Building a Winning Team: Effective Hiring Strategy | Ep 31
In this episode, we delve into the best hiring practices to ensure your team is set up for success. With over a decade of experience, Justin shares his insights on defining non-negotiables during the application process, evaluating resumes, and understanding the significance of first impressions. We discuss the importance of body language, strategic questioning, and digging deeper into candidates' backgrounds to find the right fit for your company. Learn how to spot red flags, tailor your interview questions, and the importance of checking references to make informed hiring decisions. Join us as we explore how to get the right people in your company rowing in the same direction.
The Logistics & Leadership Podcast, powered by Veritas Logistics, redefines logistics and personal growth. Hosted by industry veterans and supply chain leaders Brian Hastings and Justin Maines, it shares their journey from humble beginnings to a $50 million company. Discover invaluable lessons in logistics, mental toughness, and embracing the entrepreneurial spirit. The show delves into personal and professional development, routine, and the power of betting on oneself. From inspiring stories to practical insights, this podcast is a must for aspiring entrepreneurs, logistics professionals, and anyone seeking to push limits and achieve success.
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Introduction to Effective Hiring Practices
(00:36) - The Importance of the Interview Process
(01:00) - Key Qualities to Look for in Applicants
(03:23) - The Role of Body Language in Interviews
(06:41) - Assessing Experience and Background
(13:51) - Effective Questioning Techniques
(17:26) - Final Tips for Hiring Managers
(18:27) - Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
Connect with us!
▶️ Website | LinkedIn | Brian’s LinkedIn | Justin’s LinkedIn
▶️ Get our newsletter for more logistics insights
▶️ Send us your questions!! ask@go-veritas.com
Watch the pod on: YouTube
Transcript
Getting the right people in the boat, rowing in the same direction sounds pretty easy, right?
Speaker A:On today's episode, we're going to discuss the best hiring practices, how to define some of the non negotiables when we're going through the application process for new people that are interviewing with our company.
Speaker A:Justin, we have 10, 15 years of experience interviewing people, man.
Speaker A:Walk me through a little bit of the process.
Speaker A:On the interviewing side, what do you look for?
Speaker A:What are some knockout factors?
Speaker A:What do you got, man?
Speaker B:The interview process, in my opinion, is the most critical piece when it comes to building a successful company and culture.
Speaker B:Because if, like, you mentioned the boat reference, if you have everyone you know on the boat running the same direction, things are easy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, you're going to row in the same direction, you're going to grow faster, you're going to move faster.
Speaker B:So getting the right pieces in place and the right people on board, it all starts there, and it starts in the hiring process.
Speaker A:What are some things that you look for or like, some of the positives that, that you see in an applicant?
Speaker A:You're like, okay, I can't wait to interview this guy or girl.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker B:And, you know, in the interview process, everything's pretty strategic.
Speaker B:You know, we're doing it for a reason.
Speaker B:You talk about, you know, scheduling the interview, you know, how quick are they to respond?
Speaker B:What does their resume look like?
Speaker B:Does the resume is the baseline to the entire interview?
Speaker B:Like, that is initially your first impression and then you meet them.
Speaker B:But how's their resume look?
Speaker B:Is it sloppy?
Speaker B:Are there grammatical errors?
Speaker B:Is it copy and pasted with different fonts?
Speaker B:That is going to tell you how seriously they're taking their interview and their opportunities for other positions.
Speaker B:So it all starts there and then when they come to the office and they're doing their shadows, where are they wearing?
Speaker B:You know, are they tidy?
Speaker B:Are they clean cut?
Speaker B:Are they sloppy with wrinkly clothes and, you know, long hair?
Speaker B:And don't get me wrong, I've worked with some people who surprised me.
Speaker B:But, you know, how seriously are they taking the interview?
Speaker A:The first impression's important, man.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:We had a guy, gosh, a couple months back that was, you know, had like a hat on and looked like, you know, probably hadn't shaved in, you know, three, four weeks?
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And automatically to me, that's, you know, it's not a knockout factor.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But at the same time, those things add up, and I think first impressions are huge.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Come to think of it, we just had an applicant last Week, I believe.
Speaker B:Who rescheduled with us.
Speaker B:We had an interview.
