The Engaged Hiring Process

Can you afford the average cost of a bad hiring decision? That costs companies anywhere from three to five times the annual salary of the wrong person they hired. In this short book I share the methods and resources I used to make four very good hiring decisions and that built a culture of engagement or further strengthened it among our employees. This is the culture each new A-Player we hired joined. That is is vital to the success of your hiring decisions as the person or their background of strengths and skills and references. I applied this approach here in the U.S. and overseas. The results of these hiring decisions led us to these achievements: * sales doubled and new orders tripled in the first 6 months of a new subsidiary; * revenue growth of 80% while industry prices plummeted by 70% for new and existing customers; * sales conversion rates grew from 50% to over 80%; * positive cash-flows grew. There are no shortcuts to making the right hiring decision. It takes everyone's full commitment, requiring an investment of your time and attention to map a plan, describe the goal, execute it and move quickly to the next challenge. My simple plan helps you avoid common mistakes found in most hiring decisions while it helps you engage your key stakeholders in its planning, preparation and execution. This is key. The culture your new A-Player is welcome into plays an important role in their success, your team's success, and yours. My plan shows you how to create a culture of engagement that welcomes your new employee with welcome arms and a plan for their immediate success.

This is a practical guide for hiring managers. I guide you through the proven steps and resources I used to make the right decision every company needs to make to sustain its growth. That decision is who you hire and how you hire that person. I learned these methods, found these resources and made these decisions while I worked in the trenches, here in the U.S. and overseas, and always in the fast-moving telecommunications industry. As Country Manager for a newly-opened subsidiary I saw how important it was to communicate thoroughly and methodically and include each colleague in the hiring decision. That helped lower language and culture barriers, build our relationship on the basis of engagement and trust. We doubled revenues and tripled new orders within the first six months. As CEO of a small conference call service provider I discovered more tools and resources, created a simple hiring process that allowed us to make four excellent hiring decisions but welcome each new hire with an engaged and inspired workforce. This last part, welcome each new hire with an engaged and inspired workforce, was the key to our success. We boosted our sales conversion rates from 50% to over 80%. We grew our revenues by 80% in an industry best described as ‘commodity-hell.’ We sustained our positive cash-flows. You will see I include proven resources and methods from other recognized experts in small business hiring and talent management in addition to my real-world examples of how we applied them in a dynamic environment marked with rapid change and the need for ‘all hands on deck.’ In all journeys like this one, there are discoveries; sometimes they preceded by mistakes and failures. I share those - discoveries and mistakes - to help you avoid them in your journey. Good hiring decisions are made with the active participation of all your stakeholders, aka, your employees. They have a vested interest in who sits beside them and whose work they depend on for their own success. I show you how to enlist and inspire their participation. That has the added benefit of boosting their active engagement not only during the hiring process - creating the job description and participating in the interviews - but also onboarding the new A-Player joining your group into their engaged and enthusiastic team. Avoiding common mistakes and making bad hiring decisions are the only shortcuts I offer you. Hiring decisions are the most important decisions you will make in your business. Whether you are a team leader, a division manager, a C-Suite executive or you work at home and are ready to hire a part-time web designer, this decision is what makes your company survive, thrive or disappear. This requires your full participation as it requires the full participation of everyone around you. I show you tools, resources and methods that work engaging your key stakeholders - your employees - to make the best hiring decision. The rest is up to you.

I led a small company, post-911, through two economic downturns, and an industry whose prices fell by more than 70%, reaching 80% revenue growth while keeping cash-flows positive during this same time period. We were able to reach these goals by creating an engaged employee group, topgrading each employee to insure we had A+ players, creating a single-minded focus on creating customer evangelists. Before that I opened an overseas office for a US telecom provider. 6 months later we had tripled our new orders and doubled our revenues. I host a radio show focusing on leadership, innovation, customer service, employee engagement ... all the things that help a company survive. I share higglights from each guest's wisdom, solutions, and resources. You can read them here. My book, 'Recognize THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees In Ways They Value' is available. Readers keep sharing good reviews. I wrote guest posts for Small Business Trends organized by Anita Campbell and as the title says focuses on Small Business Trends and AMEX Open Forum. My first post there was titled: Small Business: Tear Down Those Walls. I'm always happy to discuss solutions and challenges with business, startups, hiring, motivating, the use of social media to create engaged employees and customer evangelists. I'd be happy to discuss how we could work together to bring my expertise from my experience and help you reach your goals faster. You can reach me here: Home Page: www.zanesafrit.com Radio Show: www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZaneSafrit G+: https://plus.google.com/+ZaneSafrit/ Email: zane.safrit@gmail.com