Amber Hurdle: The Science of Recruiting Well

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Nice.

In this episode we're discussing demystifying people data. Our guest is Amber Hurdle and she's going to teach us exactly how to do it right now on this episode of up in your business. Get ready. All right, everyone. I'm Mike Bukalowitz. I am an author on a mission, a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. There's so many different elements we struggle with on this show as a. With every show, we dig in deep into a specific element that you need to fix. And today it's about people. And there's a science behind people recruiting. It's not, as I thought, people just tea leaves. Joining us for the show is Kelsey Ayers. Kelsey.

Hello, friend.

Thank you for listening to us.

It's hard to get jacked, Kelsey, when the music kind of fades in, fades out. I think I need my own little track over here.

Yeah.

It's the problem with zoom. I get it.

Yeah. Also, I give you a lot of props for keeping the energy high.

Trying to bring the energy. Yeah.

And with all of us just staring at you.

Yeah. That's the worst part, for sure. Jacob Blone, welcome back.

Sir, what's up? Thank you.

And none other than Amy Cartel. He's here in Studio 2.

Hey, everybody.

From her home, that is. I don't know if you guys saw the Saturday Night Live episode where every comedian was presenting from their homes.

I didn't see it, but I heard about it.

Yeah.

It was about as awkward as my introductions to these shows.

Yeah. Did you watch the Parks and Rec one?

No.

It was a little bit awkward too. Yeah. But it was pretty good.

So Tom Hanks was the emcee for Saturday Night Live and doing from his house. But there was no laughter, there was no sound. It was just like he'd do a joke and it was like more Hanks. So it was kind of weird. I do want to thank our corporate partners who support this show. Big shout out to process street and big shout out to us for keeping the show going. All right, let's get down to business right now. Her name is Amber Hurdle and she is the CEO of Amber Hurdle Consulting, a market multi award winning talent optimization firm that pioneers using both science and marketing principles to strengthen customer brands from the inside out. Hurdle helps overcome costly business problems with ineffective recruiting. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. Turnover, underperformance, declining morale, and leadership gaps. By clearly connecting her clients, people strategy to their business strategy for measurable bottom line results. Amber, welcome to our show.

Welcome. I got the whole team here. I like it when I. It's a party.

It's a party.

It's a party. Tell us a little bit about that moment when the. The candidate walks in the room, you interview them within five, ten minutes, you know, you know they're perfect. You bring them on and the next day, the first day, they are not a fit. It's a total mismatch. What went wrong in that interview?

Well, they showed well, and it's very likely that they're like, you like Alabama football. I like Alabama. Alabama football. And then you have like these connections, like you have a puppy. I have a puppy. Oh, my gosh. You also went to whatever. And so you have bias that's built into you. And so you start looking at people's values and their heart. And then you might look at their impressive resume. And then you forget to look at their mind and what drives their behavior. Like what innate needs do they have in a work environment? And perhaps you get so excited about the person that maybe you want to be friends with and you forget that they're a candidate that actually has to execute against an outcome.

How do you look into Their mind.

Well, I mean, there's behavioral questions, so you could put them in particular situations. Like if this happened, how, you know, what would you do? How would you navigate this? And you can ask things to identify if they're more of an independent worker, if they like to be collaborative, if they need a lot of social interaction, or if they're more introspective, whether they are a change maker or a change implementer. I have a feeling like you're a change maker, which is why there's multiple people on here making sure that things get implemented correctly.

Right.

And I'm also going to assume that you're probably more like, oh, look, here's. Here's a rule book. Well, for me, that's really more suggestions. This is for the people that need to understand how to get their A. Like, I'll make my own A. So with those drives in mind, you can ask questions around that, or you can use science, which is what I do, and just cut straight to it.

Okay, well, I want to know the science behind it, but let me learn the process a little bit more. Do we first identify the candidate we're looking for based upon these elements and then try to match to it? Is that the way to approach it?

