Many clients report receiving more applicants from larger corporations than in the past. You may be as well. If you’re considering bringing a candidate who has primarily worked for large corporations into your small business, here are four things to consider:

• Are they looking at your opportunity as a bridge job? If you have a short-term need and a candidate can bring near term value, hiring someone who will likely stay for a short period of time can be a win-win. In that case, JESSI Search can discuss options such as temp staffing, to fill your need. If you’re looking to add to your team long-term, this could be a costly mistake. Candidates don’t always realize the impact of cultural differences in a smaller company. They think it’s just what they’re looking for, but oftentimes leave quickly saying, “It was a lot different than I expected.” And sometimes, what they’re really saying is, “I took your position as a bridge while I searched for my ideal position.”
• What is their reason for expressing interest in your opportunity? Candidates say a lot of things based on what they think you want to hear, to prompt an offer. Their enthusiasm can be contagious. Be sure you listen and assess carefully to discern their true motivators for joining your organization.
• Do their behaviors and motivators align with the role and your company culture? Motivation can’t be taught. Motivational fit is important. JESSI Search focuses on another truth and that is, past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. That’s why our interview process and assessment instruments focus on uncovering examples of past behavior.
• Do they bring the skills to do the job well and continue to grow with your organization? Some skills can be taught, some take time to develop, and some, like work ethic and tenacity cannot be taught. It is very important to validate that the candidate brings the right level of skills for the position to maximize value within your desired timeframe.

JESSI Search uses an assessment as part of our hiring decision-making process. It helps identify an accurate picture of the candidate’s behavior, motivators and competencies, which are key to assessing their ability to move from one environment and culture to another. Specifically, they fit your small business culture. Additionally, our assessment helps validate the interview and will also identify additional competencies to focus on to maximize their performance and possible problem areas.

Hiring is expensive and impacts the team’s time and morale. Making sure you are adding individuals with the right motivation to join and grow with your team is key. At JESSI Search, we welcome your hiring questions. Call us!

“Moving doesn’t change who you are. It only changes the view outside your window.” ~Rachel Hollis

One of the most important assets of any organization is its employees. Employees can determine success or failure, growth or stagnation. Finding and hiring the right talent can be a challenge within itself. JESSI Search has the process refined and a component is AI (Artificial Intelligence). AI provides us with an entrée into more than 250 online data sites, providing access to 350 million profiles. Even with the power of AI, it is just the beginning. Here are some of the questions you might be asking about recruiting in today’s market:

1. If you can access millions of profiles, will you be able to fill our position right away? The ability to set up search filters and immediately have a list of potential candidates is a great start to the search process. Technology plays a key role in identifying and accessing talent. It is one tool in the early stages of the recruiting process but it doesn’t guarantee that the candidates identified will be both interested in the opportunity and an ideal fit. There are many steps in the recruiting process before you get to a strong hire. Using AI sets you up for success. Working through the process with urgency, without shortcutting key steps, ensures you get the right hire for your current and long-term needs as quickly as practical.
2. Since unemployment is up, isn’t it easy to get candidates? The answer to this is simply no; it may be easier to find applicants for your position but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be a great fit. JESSI Search focuses on finding the best candidate fit for the job and even with higher unemployment, that’s not a simple proposition. When there is an uncertain economic outlook, it’s actually more difficult to pull candidates from their current position, even if they’re in a job that doesn’t motivate them, or, that they don’t enjoy. Uncertainty can lead people to decide to wait it out before considering making a career move.
3. Budgets are tight, do I really need to pay a recruiter to help with our search? Tapping your own networks and utilizing internal resources to attract talent is a wise move, providing internal resources are not sacrificing attention to their other important priorities. If you’re not able to fill your talent pipeline with the right candidates to compare and make a strong hiring decision, it’s time to talk to an expert.

Attracting talent, screening candidates and getting to an accepted offer, requires focus and expertise. Consider consulting a recruiting partner. It’s never too early to have a conversation. They may be able to give you some pointers to help with your internal search. Be sure you don’t wait too long to retain a recruiting partner and then expect them to immediately turn around the ideal candidate. Recruiters work with a sense of urgency. The best will have a comprehensive process that results in putting forth a slate of well screened matches to your candidate profile and company culture, who are ready to interview with you. This rarely happens overnight!

“Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.” ~Ginni Rometty, Executive Chairman of IBM

There may not be a better time to invest in your sales team than now. In a highlighted article in Sales Pro Central on July 31, 2020, Christopher Croner was quoted as saying, this is “The greatest opportunity in 70 years to hire high-performance salespeople.” Whether you’re in a position to hire talent that’s currently available; or, you want to motivate and retain your existing team, understanding what makes your value proposition unique and the competencies needed to sell to your target customers is key.

If you have an existing team with strong sales reps, benchmarking your team is a great investment. The key to getting the right people into the right position is being able to scientifically measure the degree to which they have the right behaviors and an understanding of how they will do the job. Equally important is understanding job motivations and do they support being happy and motivated doing and staying with the job. This essentially answers: Are they right for the job?

Creating a benchmark or template of what the job requires starts with getting the input of subject-matter-experts to identify the traits of the position. JESSI Search uses a tested and validated Job Report Questionnaire tied to job accountabilities to obtain this information. Once your benchmark is complete, future candidates can be compared against the benchmark and each other to facilitate choosing the best potential candidate.

Christopher also recognized that, “Salespeople are essential to businesses. A major challenge has always been that there are simply not enough great salespeople to go around.” The unique opportunity in today’s market, is that there are more of the best performing salespeople on the market than there have been in decades. Just remember, it’s not as simple as going out and getting one. You must ensure that you have specifically defined what you need your sales reps to do and then find one who has the right competencies and is a culture-fit, so they will soar within your company.