Speaker B:It went well.
Speaker B:I don't know if he was a phenomenal sales guy or he was just BS and us, but he piqued our interest enough to schedule him in to interview with you.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:And we were scheduled the first interview.
Speaker B:The third time we went to schedule with him, he showed up late.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, again, how serious are they taking this interview?
Speaker B:You know, I want someone that is waiting at the door for the doors to open in for a 10am interview and they're in the parking lot, you know, getting fresh and studying up on notes and the company, whatever it may be, so they're prepared.
Speaker B:But, you know, we talk about shadows as well.
Speaker B:So in our industry, they come in, it's mostly entry level, but for someone that has experience, they want to see the technology and our systems and processes.
Speaker B:But, you know, when we're talking about entry level position, we put someone in a shadow position to just learn, ask questions.
Speaker B:What are you looking for in that situation?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think, I mean, a couple things that we just mentioned.
Speaker A:The body language.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The energy that they have that they're bringing in.
Speaker A:If we're hiring for a sales role, I want that person to ask questions.
Speaker A:I want them to ask about, you know, how much money I can make or what's the opportunity there.
Speaker A:I think if they, if they come in and ask some questions about, you know, ancillary stuff that's not really that important to a sales role.
Speaker A:To me, that raises a red flag.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But, you know, going back to some of the things that I love.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Body language, you know, the energy that they bring, asking those questions to that salesperson that they're shadowing with.
Speaker A:And then once me and you get them in the interview room or in the conference room and we, you know, go down the resume and kind of see where they've been and learn a little bit more about them.
Speaker A:I think it's a lot of it.
Speaker A:I never.
Speaker A:I had a guy years ago and I had hundreds of applicants and hundreds of interviews, but just, you know, like sitting back in his seat.
Speaker B:So I'm gonna interrupt you real quick.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I was hoping you'd go this route.
Speaker B:You talked about body language.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:What about the body language?
Speaker B:What's that body language tell you?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I had to cut you off.
Speaker B:But I want to say I hope you go this route.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, I mean, I think I want a salesperson.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If we're hiring for a salesperson, it's different than data Entry or clerical.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If we're hiring for a salesperson, I want confidence.
Speaker A:I want them to know or I want them to project that they can do the job right.
Speaker A:I want them to project that their best version of themselves in front of us, just like they would a potential prospect or customer down the road.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So body language is huge.
Speaker A:Confidence is number one.
Speaker A:I think that even being well spoken or, you know, outgoing enough to.
Speaker A:We don't have to coach them on.
Speaker A:You need to have a conversation with your customer or you need to have a conversation with that prospect.
Speaker A:That needs to come as a, as an innate skill to them.
Speaker A:What are like, let's go to.
Speaker A:They're sitting in the interview room with you, or they're sitting in the, the hiring room with you.
Speaker A:What are some things that you love to see on a resume?
Speaker A:What are some of those items that you're.
Speaker A:You don't want to, you know, show all your cards, but what are some of those things that you love?
Speaker A:And you get, you know, almost giddy, you know, internally, whenever you're looking at the resume.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It starts, you know, with the initial introduction or the biological.
Speaker B:You know, if they're saying they're, they're passionate about traveling and being, you know, multicultural and they love photography and, you know, whatever it may be.
Speaker B:Well, that doesn't really line up with what we do, you know.
Speaker B:Sure it is.
Speaker B:It is a ruthless role at times.
Speaker B:It's a ruthless industry at times.
Speaker B:But if you want to travel and have a lot of PTO and just, you know, go overseas, like, you're going to have to find a position that lines up with what you're passionate about.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:Now, in the bio, if it says I'm extremely driven, competitive, I love team atmosphere.
Speaker B:I studied sales and always had sales roles.
Speaker B:But I love relationships and talking to people like, okay, well, we're off to a solid start here.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's the type of person that we're looking for.
Speaker B:So my point in saying that is, is their resume tailored for the type of role that they're interviewing for?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I hit on that in terms of the body of work and what their experience looks like.
Speaker B:What, what about there?
Speaker B:Like, what are you looking for?
Speaker B:What trends you looking for there?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think you can go a couple different avenues here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I think the entry level person is going to be different than the person that might have eight to 10 years in a sales role at a different company.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I think you have to view it differently from a.
