New to hiring? Here are some radically human best practices!
Written by HRuprise founder, Rebecca Weaver.
Lots of leaders and entrepreneurs have fantastic business ideas, but feel lost when it comes to hiring employees – especially when they’re first starting out.
They wonder…
How do I hire people with a different skill set than me?
What interview questions should I ask?
How do I decide if someone is a good fit?
It can be daunting if you’ve never hired before, especially if your business doesn’t have an HR department. (Which most young, small or startup businesses don’t.)
If you’re reading this blog, however, chances are you want more than just hiring advice. You want to learn how to hire equitably and fairly, so you can protect your company from the toxicity, bias, harassment and power struggles that plague so many workplace cultures.
Building a radically human workplace culture starts with your earliest hires.
As soon as you hire employees, you have a company culture, whether you like it or not. So your first hires present a once-in-a-company-lifetime chance to create a people-first ethos from the get-go.
With that in mind, here are my three rules of thumb for equitable, effective hiring.
Hire for potential, not pedigree.
Look for culture-adds, not culture-fits.
Try to understand how the candidate thinks, as well as what they can do.
1. Hire for potential, not pedigree.
A lot of new employers think that hiring candidates with prestigious degrees, fancy references and a long résumé of impressive achievements will equate to fast-tracked company success.
But let’s be honest – candidates like this usually come from privilege. Hiring “rockstar” candidates early in your business expansion sets you up for a company culture defined by homogeneity and status-quo thinking, rather than inclusivity and people-first practices.
Instead of looking for “rockstar” candidates, focus on finding candidates with great potential.
The biggest definer of great potential is a candidate’s thought process, which can be assessed in the interview (see Point 3, below). Here are some signs of a high-potential candidate:
A collaborative mindset
A nuanced philosophy of accountability
A frank, honest communication style
A service-based approach to leadership
A habit of looking for areas of improvement on their own initiative
Pop Quiz! Which is harder: Teaching a high-potential candidate the operational technicalities of your company or creating an equitable company culture under a leadership team of Harvard hotshots?
Trick question. Neither is easy. But I’d hire someone who has overcome adversity and can describe how they’ve worked through obstacles to accomplish a goal 100 times over someone with just a fancy degree.
So how do you assess a candidate’s potential? This is what the interview is for. Try questions like this:
“Tell me about an experience in which you had to teach or convince a higher-up to do something in a new way.”
This question will help you assess a candidate’s capacity to adapt their communication style to a sensitive situation or relationship. This is NOT a soft skill; it is a crucial ingredient to building a healthy, productive company that grows fast and smart.
2. Look for culture-adds, not culture-fits.
We are all socialized from an early age to place high value on “fitting in.” It’s understandable that many leaders bring that same value to the hiring process by assessing how well the candidate will “fit in” with the company culture.
But here’s the problem with culture-fit as a hiring criterion: It centers implicit bias as a core metric in the decision-making process.
We humans are hard-wired to be drawn to people like us. Looking for a “culture-fit” means that if the company is predominantly white, male, heteronormative and able-bodied, you’ll be biased towards candidates that reinforce that status-quo culture.
Or more subtly, if your company culture is defined by late nights, ambitious deals and cutthroat profit margins, you’ll likely be biased towards white cis-hetero bros with MBAs.
If the company culture revolves around after-work happy hours, weekend golf and foosball breaks, you’ll be biased towards extroverts without kids.
See where I’m going with this?
A culture-fit reinforces the status quo. A culture-add brings something new that your company is currently missing.
A culture-add candidate might be a community activist, or a parent of young children, or an English language learner. They might be disabled, or trans, or Indigenous. Maybe they train dogs or do roller derby on the weekends. Maybe they have a really fascinating degree in something unrelated to the company. Maybe they’re on their second or third career, and bring a unique perspective from their past life in another sector.
Candidates like this may not directly fit your job requirements. But they have a demonstrated capacity to think outside the box, adapt to new environments and challenges, and call out the status quo in a way you might not even know you need. With more perspectives represented at your table, you’ll make better decisions.
To find these candidates, avoid the old criteria that reinforce implicit bias such as, “Would I want to have a beer with this person?”
Instead, use the interview to give the candidate an opportunity to share their unique perspective on the world. Ask questions like this:
“Tell me about a time when you had to leverage a relationship outside of your team to accomplish a goal.”
This question will reveal how the candidate builds relationships and communicates to get the job done.
3. Assess the candidate’s thought process.
This is the main goal of the interview.
When you understand how a candidate thinks, you’ll understand their capacity to grow in the ways you need. The interview can help you assess their potential to successfully grow within your organization.
The key to a great interview is to ask concrete questions, based on real experiences. These are called situational or behavioral interview questions. I recommend these questions because the best predictor of what someone will do in the future (i.e. what you’re trying to assess in an interview) is what that person has done in similar situations in the past.
So, instead of asking hypotheticals like, “How would you handle a difficult boss?” or “What’s your approach to conflict with coworkers?”
Instead ask experience-based questions with complex dynamics, like:
“Tell me about a time you had a difference of opinion with someone higher up than you.”
You’ll gain insight into the candidate’s emotional resiliency, communication style, boundary-setting skills, and commitment to protecting their teams from office politics – all crucial capacities for a radically human workplace.
Here’s another fun one. Instead of asking, “How would you handle it if you had an underperforming employee?” or, “Tell me about a time you had to manage someone’s performance,”, try this:
“Tell me about a time you identified someone with a problem performance, and coached them to success.”
See what you did there? You asked a question that invites a real, authentic story about a genuine win. It weeds out the people who don’t have the potential you’re looking for, because they won’t have a story that fits this question.
Summary
You owe it to your company to hire the best candidate for every job.
But you also owe it to yourself and your future workforce to hire the best human for your company culture.
So to recap the three rules of thumb:
Hire for potential, not pedigree. Hire candidates based on their capacity to grow with your company, not their fancy credentials.
Challenge your company status quo and your own implicit bias by looking for “culture-adds” not “culture-fits.”
Ask great interview questions that reveal how the candidate thinks about their relationships at every level within the company.
For more great hiring tips, check out our webinar, Revamp Your Hiring Process, on March 23, 2022!
This is a free opportunity to learn our HRuprise best practices, designed specifically for small and startup companies without their own HR departments.
And consider joining the HRuprise Community for resources, mentorships and peer-to-peer connections for pre-HR leaders who want to build radically human company cultures.
An inclusive, empowered company culture starts with great hires. Now you have the tools and mindset shifts to blow up your assumptions about hiring, and find fantastic people for your team!
You’ve got this,
RW
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: REBECCA WEAVER
Rebecca Weaver is the Founder and CEO of HRuprise, a marketplace that connects people with HR coaches to help them grow, develop, and navigate their toughest workplace challenges. LEARN MORE
