campaign that highlights what people would miss if they abandoned urban centres in favour of a job—and a life—in a smaller community, could mention:

• Spending an hour commuting to work every morning and another hour in the afternoon rush-hour traffic.
• Spending most of your paycheque on rent
• Having to drive every time you needed to go shopping for anything
• Being anonymous to senior leadership, who they never meet and seldom see

It’s always going to be a challenge to attract suitable applicants to smaller communities, but creative approaches may make your efforts more successful.

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Interested in spending a few minutes brainstorming solutions to your unique recruitment challenges? Click here to schedule a free, no-obligation conversation with Nelson.

The case for evidence-based hiring

A campaigning politician recently promised that, if elected, he will employ an “evidence-based decision-making model” to resolve society’s problems. This would contrast with his opponents’ practice of “decision-based evidence-making”—seeking evidence to support decisions that have already been made.

Sounds good. Wouldn’t we all welcome a world where decisions were based on the best available evidence?

Yet, while no one would admit to doing the opposite—using an evidence-making approach—the world is full of examples of decisions that were made without first carefully examining the relevant information.

Often, decisions are made first, then followed by a scramble to find reasons that justify the choices of politicians and business leaders. “Evidence-makers” rely on conspiracy theories, “alternative facts” (thanks to former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway for inventing the term), and the deliberate misinterpretation of credible research findings.

It happens in politics, where solutions that are popular (i.e., what gets you elected) may be at odds with approaches that work elsewhere or are supported by mounds of research. It happens in business, where policies are created to address problems that don’t exist.

Alas, it also happens when hiring, when decisions are driven by factors that may be unconscious, such as gut feelings, biases and first impressions.

Detective Hercule Poirot provides an interesting take on the power of the subconscious near the end of the 2023 film, A Haunting in Venice: “My subconscious mind assembled facts ahead of the rational.” 

A rational approach is essential whether identifying a murderer or identifying the right person to hire. When you have a vacancy to fill, you must use interviews and reference checks to gather pertinent evidence before making your hiring decision.

Before beginning to gather evidence, identify the competencies and attitudes the ideal next addition to your staff should possess. Develop questions that will reveal evidence that candidates have what you are seeking. Create a rubric that enables you to objectively assess responses to each question. What would you expect of a potential top performer? What would be acceptable? And what would be an unsatisfactory response?

During interviews, avoid asking opinion questions. Don’t ask candidates, “What would you do if …?” Ask how they have responded to circumstances similar to those they might encounter if hired. 

Don’t ask if they feel collaboration and customer service are important. Instead, ask them to describe a time when they collaborated with co-workers or how they resolved a customer’s problem.

Don’t ask references if they would hire this candidate again or for their assessment of the individual’s performance. Ask them to describe how the candidate has collaborated with colleagues or how they responded to a customer’s issue.

Keep your questions short to avoid providing hints about what you would prefer to hear from the candidate. 

Decision-first hiring often results when interviewers make a quick judgment about candidates. Once judgments are made, interviewers stop listening for evidence that is contrary to their first impressions. 

Keep an open mind. Resist the urge to make early assessments based on what happens early in interviews. Candidates who perform poorly early on may redeem themselves as the interview progresses, while early “front-runners” will fade in the stretch. Collect as much evidence as you can before making hiring decisions.

When you practise evidence-based decision-making, you are setting yourself up for hiring success. You will be prepared to select the right people to fill your vacancies.

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Want to make evidence-based hiring the norm in your organization? Contact Nelson (nmscott@telus.net or phone/text 780-232-3828) to schedule an Interview Right to Hire Right workshop for your leadership team or to learn more about this and other workshops and programs.

Get Your “Jury” Right When Hiring

I have written previously that the purpose of juries in criminal trials and interview panels are similar. Both are charged with the responsibility to make decisions based on their examination of the facts presented to them.

What juries decide must be unanimous. What interview panels decide should be. Whatever they decide has a profound effect on individuals’ futures.

