simplerich

Manpower in Central Iowa has a blog and I gotta tell you, if I didn’t have a job already I’d want to work for the person who writes that blog! There’s a load of great information over there on workexposed.com. Recently interviews, staffing, and employee enthusiasm have been at the front of my mind from a conversation I had with a customer. But first, a qutoe from Work Exposed: The Blog:

Hire “engage-able” team members. One HR leader we interviewed underscored this point: “Our number one problem was lack of fit. We needed to hire people who could be successful. Instead of training square pegs to fit the round hole, we now try to hire round pegs.”

I recently went to work at a store where the staff just seemed to lack enthusiasm and zest for… well, anything. I talked to customers about the change in the store’s atmosphere and asked them if they could describe it for me. I was fishing. I did the whole, “I can’t put my finger on it but…” and let them fill in the blanks.

One of the regulars, used to be a regular, now an irregular, said “The old manager hired employees who were a pleasure to visit with and talk to. Even the ones who couldn’t count change were fun to talk to.” He admitted every employee wasn’t perfect or even always the most competent but they were always sociable and friendly and that made up for it to an extent. Now bad service was accompanied by boring lackluster employees. There was no reason to come to the place and it was a craps shoot on who’d be behind the counter. Good service but no personality or bad service with no personality.

I recently had a manager tell me they needed more of a form they used for interviews and they didn’t know the questions by heart, they just always answered the questions, filled out the form and that was what their previous supervisor had them do. I was appalled. “Here’s the thing,” says I, “the biggest part of an interview for me is to know at the end of the interview if you can stand to talk to the person for another two minutes.” If you can’t wait for the interview to end I don’t care how qualified they are do NOT hire them.” We’re in sales. We deal with the public every minute we’re open and it has to be something the potential employee is interested in doing.

If an employee being interviewed for a sales position isn’t enthusiastically trying to sell themselves to the interviewer why in the world would anybody believe they’ll try and sell anything in the future? Great sales people are great relationship builders. Even if the relationship lasts 2 minutes for that time they’re making the customer feel great for that two minutes. If they’re not engaged during the interview. If they’re not making the interviewer feel great during the interview, and really selling themselves enthusiastically they’re not going to cut the mustard. A technically great applicant who doesn’t sell it, doesn’t.