Speaker A:If this person is.
Speaker A:We'll call it 22, 23 years old, just out of college.
Speaker A:Those questions have to be tailored differently than, you know, that experienced salesperson.
Speaker A:If it is that, you know, fresh out of college person.
Speaker A:I think it's a.
Speaker A:What kind of jobs do they hold in high school or in college?
Speaker A:What did they do on the weekends?
Speaker A:How did they pay their bills?
Speaker A:How did they make their car payments?
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:Those sorts of questions.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You know, some of the things or some of the green flags are.
Speaker A:And this is like, similar to your background.
Speaker A:I worked as a bartender, I worked as a server.
Speaker A:I worked as bus boy, a busboy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I was an unbelievable.
Speaker B:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker A:I'm at the.
Speaker A:I guarantee those tables were extremely clean.
Speaker A:But no, I think with those, it's.
Speaker A:With that fresh out of college applicant, did you have some work experience?
Speaker A:Do you have work experience in a role where you have to be a little bit extroverted?
Speaker A:It might be social chair at your fraternity.
Speaker A:Okay, that's a green flag to me.
Speaker A:What did you do?
Speaker A:How did you get nominated?
Speaker A:Who chose you to be in that role?
Speaker A:Now, if you go to the experienced person, how do they perform at their previous role?
Speaker A:Why are they leaving?
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker A:What are some of those questions that.
Speaker A:Are some of those reasons that they're getting out of their current role?
Speaker A:So that, for me, those are, you know, some of the green flags.
Speaker A:What about you, man?
Speaker A:Anything that I missed or what else?
Speaker A:What else you got?
Speaker B:Yeah, in terms of entry level, you know, I love seeing overlap.
Speaker B:Like, no, they didn't have a trust fund that paid their entire way through college and they didn't care about whatever.
Speaker B:No, they.
Speaker B:They were working multiple jobs throughout their entire college career because they had to pay for their own college.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But also at those jobs internally, are they being promoted at those positions?
Speaker B:Love that I mentioned, you know, you had that restaurant reference, but it's an easy reference.
Speaker B:Yeah, they came in as a busboy, they moved up to a server, they moved up to a bartender, so on and so forth.
Speaker B:I would like to see that desire for more and to move up in that growth mindset.
Speaker B:So, like, that's what I'd be looking for.
Speaker B:You mentioned it too, like sports, you know, extracurricular, social event, like social chair at a fraternity or sorority.
Speaker B:So if they're playing sports, you know, were they the team captain?
Speaker B:Why were they the social chair?
Speaker B:Is it because they were the most popular and their friends loved them and they have a big personality and they love relationships?
Speaker B:Digging into those small details on the resume can tell You a lot about a person in terms of experience.
Speaker B:You know, I love seeing sales, you know, I love seeing that hustler background where, yes, they're working multiple jobs or there's that upward mobility at their previous role.
Speaker B:But when in terms of sales, if they have cold call or outside sales experience, where do they rank?
Speaker B:What's their competition look like?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because the top people that are successful in their previous roles, do they know where they stood?
Speaker B:If you, let's say, had a sales position, you're after four years and it says top producer sold 10 million in revenue.
Speaker B:What's 10 million in revenue really mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker B:Great question really mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So if I were to ask you, you know, where'd you rank?
Speaker B:And you're like, how's at the top?
Speaker A:Or I love that.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Go ahead.
Speaker B:I went to Presidents Club.
Speaker B:I was number one in my tenure, my third year, I was number one in my tenure, so on and so forth, and knew exactly where they stood out of X amount of people or X amount of coworkers.
Speaker B:Like, that's what I want to know.
Speaker B:Because they're competitive, they're driven, they want to be at the top, they have success doing it.
Speaker B:So those are the types of things I look for.
Speaker A:No, I was just going to jump in there.
Speaker A:But I think even when you ask him that question, right?
Speaker A:And you say, you know, where did you rank or where you know, how did you do amongst your peers?
Speaker A:And they give you some sort of.
Speaker A:I was a third best salesman and there's four sales people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, you know, so I think you're exactly right.
Speaker A:And you hit, you know, the nail on the head there as far as knowing their metrics.