Selecting who will sit on a jury is an important first step in criminal trials, as is deciding who to invite to join an interview panel in the hiring process. Just as a great amount of investigation occurs before a trial begins its jury selection, interview panels should be assembled early in the recruitment process to assist in identifying the criteria by which applicants will be assessed and in writing questions to be asked during interviews and reference checks.

Both juries and panels require people who are able to keep an open mind, resist making preliminary judgments, set aside biases and focus on the evidence as presented, whether it comes from witnesses during trials or from candidates and their references when hiring.

The challenge of empanelling a jury likely has never been so stark as it will be when jury selection begins on March 25 in the New York trial of Donald Trump.

The former and would-be future American president faces a 34-count indictment related to alleged hush money payment to former adult film star Stormy Daniels just weeks before the 2016 election.

Recently published articles on the websites of BBC News and ABC News illustrate how difficult it will be to find 12 jurors, plus six alternatives, for this trial. While the process could wrap up within a day, it could also extend for several days.

Jury selection could take a great deal of time, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the BBC, because “everyone knows who Donald Trump is. Everyone has an opinion about him.”

“Trying to find a pool of people who don’t know, don’t have a view about Trump or don’t know about the case is going to take time,” former federal prosecutor Josh Naftalis told ABC News.

The BBC article predicts that, “Prospective jurors could face a range of questions when the trial kicks off, from where they get their news to whether they have ever put a political bumper sticker on their car.

“They may also be asked if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, if they have read any of Mr. Trump’s books or if they have listened to anything from [Trump’s former personal attorney Michael] Cohen,” a frequent guest on television news networks.

While the consequences are not as severe as in criminal cases—no one is going to jail—the decisions of interview panels will impact the lives of the people they interview. Take care when selecting who will sit on interview panels.

Do they know some of the candidates, but not others? Do they have opinions about those they know? Are they able to suspend judgment until they have heard what each candidate has said? Are there any biases that might influence their opinions about candidates?

In the ABC article, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, who previously served as the chief of the Manhattan district attorney’s trial division, sounds an optimistic note about jurors’ ability to set bias and opinions aside in Trump’s trial and focus on the facts. 

“There’s something very solemn about a courtroom and sitting in judgment of somebody.” 

Interview panels should treat their role just as seriously.

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Considering who to invite to join interview panels and their role on the panel is a topic covered during the daylong workshop Interview Right to Hire Right. Contact Nelson (nmscott@telus.net or phone/text 780-232-3828) to schedule Interview Right to Hire Right training for your leadership team or to learn more.

No more bricklayers! Hire cathedral builders!

One day at the coffee shop where we hang out, my friend Will said something that reminded me of the parable of the Three Bricklayers. In that moment, I realized how well this tale illustrates the difference between the right person for the job and applicants who are unsatisfactory.

In a previous article, I suggested that responses of candidates during interviews be divided into three categories: unsatisfactory, satisfactory or outstanding (the type of response you would expect to hear from your top performers).

The Three Bricklayers parable provides another way of demonstrating the distinction between candidates who have the potential to be top performers and those to avoid hiring.

There are several versions of this story, but what all have in common is a passerby who pauses at a construction site and asks the same questions of three workers. In some versions, the passerby is Christopher Wren, the architect responsible for rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Other versions feature a man looking for people to build a house or a tourist visiting the city.

What does not change is the question: “What are you doing?”

The first worker responds, “I’m laying bricks to earn enough money to feed my family.”

The second: “I am building a wall, straight and tall.”

Finally, the third worker says, “ I am building a cathedral that will stand more than 100 years to celebrate man’s love for God.”

The distinction among these three men is clear. For the first worker, it’s just another job. For the second, it’s his career. And for the third, it’s a calling. He sees what he does as part of the bigger picture.