Benchmarking what the job requires, coupled with a strong interview process using behavior-based questions, helps hiring managers to get away from their “happy ears” where they are hearing what they want to hear from the candidate and making a hiring decision based on those perceptions!

We at JESSI Search have examples of how our clients have elevated their sales team’s efforts and results through the use of benchmarking and assessment. Let’s have a conversation.

“Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip.” ~Eminem, American Rapper

Hiring right, onboarding effectively, motivating and leading your team to stay productive in today’s remote hiring and work environment takes effort and expertise. Who better to assist you with your remote hiring needs than JESSI Search, a leading recruiting firm that has thrived in a remote work environment for more than a decade?

In a segment on July 28, 2020 of Good Morning America, surveyed executives indicated they are struggling with hiring and training new hires. Laszlo Bock, CEO of Humu, shared that “it’s all of the little, tiny moments that are badly missed and essential.” In the same segment, Sara Sutton, CEO of FlexJobs, indicated that, “remote work hasn’t truly been adapted into most company’s cultures.”

We’ve all become familiar with Zoom, GoToMeeting and/or other popular video conferencing apps. They make our lives easier and more connected during these stay-at-home and work-from-home times. If you’re hiring now and that means shifting to a virtual hiring model, here are a few points to make a more positive impact on your candidate’s experience:

• Prepare – Set the candidate up for success and demonstrate your competency by sending all relevant info, including links, meeting numbers and instructions on how the interview will take place, ahead of time.
• Personalize – Include a personal note when you transmit info. Remember, their impression of you starts with your first contact. To keep your candidate engaged, take the opportunity to follow up with them quickly after the session and mention something you noticed. As Laszlo points out, it is so important to not lose those little, tiny connections.
• Get Creative – Show your culture and brand. If you’re a company that starts its day with a quick stand-up team meeting each morning, start your interview standing for a moment and explain why! Or, use your company coffee mug and let them know that there are coffee connoisseurs on the team and that a new mug is part of the new hire package. Be thoughtful in weaving remote work into your culture.
• Observe – However you interview, take in as much data as possible. Notice if the candidate seems prepared, were they savvy with their video presence, and were they able to flex to this interview style. You may want to record the interview to refer back to.
• Remember it’s a 2–way street – Make a good impression on the candidate by maintaining eye contact, giving them your full attention and having the right environment for a video session; especially if you’re including others on the team. Keep participants to a small group so that the conversation is smoother and the candidate can see everyone.
• Accelerate – It’s easier to coordinate schedules for a video interview vs. meeting in person. Use this to your advantage to shorten your hiring process. While you don’t want to jump to the wrong hire, you do want to move the process so that you can make an offer as soon as you’ve moved the right candidate through the process.

If you are frustrated with the amount of work and time you are putting into your hiring and onboarding practices, we can help. We’re experts at designing and expediting the process and taking it through to great hires. We’ve helped many clients hire excellent remote workers. Let’s have a conversation about your hiring goals.

“Leaders must be close enough to relate to others but far enough ahead to motivate them.” ~John C. Maxwell, Author

We’re living through an unprecedented time. Organizations are learning to be resilient, resourceful and how to cope with a new reality. Organizational and individual competencies, strengths and weaknesses, are more visible than in normal times.

As you consider what to put on hold and what to move forward with, you should consider that this a great time to hire the team you’ve envisioned. We are finding the talent market to be more accessible and responsive than in previous months and years. Rather than putting your hiring on hold to preserve cash, consider how your talent investment will pay off by giving the advantages of getting the right people on your team to propel you forward as business begins to return to normal.

If you have a hiring need, this is the time to connect with the talent market. Here’s how:

• Show your Company Brand – This is always important. Here is an opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership during a crisis and that’s something future employees won’t forget.
• Approach the Market – If you have the bandwidth and expertise, reach out to potential candidates who fit your business needs and culture. If you don’t, partner with a talent expert who understands how to bring the best candidates for consideration.
• Demonstrate Open Communication – Great candidates are lost during the process as much by what you don’t say or how slow you are saying it, then by anything you do say. Pay attention to what you are communicating and don’t commit the error of leaving your candidate dangling without communicating for long periods of time. If your feedback steps are dragging on for two to three days, you are taking too long!
• Use Video Conferencing – This is becoming the norm. Companies are now managing the entire interview and onboarding processes very well via video conferencing and remote work options.
• Do Not forget the Assessment – Those of you who know me know that I’m a strong proponent for using an effective assessment tool as part of the interview process. Your goal is to select the best individual for your current role, company culture and future growth. There is no better way to do so than using an assessment to validate the candidate’s competencies, strengths, how they behave (or how they will perform on the job) and what motivates them. If you’re learning that resourcefulness and resiliency are in short supply on your team, now’s your chance to focus on hiring for these key competencies!
• Set a Path to Success with Onboarding – This process should always be well thought out and customized to fit the role and individual. Here is your chance to be more creative to attain faster returns! If you need assistance with developing an onboarding process, JESSI Search can help.

The JESSI Search team is here for you, not only to assist you with your hiring needs, we can also help define and execute the right individual steps to use in the hiring process. We’re also happy to serve as a resource for talent questions that you have during this unprecedented time and knowledge sharing as we have conversations with many hiring managers responding to this current state of business. Let JESSI Search partner with your business today to set your business on the right path for your future needs.

“You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.” ~Gordon B. Hinkley