Brad Owens, the self-styled Robin Hood of Hiring and host of the Small Business Hiring Podcast and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Brad Owens

• Brad spent a decade as an external recruiter for Fortune 500 companies. In his company, he uses the best practices of the big guys to serve small businesses.
• The best companies don’t hire — they attract. Marketing and recruiting should be working side-by-side. What about your company attracts the right kind of candidates?
• People are driven to find new jobs because of the impact they might have, the potential for personal growth, the challenge, autonomy, and flexibility. A magnetic, corporate culture attracts good employees.
• To screen candidates, meet them and understand who they are. Take them to lunch. Have the difficult conversations. Talk about their difficult conversations.
• People need to know what working for you is like. Put information on LinkedIn about what it is like working for your company. LinkedIn has a place just for that.
• Steps candidates take to investigate you: read your ad online (It should market you.); search your website to see what it’s like to work there; search your social media profiles; search Glassdoor or other company rating sites.
• Make sure you are selling your job (why people would want to work there), and getting the message out. This is employer branding. Every company should be doing this.
• Give candidates homework. Put in your job ad something like: We will not look at resumes for this job unless you go to our website, find a core value you identify with and tell us why. (This requires you first to spell out your core values!)
• Brad does not use personality type assessments to promote a diverse workforce. Instead, he recommends more homework and conversation. Test for skills, if needed. Trainability is more important than skills.
• Brad recommends attributional interviewing to check for: attitude, aptitude, adaptability, accomplishments, appreciation, and amiability. These six attributes indicate a person who will be a long-term fit for your organization.
• Andy reminds companies to develop the questions, and if four people interview a candidate, have them ask the same questions in the same order, and then compare notes. The hiring manager dives deeply into the resume.
• Brad’s last suggestion: Have a system. Tune the system as your results indicate.