The latter response is reminiscent of how a NASA custodian described his role to U.S. president J.F. Kennedy: “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

He understood the space agency’s mission in the same way your top performers understand how their work contributes to your organization fulfilling its purpose, as reflected in its mission and vision statements and goals.

When you hire people who describe how what they did in previous jobs fit into the bigger picture, you are adding individuals who will be engaged and focused on helping your organization achieve its vision. Those individuals are the ones that will make your organization successful.

To use interviews to discover whether a candidate sees what they do as more than just another job, ask, “Why did what you did in your previous job matter?” or “How did what you did in your previous job contribute to the success of the organization?” 

The right person to hire is the one who talks about the organization’s mission, vision and goals and how what they did contributed to its success.

Every issue of my Briefly Noted newsletter includes, “A question that may help you hire the right people,” with suggestions on how to assess candidates’ responses on a five-point scale, from unsatisfactory (1), to satisfactory (3) and outstanding (5).

As a followup to this article, I intended to include in each of the next two issues of my biweekly newsletter, Briefly Noted, one of the questions from this article and suggest how you might assess candidates’ responses. In addition, I will include tips on how to provide Relevant staff recognition.

Not a Briefly Noted subscriber? Click here to sign up and receive a copy of my Staff Recognition BINGO card.

Once you have hired the right person, staff recognition becomes a strategic tool to clarify the purpose of the organization and ensure that staff members—both new and existing—remain focused on why their job is important. Relevant recognition reflects what the organization believes is important, often expressed in its mission statement, values and goals. 

How to write interview questions to get evidence you need to identify the right person

Along with resumes and application forms and reference checks, interviews are an important component of the process that will assist you to identify the right person to hire—as distinct from the “best” person.

Interviews are an opportunity to learn more about candidates than what you learned from their resumes or application forms. It’s an opportunity to collect evidence about candidates’ previous on-the-job experience. Have they done the right things in the right way for your workplace?

The questions you ask during interviews determine the quality of the information you gather. Before writing your questions, be clear about what you want to learn from the candidates’ answers.

Questions should be tailored to the vacancy to be filled and to the culture of your organization.

If you ask questions because they are the questions that everyone is asking, you can be assured that those are the questions the candidates have prepared themselves to answer. You will learn little about candidates from their well-rehearsed answers. 

There are three considerations when deciding what you will ask about:

Your top performers—What do they do that makes them successful? Write and ask questions that require candidates to describe how they have responded to circumstances similar to what they will experience if hired. Do the candidates provide evidence of having responded as your top performers would respond?

Your organization’s values—What candidates have done previously tells you about their values related to integrity, collaboration, teamwork, customer services, etc. Ask questions to ascertain if the candidates’ past behaviour corresponds to how you would want them to perform. Has what they have done demonstrated that their integrity or commitment to collaboration aligns with that of your organization?

Your organization’s future—What skills, competencies and values are required of staff members who will help carry your organization to its desired future? Use interviews to determine if candidates possess what you will need from them to move your organization forward.

Use the following guidelines when writing interview questions:

Think past tense: Ask about what candidates have done, not what they will do. You want evidence of how they have acted, not speculation about what they might do. Keep in mind the principle of behaviour description interviews (BDI). It states that, “Past performance is the best predictor of future performance.” People tend to respond to situations in the same ways as they responded to similar circumstances in the past. Does what you hear from the candidate align with what you would expect top performers to do and the values of your organization? Begin your requests for information with phrases such as, “Describe a time when …” or “Recall when you were …”

Keep your questions short: Challenge yourself to write questions that could be tweeted, especially back when tweets were limited to just 140 characters. The longer the question, the more likely you are to provide hints about how you want it answered. Candidates will listen to interviewers’ words for hints about what they want to hear. The more talkative interviewers are, the less effective they become.

Be prepared to ask followup questions: Probe to learn more. The more you learn about candidates, the better prepared you are to decide who is the right person to hire. Ask when and where what they describe occurred. Encourage them with “tell me more.” Seek clarification when required. Point out inconsistencies.

