How to Build Confidence in Your Hiring Process
I have to do something wrong a bunch of times before I get it right.
But YOU don’t have to.
(That’s a big reason why I write this newsletter.)
Last week, I talked about setting better expectations with new hires, and gaining the confidence to lean into your expectations.
Today, more about what that process looked like in one of my own businesses. I hope the details will help you see how to apply the concepts in your own company.
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For years, I owned and ran a company called Collegiate Entrepreneurs. It was a student painting company. Our primary hires were branch managers who were responsible for booking business in their own territories. They then hired their own painting crews to run jobs and split the profits with us.
We provided them with tons of training, operational support, and marketing help.
This commitment to be a branch manager was a fairly big one, starting with landing jobs in the spring and then running jobs all summer long.
And as you can imagine, college students weren’t the only people we had to convince to work for us.
No, the real stakeholders we had to worry about were the parents.
We’d start the hiring process with the branch managers. We had detailed contracts and thought our process was comprehensive.
Then the parents would come in. Question after question. The massive contract we’d drawn up with all the specifications? Too detailed for them to dig into.
We were on the back foot, struggling to come up with answers in the moment. Our operations were pretty tight, but we did have some gaps. And we didn’t have a well-prepared answer for everything.
And we got asked about everything.
We lost out on the chance to hire some fantastic students. Not because they wouldn’t have learned a lot and made money, but because we didn’t position the opportunity correctly.
Here’s how we fixed it.
Instead of relying on a 60-page contract, we created a one-page summary that described the branch manager role. Expectations, compensation, structure, etc.
We standardized our description of the business model, so we had a clear, succinct way to talk about what the student and their parents could expect.
We anticipated the most common questions and addressed them early, and head-on.
And once we had done all that, we felt more confident. We knew that for the right students, we could offer a fantastic entrepreneurial experience. We addressed the most common questions and concerns.
After that, it became much easier to say, “This is the role. If it works for you, great. If not, we understand and wish you well.”
Essentially, take it or leave it.
The key is that we earned the right to say that by buttoning up our hiring process.
Once parents and students realized that they could opt into our program or opt out, but not rewrite the rules of the program altogether, it became easier to get to yes. We got a lot more yeses, too.
Instead of being behind the 8-ball and bombarded with questions, we put ourselves back in the driver’s seat.
We hired thousands of branch managers this way.
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You can’t be wishy-washy about the standards inside your business. But you can ask for more—and will get a whole lot more—if you are clear, prepared, and confident throughout the hiring process.
Did you know Crews & co. offers recruiting services? If you need help making your next hire, please reach out.
