February 23, 2011

Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Published by Success Performance Solutions.

What's Inside this issue of The Total View:

1. Interview Tips For Hiring The Right CFO... And Other Positions Too

2. Workforce Trends

3. What Motivates Employees

4. Annual Performance Reviews Simplified!

5. CandidClues Assessment

Interview Tips For Hiring The Right CFO... And Other Positions Too

Excerpted from an article published last week in CIO and PCWorld.

The economy is picking up steam and opportunities for CFOs to hire, as well be recruited by others, seems more likely.  An article posted last week in PC World and CIO offered interviewing tips for and from CFOs to help hire the right person the first time.

Nearly all the CFOs interviewed agreed: they wanted "a highly motivated self-starter not afraid to make an occasional mistake, with a strong commitment to collaboration and being a team player, a willingness to take responsibility for failures and successes, and the ability to keep focused on goals while maintaining passion about their work and the company."

But wanting, finding, and then confirming those traits and skills requires more skill than ever before on the part of the interviewer. The hiring insights included interviewing tips from quite a few CFOs, recruiters and management experts.  Thanks to Focus, a business research site, I had the opportunity to participate and contribute to this article.  You can read the full article at "Hiring Insights From, and For, CFOs" or continue here to read the highlights.

One of the biggest challenges confronting managers hiring for any position, not only CFO, is that out of work candidates have plenty of time to prepare for the interview, often more than the managers doing the interviewing.  And at the C-Level and senior management levels, nearly every out-of-work exec has had some outplacement counseling which includes ... yes, that's right - interviewing skills training.  Little if any time is invested by hiring managers to update their hiring skills. When it does happen, it's generally a few minutes here or there or one bullet on the long list of annual HR training updates. That puts many human resource professionals and especially the senior managers conducting the interviews for the new CFO at a distinct disadvantage.

In addition, many interviewers tend to do most of the talking.  "A good rule of thumb is that a good interview is 70 percent listening and observing," was a point I made for the article.  Vibrant Mobile CFO Jeff Babka agreed and offered his own interviewing tip: "I first make sure that they understand the job, the company, our culture and my style. Then, I say, 'Look, tell me what you think I should know about you that would make me want to hire you. Start wherever you want in your life, end up wherever you want...."

Another common mistake is that managers use recommended interview questions as a checklist.  They ask one question and evaluate the candidate's response. Then they move on to question 2 and repeat the process.  Then comes question 3. When the run out of questions or the candidate stops talking, the interview is over.

But an interview isn't a test with only one right answer. It can't be scripted.  An effective interview should be dynamic.  It's a conversation where the candidate should be doing most of the talking. "Interviewers have to keep probing....Interviewers tend to stop when they hear the right answer...[when] I'm looking for is to have someone tell me what some of the challenges were during that process, were you able to repeat that, did other departments repeat that success? I can go into an interview with one question and keep asking more questions about that question."

Hiring the right CFO is part science, part art.  Interviewing remains a critical component of hiring for open position. The uptick in hiring is a good sign for our economy but it will put undue pressure on the managers who are doing the hiring. In many situations, the candidate is a much better storyteller than the manager is a listener.  The article on hiring insights for CFOs offers several additional recommendations. 

Read the full article here.

Workforce Trends

In February, for the 16th straight month, hiring will increase in manufacturing and services on an annual basis.

In January, the index for recruiting difficulty rose sharply in manufacturing and services compared with a year ago.  

For more  workforce and hiring trends, visit Perfect Labor Storm website and Perfect Labor Storm blog.

What Motivates Employees

Business values and motivators determine the "why" of human behavior.  
 

For managers, Business Values and Motivators answers the nagging question - How can I motivate my employees?  
 

For employees and individuals looking to re-energize their careers, the Business Values and Motivators report helps them understand what they value most.  As people, we tend to value certain viewpoints positively and judge others negatively.   How we value or judge determines our motivations and provide us with our sources of energy or conflicts and stress in our personal and professional lives.
 

What are Business Motivators? Read more.

Annual Performance Reviews Simplified!

Save time, increase productivity, and eliminate hassles when administering employee performance reviews with HReviewer.

Ask any manager what he or she hates most about the job and you'll often hear "performance reviews."   That's why we've created HReviewer.

We recognized a huge gap in the performance evaluation market between paper forms and online performance management. 

HReviewer is a user-friendly, centralized online solution to streamline and improve the annual, semi-annual or periodic review for small to medium sized organizations. It's convenient and very affordable too.  Our goal was simple: to help take the hassle out of getting managers to complete performance appraisal forms and giving employees more frequent feedback. 

The system comes with a library of competencies, an easy to use form creator, at-a-glance dashboards and reports, and a built-in reminder system to help HR track down managers when reviews are due....or past due!

More about HReviewer or Email us to schedule a FREE demo. 

CandidClues™

The cost effective solution to curb absenteeism and employee theft 

There is wide-spread concern about the honesty and integrity of employees. Most organizations have serious problems of pilferage, absenteeism, tardiness, employee disagreements that lead to violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and computer misuse. The annual loss from these counterproductive behaviors is estimated in the billions of dollars. There was a clear need for a brief assessment that could be used as part of the pre-employment screening process. CandidClues™ was developed to meet that need.

CandidClues™ assesses six areas of potentially counterproductive behaviors by a self-descriptive inventory that taps six substantive areas of concern as well a Good Impression (validity) scale.

• Hostility
• Conscientiousness
• Integrity
• Substance Abuse
• Sexual Harassment
• Computer Misuse