Plan how you will assess candidates: Create an assessment tool that consists of a rubric against which you assess candidates. In this way, you will be prepared to compare candidates against standards you established prior to the interview and not to each other.

Prepare to take notes: Create a note-taking form that includes your initial request for information, followup questions and the assessment rubric. 

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Participants in Interview Right to Hire Right workshops will have opportunities to craft and receive feedback on questions they can use the next time they have a vacancy to file. Contact Nelson to schedule a workshop for your leadership team (nmscott@telus.net or 780-232-3828).

Research confirms it: turnover rates are influenced by what happens on Day One

It can be disheartening how quickly some newly hired team members decide to begin a new job search.

Recently published research confirms that what happens on Day One—or earlier—can influence new staff members’ decisions on whether to commit to their new employer or start checking online job boards for other opportunities.

In its annual Job Seeker Survey for 2023, Engage2Excel (a career experience company) found that 70 per cent of new employees said that what happens on their first day is highly likely or likely to affect their decision to stay for “over a month.”

The report states that, “if the onboarding process does not align with expectations set during the hiring stage, employees are far more likely to leave.”

The good news? There are ways you can tilt the balance in your favour. As a front-line leader you are well-positioned to create circumstances under which newly hired staff will decide they are right where they belong.

In a previous article, I wrote that it’s important to recognize new staff immediately—on their first day on the job, if not sooner.

Every year the organization has conducted its survey, Engage2Excel has identified, “Being recognized, appreciated and respected throughout the hiring process” as the most important reason for accepting a job offer.   

In 2023, 31 per cent of respondents had it at the top of their list of reasons to accept a job offer, followed by compensation (22 per cent) and job fit (15 per cent).

On the debit side of the ledger, lack of recognition, appreciation and respect during the hiring process was the top reason (selected by 24 per cent) for rejecting a job offer.

Asked how important praise and recognition was during each phase of the hiring process, 69 per cent of respondents said both before the job offer and after offer but before Day One. The importance of recognition increased to 72 per cent during the onboarding period and 76 per cent after onboarding is complete.

The importance of recognition as a staff retention tool is highlighted in this study and others that identify lack of recognition, appreciation and respect as among the top reasons that people leave jobs.

Now, for what you can do.

During the Recruitment Process:

• Begin with a workplace culture of respect and appreciation. Those researching employment possibilities will approach current staff members to learn as much as they can about your organization. In its research, Engage2Excel found that two thirds of job seekers feel it’s important that information about a company’s recognition and rewards program be on its website.
• Acknowledge applications when received. Thank people for their interest in your organization.
• The are several moments of truth in the recruitment, hiring and retention cycle, including when scheduling interviews. Show respect for applicants and their time when scheduling an interview. The call should feel like an invitation, not a summons. Provide information about the interview process.
• Create a welcoming environment for interviews. Begin and end by thanking candidates for making themselves available. Treat them with the respect they expect and deserve and conduct interviews in a professional manner.
• Explain the timeline for your decision-making process and stick to it. If the decision is delayed for any reason, show respect to the candidates by updating them. 
• Consider following up interviews with thank-you notes to both the candidates and those you approach for references. Your commitment to staff recognition will be obvious.
• Consider inviting candidates to assess your hiring process. You will be showing that their opinions matter and what you learn may lead to improvements in your practices.
• Ensure that the job offer comes from someone that new hires will perceive as significant within the organization, such as you, their soon-to-be supervisor. Making a job offer is on the list of hiring tasks that should not be delegated.