So I think most people who listen to your show will understand the ideal customer profile. So in marketing, what we do is we shape a particular person's Persona and then we market hard to that person, driving at that emotional connection in hopes that we'll be able to gain that market market share. It's the same thing with an ideal candidate profile. So you might have an outside salesperson that you're looking for versus an inside salesperson. And those are very different profiles. One is a hunter, another one is a homemaker. One person needs to go out with a lot of aggression and the other person needs to welcome people in and make them feel comfortable. And they would probably be bored or the hunter would be bored as an inside salesperson. So you need to create that profile in advance before you even advertise for the position.

How do you know what you need, though, for your company? I think we, Kelsey and I have been talking. We need to hire someone. We have some rough ideas of job responsibilities, but not necessarily their demeanor, skill set, necessarily. How do we determine those elements that we need to know in advance?

Well, you need, as you were talking about, you need more perspective. So you can't just say, okay, this is what I'm hiring for and I know everything. It's helpful to have other key stakeholders involved in that Discussion. So who are they going to be working with frequently? Who are they reporting to? Typically in a decent sized organization or a mid sized organization, that would look like their manager, their manager once removed, perhaps the senior leader who oversees that position. And then somebody in hr if it's a smaller company, then it might be their direct supervisor and maybe some other people in other departments or even a vendor if you really wanted to, that's going to be interacting with them. I mean, simple questions like is this person going to be out in the community or are they going to be managing inventory behind a computer screen all day? Well, you don't want to put an extroverted person who thrives on spitballing with other people in a position that's going to force their behavior to be more introverted. They're not going to stick with you. They're going to be miserable and they'll be gone. And now you've wasted all kinds of money trying to recruit and onboard them.

You just triggered a, or you brought to light an idea. I never even considered getting vendors involved, you know, because our listeners are small businesses, five employees, whatever. Would vendors really do that? What's the way to approach them? It's an investment of their time to interview.

Well, it may be not interview, but just be in on that process of just pick up the phone real quick and say, hey, you interact with this position all the time. You know, who is your favorite person in this position? Who knocked it out of the park? Who made your life easier? What? Why did they make your life easier? And they could say they're always responsive, they always had a process in place, they never missed a deadline. So now I know, okay, this person needs to be somebody who's systematized, somebody who likes routines, somebody who wants to do the same thing the same way over and over again. It needs to be somebody who does love the rule book, who dots every I and crosses every T, because that's what people consistently are saying about what they would ideally prefer in this role. And just think about from your vendor's perspective, if you're like, hey, how can I make your life easier to do business with you as I pay you?

Right.

They're going to be pretty excited about that.

Yeah, I think it's such a novel approach. Tell me about the science. So let's get to the science. How do we start converting these ideas to numbers?

Okay, well, the science, I happen to use a tool called the predictive index. I also use other tools that are all psychoanalytic tools, but this one is the one that I particularly like for hiring, onboarding and managing people as opposed to like a personal brand tool or a psychological reflection. And so this was created about 70 years ago in the military and the Air Force because they needed to be able to replicate the success of a particular unit in determining who is going to be the more behavioral fit for a bomber pilot versus a fighter pilot. Two very different roles, very different roles. And so they developed the science behind it and created a behavioral assessment. So that is what determines, it's about five minutes. It determines what you innately need, which we've kind of already discussed. And then if we can understand a person's needs in a work environment, then we can predict their behaviors. And oftentimes what we do is we look at the behavior, then we try to understand the need. But what happens is we show up in a way where we think this is how we're supposed to act. So for example, in an interview, the same question you said, and then day one is not the person you hired. Well, try day 91. That's even scarier is you're like, who are you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what happens is in the past several months they have felt like they're supposed to behave this way in order to be successful. So they let people project those things on them and then they show up kind of who they are, like innate DNA and then kind of how they've been expected to behave for the past few months. And then that hodgepodge of that is who shows up in the interview. But what happens is you can't, like I couldn't sit behind a computer all day. That's, that's not, that's not my jam. And that eventually is going to erode. And so the science helps us jump ahead of that 90 day process and see what's actually going on. The second element that I think is critical, especially in a small business where you, you have just a few team members, is to be able to understand their cognitive ability. So this is not, this is not iq. This I want you to think of like a sponge. So the size of the sponge is how smart they are, like how much, how, how high their IQ is, how much or how quickly that sponge can absorb is their cognitive ability. So how quickly can they ramp up? Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have all the time in the world. I don't have a year for somebody to ramp up and figure things out. Like, we're too lean and mean for that, right? So I need to know that this person can keep up with me and learn quickly to be able to execute in a meaningful way. So if you have those two pieces of data, you can save yourself a lot of pain and heartache and money. Because money is really the driver behind business. As much as we all have passion, nobody gives us money for passion. People give us money for solving problems. And you need your team to. To be able to help you solve those problems in exchange for money. So you can control costs or you can make more money. And one way you can control costs is by ensuring that people are in the right seats doing the right activities.

