Master the Art of Strategic Hiring Beyond the Resume
In this episode of the Shedding the Corporate Bitch podcast, host Bernadette Boas walks listeners through a comprehensive, step‑by‑step framework for strategic hiring that goes beyond simply filling a vacancy. She begins by emphasizing the importance of a deliberate planning phase, urging leaders to map out their business vision, future goals, and the cultural environment they want to cultivate. Boas then advises managers to assess their current team’s strengths, hidden talents, and skill gaps, using that insight to shape a role that complements and enriches the existing group. She outlines how to partner with HR as a strategic ally, co‑creating a job description that blends required competencies with cultural‑fit attributes. The episode details how to design interview questions and scenario‑based dialogues that spark two‑way conversations, and stresses the need to practice interview techniques and eliminate distractions. Boas concludes with a checklist of ten candidate traits to observe during interviews—first impressions, likability, emotional intelligence, leadership potential, motivation/ambition, adaptability, coachability, results orientation, preparedness, and curiosity—providing concrete scoring guidance. Throughout, she blends instructional advice with supportive, confident encouragement, and invites listeners to book a discovery call for personalized coaching.
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How do you go about planning for a new hire or making that decision to move someone into a new position? Is it done thoughtfully and purposely, or is it done haphazardly because you just simply need to fill that position and get those tasks completed? Too often, hiring managers who come to me feel the pressure of the latter, the haphazard, the rush to get it done now versus taking the time to really plan, prepare, and even practice what they need to pay attention to and look for in making that decision of a new hire or moving someone. In this episode, we're gonna walk through how planning will be your most critical step of the process, and how to prepare so you set yourself and the interviewee up for success. And lastly, 10 things you wanna be looking for and paying attention to in that interview. Hiring right doesn't have to be hard, but fall short of planning and preparing for it and you'll pay the price on the back end. So stay with us. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms female corporate executives into powerhouse leaders by showing them how to shed the challenges and overwhelm along with any fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity holding them back. I'm your host, Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching, bringing you powerhouse discussions each week to share tips, advice, and sometimes tough love so you create the riches in your work and life you deserve. So let's paint the scenario. You and your team are completely overwhelmed and pulling your hair out when it comes to getting work done on a day-in, day-out basis. As a matter of fact, you're so overwhelmed that you're getting into the nitty-gritty, you're getting into the tactical, you're getting into the day-in, day-out actions that need to be executed on, as opposed to the strategic, look-around-the-corner visionary role that you should be in on a regular basis as a leader. So you've decided that the only way to solve this problem is for additional headcount. It could be new headcount outside the company, or it could be a new headcount and new individuals that are moved around within the company. Whatever the case might be, you've determined that in order for you to accomplish the goals that you've been tasked to accomplish for your team, you definitely need more resources. So the question is, how do you go about it? What are those first steps that you take even beyond the hiring process that maybe HR dictates for you? What is that process you walk yourself through in order to ensure that you are both strategically and tactfully looking at today and the future? So first off, The planning phase of hiring is absolutely critical, and it actually starts with you putting on your strategic thinking hat and really mapping out what your business, even within your function, what your business is going to look like today and in the future. What is that vision, that direction? What are those goals? What are those objectives that you're tasked to do? What are those new opportunities that you're seeing? Coming down the pipeline, even if it's nowhere written on a piece of paper yet. But you anticipate that your team is going to need to be able to grow and adapt into new initiatives, new acquisitions, new projects, so forth and so on. So you really want to sit down and get on paper what that looks like and what that means to then not only your current team, but also any new team members that might come on board. All right. From there, obviously, you're going to be able to take that vision, those— that direction. And I had mentioned goals, but now you want to map out what would the goals be? What would the goals be that might be new and different or expanded on from your current goals and objectives that you've been given? But what would this new role and this new individual— what will they be tasked to pursue and accomplish. Again, looking at not only today but going forward. Then from there, what I would always suggest to a hiring manager is you really need to assess your current team. Having a headcount need is a potential, but at the same time, are you going to be hiring them to enhance and enrich and complement your team? In certain ways. And so if you measure your current team, you assess them on how effective they are today in doing their roles. What skills, talents, expertise, or experience do they have that