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Five Secrets To Successful Hiring – No.2

Full-time, part-time, remote, freelance… any kind of job arrangement is now available. And everyone wants to hire good people, but there are burning questions: how to find good people and how to keep them?

We have gone through step one: alignment of core values and you can find it HERE.

Now that you have that out of the way, it’s time for step two in the hiring process. These are my secrets of employing people in my company Solor where we have 92 percent retention. What do we do when we figure out a new person is aligned with our core values?

Job benchmarking foundation

To put it in simpler terms: this is a process of matching a person to a role based upon their Emotional Intelligence. The goal here is to have a person get the energy from a role instead of losing energy.
Remember: when an employee is losing energy from a job role, the only possible outcome is the creation of a toxic, gossipy, passive-aggressive atmosphere. And who wants that?!

Use the available tools

To determine whether someone is good for the role you need, there are plenty of tools out there. I use DISC assessment and recommend it as it has proven to me times and times again that the results I’m getting are right on the spot.
DISC divides people into 4 different categories, ensuring that if I follow it and match it with the role that’s “empty”, a new employee will feel comfortable in a new role.

Let’s put things into perspective

If a person applying for a job is a D/I, they are very driven and outgoing. Let’s say you want to put that person into the sales department where they have to make a phone call every week, maybe not even to make a sale but to create a relationship with a customer. You want them to be interested in the person on the other side of the line.
Your new D/I employee will not be comfortable with that. What drives them is commission, quick turnaround, fast transaction. And they will not get a single thing from forming a relationship with a customer. They lose, and you lose. No sales, and no relationship.
Remember that we are not all wired the same. We are not all driven by the same things. Some people what to climb the corporate ladder, while others want to stay where they are and create long-term relationships with their clients. Some want money, others want connections.

How to connect the right person with the right role and why do we use DISC

When looking for a new team member, you need to find a tool that is going to work for you. You need to know how will the people be triggered by a role, and how will they communicate in a role. What are the things that will cause a conflict in your organization?
We use the DISC method in my company because we are working remotely. Many companies have switched to this kind of arrangement due to the pandemic so I’m sure DISC can help you organize your company as well.

What is important when you work remotely is to have people who are task-oriented. High D and C will be great because they will be more independently capable than I and S styles. I don’t need to micromanage D’s and C’s because I know they will make the job done, even though they will do it a little bit differently than how I would have done it.

Put the tool to use for proper job benchmarking

I usually have a manager or someone who is high-performing in a certain role already to do a DISC assessment with people because he/she will know what they need for a specific role. They also go through an assessment together. They compare what is written in an assessment to what a manager needs a person to do in order to determine where exactly is a new employee on a DISC circle.

Why? You need to know if a High C will struggle to get into an I role, or a High S in a D role. That will allow you to coach your people better, to understand them before they are even hired to determine if this person is going to need a lot of coaching or will they feel like a role is made for them.

Image by Here and now, unfortunately, ends my journey on Pixabay from Pixabay

Our retention is so high (92 percent) because we do job benchmarking and we connect the right people to the right roles.

Hiring is subjective. It’s super difficult to find objective means to hire someone. Some people are better in a resume, some are better in an interview than others. That’s what makes us all unique!

But if you use the tools available, you get more objective data points.

Watch out for this

Tools available out there to determine the right role for a good employee are vast. However, always consult with your labor attorney. You want to make sure that whatever tool you use, it’s not causing an impact it shouldn’t have. You cannot discriminate against one body of people (race, ethnicity, sexuality….). This is a tool you don’t want to use.
This is why I recommend DISC, as it is non-discriminatory.

Whatever tool you use, keep in mind that you want people to gain energy from their role because if they are losing it, that will create a toxic workplace, gossipy, passive-aggressive atmosphere.
Even in this case, people can stay for a long time but probably won’t.

Keep your workplace energy-driven and keep it up for many years to come.

By Alex Swire-Clark

How To Follow a Legend?

Having to give any kind of speech in front of other people can be a very stressful task. It can be any speech from a big presentation that has to end up in getting a sale, through talking to your boss about your raise, all the way to giving a presentation of your idea or work in front of a team. But what happens when a person or persons coming before you are either really famous or just knock it out of the park? How can you handle that in terms of your stress and your preparation?

