While it may not be politically correct to ask your friends what they get paid, I think it is perfectly OK to ask them about their company and how they got hired. For professional jobs, the response has ran the gamut from a simple one person interview all the way up to a full court press by the company. Considering that it takes a lot of time and monetary investment to find, hire, and subsequently train any employee to the point where they become effective, you want to find the right person.
Today there is a lot of banter about the lack of new, young talent within the Graphic Arts industries. The problem did not arrive overnight nor can it be traced to a simple, singular issue. Perhaps one of the issues is in the generally practiced hiring methods? Are you stringent enough in your selection process?
In The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton, PhD, the innovation company IDEO is referenced. The company appears to have a no nonsense, yet logical and fair process of finding the right people.
According to Diego Rodriguez:
- We really value references from people we trust. We also encourage staff to teach university classes and to learn how job candidates perform in the classroom — especially in teams that are under pressure to do good work and do it fast. Not that there’s anything wrong with a résumé delivered over the transom, but real references are golden!
- We try to select for professional competence before people walk in the door so that the interviewing process can focus more on a person’s human qualities (or lack thereof).
- Once in the door, you’ll probably speak to a good number of people — more than would seem “reasonable” by most corporate standards. You eat with them. You walk around our offices. You talk. You answer questions. You participate in design exercises. It’s all about creating a mutual feeling of “fit.”
- Every candidate is interviewed by people who will be above, below, and alongside them, status-wise. And people from unrelated professional disciplines participate. That way, if you do get hired, you feel that the entire company wants you, not just one specific high-status manager — who, by the way, might or might not be a total asshole. This method also keeps assholes in a hiring position from replicating. Assholes tend to stick together, and once stuck are not easily separated.
What other key criteria/process do you use in your hiring process?