maybe you're not even leveraging yet? How does your current team fit into the culture that you're looking to develop? And that culture piece should be part of your vision, the direction that you have for your team is how do you want your team to be operating with each other on a day-in, day-out basis? Do you know that for yourself? Have you considered that as opposed to just, it's a bunch of people, you know, kind of coming together to get tasks done? But what is that culture? And therefore, how does your current team fit in that culture? What do you already need to be working on, let alone what you need to ensure that any new member to the team complements, enriches, or enhances? All right? And then you want to ask the question of each of your current team members, are there skills or talents, experiences or expertise that maybe your current role doesn't require of you, but I should be aware of, I should know? You'd be surprised How many managers, when they ask their team for input on really what are their passions, what are their goals, what are some hobbies that they have, what are some things that they've always been interested in, in doing, but they haven't had the opportunity to do it, what are their talents, even if they think it's non-business related, what are those talents that they have? And all of a sudden, they're providing some really critical insights as far as how you can use them in different roles, different functions, for different tasks. So first, assess your current team, and through that assessment, you also want to be sure that you're identifying any gaps that may exist— gaps in the skills, the talents, and the expertise you need, not only for today, but remember that vision that direction that you, you and your team could be moving in 12 months from now, 3 years from now? What are the gaps that exist that therefore, as you're constructing this new position, this new role, this new list of responsibilities, you're looking to also fill some of those gaps? Now, some of the gaps might be filled by you getting training and coaching and development of your current team members. But it also could lend itself very nicely into that new job description for the, the new individual that you'd be hiring for. All right. And then you want to pretty much sit down and lay out the scope of the roles and responsibilities, almost create that job description that you're looking for, including not just a list of tasks and key responsibilities and what's what skills you need and what competencies you need, but also what are those cultural fit, soft skill type of attributes, traits, and qualities that you need from an individual. And with all of that in that planning phase, you can actually start preparing yourself for that hiring to work yourself through that process. Now, you might want to, or you're kind of required to engage HR. I always advocate that HR should be your business partners, your strategic partners in any people decisions being made, whether that's internal transactional type of decisions or that is the bigger, more strategic hiring, firing, promoting type of decisions. They should be your strategic partner. But engage with them and discuss what that vision is that you have, not only for the business, but for the team and for the culture, and then the direction and the goals that you've defined. And then you can get specific around this particular opening or multiple openings that you have. What would those look like as far as their goals, their objectives, how you're gonna measure them, let alone the roles and responsibilities and everything that goes into the job description. And the most important part you also wanna be discussing with your HR partner is that cultural fit. Now, the cultural fit you define may be different than the overall company culture, but it should be a complement of it. So what I mean by that is there could be things that are stated in the vision or the principles of the company that you then have your own additional traits or qualities or attributions of what makes a cultural fit that you're looking to create amongst your team members. So, you know, having that discussion with your HR partner will just provide them more and more rich information— you and your leadership style and the expectations that you have for your team. And it'll make the hiring process so much easier. Then you obviously would lay out the roles and the responsibilities, that job description, and you would collaborate on What are those questions? What is the behavior? What is the, the style of individual that— and what will you be looking for from that individual in the interviewing process? So what are the questions that you need to be asking? What are you looking for as far as their, you know, posture, behavior, attitude, and what approach are you going to be taking with that interview? Too often I find that many of the hiring managers, they just have kind of a blanket list of questions that they feel that these are standard questions that I need to be asking, as opposed to the approach being very tailored to your current and most up-to-date vision and cultural fit and goals, but also the particular role and position that you're looking for, How do they play into the overall team, but also to the business as a whole? Are they insulari in that they're only going to be engaging amongst the team, or is this position one that will have a lot of stakeholders, will have a lot of dependencies across functions or up and down the ladder? So understanding and really nailing all of that down will help you formulate the proper questions, formulate the proper things you're going to be looking for as far as behavior and attitude and whatnot, but also that cultural fit that you're looking for. And ensure the questions are one that creates dialogue, not, you know, yes or no or something