You said something to effect. If you can understand a person's needs, it points to their behavior. Can you expand on that?

Yeah. So, Mike, I'm going to loop you in. Even though I don't know your profile. But I would say that you and I probably like our ideas best because.

They are the best. I just want you to know I'm.

Not looking anybody in the eyes on this call. So what we know is that you need to lead. You need independence. If I was your manager and I sat you down and was like, this is exactly what I want you to do. And I want you to ask these 40 people to help you make that final decision. You'd be like your tool by. But if, if it was somebody who maybe needed more, the best idea was, was the best idea for the group. And then I asked that person, I want you to lead the charge on this project. And they were constantly looking for approval from everybody else. I would be maddened by that. Just freaking do it. And, and so you have to know like how people are motivated because then you can see how they're going to in the end work on your projects.

Got it. That's what makes sense. What if you're in a group that's already assembled? Like our group right here, we have different personalities, different needs. We work different ways. Is there ways to enhance how we complement each other or once people are set in their behavioral patterns, it's just. It's more like a. It's more like a puzzle and you try to put the pieces close together. Is there a way to improve an established group is absolutely.

So I'm going to use a client example that I have permission to use. Hot Springs Spas of Music City. They are a small business, family owned. Their team's been with them for quite some time. They are awesome. They are also what I would call a low D organization. So you have an organization full of rule breakers. You know, they're not the dot The I and cross, the T's they flex to do it because they care so deeply about each other and about their customers. They have extraordinary customer service, but it's painful. And so as we look at the dynamics of their team and how everybody works together and how they fit together, we know that when we hire the next few people that probably we need to have some rule followers. We need those I's dotted, we need the T's crossed. And then we also need to look at the dynamics of, okay, as things are changing and evolving, we have maybe we need some more people who can help systematize things so these people can keep creating but then hand it off to somebody who's actually going to follow it through to the end of the story. Me personally, without my support, without Abby who has a profile that perfectly complements me, I would get something 80% of the way there and then the 20% would never get done and it'd be like freaking Groundhog Day every day. So I have to be able to hand that off to somebody to actually do so I can live in the future where I like to live. But if I'm not self aware and if I can't look at my group as a whole of the people who help Amber Hurdle Consulting move forward, then I don't know what the missing piece is. So it's always a holistic thing. And that's why I look at branding. I call it my velvet Machete brand strategy. You have to have strong personal brands. People have to know who they are so that not only can they live at their greatest potential, but also to be able to see and harvest the greatness in others. Once you have self aware leaders, then you can have an amazing employer brand because everybody's happy to be there. They all fit in, they see where they move towards the vision. And then when you have a great employer brand where people like want to work for you and people are happy to stay there, that's going to impact your business brand because they're going to crush it for your customers. So those three things have to go together for me or I just don't work with people.

So say this is more than hypothetical. This is something we're looking at internally. We need to hire someone that's very systems oriented, someone that can help with all these different software and choreograph how they work together. But also, at least from my perspective, I'm a rule breaker. I need to hire, hire a rule follower. That's going to be conflict in personality potentially. Is there a way to get someone that's different than your organization and complements you, but also to be complimentary in the relationship and not in conflict.