This is a situation that can happen to anyone and it can cause nervousness to any of us. It just recently happened to me even though I have been giving speeches for more than twenty years.
I have been invited to speak in an organization and everyone in the organization received an e-mail that said: “Our meeting this month is in person and our focus is going to be on the Rapport Advantage: Dynamically transforming the way you communicate with Alex Swire-Clark. We had an outstanding speaker in general Colin Powell, chairman retired last month, and our presenter this month will deliver!“

Colin Powell? What?!
Thinking that I will be speaking to a group who just heard general Powell speak while having all the respect in the world for him, is really a hard act to follow.
How to do this?

I see this as an opportunity to build upon what’s happened rather than go into panic mode. I see this as an opportunity to have fun with it and embrace it and live up to that challenge. Of course, I will be nervous, I am nervous every time I go in front of an audience but it is because I want to deliver good content to them and make sure that the audience is getting value from my time with them.
What can you do before you get on the stage, what do you do in those moments before?

Breathe.
Nice, big deep breaths before you get on that stage.
Roleplay all the possible situations.
Do you know your numbers inside and out? Do you know your speech inside and out? Can you ad-lib if necessary? Are you prepared for questions in the middle of your presentation, can you handle that? Roleplay those situations, spend a lot of time in the pre-work and that makes the actual on-stage time much simpler for you.
Just go with it and BE YOU.
From a DISC world, I am a High I so I have strong improvisational skills, I am not rigid so not a lot bothers me. I could roll with the flow since that’s the way I am wired. For someone else that might not be the case and maybe you will have to adapt a bit more. However, do not try to be like anybody else.
Be you, use your voice. Do what you do in the way that you do it and that’s going to give you authenticity and you will not have so much pressure. If I tried to act like someone else does on the stage, I will not be genuine and on top of that I will have to remember content, mannerisms, techniques and I will enhance the chances of freezing up.

Remember, if you are delivering content, you have to be you through it. If you are delivering something that is data-driven, that doesn’t mean you can not liven it up, add your personality to it and appropriate humor.
Make sure you hit these three goals:

This will give you a sense of confidence and satisfaction that you know you’ll do a great job (of course, if you put in the time and the work before speaking).

Don’t worry, trust in your pre-work, be authentic to who you are and do your thing. Who speaks before you, in that case, shouldn’t matter. You got this!

By Alex Swire-Clark

Why Is Your Passion Seen As Anger?

Each of the four personality styles (D, I, S and C) has it’s strengths and blind spots. Knowing what personality style you are will then allow you to get familiar with the strengths that you are bringing to the table. Also, you will then know what are the blind spots that you have so that you can avoid issues in communication, and you can also surround yourself with those who can help you compliment the style that you have.

If you are still not sure what personality style you are, you can find it out HERE. It is a DISC Assessment that I have prepared for you and that will in only 25 questions give an answer to why you react in a way you do and open the doors of communication you didn’t even know is possible.

A big number of people who after DISC Assessment fall into High D category are CEOs, or Executive Vice Presidents, or any other leader in an organization. The reason behind this is that a High D personality style does not take No for an answer. They see climbing the corporate ladder as a challenge and they don’t stop until they get to the top.

Here are four major strengths that a High D possesses:

Result orientated – High D is all about getting the objective met, regardless of what is it going to take. Excuses are not something that they are interested in, rather results that will get them to that objective.

Strategic, forward-looking, innovative – the brain of a High D is always thinking how they can implement something new and better in an organization and it is always moving on to the next big idea. They come up with innovative ideas that have never been done before as they are always thinking outside of the box.

Direct communicators and challenge oriented – when a High D want to present something to you, they will do so in a direct manner. It will be so straightforward that they will usually not give any additional information or necessary words. Your task will be clear and laid out in front of you.

Making quick decisions and initiating activity – a High D is all about execution. They are doers by nature, and they try to pack up as much as possible in a single working day. They have the urge to constantly move so they will not sit around but take the decision on what the next step should be. Sometimes this decision will be based on facts, and sometimes it will be based on a High D following their gut feeling. Either way, the decision will be made.

Now that we know the great sides of a High D, we need to look at the things that they are not aware of and that can be perceived in a negative manner:

Setting standards too high – most of the time, a High D will be sure that something can be done in a smaller amount of time than it actually takes to get it done. As a High D, the standards that you set are too high for most people and if you are not aware of this, you can wear your staff out.

Changing course more frequently than it’s necessary – High D likes the change, and they have to be moving all the time, so they will bring many changes in an organization. While changes for better are always good, putting out too many incentives and new objectives will be hard for people to track. It is important to slow down and let people know what exactly are you doing and why when you want to make a change.