Speaker A:And I love that type of person because they know, okay, I need to achieve this.
Speaker A:I need to.
Speaker A:What kind of effort do I need to put in here to achieve this?
Speaker A:On the, on the back end, I love the sports reference too, because of the fact that any time that you're, you know, with sports to be good and majority of the time, especially with, with me at sports in high school and growing up, I had to work hard.
Speaker B:But no, seriously, those are.
Speaker B:We both have hired athletes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:The athletes that were uber successful.
Speaker B:And I'll get back to your point.
Speaker B:But at least that were uber successful and always the most talented with zero work ethic.
Speaker B:They never panned out.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Ever.
Speaker B:They wanted to be easy because everything in their life has been easy.
Speaker B:Yeah, but the guys, I mean, you've worked for every accolade that you've had throughout sports.
Speaker B:But you weren't necessarily naturally gifted.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:You actually had to put in work, and you had to be disciplined with that work.
Speaker B:And you're super competitive.
Speaker B:But the qualities that you learn throughout that process and have to go through, that is why you are who you are.
Speaker B:But go back.
Speaker A:No, no, I think.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:There was a thing.
Speaker A:God, what's it called?
Speaker A:Talent that I missed.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I didn't have that.
Speaker B:You and I both.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So there is that.
Speaker A:Where, you know, you have to work hard.
Speaker A:And how does that correlate to being a successful salesperson or, you know, how does that correlate to being a successful employee?
Speaker A:And as a hiring manager, what questions do you ask there?
Speaker A:And how do you get to the bottom of, you know, their experience?
Speaker A:And I will always say this forever and ever just from my experience.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And we both have similar experiences.
Speaker A:But history will always repeat itself.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Where it's if they did something four, five, six years ago and now they're going to turn a fresh leaf or turn a new page or whatever analogy is.
Speaker A:I don't even know.
Speaker A:But if they're going to turn a new page.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Well, there are going to be some tendencies of what happened in the past.
Speaker A:So I love the resume.
Speaker A:Not from, you know, looking at a resume and then get rid of it, but I want to dig in, especially during the interview process, because I do feel like history will always repeat itself.
Speaker A:Do you feel the same way or.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:No, it's tried and true.
Speaker B:We talked about the resume being your first impression, your baseline.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's digging into that.
Speaker B:And, you know, I can use the onion as an analogy, but, like, you have to peel back the onions.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:On the outside, you could have someone that's just, for lack of better words, they're just full of shit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, they're gonna give you this story.
Speaker B:They're good at sales.
Speaker A:That's one thing I always saw with the experienced salesperson is like, they knew how to talk.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Go ahead.
Speaker B:I mean, underneath, is there.
Speaker B:Is there complacency?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do they want to come in and make, let's say, $80,000 and be comfortable and, you know, work, let's say, 20 hours a week, like underneath the, you know, those layers of the onion, like, deep down, they don't really care about making a lot of money.
Speaker B:They don't care about upward growth and personal development and all the things that we do care about.
Speaker B:So you have to sort through those, and you do that by effective questioning.
Speaker B:So, you know, we talked a lot about like the resume itself.
Speaker B:Let's move to like questioning.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:What types of questions are you, are you asking?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:To uncover or peel back those so called layers.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, I think that's great.
Speaker A:So the questions that I love to ask are open ended.
Speaker A:Just like a prospecting call, just like a sales call to get them to open up a little bit where it's avoiding the yes or no response.
Speaker A:I want to figure out who they really are.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:How do we dig into, you know, we talk about it all the time.
Speaker A:The burn, the why.
Speaker A:Those are things that, why do you want this role?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like it's not logistics, sales in a brokerage.
Speaker A:It's not the easiest role.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Can it be, you know, very lucrative?
Speaker A:Yes, it can be.
Speaker A:But you have to put a lot of work in.
Speaker A:Even after you gain the clients and you secure the business, you have to manage and maintain that business every day throughout.
Speaker A:So some of the questions that I love to ask are, you know, people hear me say it all the time, but how does that work?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Or tell me more about that.
Speaker A:Okay, so you move back home to help your mom out when your dad got sick.
Speaker A:Tell me more about that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Well, it looks like you, it looks like you job hopped from A to B to C companies in the past three years.