After the offer, but before Day One:

• Encourage others to contact new hires. Imagine the impact when one of the first calls a new staff member receives comes from the CEO or another senior executive, just to welcome them to the organization.
• Involve existing staff in planning the orientation of new staff. What do they need to know to succeed? What do you wish you had known on Day One? How should newcomers be welcomed to the organization? The insights of staff members who recently joined the organization may be particularly helpful.
• Have everyone on the team sign a card to welcome a new person on their first day of work. Better yet, mail it to the new employee’s home so that it arrives a few days prior to the first day.
• Plan for the new staff member’s arrival. Ensure that what they need will be available on Day One: business cards, a name badge, computer access and their name on internal directories. Nothing can feel worse on Day One than discovering that you weren’t expected.
• Let current staff know someone will be joining them. Provide background information about the newcomers—name, training and experience, start date and why you believe they will be an asset to the organization.

On Day One and during the first days and weeks:

• Find a reason to recognize new staff members on their first day. The reason may be small but the impact of your gesture will be huge: “The boss cares. The boss notices what I do. I feel valued for who I am and appreciated for what I do. This may turn out to be where I belong.” No person should leave after the first day on the job having not heard any words of praise.
• Show that you understand the importance of family. Welcome the staff member’s family by sending a fruit basket or a bouquet of flowers to the new person’s home. There is more to life than work. 
• Recognizing a new person on Day One is just the beginning. If you keep the recognition coming, you will be taking an important step toward improving staff retention. No one wants to have a new staff member decide to become a short-term employee.

When you provide the recognition and respect that new staff desire and hopefully deserve, the time and effort you invest will be rewarded with retention rates that others will envy.

Some of these tips (and many more) are from Theme #8: Building Commitment from Day One in my new book, Thanks, Again! More Simple, Inexpensive Ways for Busy Leaders to Recognize Staff. It’s available at Audreys Books in Edmonton and online from indigo.ca, amazon.ca and https://books.friesenpress.com/store. 

Getting better advice on where to eat and who to hire

On the surface, online restaurant reviews and reference checks would seem to have little in common.

Search for “Top 10 restaurants” or “Best places to eat” for any city and Google will deliver numerous lists of local eateries. 

There is no consistency among these lists. One dining establishment may appear on one list but not on others. Well-known fast-food franchises appear right next to places where one dines only when celebrating a special event or when on an expense account.

How can this be, and what has it got to do with hiring the right people?

The reason that restaurants show up on some lists and not others is because everyone judges restaurants against different criteria. Lists are a valuable guide to making dining choices only if those compiling the lists share the same criteria as you do. Lists are useless if their criteria differ from yours.

The same dynamic comes into play when managers offer their opinion when asked about  former employees by someone conducting reference checks.

As is the case of restaurant reviews, most references come from people we don’t know—strangers. We don’t know the performance standards against which they gauge staff members.

Basing hiring decisions on the opinions of strangers can be more harmful than when dining plans are based on an internet Top 10 restaurant list. 

Following the advice of strangers about where to eat may result in an upset stomach for a few hours. Hiring decisions based on the opinions of strangers can lead to headaches for years to come.

The challenge in obtaining valuable information during reference checks is not limited to not knowing how managers assess people they once supervised. 

When asked by a former employee to be a reference, managers will frequently ask them, “What would you like me to say when they call me?” This leads to references that are “scripted” by the candidates themselves.

When you call the candidate’s former manager, they recite the message as the candidate asked them to deliver it. If pressed, they may find it difficult to provide examples from what they observed that supports the opinions they are expressing.

When you are receiving this type of information, it is natural to conclude that checking references is a waste of time. Yet it can be a valuable tool in your hiring tool kit. But you must ask questions that will yield information that’s useful when making your hiring decisions.

Avoid asking for the former employer’s opinion and instead inquire about the candidate’s on-the-job performance. Your questions should be similar to those asked when interviewing the candidate, whether it is about dealing with an upset customer, setting priorities or resolving a conflict with a co-worker.

Obtaining evidence of how the candidate performed in the past will expose clues to how they will perform in the future. You are better able to predict if they will be successful. That should lead you to make better hiring decisions than if you relied on what strangers say when asked, “Would you hire this person again?”