Yes, absolutely. So in the way that we, that I analyze this data is it's on a, it's on like a grid and there's a pattern. And so the closer to the midline the pattern is, it's kind of like dialing down the radio. I am a widespread maverick. I mean, I'm as loud. I'm like rock and roll all the way. Okay, so I would not be a good fit for somebody who needs somebody more moderate. You would need somebody who is a rule follower. But maybe that particular piece on the graph would need to be closer to center, closer to midline, so that the expression was there, but that they wouldn't drive you nuts.

Oh, interesting. So, so expression is, what does that mean? How they communicate.

It's just how they naturally behave. Like my A is off the charts. I'm, I'm like, I don't even register on the actual graph. So for to put me in a non leadership role, my expression of wanting to constantly take control of everything would be diminished. Right, so your expression, somebody needs to be happy, to be like, okay, cool, like Mike, I'm gonna let you break that rule. However, these things are going to get you in legal trouble or financial trouble or whatever. That little thing over there, you're fine. They need to be a little flexible.

Gotcha, gotcha. So you can get some of that flexibility, but also is someone that executes on the rules themselves and files it.

To a T. Yeah. If that falls on the midline of the graph, then that means they're situational. Which means, you know, depending on the circumstances, they might go one way or the other. They might be the rule follower or they might flex and maybe be a rule breaker.

So, so the tool that you suggest is predictive indexes. Are there other tools or maybe even stuff we can do without having software? We can just track certain data. Is there other data we should be tracking beyond predictive index?

Yeah. So I mean, you can do all kinds of homegrown data from, you know, exit interviews, for example, is homegrown data. You need to have certain things in place that are consistent because if you're not measuring the same thing, then you're not really measuring anything. So again, I would just, I would go back to those maybe five different elements and that is, am I more of a independent worker or am I a collaborative worker? And when I say independent, I mean leader. Am I, am I more driven to lead or am I more driven to collaborate? Let's say it that way.

Okay.

The second one is do I need to be around people to work at my best or do I do better working alone? Number two? Number three is do I like for my work environment to be consistent, same office, same activities, or do I like to have a variety of things to juggle day to day and over time? And then do I want to ensure that things are consistent and I'm very formal about things, or am I more informal and more innovative? And I'm always looking for ways to do things out of the box. And then the final thing, which is very hard to measure without science, but I think there are certain questions that you could ask is, are you more objective or are you more subjective? Do I need a lot of data to make decisions or am I going to depend on my own personal history, my own experiences and what my gut instinct is telling me? Or am I somewhere on the midline? Like I'm on the midline. I'm situationally. I'm going to go with my gut or show me the science or show me the data or I can't make this decision.

You've helped a lot of companies bring in great talent. What about a brand new startup? I'm a solopreneur. I need to bring on that first person. I need some help. Have you seen some consistent suggestions for the entrepreneurial type and who their first hire should be?

Yeah, most of the time I see that as a support role. Again, if I'm this person and I know these are things that I'm not great at, then I need somebody to help make me whole. And then probably the second thing would be a hunter, somebody who can help generate revenue.

Awesome, awesome. These instances are great. Amber, before we let you go, where can our listeners dig in deeper with you around this subject?

Well, you can take the behavioral assessment if you'd like. You can go to amberhurtl.com predictive index and try it out and see if you need help in certain areas to help complement your own greatness.

That's fantastic. So we'll have that in the show notes. There's some other links too for social media and I think, Kelsey, we got to take the predictive index test for ourselves.

Yeah.

Amber, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Good to see you.

All right, Jacob Loan, we're going to do in a minute, we're going to recap what we learned. You got a cool trivia game for us?

Oh, yeah.

Last Week we were. I was so destroyed by Jeff woods domination. I told all future guests never to join game again. I. You really beat me up there. All right, so what we learned today. Kelsey, why don't you go first?

I love this. I love being really intentional about how you hire and how they fit in multiple ways. So there's that, you know, the bias, the kind of personal component, and then there's this very practical, you know, how do they work, what are their needs and how is that ultimately going to affect them long term for a good long term fit. And I really love those five elements that she just listed for independent, collaborative, introvert, extrovert, consistent variety. I feel like those are very kind of straightforward and can reveal a lot about a person.

