Kids These Days

A couple of months ago I hired a new intern for our office. She was smart and capable, young and eager. She seemed like a good fit for the position and we needed someone to help us out immediately.

I called to get a reference from her past employer, who said she was a good worker, likeable and smart. Good. Good. Good. “But,” she said with hesitation in her voice, “there was a bit of a problem with her schedule.”

“What do you mean her schedule?” I wondered. Did she maintain the hours of a vampire?

“Weelllll, she had a bit of a problem with punctuality.”

Red flag. It’s like when you go on a first date with a guy and he wants to take you to the half off movie theater and then asks if you can drive because he’s low on gas. I’ve come to realize that when a reference (or a first date) willingly reveals something negative, you need to amplify it by about 1,000.

Call it judgmental, but better to hire the right person than agonize over firing someone (or dumping someone) weeks after you realize you should’ve paid attention to the little stuff. Needless to say, after about three days of showing up anywhere from a half an hour to two hours late—my smart and eager intern had to take a hike.

Since I’d always been on the “selling myself” end of the interview process, it never occurred to me how difficult this recruiting position could be. I assumed they would be just like I was when setting out for an internship: young, eager to please, ready to take on any job without complaint. I guess not everyone is as ready to put in the grunt work and time to get ahead, but in order to find those who are… here are three quick tips that my stepmom (an HR exec at a multi-billion dollar company) told me would help in finding the perfect hire.

1. The best interviewer is not always the best employee. It’s tempting to want to hire someone after a great conversation. Just because you hit it off as friends, doesn’t mean they’ll pull their weight at work. It’s important to not make snap judgments about a person—someone who dazzles under pressure might not have loyalty to the company or empathy with customers. On the other hand, someone who comes off as shy or less confident might wind up being perfect for your needs in the long run.

2. Curiosity killed the cat, not the intern. Do they have a passion for your industry and a general interest in what this job is about? It’s important that the person you hire to do a certain job will want to stay on top of current trends, the latest methods and technology and current events affecting that industry. If they do, it will show in progress, innovation and ideas.

3. Look for Drive. Some people have it and some don’t—I’ve known plenty of both. The last person you want to hire to help grow your company is someone who is lazy and doesn’t care, they just want to get a paycheck. Drive comes from an internal place and is completely unrelated to socioeconomic class, grade point averages, or even an Ivy League school, so it’s not always going to show up on paper. You can spot drive by looking for what a candidate has already done, whether it’s organizing an event with their sorority or selling $1M worth of inventory, the proof is in the pudding.