that they just provide you an answer and you move on. You're looking to get a sense, even though you make it your first impression in the first couple seconds, but You're looking to get the sense of that, who that individual is, what they stand for, what their beliefs are, what their attitude is towards certain things that are critical to your team objectives and your team goals and the business as a whole. And so you really want to be thoughtful in regards to those questions. And the approach that I'd mentioned is all around Is it just going to be a series of questions, or is it going to be painting scenarios, giving them scenarios to respond to? I'll never forget an interview. It was going to be internal. So I worked in a store, in a department store. And I was a department manager. And I was looking to go down into corporate as an assistant buyer. And so my store manager, knowing that I had an interview, thought of taking the initiative, which I greatly appreciated, to kind of sit me down and run me through a mock interview process. And in that interview process was he would throw out a number of scenarios to me. How would you handle this? What would you do in response to this? What if this happened? You know, so forth and so on. And it was afterwards I would ask him about it. And it was to really kind of test my temperament, test my creativity, my problem solving, my decision making, my delegation, so forth and so on. And there's a lot of different ways and scenarios and approaches that you could be taking in your hiring process and therefore have that conversation with your HR partner, come up with it yourself, and then have that conversation or the two of you can sit down and prior to any interviews, you come up with the approach that you're going to take to those interviews and to that hiring process. And the one thing that I want to stress is you want to avoid those yes or no questions because it should be a two-way conversation. They're interviewing you as much as you're interviewing them. They're interviewing the culture as much as you're interviewing them to see if they fit. They're interviewing the company. You're representing the company as much as you're seeing if they're going to be a good match for the company. So be sure that you're asking the type of questions that would create a conversation, a dialogue. That way you're also being able to check out how they are with conversing, how they are with touchy subjects or touchy situations or issues that might come up. You're able to really pick up on a lot of different nuances from that individual and about that individual as a result of really ensuring that you're creating a conversation because you want to make it a win-win. Even if you're not hiring this person, you want them to walk out of the room and say, wow, that was a great interview. That was a great company to work for. That was a great culture. That was a great hiring process, even if they don't get the job. And then when they don't get the job, yes, they'll be disappointed, but they're going to take that with them and they're going to potentially even share that experience with other people. And you as a leader of a business needs to keep in mind that you're always representing the company brand. And therefore, you want that brand to be one that is engaging and supportive and transparent and really takes care of their people. So, but again, you will have— you figured that out when you worked on your vision, your culture, your direction, the goals, so forth and so on. And then, you could have like a scorecard that you're keeping when it comes to asking a series of questions and Not just making notes of things, but actually, you know, using a scorecard or a checklist to ensure that you're hitting on all the different aspects of an individual through that interview. Even if it's a half-hour interview or it's an hour-long interview, find the method, even if it's pure note-taking or putting a score at the top of your page to remind you, whatever your approach your process is in that regard. Just make sure that you're doing it in a timely manner so it's fresh, so you walk away and you can really assess that individual to see whether or not they're going to be a good fit for you. All right. And then I had mentioned not only planning and preparing, but practicing. I've seen it a lot where, you know, managers aren't really comfortable, or maybe they're just not good at holding a conversation and really engaging someone other than they ask a question, they get an answer, and then they move on, as opposed to really listening for certain cues or certain words or certain responses and then playing off of them in order to get even more and more information about that candidate. So you want to practice, and if you're not comfortable with it, then have some mock, you know, interviews like I had. Have some mock interviews. Ask your HR partner, ask, you know, a peer or even one of your team members and ask your HR person for feedback from other experiences that they may have had with you when it came to hiring, when it came to the interviewing process. You know, I'll hear from some of the HR managers, HR leaders that I work with that, yes, they have— they'll go back to a hiring manager to provide them feedback as far as how effective were they, how conversant were they in the interview, how detailed and how rich was the output as a result of their interviewing style. And sometimes having to coach them how to be better interviewees or actually interviewers. So ask your HR person, you know, you sat in with me, you know, during the last round of interviews, you know, what worked, what didn't, what can I, you know, start doing, what should I stop doing, you know, what's your overall suggestions to me as far as how do I make these interviews as effective as possible? And then, of