And if you are still looking for dining advice, ignore the online recommendations of strangers and ask friends who have similar culinary tastes to yours.

Are You Being Fooled by the People You Interview?

The group of six women at the nearby table in my favourite coffee shop were obviously in high spirits. Loud. Each excitedly speaking over the words of the others. An abundance of laughter.

It was evident that most were recent university graduates who were looking for their first jobs. They regaled each other with tales of their interview experiences, particularly how each had attempted to fool interviewers into believing that she was the right person to hire.

The loudest burst of laughter came when one recalled what she did when asked, “Where do you expect to be in five years?”

“I lied!”

While lying to potential employers is not a practice I condone, it’s not a surprise that it happens. Most people looking for employment search the Internet, attend workshops and scan books on how to conduct a successful job search. 

The wide availability of such resources is why most job seekers are better prepared for interviews than the people who will be asking the questions.

Websites, training and books all include suggestions on how best to respond to common interview questions, such as about the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, why the interviewer should hire them, and career plans (“Where do you expect to be in five years?”).

These are the types of questions I had in mind when I included “asking the wrong questions” in my list of 13 reasons managers are “unlucky” when making hiring decisions. Asking these questions provides opportunities for candidates to recite the words they practised in anticipation of being asked the question. Settling for those well-rehearsed answers is another reason that managers make poor hiring decisions.

Those responses fail to yield valuable information on which to base hiring decisions. There is no evidence of what the candidate has done in previous jobs. Past performance may be the best predictor of future performance, but if you learn nothing about what they have done previously it is impossible to confidently predict what they will do if hired.

When participants in my Interview Right to Hire Right workshops argue that asking about where the candidate expects to be in five years results in useful information about the candidates, I suggest that if they feel they must ask about career plans they should ask a followup question: “What steps have you taken toward reaching your career goal?”

If they have done nothing to move them closer to their goal, does that goal really exist? Or are they just responding to your question in the way they learned to respond during a workshop on conducting a job search? Are they lying in hope of fooling you into believing that they are the right person to hire?

The old saying is, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” 

And if they fool you trice, it’s time to get some training in how to conduct interviews.

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I have previously written that a right time to ask about career goals is after people are hired, with the intent of providing learning opportunities that will help them grow professionally.

Better yet, link their career goals to how you recognize them for their successes and contributions. In my new book, Thanks, Again! More Simple, Inexpensive Ways for Busy Leaders to Recognize Staff Theme #10: Linking Staff Recognition to Career Goals suggests 24 ways to do this.

Recognition is a source of better mental health

A while back, Robert Manolson of Powerful Play Experiences shared a video from the Mental Health Commission of Canada that identified recognition and reward as one of 13 factors that support psychological health and safety in the workplace.

Other factors that are allied to recognition include engagement, organizational culture, civility and respect, and clear leadership and expectations.

After viewing the video, I met Robert to discuss how recognition contributes to better mental health at work.

I began by asking Robert how he would describe himself. Is he a mental health advocate?

He said he prefers to identify as a mental health optimist. He explained that mental health optimists are able to face defeat and adversity and find ways to deal with it.

“Mental health optimists choose not to be consumed by it. We surround ourselves with support networks,” he said.

“We are resilient. We move on. We look for healthy ways to maintain our daily personal wellness.”

During our conversation, Robert emphasized that who we are and what we do shapes the mental health of others. “An amazing gift that’s never talked about is how what we do can shift people’s mental health from good to better,” he said.

He illustrated this point by describing what happened when he ordered a cappuccino at the cafe where we met.

It was a pleasant experience. The person behind the counter greeted him with a smile and engaged him in a brief conversation while taking his order.

“How staff treats me changes my mental health,” he said. “When we serve people, we don’t realize the impact we can have on people’s state of mind. What if I made one person feel better?”

Shifting to the purpose of our conversation, he says, “Staff recognition is good for mental health. By acknowledging others and expressing appreciation, we show we care about the other person and the role they play in the organization.”