Lacking tact and diplomacy – what a High D will often forget since they are always busy, is that other people need time to process information. High D’s brain is always buzzing, and they sometimes forget to tell all the information, since they are following what’s going on in their head. If you are guilty of this, try giving out all the information to your employees, and see how they can achieve much more with you as their leader.

Appearing angry when they believe they are being passionate – as an innovative person, a High D is excited to speak about their new idea. The downside of this is that they get very involved when speaking, so others can see that as anger or frustration. A good way around this sometimes-unpleasant situation is to take use of other personality style. A High D who wants to be perceived in a correct way can hire an administrative assistant who is a High S. What they are going to get by that is to have a human filter for message they are trying to convey. This person will filter the message and smooth things over so the communication in an organization will be much more effective.

You can learn how different personality styles can work together to avoid blind spots on my YouTube channel and my weekly Podcast. Remember that the first step to thriving in your workplace or at home is self-awareness. Find out what style is yours and what excellent qualities you bring to the table. Take the step today HERE.

By Alex Swire-Clark

Four Powerful Interview Questions You Must Know

Regardless of which side of the table you are sitting at in an interview process, you can expect some standard question, such as:

Tell me a little bit about yourself.
What are your three biggest strengths and how do you bring those to the workplace?
Where do you see yourself five years from now?

Even though the interview process has changed through the years, these questions remain a part of it. However, interviewers are adding more and more emotional intelligence pieces into the interview equation. To help you prepare for an interview, I have listed four powerful questions that must be asked if you want to find a good fit for the job role. Equally, if you are looking for a new job, these are questions you can anticipate and prepare to answer as more and more employers are using them.

1. Tell me about someone with whom you work on a regular basis that you find difficult to get along with. What have you done to build a stronger relationship and what was the result?

This will take out a personal response to conflict since they need to describe someone they are not getting along with. This will depend on their personality type according to the DISC method (you can find out more about the way each style responds to conflict HERE).
To build a stronger relationship with someone a person needs to have self-awareness. Lacking it will leave them with no skillset to draw from to make a not-so-perfect relationship better on a daily basis. It is also good to notice that in terms of the results of trying to fix the relationship, anything is possible. That includes a person leaving the company just because of one colleague or boss they find difficult to get along with. If I had a nickel for every time on my speaking engagements I have heard: “People leave managers, not companies” …

2. Tell me about a time when you rejected one of your team members ideas or opinions about a project.

This is a question that is more for outgoing styles because they typically don’t hesitate when they have something to say. If you are talking to a D personality style, you can expect that they said whatever was on their mind, since they just let those kinds of things out. I personality style typically share quite a bit and get their energy from being around people, so they also don’t have an issue with speaking their mind.
However, S and C personality styles don’t like to share their thoughts and feelings, especially in public since they are the reserved kind. What you can expect from them even in the future in situations like this is to stand on the sidelines and take notes, and then react privately. In an anonymous email if possible.

3. Describe a time when someone treated you unfairly. What did you do?

Unfairness is a common thing that appears in society these days and people often feel that they are treated unfairly. If a High D feels that they are treated unfairly they will be very tactical and not allow personal feelings to get into a conversation. On the other hand, you can expect a High I to be emotional and talk to the person who made them feel a certain way to get to the bottom of the situation.
On the other side of the spectrum, a high S will internalize the situation and not do anything publicly. They will wait and maybe talk to a supervisor, but for the most part, they will just hold their emotions inside. So, if you want to know how a High S is feeling, you must talk to them privately and one-on-one. Lastly, a high C will be very calm and calculated and know the time and the place to say that they are feeling unfair. Most probably they will approach the person that makes them feel that way and talk to them openly.

4. How do you know we will be a culture fit for you? What traits you have that match those of current employees? What is different about you or what skill set you have that can better our company in the process of attaining our goals?

Personality style that will put culture in the first place is definitely a high S. These people want to feel as if they are a part of something bigger than themselves and/or a part of a family. Unlike them, D and S personality styles can work independently and don’t require much interaction with other people daily, so they won’t be concerned about the culture, but rather about achieving their own goals.
Talking about traits that match those of current employees will require a bit of research. This is where C personality styles will thrive since they love a ton of research, especially from a standpoint of employee satisfaction. D personality styles will look for potential award winners among the employees because they want to be a part of that kind of culture. Unlike them, I personality styles look for fun in the culture of a company and question will they enjoy being in it daily. Looking for a more family atmosphere and a way to individually contribute to the higher good is something you can expect from a high S. But don’t expect them or a high C to talk much about what are they bringing to the table. They have written it down in a CV and they don’t like to talk much more about their achievements. However, a D personality style will be super happy to tell you about the things they do well so even from that standpoint you can figure out who is what personality style.