course, sometimes people have to prepare themselves as the interviewer to have the energy, to have the engagement, to have the connection, to be present, to really be actively listening to ensure that that interview is successful. And yet we have so much going on around us, you know, so much noise, so many interruptions, so many distractions. And this is one of those places, in all fairness to yourself and all fairness to the interviewee as well as the company and the whole process, is you need to be sure that you are putting away any distractions, putting away any— anything that's going to take you off from actively listening and paying attention and really being present with that individual. Now you're in the interview. What do you want to look for? There's 10 things that I would say you want to pay attention to, to really gauge if this individual is going to be a really good fit and a good match to the job description and just an overall really good employee for you and the company. So the first one would be obviously first impressions. Matter. In a matter of seconds, you're drawing a lot of conclusions about someone the minute they walk in the room, whether they have a smile on their face, if they're standing up nice and tall, if they shake your hand, and that to what degree do they shake your hand. Whatever the case might be, we all know first impressions are absolutely critical for measuring fit. And so obviously you want to be paying attention to that. That kind of goes into also the second one, which would be likability. You don't need to be best friends, but how is that conversation? Are you leaning in on each other in this conversation? Are you finding that that person is open and is feeling connected with you? Or are they kind of standoffish? They might be quiet, they might be introverted. At the same time, are you able to create and to feel that connection, that likability of them, even if they're polar opposites of who you are and the style that you have doesn't mean that you can't like them or feel that they are a good fit for the position and the role that you have. So likability. The next one would be all those soft skills. I lump them under emotional intelligence. Is this individual receptive? Are they empathetic? Are they thoughtful? Are they intentional? Are they obviously honest, trustworthy, transparent? Are they self-aware of themselves? Do they have a really good, realistic perception of themselves? And of course, we can go through a lot of scenarios and experiences of how a candidate comes in and they boast about how wonderful that they are. And then maybe we hired them and it's proven to be completely the opposite. So you also want to have a good meter. You want to be able to read someone's truth within all of that. But emotional intelligence is really important for nowadays, especially for us to gauge, because candidates are looking for experiences. They're not just looking for that paycheck. They're looking to have a good experience, let alone one that will develop and, and allow them to grow. The next one would be, of course, leadership. Leadership doesn't mean that this role has to have anyone reporting to them or that there are certain box on a hierarchy. Because again, we're looking at not only today, but for the future. Is this person a potential leader? Do they have the capability, the competencies, and the skill, and the talent, and the drive to kind of become a leader? And I need leaders on my team, even as individual contributors, in every single person that's on my team. So how skilled are they in influencing others, in communicating others, in delegating, in managing their time, prioritization and decision-making. What are those key leadership skills that are important to you, not only for today but for the future, for any of your team members to ensure building relationships? I want to make sure I get that in. You want each and every one of your team members to be really good at building relationships with each other and with other people. So leadership would be number 4. Number 5 would be motivation or ambition, as some would call it. And yet ambition to me is a good word. It's not a bad word because you want somebody who is motivated. You want somebody who wants to learn and grow and develop and move on. That's your job as a leader, to get your, your people to a place where they can actually move on and take on more and more responsibility. The next one would be adaptability. And this is absolutely critical and an area that is often not asked about and not inquired when it comes to interviews, but especially in today's chaotic, very fast-paced business world, we need every single person on our roster to be adaptable. We need them to accept change. We don't need them to love change, but we need them to at least embrace it to where when it happens, because it will, it'll happen often. They need to be able to be adaptable, resilient, nimble, flexible, and work their way through that change as opposed to creating resistance or creating any degree of roadblock for you, because that'll make both of you unsuccessful. So you really want to be inquiring and listening for and watching everything about them, what they're saying as much as, you know, what they're telling you physically with their body posture, their tone, their eyes, as to whether or not they're adaptable. Do they like change? The other one is coachability. This is also one that gets often overlooked. Is someone able to be coached? Now, people will often confuse this with just Can they receive feedback? And there's a lot of good players out there. There's a lot of good actors out there. You know, you give them feedback, they nod their head, they say they agree, they understand, they'll make the change. And then you wonder why they never do. It's because they're not coachable. Coachability