In this episode of the Transform Your Workplace podcast, Brandon Laws talks with saleswoman-turned-top-recruiter, Tatiyana Cure, about her book, Hire to Win: Managers Practical Guide for Attracting and Interviewing Top Talent. The two discuss best practices for writing job descriptions, interviewing candidates, and selecting the right hire, all while cutting out the tedious and time-consuming methods that we’ve all grown accustomed to.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Tatiyana Cure is a passionate talent acquisition expert and coach. Bringing her background in sales to the world of recruiting, Tatiyana has not only enjoyed the title of top recruiter, but she’s also found marked success in helping other leaders attract, interview, and secure top talent.
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🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
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AN UNEXPECTED CAREER PATH
“I actually fell into recruiting,” Tatiyana explained. Seemingly out of nowhere, her background in sales led her to be hired as a recruiter at a small staffing firm. Without any prior knowledge about how to recruit top talent, Tatiyana “figured it out,” quickly becoming the top producer at that firm.
Years later, after being stretched and challenged, she became a hiring manager. Although she has admitted to making mistakes along the way, she decided to turn all she learned into her latest book, Hire to Win Managers: A Practical Guide for Attracting and Interviewing Top Talent. That way, she says, she can save her readers from repeating them.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Owning up to a bad hire
“There are so many statistics out there in terms of the cost of a bad hire, the hit on team morale, the dip that it takes on productivity, and so forth. But as a manager who is doing this hiring, we think ‘This mistake is on me. I made that decision. I need to own it.’[…] So all of that takes a toll, especially nowadays where your work and home life are meshed together. The biggest cost, I think, is mental health and your own productivity.”
Muddying up the hiring process
“It starts from all the way in the beginning — when creating a job description. I have seen managers who try to rush through it by borrowing another job description from another company. And so what ends up happening? First of all, that job description is not really that descriptive, so you’re going to attract a high number of candidates, and they don’t even know what they’re really applying to. So then you’re investing a whole lot of time into explaining the role.”
Justifying the new hire
“It’s so easy to throw bodies at a problem and say, ‘let’s just hire more people.’ But wait a second. Let’s ask, ‘Are our processes as efficient as they could be? Does it really require another person? Or do we just need to challenge the way that we do things — in a different way, a more effective way?’ So you need to do the internal homework, but then you need to do the external homework too.”
Asking the right questions
“It’s pretty common, you know, in the industry to have some sort of recruiting intake. What you should be thinking about is what are you hoping for this new hire to accomplish in three months, six months, twelve months. And you should talk about that in an interview. In fact, most candidates will ask questions like, ‘How is success measured in this role? How do I grow my career?’ And so instead of you saying that you’re just looking for someone to take your job at some point, now you actually have an opportunity to talk about more.”
Composing an effective job description
“You can take the boring out. If you are saying it’s important in this job to communicate, well okay. But maybe the sign of success is that you need to build great relationships with the stakeholders and start talking to me about the roadmap for the next year. At least that’s specific in terms of how you think about communication.”
Sifting through the applications
“I think the number one thing that we can do is prioritize the time to do it right — like blocking off the time to look through resumes and actually think about what that person is bringing to the table because it’s so hard to summarize our entire background on one piece of paper.”
Comparing skills and experience
“Develop questions about the competency requirements you have for a role ahead of time. That way, you’re not swayed by things like the fact that you’ve traveled to the same places — and then, you spend thirty minutes talking about those places rather than talking about their Excel skills or their project management skills and so forth. […] It’s very easy to get swayed in an interview. When you start comparing two or three candidates and you’re like, ‘This person has, I think they have, Excel skills,’ you can’t compare apples to apples in that way. So ask the same questions to all candidates.”
Transparent salary expectations
“This is the elephant that no one wants to poke, but it’s important, right? I’m a big supporter of listing the compensation range in the job description. Then you’re not wasting anyone’s time. You’re not wasting your time. You’re just moving forward. So I say to bring it up early and bring it up often. […] I find it super unfair when companies require candidates to list out their salary expectations without knowing anything about the company’s plans.”
Approaching the rejected candidates
“The best approach is to treat them how you would want to be treated. Ultimately, they realize that not everyone is going to get the job. And most of the time they’re probably interviewing at more than one job, just like you’re probably interviewing more than one candidate. Rejection is inevitable in some capacity, but do it with care and do it with kindness.”
LEARN MORE
Go check out Tatiyana Cure’s book, Hire to Win Managers: A Practical Guide for Attracting and Interviewing Top Talent. There’s so much — great templates, lists, and advice — that we didn’t cover and that is sure to help you make successful hires.