Recognition can changed an individual from feeling, “I’m not good enough,” to feeling that “someone feels I’m important.”

A manager or supervisor who recognizes a staff member is saying, “I care about you, you have value, you make an important contribution.”

He added, “No one ever says, ‘We’re here to improve your mental health’ at recognition events, but when done correctly, that’s what recognition does.”

Robert believes that as a legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic, “There is an increased awareness of mental health, but awareness is not enough.

“No one is immune from dealing with mental health challenges. Everyone is going through something, everyone has come through something, everyone will go through something,” he said. “Action is required. We need to do something.”

To address this need, Robert has developed a 60-day program that provides leaders with a three-stage action plan to reclaim positive mental health in the workplace.

This involves re-prioritizing self-care and personal well-being at work, rethinking psychological health and safety at work, and recommitting to team rebuilding and fun at work.

And one expects, emphasizing the value of recognition in the workplace.

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Thanks, Again! More Simple, Inexpensive Ways for Busy Leaders to Recognize Staff includes hundreds of low-cost/no-cost, easy-to-implement staff recognition tips, tools and techniques to express appreciation to staff members for how they contribute and what they achieve. Thanks, Again! will officially launch in the fall but you can receive early access to autographed copies of the book and other valuable perks.

Don’t confuse “all right” with “right” when hiring

The goal every time there is a vacancy to be filled is to hire the “right” person for the position. No exceptions!

But in my experience, that’s not what happens every time. Frequently, the hiring process ends with a hiring decision that sounds a bit like this: “Let’s hire him. He’ll be all right. He was the best candidate.”

Unfortunately, “best” isn’t always good enough. Best does not equal right. The best candidate isn’t always the right person to hire.

Settling for the best is natural enough. There is always pressure to fill vacancies quickly. Clients notice the gaps in services when an organization is short-staffed. Current staff feel the stress of additional work when the team has less than its full complement. Managers must leave their tasks undone to address a need that is normally the responsibility of the person in the vacant position. 

“We’ve already wasted enough time looking at resumes and interviewing,” a frustrated manager says. “Let’s just hire someone.”

But pressure to hire is no excuse for settling for the “best,” especially when this potential new hire could be described as the “best of a bad lot.” Having a warm body in place is not going to make an organization successful.

Candidates should be judged against criteria identified for the job and not against the other candidates. Success depends on having the right people where they need to be.

Betsy Sanders, a former vice-president of Nordstrom Department Stores, writes in Fabled Service that, “Hiring right means carefully defining the job to be filled. What characteristics are possessed by people who are successful in that job?”

This is good advice for every leader with a position to fill. When interview panels are assembled early in the process (which is when they should be) members can work together to identify attitudes and competencies that distinguish top performers and use this information to define the right person.

Using the resulting list as a guide, panel members can then write interview questions that will require candidates to describe how they have performed in previous jobs. Has the candidate done the right things in the right way for the right reasons? Does what they have done in the past reflect the attitudes and competencies that the panel has identified as necessary for on-the-job success?

There will be times when panels should reject all the candidates they interviewed because none meet the criteria as the right person for the job. 

This may mean taking another look at applicants who didn’t make the cut to be interviewed the first time. Was something missed when their resumes were examined?

If you’re unable to find others who might in fact be Mr. or Ms Right among the existing applications, the next step is to re-advertise, spreading a wider net by looking where you didn’t look before.

What this article challenges you to do when you are not seeing candidates with the attitudes and competencies that you and your panel members believe are important is not easy. Refusing to hire the “best” requires courage, but the payoff when you do find the right person to hire is huge. Waiting to fill a position is worth it when you eventually fill the position with the right person.

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There are 13 reasons that managers fail to hire the right people, all of which are explored during my Unlucky When Hiring? program. Contact me (nmscott@telus.net or 780-232-3828) to schedule this program for your next convention, conference or meeting, or to learn more.