Ken Staubitz
A few days ago my wife came to me asking for suggestions to improve her organization’s success rate in hiring qualified candidates for her emergency physicians group. I have to admit I am a little gun shy whenever she broaches any of her work topics because I am extremely squeamish at the mere thought of blood. Thank goodness this topic was different. As she answered more of my questions I began to learn that finding qualified candidates wasn’t really her company’s issue: the issue was that her organization really didn’t have a clear picture of what the “ideal” candidate looked like.
Although my wife is in a totally different business, the fundamentals of hiring the best candidate still apply. A defining question I posed to her and I pose to you is: “Do you know what the profile of an ideal candidate looks like?”
If so, then through further questioning and interviewing techniques you can identify if your candidate has the qualities you seek. If you are unsure of what an ideal candidate looks like, you are not alone. Let’s explore how this relates to finding the best service candidate for your business.
There are various profiling tools available that provide a very detailed analysis of various traits, tendencies, and behaviors of a candidate. Examples of such profiling tools are www.hireology.com and www.predictiveprodile.com. These tools are extremely beneficial, but come at a price.
Whether or not your organization is using such profiling tools, you can still determine the attributes of an ideal service candidate and improve your success of hiring the right person by conducting your own analysis.
Consider the characteristics of someone who you consider to be the most productive and efficient service technician. This person may be on your staff today or may be someone you worked with in the past. Can you identify the skills and attributes that make them successful in their job? Think of their attitude and outlook to learning new things. Consider their technical expertise and capacity to learn. Does this individual possess a certain drive to resolve issues, or possess a certain skill that you feel contributes to their success? List these skills sets and characteristics so that you can refer to them as you interview candidates to potentially join your team. Below are a few questions to help you create a profile.
- How does this person view their customers?
- How does this person view change? Do they embrace it, or reject it?
- How does this person organize their day?
- What techniques does this person use that allows them to handle difficult situations?
- Can you identify the skills (communication, technical, organizational) that contribute their success? How did they learn these skills?
- How does he/she track, reconcile and organize their car stock?
- What prior knowledge or experience has helped their progression?
- How do they go about conquering a technical issue?
Once you have created an inventoried list of the skills, attitude and knowledge needed, then you can create a profile of an ideal candidate for your organization. The next step will be to identify these attributes within your group of available candidates. In reviewing your candidate’s resumes: Do any of these individuals appear to possess many of these attributes? If so, and you elect to bring these individuals in for an interview, tailor your interview questions to determine if they really do possess the skills, attitude and knowledge you desire. Remember to drill down into specifics and have the candidate provide you with specific examples. Role playing hypothetical customer, departmental and technical situations is a great way to identify if your candidate is worthy of hire.
If the candidate says she has prior industry experience you may also consider having them fix a “bugged” machine. If they have no prior experience on this piece of equipment, that’s OK, there will be times when they will be in front of a piece of equipment that will be unfamiliar to them. How do they handle the situation? Observe their thought process in obtaining the knowledge or resources to help them with this situation. Would their uncertainty come through to your customers? Below are a few interview questions that have aided me in selecting successful candidates.
- What is the most difficult situation you have had to overcome? (Let them choose the situation.)
- How did you overcome this situation?
- When have you had to “win” a customer over? What was the customer telling you? How did you handle the situation? What skills allowed them to succeed?
- Provide me examples of your greatest accomplishments? What steps did you take to accomplish (their examples)?
- Give me an example of time you had to fix something you were unfamiliar with?
Hiring mistakes are financially costly and can consume time and energy; which is why it is important to understand and recognize individuals who have the characteristics you are looking for in a future employee. The point of this entire process is to determine the profile of a star performer (“what good looks like”) and to apply various interviewing techniques to improve your chances of hiring the best person for the job.
About the Author: Ken Staubitz is a service consultant with Strategy Development, with 14+ years experience in all levels of service operations and MPS service structure. Formerly with Modern Office Methods (MOM)in various service and operational roles; was MOM;s Director of Client Services where he oversaw all service operations & managed a staff of 60+ field service personnel. Ken served on the Lanier Dealer Advisory Council & was an E-Automate Service Committee member. At www.Strategydevelopment.com
