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Hiring and Applying for Jobs

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Please find some links and notes from the 2 Regular Guys Podcast. This week Aaron and Terry will bring you lots of tips and tricks for both hiring and applying for jobs. In their years of experience, both Terry and Aaron have applied for several jobs as well as had the responsibility of hiring employees for the companies they have worked for. If you are charged with hiring candidates, they will help you establish a better hiring process, improve your interviewing techniques and help you find where top talent might be hiding.

If you are looking for work, they will help you identify companies you want to work for, how to stand out amongst the crowd and what you should be doing when looking for a job.

Sponsored by: Our Success Group

Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys is all about garment decorating, a bit of fun, and no rants or lectures or selling. We are not doing this for our employers, but rather for our industry. For the past two years, 2 Regular Guys has been the first and the most listened-to garment decorating industry podcast on this planet! We are humbled by all of you tuning in each week. We work hard to bring you information that will make your business better, and our industry better. Take a look at our incredible weekly guest list and you’ll understand where this industry goes for news, interviews and the heartbeat of garment decorating. Thanks for listening today!! We have another great show for you!!

Other discussions

    • Just wrapped up DAX shows
    • Next week’s show will be recorded and broadcast at our regular time since it will be during ISS Nashville and one of us won’t be there to broadcast live. Dave Gehrich with Atlas Screen Supply will be our guest. We’ll be talking “shop calibration.”
    • ISS Nashville next week
    • Our next Live Show will be NBM in Indianapolis June 4-6

The Job Application and Hiring New Staff How To

This show came about as I’m in the process of trying to find some additional staff to fill some needs we have in customer service on both the rep side and management side. After posting an ad on indeed.com I was flooded with nearly 250 resumes. Apparently, everyone without jobs these days is from the customer service field. Anyway, some of the applications left me wondering if maybe our country’s problem is not a lack of jobs, but a lack of qualified applicants for jobs that are available.

  • Wife works at a local community college and they are actually hosting a job fair today. They have 105 companies who signed up to “exhibit” and all the spaces were sold out in the first day they released the offers.

Anyway, off my soap box as I could go on for hours about my frustrations with hiring. So, fortunately, I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by a gentleman named Brad Remillard of Impact Hiring Solutions. He gave me a ton of food for thought on what hiring is all about and I figured that Terry and I could build on that for you hiring managers out there.

Hiring

What are some of the things that companies do wrong when trying to hire new employees?

  1. There is no hiring process, it is just an arbitrary task we do once in a while.
    • No process, training or review.
      • Did you ever get training on hiring someone or did you just use the techniques people used on you when you were being hired?
    • Does anyone have a scoring method to systematically evaluate candidates or is your system gut feel and first impressions?
  2. Our Job Posting / Descriptions Don’t Attract Top Talent
    • Our method for posting jobs and trying to attract talent is the opposite of what we would do when trying to attract top customers, why?
    • Job descriptions are typically the minimum requirements for the job.
    • We ask them NOT TO CONTACT US
    • We attract only those who are desperately looking for a job RIGHT NOW.
    • Job postings should be as good as your marketing / advertising selling the opportunity, the company and the boss they will be reporting to.
      • Share my Customer Ambassador Job Listing
    • We are fishing in the wrong job pool. 10% of the candidate are aggressively seeking work because they are unemployed – For a reason in most cases. This is where most of us find our employees.
    • 70% of Candidates are open to the possibility of a new job with the right opportunity. This is where the top talent is.
  3. Don’t really know who we are looking for.
    • We don’t clearly define the roll before hiring people and have no way to measure success with some sort of a roadmap with measurable goals.
    • We haven’t clearly stated what the company vision and strategy is so how can we know who fits into OUR company (Not the other companies they used to work for)
    • Must define success very clearly in the hiring process otherwise you are setting up the candidate for failure.
  4. Conduct Horrible Interviews that don’t tell us a thing about the real employee.
    • When interviewing we lob up meatball questions (like we really need someone that is X, is that you?). Then we do NOT probe or ask for examples.
    • We are too focused on what they did in the past (see resumes) and not focused enough on what they will do in the future.
    • Just because they were successful in the past with a similar role doesn’t mean they will be successful in your company with your culture and your resources.
    • Must set aside first impressions and truly dig into what the candidate will be like in your environment
    • Must make interviews more job like, always asking why
    • Get examples of how they did something like that in the past or how they would do the job at your company. Follow-up ever questions with “Can you give me an example of that?”
  5. We are unable to spot Long Term Success
    • Top Talent has High Initiative and will do more than asked and don’t wait to be told what to do next.
    • Top Talent has Flawless Execution where projects are done on time, budgets meet and measurables are achieved.
    • Top Talent has adaptability – They can take past success and make it work in your environment.
    • Once the interview is complete we must have a scoring matrix. We can’t just rely on “What did you think of her?”

What we should be looking for when we hire new employees.

  • Ever think about how many jobs you’ve had over the years? (People who have one job. Hard to be appreciated.)
  • There seems to be some buzz in large companies removing “criminal” references.
  • Hiring with experience or hiring specifically with no experience.

Applying for Jobs

OK, so lets turn the tables here and discuss some key people should be thinking about when you are applying for a job.

Examples of what not to do:

  1. Use improper grammar, capitalization, and spelling on your resume or cover letter.
    1. When they have a college education listed on their resume I want to call up their college and tell them that they failed…
    2. Not capitalizing the name of the companies that you worked for? Show lack of respect.
    3. Use of slang or words like “fixin” or “aint”
  2. Short or inconsistent info in the objectives and cover letter.
    1. Shows lack of effort
    2. Got the objective of “use my experience in the medical field to..”
  3. Just generally not making sense
    1. “Need to get me a job to buy me a car”
    2. A success at a current job was “I’m still employed”

What you should do:

  1. Take the time to research the company you are applying for are completely read the job listing to fully understand the role.
  2. Have references listed. Good companies are going to check them so don’t take the “References Available Upon Request” cop out.

-When you are unemployed or actively looking for work, your new full time job should be to look for work. Make that show in your interactions with the prospective employee.

If you won’t work hard trying to find a job, you won’t work hard after you have found one.

What we see on job applications

  • How I was selected for my internship based on the final two resumes.

What we should see on job applications

  • I always say you’re perfect twice in your life, the day you’re born and the day you write your resume.
  • If you’re applying, remember hiring you is probably not a priority so don’t freak out waiting.

Shows

  1. ASI New York – May 5-6
  2. ISS Nashville – May 7-9
  3. NBM Arlington – May 14-16
  4. NBM Indy – June 4-6

Other News/Events

Terry’s Books

Screen Printing: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.

Direct to Garment: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.

Scheduling and Estimating Production Time for Garment Screen Printing Just $2.99 as an e-book

 

This show is for the listeners so please make sure to ask us some questions or give us some topics you would like us to discuss. Also if you have any event or upcoming items related to our industry that you would like us to bring up on the show, please contact us via our Facebook Page. Also make sure to interact/follow us on Twitter or Google +. You can also find information over at our You Tube Page.