Love that. Billy Ray, what'd you take?

I loved it too. Exactly what Kelsey said. I'd love to do the assessment. I'm looking forward to it if we are going to be doing it. That's great.

You know what?

I really like the idea of the IQ being the size of the sponge.

Yeah, me too.

But the absorbency of the sponge and I'm like, oh, that's it. That's. I. That really makes sense for me. Like, I am a slow processor. I, I can understand things, but I take, I take things on slowly. I also am one of those people who needs, like, I have to understand the whole task. I'm not good about just picking up one piece of a task and running with it. I have to understand, well, where does this all fit in? Because I have to know, you know, what the parameters are.

Yeah, yeah. Love it.

So it's, it's really interesting. I love all of it.

We may or may have not had someone that had a massive sponge, was like the biggest sponge ever to walk in the office. No absorbency whatsoever. It was like a rock. Right, Kelsey, you know who I'm talking about? It was unbelievable. Like, this is the biggest sponge.

Bizarrely unbelievable.

Yeah.

Bizarrely big sponge. And just could not absorb a single thing. So Jerry J. Bone, what'd you get?

Jerobone J.

Bone.

I, I really, first of all, I just really love her last name. I feel like there's so many puns that you can add in with business and hurdle, you know what I mean?

Like, it's great.

It's perfect business name.

Yeah, it really is. I like, she made a point about self awareness. I think that's so important and just in general with, with things, but you know, to. You have to be self aware in order to, to know your brand and to to build that. So I think that that's really important.

I liked if you can understand a person's needs, it points to how they'll behave. Because usually it's like she said, it's the reverse. And I thought needs was very surface level needs, like I need a certain amount of money or I need a certain amount of benefits. But the need she was pointing to was more just on how we need to communicate our internal wiring. So I thought that was an interesting insight.

I also like how she said, like, you can do something, like somebody might present. They might sit behind a computer for eight hours a day, but that's not how they're naturally wired to give them fulfillment or enjoyment. So over time, it's going to erode them and their ability to do their job. Yeah, I feel like that's so true.

Yeah.

Yeah. Great insights. We want to know what you learned also, our dear listener friends. So if you get a chance, make sure you subscribe to our podcast, but also give us a rating and review. And why don't you share what you learned from Amber Hurdle? All right, Jacob Bloom, you got a new game.

Yeah. All right, so this game is know your entrepreneur. So I picked two entrepreneurs that have very similar time periods, and we're actually competitors, and that is Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. So I'm going to read a fact about them, and you have to just write down whether you think it's or Tesla. And then at. And then at the end, we'll go through and see who won.

Okay, so I shouldn't shout it out?

You don't need to shout it out.

Now in a form of a question. Nonetheless, don't do that.

Yeah. Or if you. If you won. After you make your decision and write down, I can give you what the answer is in, you know, right after the question. Do you want to do it that way?

No.

No. All five.

All right, so number one, escaped from drowning as a child.

Oh, this is already impossible.

Nothing is impossible.

Oh, I should hit it. Yeah, I missed it. Ah, son of a.

But you can add it later. That's the beauty of doing these remotely. You just add it later.

Yeah, that's true. Very true. Oh, man. All right, are you guys ready for the.

Now, if I almost drowned as a child, could I put that as an answer?

What's that?

I almost drowned as a child once. Could I put that as a answer?

Sure.

No.

Yeah, I almost drowned. I have a good story about that.

I didn't really miss drag. I got wet a little bit, then I wet myself. I Was a kid. I found stuff up Blake Lake. Tumbling.

Nonetheless, it gets better and better.

It's a true story. Dude.

Is anything true?

Kelsey, you're the big sponge that can't absorb. Okay, it was about you. It was about you.

Well, shame on you for keeping me.

Around for so long.

You have nowhere to go, man. You have nowhere to go.

All right, all right. You ready for number two?

Yeah.