Why are these questions important?

When we are interviewing people, we need to anticipate these responses so that we can recognize the personality style of a person we are talking to and tailor the rest of the questions. It is important to keep in mind what position are we interviewing the person for because otherwise, we won’t know how to use this information. What we want from a person is to gain the energy from a role they will be working on, not lose it. Because that can help them overcome the challenges that they have to deal with daily within that role. If you do your benchmarking properly, the person you are interviewing will feel as if the job role was made for them. That will make them feel fulfilled by the role and they will do their best and be super successful.

Using DISC in the workplace can do wonders for your company, as it has for these people HERE. Understand your people and unlock their true potential by joining one of my courses HERE.

By Alex Swire-Clark

The Supportive High S Personality

Do you feel as if some people in your organization do a lot of work and carry the teamwork but don’t get enough recognition? And the reason for that is that they don’t mind doing the work and don’t like to be put in the limelight? Chances are, that excellent team member is a High S personality.

A high S is typically reserved, and people oriented.
Very good examples of that kind of behavior and people who lived their High S personality style to the fullest are Andy Griffith and Mother Teresa.

Wonderful thoughts for a nation, society and the world. How much better would the world be if we all lived these words?

High S personality style has some really remarkable characteristics. Let’s see some of the key ones:

Supportive – High S personality style will make great sacrifices and most of the time, as I mentioned, will not want and limelight. In a group, they will do whatever is needed to show that they are a part of a group. They will also make sure that the recognition goes where it should. So for example, as I am a High I and a High S, this latter part of my personality will make me do the survey when someone asks me to. Not because I will get a reward for doing it, but because I honestly think that a certain employee of a company is doing a great job and I want hers or his manager to know that.

Steady – High S is a glue of every organization. They make things happen but in subtle ways, and you can expect a lot of work but no drama from them. This steadiness comes from their loyalty, whether its is to their colleagues, friends or partners. Also, you can expect their behavior to be steady; they are typically positive people but are never too high or too low.

Sincere – a High S cares very, very deeply. It can be anything that they are passionate about, but they will be loyal to that group or a cause and will protect it if needed.

Sentimental – As a High S I cried during the movie “Tango”. Who does that?!

Status Quo – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a life motto of any High s personality. They do not like to rock the boat or to make any changes.

If you recognize yourself in these characteristics and you are starting to realize you are a High S, I would like to throw in another S word that can describe you, and you do not want it. The word is a sucker. Since you have a very hard time saying no to people, they can sometimes use it. I.e., if you are working in an HR department, be mindful that if you are easily pushed into saying Yes to employees demands of any sort, that could get you into a position where people ask more and more from you just because they know you will always approve the request.

Great position for a High S would be a poker player. Well not exactly, but this is what one of key traits of a High S personality could be used for. In conflict a High S will withdraw and have a response that is lacking emotions, a typical Poker face. But this is just the outside, because while the face makes no change, the mind is on a rollercoaster of emotions, thoughts and questions.

One of the reasons for this lies in the fact that a High S personality style likes peace and harmony. That is a huge thing for a High S, so they tend to be more agreeable than other personality styles.

It is important to note that High S personality style also really likes to stay the same. This can be useful for real estate agents. If you are one and you can identify a High S buyer, try mentioning all the positive features of their current house that are similar to the new one and the sale will be easier to make.

Being a High S personality means also wanting to be accepted, to be a part of a group. This can be very tricky at a young age (parents of a High S, watch out for this!) and I know it well. As a High S, I was struggling with this in my youth. But I have also shown some other High S characteristics like being very sincere. Even in the event when I saved a squirrel and had a very dramatic visit to the veterinarian. I don’t own a squirrel nor I ever did, but the whole story is hilarious from today’s standpoint. Hear the story and more about a High S personality style in my Podcast or visit my YouTube channel for the video.

Close More Sales

Job benchmarking foundation

Use the available tools

Let’s put things into perspective

How to connect the right person with the right role and why do we use DISC

Put the tool to use for proper job benchmarking

Watch out for this

Concise Adult Version