Speaker A:Three years, three companies.
Speaker A:Tell me more about that.
Speaker A:And getting them reeling on, okay, this is what happened.
Speaker A:Like if they have a good justification for the questions that I asked.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Like now it's, it's valid and I can understand that a little bit more.
Speaker B:That's great, that's great.
Speaker B:And I think at the end of the day you want to make sure that they're a good fit for you.
Speaker B:For obvious reasons.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But on the flip side, and I think this is often overlooked, I say at the beginning of every interview, I.
Speaker A:Want to do a really good job of this man.
Speaker B:I want to set the expectations.
Speaker B:Because if we're not a good fit for them and they're just kind of sold or in the moment and they just, you know, let's just say they liked you, you're interviewing, they connected with you.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:But the actual company, the culture is not the best fit.
Speaker B:It doesn't work.
Speaker B:It has to be go both ways.
Speaker B:We have to be a good fit for each other, otherwise it's not going to last.
Speaker B:So, you know, try to set that expectation early.
Speaker B:I also want to make sure that they're, they're comfortable.
Speaker B:You know, I'm not one that's, I'm not The intimidator that wants to come in and just pepper them and make them uncomfortable.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Why would you do that?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Like they're gonna.
Speaker B:They're gonna tighten up and they're not going to be themselves.
Speaker B:You want to understand who this person really is.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:So you can decide whether or not they're a good fit.
Speaker A:You're talking about like on the very first part of the interview, right?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Just set the expectations.
Speaker A:But, like, get casual conversation.
Speaker B:You want them to open up and be who they really are as opposed to giving you, you know, vanilla ass answers.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:Okay, well, you know, here.
Speaker A:I think that's.
Speaker A:It's funny, man.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, I relate it so much to prospecting calls because you hear the same objections, the same story over and over and over again.
Speaker A:You know, especially I love the ones or I love the questions that we ask.
Speaker A:Well, tell me why you're, you know, thinking about leaving or you have a sales job now, you've been there for three years.
Speaker A:What's going on there?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I like, just shut up.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And let them respond.
Speaker A:And I love to hear some of those answers.
Speaker A:Like the one response that I love.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And to me, this is like the ultimate green flag is the person that says, you know what?
Speaker A:I did really well at this job three years straight.
Speaker A:I finished in the top five every single year out of 25 sales reps.
Speaker A:And they're redoing the comp structure, they're redoing the commission structure, and I'm going to be making less.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Okay, how do we get this person in the door right away where, you know, we have an uncapped commission on the Cradle to Graveside and getting these people in the door so they can go out there and earn whatever they want if they're willing to put in the effort on a daily basis.
Speaker B:Brian, we've covered a lot.
Speaker B:I know we could probably spend hours on this, and I'm sure we'll touch on it in future episodes.
Speaker B:But give our audience one more piece of advice or best practices.
Speaker B:As a hiring manager, what is something that you can do to protect yourself and make sure you're bringing on the right people for the right boat?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:On this episode, we talked a lot about advantages of an applicant and what to look for there.
Speaker A:You know, there's a lot of times where we've been wowed by an applicant that comes in and we love them and then, you know, come to find out they come to work with us and it just doesn't work out, right?
Speaker A:And we might find that out six months or a year later.
Speaker A:The one piece of advice I would say is check references, right?
Speaker A:Whether that's two or three people that they previously worked with, you can either, you know, ask them for the references, or you can reach out to people on LinkedIn to figure out who they are.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Who is this person?
Speaker A:Why is that person, you know, even if it was, you know, two, three jobs ago, what did they, what did they do well?
Speaker A:What are things that you, you know, they didn't do well just to figure out, like who they really are?
Speaker B:On next episode, we're gonna discuss what happens and what to do when you make a hiring mistake and bring on a bad candidate.
Speaker B:Leave your comments.
Speaker B:Best practices, hiring strategies, favorite questions.
Speaker B:Share those with us.
Speaker B:We'd love to hear them.
Speaker B:After you realize you made a bad hire, you got them out the door.
Speaker B:To learn more about what type, types of mistakes did you make or what did you not catch?
Speaker B:What about that person in that interview process?
Speaker B:Could you dug more into.
