MBA2420 Q&A Wednesday: Should I hire someone underqualified that has potential?

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night, not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling.

Payments and wondering how this became my life.

But once I automated the admin side of things, of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers, and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts, so doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.

Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell rewards, free shipping, premium support, and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey o. Welcome to the $RMBA show, the business podcast that's always got your back. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. And in today's lesson we answer a question from one of our listeners on Q and A Wednesday. And today's question is from Mike. And Mike asks, should I hire somebody who is under qualified but has potential? I'm looking to make my third hire in my new business and I found a candidate that has a great attitude, seems to be a hard worker, but doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for. They haven't done what I need them to do in the job, but I think they have potential to learn. Should I hire them? Would love your advice. Thanks Mike. In my 20 years of entrepreneurship experience, one of the hardest things you have to do as an entrepreneur, as a business leader is hiring is recruitment. Finding great talent. It's really hard because you don't have a lot to go on. You have their CV, their resume, their LinkedIn. Maybe you can call the references. You can do a couple of interviews, but that's pretty much all you got to make a decision and to trust this person to do the job you need them to do. So in today's lesson I'm going to share with you how important is talent, experience Qualifications. Can you train somebody who has potential? Is it worth you training them or is it a risk? Or are you going to waste more time and money than it's worth? I've been in Mike's position several times and I'll let you know how it went down. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. One of my first hires for this podcast, the $100 MBA, was an administrative assistant. We interviewed so many people for the position and we always had somebody in the back of our mind that we interviewed that we thought maybe would work out. The only problem is that they didn't have a lot of experience doing the job we needed them to do. But they had an incredible attitude. There were a hard worker and frankly, just straight up honest. They were like, hey, I really need a job and I will learn what I need to learn to this job. Given that this was an early hire with the podcast and the hundred dollar MBA brand, I was a little bit tentative because I didn't want to take the risk and build on a bad foundation. But their attitude and their willingness to work hard was so strong, I just said, I need to take this chance. I need to give this person a chance because it's so rare to have that kind of attitude. We've interviewed so many people which didn't see anybody like this, and boy, am I glad I rolled the dice and took that chance because that hire that we made 10 years ago is still with the company today doing amazing things, helping us grow. Let me share another story. Back when I was running Webinar Ninja, we really needed a great software engineer to add to our team. We were growing fast and we really rushing through the hiring process to find somebody quickly. We found somebody with a pretty decent portfolio. Okay, experience. But they really wowed us in the interview. They had a really good attitude, very positive, easy to get along with, would be a great cultural fit for our team. So we hired them. As the weeks and the months went by, we started to realize that their output was actually not that great and their velocity of work was pretty slow. But we kind of coached them and helped them and they were receptive. They're super nice, great team player, but things didn't progress. Weeks turned into months and a month became a year, two years, and we realized, I don't think we made the right hire. And boy, is it hard to fire somebody who's a nice person, who is a great team player that adds a really positive energy to the culture of your team. But we had to because they weren't giving us what we needed. When you are running a business, you are competing with every other business that is offering what you're offering. The only difference between you and them is the output of your team. So you need the best team members possible so you can compete with anybody out there in the marketplace. Your loyalty, your alliance, your duty is towards the customer. You have to serve the customer. That's what you do as a business owner. They come first and if they're not being served properly, you need to do something about that. And we had to just absorb the sunk costs of two years and, you know, the opportunity cost and the damage that was done because of, you know, a less than perfect hire or less than perfect work. And we just had to cut our losses and part ways with this person. So I learned a lot of hard lessons along the way that I want to share with you. That's going to help you dictate, should I make this hire based on great attitude and potential, or should I just stick to the facts, stick to the experience and if they actually can do the work. And here's a rule of thumb I like to use first of all, not all hires are created equal, meaning it depends on the position. If your position is high stakes, high cost, meaning let's say you're spending a lot of money on salary, on benefits, on all this kind of stuff, the package that you're offering this person, it's a lot more risky because obviously this person's doing important work, high value work, high impact work, meaning if they don't do it right, it's really going to impact your customer in a big way and your business as a result. So the risk is much higher. So with a high risk, higher, like an engineer, in my case with the software company, you want to err on the side of being cautious, of really sticking towards the actual experience and what they actually can pull off. They should easily do what you need them to do so that they can expand and do even more. It may cost you a little bit more to get that kind of hire, but you're going to get more output and it's going to cost you less in the long run in terms of mistakes and issues down the line, in terms of poor work. So if they're in a high position, that's going to impact the business in a big way. A manager, a decision maker, my number one priority is skills and output. That doesn't mean the attitude doesn't matter. That's just the first thing I look at. If they pass that criteria, if I can check that box. I then look at the next criteria, which is attitude, which is cultural fit. They have to check this box too. They can't be a jerk, they can't be horrible to work with. Right? So we want to make sure that they are, you know, a good team player, pleasant. They're able to work with others, they're able to communicate with others. They don't need to be this positive rock star, but they have to be able to mesh with the team seamlessly. Now, let's say the role is not that significant. It's something that maybe won't impact the customers directly or in a big way, or even the cost of this hire is not super expensive and therefore the risk is low. In this case, I switch the priorities. Meaning if they have a great attitude, if they're positive, if they're trainable, if they're a quick learner, if they want to learn, if they're hungry, these are all things that are hard to actually train. You can't train somebody to want something. You can't train somebody to have a good attitude, to be positive, to be a go getter, to take initiative. That has to come from them. So if they have that, that gets ticked for me. So the second box. Qualifications. Able to do it. If they haven't done this job before, they haven't done the tasks or the things you need them to do in this job before, they haven't done it in the past, then they need to have some sort of skills or have done something that's transferable. So for example, let's say you're hiring somebody who's a customer service agent and they've never done chat support, but they've done phone support. So they know how to deal with customers, they know how to communicate with customers, and they've done a good job with that. They've never actually done it on a keyboard, right through chat, back and forth. It's still life support, but that is a skill they can transfer and just be trained on. Chat support. Help them with their typing skills, help them with their communication via the word, the written word or the typed word. So they have some, you know, I would say, parallel experience to what you're looking for. If they do have that and they have a winning attitude, I will go and make that higher. Remember, this is a low risk hire. So if it doesn't work out, you can part ways and find somebody else to replace them.

Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy, don underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe, thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands and their innovative horizontal Quick Draw Fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to tommyjohn.com today for 25% off your first order with code comfort. That's tommyjohn.com comfort perfected.

ClickUp just solved AI's biggest problem, and it's saving 4 million teams from productivity loss every day. Unlike ChatGPT and other AI tools, ClickUp converges all your work into one platform so your AI super agents have full context to prioritize tasks, execute workflows, and draft documents instantly. Teams using ClickUp finish work 30% faster and cut meetings in half. Try ClickUp for free today and get 15% off AI upgrades@ClickUp.com podcast that's C L I C K U P.

I have one caveat though. When you are hiring mainly on attitude and potential, you need to have some sort of extended interview or probation plan. What does this mean? Anybody can seem pleasant in a couple of interviews, right? Some people are just really good at interviews. They're really good at showing their best self. They're positive, they're prepared, maybe done a lot of interviews. The point here is that that's not enough to commit to this person. So if they are lacking the skills a little bit and you're not sure they can actually do the work, but they really wowed you in the interview, then agree to some sort of extended trial period. This could be a month, this could be two months. But the point here is that you're giving each other a chance to feel each other out and see if you actually are a good fit for each other. In this period. You can terminate the agreement at any time. You and they can terminate the agreement anytime if they don't feel like this is a good fit too. But the point here is, is that you get to actually see them work with your team for an extended period of time. It's not just a flash in the pan interview kind of trial where you get to see them be their best self for 30 minutes or an hour. No, you actually see them do the work. See that if they actually are trainable, if they have potential, if they are a positive influence on the team. And in this period you can actually see for yourself if they can actually do the job. Now in that period, I wouldn't stop interviewing people. I would continue to screen people, find people because they may not work out sooner than later, they might not work out after a week, and you realize, oh, I need to find somebody to replace them. So don't put your foot off the gas in the recruitment. When you hire somebody in this situation, keep interviewing, keep searching, because you might need somebody to replace them in the short term. Like I mentioned in the beginning, recruitment is the hardest part of business. You got to evaluate talent very quickly and hopefully make the right hire. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a tip that I think a lot of people overlook. A lot of people do not do this. And it's actually the most powerful tool you can use to make the right hire. And that is speaking to references. I don't say check references, check references just means check if they actually worked at some place or they actually worked for that period of time. No, I want you to speak to, to the people that worked with them before. It could be a line manager, it could be a colleague. The point here is, is that you want to learn from them through a quick chat. It could be a phone chat, it could be on a video call. The point here is this is the best barometer, this is the best test to really find out who this person is. Because you can hear in their voice, you can see in their face if it's a video call, if this person genuinely is a rock star, is really good, is what they say they are on the interview, right? And all my questions is, give me an example, right? So can you tell me of a time when person X was on a short deadline and was able to actually pull it off and save the project? Can you give an example when they couldn't do something on time and had to communicate to you and say, hey, I need more time or I need more resources. I also like to ask questions like, when we hire people, we like to train them and give them new skills. What are some things you think our candidate would be great at if we hired them? What do you think is an area that this person that we're looking to hire would need to improve, where we can train them and invest in them when they get started at our company? This is a kind of nice way to find out. What are some areas that might be.

Weaknesses that you can shore up in the future?

Listen, a lot of references, they'll ignore you. They're not going to respond to you. That's why you have to reach out to maybe five, six, seven references, and maybe you'll get one or two and ask for them. Ask for as many references as possible from the candidate and say, hey, this is just a procedure and this is going to help you tremendously to get to the truth about this hire. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, why don't you hit follow on your favorite podcast app? That way you don't miss a beat by hitting follow on Spotify or Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use right now. You get our next episode automatically and you get all our back catalog episodes. Over 2000 business lessons for you to devour. Go ahead and follow us right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of my favorite things I like to use as a judgment, as a barometer, as an indication if I want to hire this person, if this person is good for us and the team is. After the interview, do I want to continue to talk to this person or am I just happy the call is over? If I felt like, wow, that was short, I wish I had more time to talk to this person, that means that I probably enjoy working with them, that they're not boring, they're not uninteresting. They actually can add value in a lot of ways that I didn't maybe perceive or imagine. This is similar to meeting a friend or meeting somebody at a meetup and being like, oh, that person's cool. I hope we meet each other again. I hope we can meet up for coffee sometime soon. This is a good sign. They're a good fit for you and your team. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Friday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Okay.

Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy, cute PC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

Share and share alike with a 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other papa.