How do I get good people?

A question submitted to our Ask Me Anything sessions.

Barak: We just talked about [mental health] being on the radar of candidates and informing the companies they go to work for. That certainly speaks to talent acquisition. So let's address this question, I think phrased a little ambiguously so it gives us a lot to chew on: How do I get good people?

Elena, you want to kick us off?

Elena: Well, you post a job ad and you just wait for everyone to show up. We think that everybody wants to come work for us, right? Because we're great. Our company is great. But the truth is, the competition for good employees is actually pretty stiff.

One of the things we're trying to encourage hiring managers to do is broaden their vision of what a great candidate looks like. So be creative in the way you view a candidate's resume. Read between the lines. A resume is just a piece of paper. They can't possibly put every great thing they've done on the paper. So looking at their resume and saying, "Okay, this one's got potential” dive a little deeper.

But also I encourage hiring managers to kind of ease up on the non-impactful requirements. So, the kind of school you went to, or the area of town that you live in, which is illegal. But there are a lot of subjective qualifiers that, if you strip those away and focus on the path, the skills and the behaviors that the people demonstrate, you can find more people to talk to and potentially find a diamond in the rough.

Barak: I think sometimes the hiring manager starts with a conception of an ideal candidate that includes things like where they went to school and where they live and all this stuff. Like you said, some of which is either illegal or non-impactful. It can be difficult to find the kind of the DNA of that candidate in a skills sense. And so, what's your recommendation for getting to that core definition of what's truly essential for that position?

Elena: Well, preparing beforehand, looking at a job description and understanding which responsibilities in that description are must-haves, are the things that have to get done, have to get done well, it's the reason why we're hiring you. Then there are things that are deal breakers. “If they don't have this skill or if they demonstrate a way of handling a problem, we can't have that.” So you have your deal breakers and your must-haves. Then there are the things in between. So you've got a list of 20 things they're responsible for. You've got 5-7 must-haves. What are the rest of them? You could look at those tasks and weigh them. When you're talking to the candidate, you match whatever skills they have against those. If they're areas for development and it's weighted as a task that's not critical to their success, then that might be okay to compromise on. But when you're looking at the various tasks, which ones are absolutely critical? How do their skills match against that versus the other skills? Those could potentially be areas where you grow the person or there's a longer learning curve and more time for them to acclimate.

Marta: Yes, I agree with all of that. I also think that once you have a job opening and you have identified the skills required for the job…we have the difference between a job posting and a job description. I know sometimes we all use those terms one way or another, but they have different goals. The job posting also is critical. You have to have a good job posting. Obviously, like Elena said, you have to do all the homework on the skills you need and everything else. But you should be a little more creative and fun with the job postings too. Once you do the interviews and you have a group of candidates that you like, I think you can elaborate more by sharing with them the job description, give them more details and stuff like that.

Elena: Yeah. That's a good point. People confuse it all the time. The job posting is the attraction is, is like, "Come work for me and this is why," whereas the job description is like, you know, very linear and detailed and rote.

Barak: I like it. I hear you talking a lot about job postings. Either of you want to comment on job postings versus other forms of talent acquisition? Do you want to defend job postings as a reliable way of acquiring people?

Marta: Well, I want to say one thing about job postings, besides what I just said. I think in this day and age, it's a matter of being creative. So a job posting could also feature a video. You create a video with the hiring manager talking for like, 30 seconds: "Must be able to do this, must be able to do that." "Hi, I'm the hiring manager for this project manager position and this is what I'm looking in this person". That alone is going to get you some traction, I think.

Barak: Are there any legal sort of pitfalls to be thinking about with job descriptions and job posting? If someone is new to this topic, what are the things that could get them into trouble? Either of you.

Elena: Well, a job description can be subpoenaed in a court of law, it's a legal document. There's not a regulation but a very strongly recommended business practice to post all your jobs for diversity purposes, to make sure that you are giving the opportunity to a broad population of people, including your internal employees, who may not have otherwise known about the opportunity. With regard to postings, you do have to be careful in what you say in them. It's very easy to misrepresent a job which is not necessarily illegal, but it's not nice. So definitely important documents, both of them.

Barak: Is there anything you want to add to that, Marta?

Marta: No, I totally align with that. We're going to talk more about this a little later but, in certain states, we will have to also put the salary requirements for the job in the posting.

Disclaimer:

The content present in this recording and transcript is for informational purposes only, designed to improve your general understanding and does not constitute legal advice. Before taking any action based or relying on the content provided you should always seek legal advice from a qualified attorney authorized to practice law in your jurisdiction.