DETERMINING PRODUCT
Now for any position, for any job. Salesman, Director, Engineer, Secretary, whatever; there is some product. There is a product part of every single job.
When you hire a Receptionist who is going to answer the phones and the phone is ringing. And the Receptionist ignores it, Brrrrrr, Brrrrr, Brrrrr. Then she answers and says in a very bored tone “ABC Company…” There is very low quality bread. And basically you are not willing to pay money for that product, for that result. So, what’s interesting is that in order to get to a product or to get to a result you have to have some interest and some idea of what is this result. Because if you don’t know what the results should be how can you produce it?
In our terminology we call the result of any job a Product. A product does not have to be something physical. A product is the valuable end result of an action. So, if I am a Receptionist and the phone rings, Brrrr, and I go (in a very interested tone) “ABC can I help you. Okay. You want to talk to Mr Director. I have no idea where he is. Probably playing golf today. Cheerio. Bye.”
This is still no product. So, when we define a product we have to think it through to the complete end. We have to look at “What is that final result which makes this service valuable.”
So, same example: Brrrr. “Hello, ABC can I help you?”
“I want to talk to the sales manager.”
“Just a second.”
“Are you there. Yes. Okay here is a phone call for you.”
“Okay I will connect you.”
Product – a connected phone call. It was done swiftly and in such a way so that the client or whoever called felt well treated. In fact the receptionist of your organization can improve the communication with every single client or could lower the communication with every single client. And to say that the receptionist is a low paid unimportant job is a misunderstanding of that job. I have seen companies who have literally lost millions because of the wrong receptionist.
When you put a perfect Receptionist on the job everything goes easy because when a client calls you they are happy as soon as they start talking to your company simply because someone is treating them with respect. I can guarantee that you have some companies that you like to call just because of that one factor – you know that they always treat you well when you call they treat you like you are important. Do you agree? And this is just one example of one job.
Now, the receptionist who can do this job perfectly – they do not do that job perfectly just because of good luck – no, at some point in time they have decided “I want to do something valuable.” And they have one way or the other figured out what you need from them and they have started delivering it and you become very happy.
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE JOB INTERVIEW
Now, how can we translate this knowledge into a hiring interview?
Lets look at it. Here you are and you ask a question to the job candidate. A very common question a lot of HR staff ask is this “Who are you? Tell me about yourself?” This is a typical question.
“Oh, who am I? I am a very optimistic, service oriented person. That’s me. I like sports, I like freedom, I like responsibility, that’s me.”
“Wow. That sounds great.”
Then we have the next question. “Being so fantastic, what do you do?”
“Oh, I work as the Marketing Assistant in a very famous company. And that’s what I do.”
“Okay, can you tell me more what you do there?”
“I do a lot of planning, I participate in a lot of meetings, we do coordination, we do marketing plans, we do campaigns. Oh, I do so much. I can tell you more.”
Next question “And have you been something else.”
“Yes, I was a Secretary in another company.”
And “What did you do there?”
“I did this Secretary work and it was a very, very big job… blah, blah, blah.”
And we can do this interview about who he was and what he did for one to two hours easily. “And what hobbies do you have?”
“Oh, I like roller skating” or “I like football or skiing” and “I have a very big family and I like playing with the kids.”
And this one to two hours will then result in a big QUESTION.
THE QUESTION IS “WHAT CAN THIS PERSON PRODUCE FOR US ?”
Isn't that the question you really want solved – can he produce something for us? So you basically are not asking a question about who he was or what he did but what he produced.
The problem is that we didn’t ask any questions about it – it’s like a forbidden area. Its not really nice to ask “How did it go?” “What result did you have?’ No, that is unpleasant and so we are going to make it much more difficult for us by not asking about it at all, we are just going to ask about who he was and what he did over and over and then play the mind game of trying to figure out the result.
Now, lets say that you are the main coach for a big football team. That’s your job and you decide we are going to hire a new Forward who can actually score goals. That’s the one you are going to recruit right now.
And here I come. What is your first question going to be for me? Is it going to be “Tell me about yourself, who are you?”
“Oh, I am a very artistic player.”
No, you are not going to ask that question. You are going to ask “Have you scored any goals.” You are immediately going to go for result. You are not going to waste time with Be and Do. No, you are going to ask “Can you score? Have you ever scored before?”
And if I would go like this “Oh, you know. Last year I was a little bit unlucky. You know, the other players didn’t really pass to me. I was very open in a good position but nobody ever gave me the ball. That is why I come to your beautiful company, because I am sure I am going to get the ball here.”
How impressed are you going to be. No, you would just say “Next.”
The interview would be over in less than 30 seconds. Would you care if I was nice and good looking? You would just go “Next.”
“Okay, can you score?”
“Hell yes.”
“How many goals last year?”
“Thirty two. I always score. Its all I know how to do.”
“Very interesting. Come here. We want to talk to you.”
Are you with me. Here is a person who can produce a product. Now we would like to know everything about him. Now we would like to know
“What do you eat?”
“Spaghetti.”
“And how do you like to be treated?”
“Oh, you want to be alone.”
You want to know everything about this guy. Because if he can score and you can win the league. You deliver to your fans what they want. If this guy is socially acceptable is besides the point. Because I can guarantee you that if this guy makes a lot of goals he will become accepted whether he is social or not.
PLEASANT PERSONALITY AND RECRUITMENT
May I ask you a question? Do you have someone in your company who is not the most pleasant personality but who you would not like to loose. The person who is not nice but who produces? Have you seen a person like that? Yeah, good. So, they exist. Do you agree? They exist.
Have you seen the nice social guy who didn’t do anything? But he is nice, he is social. And when there is a party he is always interested. But when he has to work he is always too busy. So, that exists too.
So the social veneer. The value of it, when it comes to hiring is close to zero. If you look at that social side you could go completely wrong. When you start to look for results you interestingly enough get a very black or white picture. There either are products or there aren't. You know, you cannot be a little bit pregnant. No, you are either pregnant or not. You either did score a goal or you didn’t. You see, products are very black or white in their nature. You either built a house or you didn’t build one. Or you installed a bath tub or you didn’t install it.
A PRODUCT IS EITHER THERE OR NOT THERE
Whether a product is small or big it is either there or not there. But that is not true for Do or Be. Example “I worked a lot in installing bath tubs.” Or “I worked a lot as a sales manager. I was managing sales people for five years, I was traveling all around the country.” We can make the mistake of thinking “Oh, this guy has five years experience of running sales people.” But if we had investigated his results the sales of the company were high when he was hired and crashed until he got fired. So this guy has five years of experience of crashing sales. And now he talks to you “I am very experienced. I worked in this company. This company has structural problems, the manager and owner did not agree with me. The sales went down and I did everything to correct it and I gave them a new model, but after five years I couldn’t take it anymore and I quit.” That is a nice description of a complete catastrophe. Because people who know how to run sales people will do the opposite, they will have the statistics go up. And if the guy has been in six different jobs where he had bad luck all the time – don’t use your company as a testing plant to find out if this is the first company where he is going to be lucky. You can’t afford it. So, what you do is simply ask for results. How much, in what time. What was your expected result.
WE HAVE COVERED THE IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCTS IN RECRUITMENT.
NEXT LESSON: KNOWLEDGE |
