Recruiting, with a little help from your friends!

One of the lessons I learned last year was that not paying attention to our culture when recruiting, was to the detriment of my business. (see point 3 of Riding across bumpy ground).

Over my holiday this year, I have reflected on how I used to interview staff at an Aussie pub I helped run in London. The other manager and I believed the best way to work out if they were a fit, was to interview them 1 night at the bar when we were ‘soft’ working and fill them full of beer.

We reckoned that you got a much better taste of their real self when they were ‘pissed’ than you did at some mock interview.  And the truth of the matter was after we did use that style of interview we got a better fit for our pub. It’s called matching people to your individual culture.

At ireckon, culture is as important as at any other workplace. While we do like attitude and creativity, not all people bring it in the same way. Moreover, not all ways are ideal as the organisation evolves either. We need people that fit in our culture today and will add to it.

So how do I preview / post interview potential job candidates?

Well these days I do what I know is the closest possible thing to filling them full of beer and letting them loose in a busy pub. I research them on the internet.

One of our key criteria at our recruiting site (www.eatyourowndogfood.com.au) is that you know how to eat your / our own dog food. I.e. you live and breathe net technology.

How could our staff help people if they were more interested in print advertising than web technology? They can’t.

So if they want to work for us and don’t have any social media presence – then it shows me a fair bit about them. It doesn’t mean I mark them down for not being on Facebook, but if someone used some ‘choice phrases’ about web technology and cannot be found to support them (IRL) I have a pretty good idea about what they are like.

In addition, the twitter users with 3 posts and 4 followers are obviously those that did it to ‘fit in’ not to immerse themselves in the use of it. I recently reviewed a twitter account of an ex ireckoner who did not fit our culture. It was a very bad attempt at showing they were connected. Better to not do it than fake it ireckon!

The big question I have of course while observing peeps in their Social Media environment is there a balance between their work versus personal life that is exposed?

We all have personal lives that outside of our professional lives do not necessarily reflect in any way how well one does their job. But then when lines get blurred, i.e. if a person is constantly twittering or reading other blogs etc and commenting during their paid work time, for no tangible benefit to their current employer, do I judge that against them?

I don’t care that they might be ‘maggoted’ on a Saturday night, but if a dark side appears during personal comments I do judge it as true character. Whatever their personal life is as long as it shows they have a life or enjoy life and throw themselves at what they do, then they have my interest.

You definitely get to see who has a ‘half full’ v ‘half empty’ philosophy on life quickly, or those who feel they are owed something by life. Of course, I really enjoy finding nuggets out about people where they have contributed to their niche areas of interest and finding out about how they think about things.

It is about reading between the lines, not making single rash decisions and evaluating what you see before you. No different to how you interview but there is more time to do it and if you use it correctly, I believe there is an opportunity for them to find out if you are the right company to work for too.

Being a smaller company it ultimately comes back to me to see if people match our culture, and those that do, make life so much easier.

These days ireckon it has gotten easier to find out about people, I just follow their friends!

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