A short instructional talk about hiring strictly by core values. The speaker narrows an example to only two values—"we hustle and work hard" and "we embrace accountability and discipline"—and then shows concrete ways to assess those values in interviews and reference calls, including sample questions and expected reference responses (e.g., evidence of hustling vs. being a clock-puncher).
Let's pretend you decide to only have two core values. We hustle and work hard and we embrace accountability and discipline. Let's say those are literally your only two core values. How would I even know that I'm talking to somebody that has these core values? It's not as complicated as you think. So let's work on the first one. Let's say I'm interviewing a 24 year old couple years out of college and I'm trying to figure out if they hustle and work hard. I would say, you know, Stephen, give me a couple examples of maybe in college, you know, where you kind of put in more effort than others. Or maybe you held down a couple jobs and were on student council and you took, you graduated in three years. Like, I really want to understand where you hustle and work hard. That's something that we've identified as like a core characteristics of our most successful salespeople. So give me, give me an example, specific examples of where you maybe out hustled somebody or where you work harder than somebody else. Like, do not overthink it. You need to directly. And you could do these for references as well. You're calling their references and you're asking like, hey, Mr. Jones, this is Lars with ABC Realty. I'm considering hiring Steven to the team and put you down as a reference. And our core values are everything to us. Most important one is we hustle and work hard. Can you give me a few examples of how Steven showed up at work and he hustled and work hard above and beyond your other people? Like, no, I don't really think he did that. Like, he was always leaving earlier right on time. Clock puncher. It's like, oh, okay, interesting.