means that not only can you give them feedback, good, bad, or indifferent, but they actually take that information, they take that feedback, they take that action plan, they take that advice, that mentoring, and they actually go and do it and they actually make change. So you definitely want to find out— again, it may not be critical for today, but definitely, you know, tomorrow and then going forward in the future— that your team members are coachable. The next one would be that they're either, you know, you can look at it as focused on results or goal-oriented. So you want somebody that is understanding what the end goal is, whether that's their own tasks. So their deliverables, their due dates, or it's the business as a whole. You want to ensure that they understand the concept of having a goal, having measures, and working toward them and achieving them. Or, you know, they also are focused on, yes, we as a team and as a business have certain targets that we need to be hitting. And I need to be proactive versus reactive when, you know, when I'm going and pursuing those goals to ensure that I'm hitting the mark. And if I'm not hitting the mark, then how do I adapt? How do I change? How do I shift? Where do I need to go in order to eventually make our goals. So goal orientation, or you could look at it as being focused on results. The other one would be preparedness. And just like what we talked about for you being prepared for the interviewing process, you want team members that are really focused on being prepared. They not only show up, not only show up, but they show up ready. They show up prepared, organized, time-managed, detailed or not, depending upon the, the action or the initiative being worked on. They're thorough, they're complete, they're attentive, but they're prepared each and every day to do the work at hand. So preparedness. And another view that you can take to preparedness is in the interview. Are they also so prepared that they've done their own research? Now, hopefully you're, you know, making room in the conversation for them to ask questions, and you're asking questions that create dialogue, as we mentioned. At the same time, have they do their research? You probably did on them, go to all their social media sites and all that kind of good stuff. But how prepared are they in regards to their own interview process? How prepared are they for the questions that you're going to ask, for the objections you may have, for the obstacles you may raise up, for the scenarios that you might put on them. But how also prepared are they about the company, about the business, about the vision of the company, if not yours? How prepared are they in regards to you? I will often have situations with clients where if they are looking for a job— because I do that as well— but if they are looking for a job or they're looking to get promoted, or they're looking to move into a different business function, I'll say, so what do you know about whatever the case might be, about the position, about the person, about the hiring manager, whatever? What research have you done? What do you mean, what research have I done? What research have you done on them? Whether it's the company, whether it's the function, whether it's the industry, whether it's the hiring manager. I don't know who the hiring manager is. What research have you done to find out? And if you have found out, then what do you know about them that you can then pepper into your conversation? So you want to be looking for their preparedness as much as you want to be prepared as well. And the last one would be curiosity. You know, how inquisitive are they? What questions are they asking? Not only the standard, like, okay, so what are you looking for from me? Or What do you want your team members to be focused on? But more so, are they curious about how things operate today? Are they curious about what the 3-, 5-, 10-year plan is? Are they asking questions in regards to how exactly do you run your team? How does the company acknowledge or reward individuals? But are they curious about just the role, the industry, the company, the team members, the leadership team? But where does their curiosity take them and take the conversation that you have? So those are 10 things that you could be really paying attention to to ensure that as you finish up the interviews, and maybe, like I said, you have that scorecard or that just that document that you're putting a rating at the top of it, or you have your notes and you sit down to evaluate who would be the best candidate to fill that position or positions, you know, you're going to be very well prepared and very well taken care of as far as having the detail needed to make the right decision. And I'm often asked, like, how can I take the risk out of hiring the wrong person. And there is, you know, that risk. What I would tell you is keep this episode in front of you. So if you do plan, prepare, practice, and then use this list of 10 things to be looking for from your candidates, you're gonna be really close to 100% certain when you make that decision. There's always the risk that the person doesn't work out. But you've done everything that you can to make the hiring process as successful as possible. All right. And should you have any questions in regards to any of it, then don't hesitate to reach out to me and let's talk. You can go to CoachMeBernadette.com/discoverycall and let's have a conversation and I'll help you, you know, kind of fill the gaps of any type of issues or challenges that you might struggle with. During the hiring process. And until then, until we meet again, have a wonderful week, and I'll look forward to having you right back here for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Take care, everyone. Bye.
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