Why Are We Obsessed With Hiring High Performers?

There was a time when my company was growing and I needed to hire a lot of people. And we had turnover because I was getting rid of a lot of people who were not a good fit. And I really wasn't that good at it. I was kind of throwing darts, hoping that I just got lucky. And I needed bodies. I needed people in the office to be able to work the business that I was bringing in. But I got good over time, knowing what I was looking for. And I'll never forget, I was in one of our leadership programs, and they taught us how to use these filters. So we created out these filters. And the way I did it was I just painted, you know, my best performing employee what I wanted more of. And I just painted that picture of their characteristics, their personality, the things that I'd want to see from them in regards to their performance. And I create a little grid. And when I would interview people, I would ask them specific questions where I could look at that filter and I could kind of give them a score from 1 to 5. And I remember thinking, if anyone's under a 3, I'm not hiring them. I'm not doing it because I. I had made exceptions and done it, and they didn't work out. So I kind of created a baseline for myself. And then what it did, and I didn't realize it was. It gave me a way to compare candidate A from candidate B. I was interviewing so many people that it really gave me a good snapshot overview after my conversations to look at that and kind of look past all the chaos and all the rhetoric of all the conversation, and look and say, okay, these are the five things I know I want. How'd they score? And when I saw fours and fives, I'd hire him. And I got really good over time doing that to the point where I stopped using the filter because I just made it a habit of knowing what I was looking for and knowing with such clarity that when you have someone in front of you that meets what you're looking for, you just know it because you know what you're looking for. And I got good at keeping conversations short and to the point so that I can get what I needed in order to determine if the person would be a good fit. And I also was able to weed people out very quick when I knew they weren't a good fit. And. And the number one thing that I look for that my coach taught me was the genuine, authentic part of the person who knows who they are, knows what they believe is okay. Being challenged in the interview doesn't crack. And I always made people feel a little uncomfortable in the interview with some really tough questions. And they sometimes weren't the toughest questions. They were just questions that would put someone on the spot. You know, I'd say something like, what's 10% of 300? You know, and I'd ask them that after they told me they were good in math. And, you know, when you do that in an interview, you catch people off guard and you watch them, and I don't care if they get the answer right or not, because they can pull out the calculator for all I care. But watching them try to fumble through it and either just answer and try to make themselves look a certain way or humbly just say, wow, you put me on the spot, and I can't think that fast, and you made me nervous. And, like, those are the answers I love, because that was really who the person was. They weren't trying to be someone that they weren't. And when I'd ask people about their biggest mistake, you know, something they didn't take responsibility for, and I'd hear people just be vulnerable and share it, you know, Like, I like those people. You know, I don't care how many mistakes you've made in the past, as long as you've learned from them. So that. That authenticity, that. That genuine feel, it's so rare that it's not hard to see it when you have someone sitting in front of you. You know, when I got a guy in front of me who is wearing a suit, and he's telling me that he closed $300 million deals last year, I kind of can see right through this guy. One, you know, I never cared about. That didn't mean anything to my company because we didn't have $300 million clients. And I guarantee this guy never wears a suit. So I've had people argue with me and tell me that it's out of respect and that, you know, it's the right thing to do, and that's fine. That's part of a belief system and a worldview that you might have. And all I could say is, that person always looks really uncomfortable. And it took them out of who they were. It wasn't who they were. And I think, you know, you have to know the environment you're walking into, and you have to know who you're talking to and what they're looking for. And that means you got to do your due diligence before you have those conversations with employers. And, you know, you have to, you have to try your best to be as much about yourself as you can, because that's who they're hiring. And you don't want them to be surprised a couple months down the road with, you know, who's this guy? This is not who we interviewed. And that would happen time and time and time again. So I learned my lesson and I was really, I focused on that filter and I focused on my number one, which is if they couldn't meet that criteria, that they didn't come off genuine, that I couldn't believe them when they answered my questions. And when I dug a little bit deeper and I hear them fumbling and trying to cover up something that they had said, my interview is over. Because I can only imagine, you know, they say that when you interview people, that's the best you're going to see that person, right, because they're there to impress you. And the things you don't like, you know, you could multiply that by 10 because that's what you're going to see when they get real comfortable. So I just, I had a non negotiable way of hiring people towards the end of my career at my company. And I think everyone should have a very clear picture of who they're looking for, what they want, and then have questions designed to be able to determine if this person meets what you're looking for and then have a way to compare that to other people that you're interviewing.