All right, number two wanted to be an actor, but was extremely shy of his high voice and stage fright. Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla?

Oh, I put Amy.

Oh, my God. You're ruining this game.

I had to break the rules. I can't stop myself.

All right, number three. The. His father was a priest and wanted him to. To join the priesthood.

Oh, I don't know anything about either these people.

I don't know anything either, really.

Didn't we go to the essence factory?

We did.

Yeah.

And I thought that I knew a lot, so I was like, I'll get this.

Yeah.

All right, number four. The first hydroelectric power plant was designed by him at Niagara Falls.

Oh, my God, this is so hard.

All right, number five. After working together, he started a smear campaign against the other one in the newspapers for the invention of alternating current electricity.

Well, that's not nice.

Yeah. That's an easy one.

Is it?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. I felt like that was kind of what? Gimme.

Basically saying, who's the bigger D bag of the two?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty easy.

And then the last question was. A lifelong poet and writer, his favorite was Thomas Gray. And a line from the poem is the boast of herald, heraldry of pomp and power. All that beauty, all that wealth, air gave alike await the inevitable hour. The path to glory leads but to the grave.

This is hard to understand. As one of my books. Did you give us six questions? Do we do six?

Six?

You gave us six.

Yeah.

Okay. All right. All right.

You ready for the answers?

Ready.

All right, so you're marking your own papers.

Yeah.

Number one was Edison.

Yes.

Escape from drowning.

Yes. Got it. Wanted to be an actor was Edison.

Yes. I got it.

Father was a priest. Is Tesla.

Yes. I cannot believe it. I got three in a row. Look at this. I'll hold the answers up here. And I have the.

We heard you got three in a row.

Nobody missed out.

Gosh, that's good.

You're the big sponge. Okay. The big absorbentless sponge. Keep going.

All right. The first hydroelectric power plant was Tesla.

Oh, I changed it.

I got it. Right.

Yes. Settles down, dude. Right.

The. The Smear campaign. That was Edison.

Yes, Edison. That was so obvious. He was a big D bag.

And then Edison was the last one. Lifelong poet and.

Really?

Yeah.

Nice.

I got all but one.

I got three.

Really?

Three right, three wrong.

Four right. Two wrong. So Kelsey wins.

All right. Look at that.

He's the winner.

Well done, Kels.

Good jobs. Which one did you get wrong?

The first one. Escape from drowning. Oh, yeah, I put Mike.

You know, it's true. It's amazing because when I did research on them, there's so, so many commonalities that they both shared and I thought it was really cool. I didn't know that they worked together.

Yeah, me either.

Tesla was worked under Edison when he first came to the United States. And then after the alternating current electricity, he started up on his own and just started building his own lab.

Wasn't Tesla trying to transmit electricity without wire just like shooting it through the air?

Yeah, I forget. I forget what it's called, but yeah, yeah, something like that. I mean, he was insanely smart for his time period. It's just unbelievable. Both of them were.

Yeah, it's crazy, huh?

Yeah. Cool.

That was good. That was really good, man.

Really good job, Kelsey. Congrats.

Yay.

Where's the clap?

Yeah.

Congratulations there, cows. All right, let's start wrapping things up.

So genuine.

I'm trying to read notes. Congratulations.

Thank you, everybody for listening to us. You can please rate or subscribe wherever you're listening to us and visit us@mike.

Motorbike.Com so next week's episode is going to be an interesting one. We're going to talk about bias in the workplace. And we've an entrepreneur coming on who I've been recruiting to come on and talk about because she's experienced. Bias has been hesitant. She's such a good person and so she doesn't want to point fingers. And that's not the goal here. Just to point out something that's not spoken about much. I can't wait for that episode. It's going to be a tough topic, but in a critical one. So make sure you join us for that. And in the meantime, go to mike motorbike.com we've a lot of free resources for you. Plus my brand new book, Fix this next. All the details of that book is up there right now for you, plus two free chapters@mike motorbike.com all right, we'll see you guys later. See you next week.

Bye.

See, guys. Bye.