Hiring the best employees for your agency

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Hello and welcome to today’s webinar, hiring the best employees for your agency. I am Chip Griffin. I’m the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance. And today we’ll be talking about some of those important things that you want to think about as you’re adding to your team. And after all talent is really what we are in the business of selling in the agency space.

And so we want to make sure that we have the best talent in house that we possibly can. So I’ll get through the process of. Of hiring from start to finish with some tips and tricks and some of the pitfalls I’ve learned along the way, before we jump into that though, I will, start out with some of the housekeeping items that I always do at the top of these webinars.

the first thing I would say is that the recording will be available to all of the attendees and will also be available in the SAGA member center. So I would encourage you to go there. Of course, we have all of the previous webinars in there as well. So you’re welcome to see all of that. At the same time, if you have questions, use the Q and A function.

It’s at the bottom of your screen and you can submit your question. And I will try to take as many of those at the end as I can. if you have questions that don’t get answered during the course of today’s session, or you’d like to provide any feedback, feel free to email me at chip@sagaimpact.com. And of course, you can visit the sagaimpact.com website to join for free and access all sorts of additional resources. If you’d like to tweet about today’s session, please use the hashtag agencyleadership so it’s easy to find. And with that, we will move on to talking about upcoming webinars so you know what else is in the pipeline.

And we’ve got a few coming up here in the next few weeks. I think you’ll find. really interesting and really valuable that will go to how you’re selling your agency’s services. So we’re going to be talking about pricing models. We’re going to be talking about, how you, productize your services so that you can improve your profit margins and deliver better results for your clients by becoming more efficient and more skilled at certain things.

And then we’ll talk about using paid discovery, which is something that many of, you know, I am a big fan of. So. that does away with all of the housekeeping items. I’ve kept it really brief and we’ll be able to jump in now with the topic at hand. And so the things that we’re going to be talking about today really starts before you’re even thinking about hiring your first employee or your next employee, depending upon which circumstance your small agency is in.

Then we’ll talk about the preparation phase, the recruiting. Moving on to the interview. And then finally the offer and how you get off on the right foot with your new hire, because that’s really all part of the hiring process. And you want to make sure that you get it right. So we’ll go through all of that over the course of the next probably 40 to 45 minutes, something like that.

Okay, so let’s jump into the portion before you’re even hiring. So this is this is really getting to the bread and butter of how you’re operating your agency. And so you want to be thinking about creating a culture within your agency where people want to come to work for you. You want to create a culture in which your existing employees are happy to recommend.

that, that their friends, that people that they come in contact with decide to come and work for your agency. So you really need to be thinking about this from the start and what kind of culture you creating. And, and I don’t mean the silly things that we’ve all seen over the years, you know, things like, well, beanbag chairs and jelly beans and, and, you know, all that kind of stuff that has been particularly popular in the tech sector.

What I’m really talking about is how you can come up with things that are, That make it a desirable place to work and it’s a desirable place to work because you’re rewarding your employees for the things that they are doing. You’re giving them opportunities to grow by giving them training, by giving them upward career mobility, giving them career paths, helping prepare them for the next job either within your agency or outside because it’s not a bad thing if you’ve got team members who end up moving on somewhere else.

That’s just expanding your network and giving you another place to reach out to. It’s also about creating an environment in which you’re not overworking your employees. And Karen Swim from Solo PR Pro had a great post on LinkedIn recently talking about how People are feeling increasing amounts of stress because we’ve got our, our mobile devices with us at all times.

And there’s an expectation that we’re always going to be responsive. And she was obviously speaking largely to the solo community, but I would broaden that because it’s really a fundamental problem that the agency space has overall too often. Agencies are balancing their budgets are, are subsidizing their clients

by overworking team members. So you shouldn’t be having the expectation that your team members work 60 hours a week. For example, if that’s the only way that you can turn a healthy profit, that means you’re underpricing. So you need to think about that as a key part of the culture, because one of the biggest complaints that I hear from agency employees, and it’s one of the biggest things that drives agency employees to move over to the client side or even switch careers entirely is that they’re being expected to work too many hours.

They’re expected to work on insane deadlines. And so you need to work on your project management skills as a leader. You need to work on your budgeting and estimation skills as a leader so that you are putting your team in the best position possible to succeed without having to pull all nighters and without having to routinely work 60 hour weeks.

Now that doesn’t mean that there won’t be crises from time to time that do demand that you put in that level of effort and that amount of time. And certainly it is reasonable to expect that your team members are in a position to help you when those things come up. But you don’t want to be in a position where that is the, that is the regular day to day operations of your agency because it will drive employees away and will cause them to tell their friends not to come work there.

And one of the best recruiting angles that you have for your, new employees is to get existing employees to make recommendations because they’ve done some pre vetting. And I’ll put a little asterisk with that and we’ll talk about that in a minute because there are some caveats to using your existing team to do recruitment.

You want to make sure that you have policies and procedures in place for your team. Things like a handbook are obvious, but also things like how do you do your job effectively? Part of this makes you more efficient, but part of it keeps you organized so that you’re creating that culture, that forward momentum, that direction that will help your new employees thrive, will help your existing employees thrive.

It also will help you later on when we’re talking about planning for those hires, because if you’ve got processes and procedures in place, you’re better set up for figuring out what you need next, what you need most. And you’re also making sure that you’re not once again, using labor to subsidize poor decision making on how your processes are arranged, because you’ve thought them through.

So focus on that, even before you’re thinking about hiring, you of course want to make sure that you’re crossing your T’s you’re dotting your eyes, having, legal accounting and HR advisors review your handbook, review how you’re set up with payroll and making sure that you’re compliant. You need to be thinking through all of the issues that come along with having employees.

You need to be aware of what the regulatory requirements are. So if you’re coming up on say 10 employees, It would behoove you to talk to your lawyer and your accountant and your HR consultant to figure out, okay, as I’m crossing this threshold, what new requirements may my, may my governments have of me?

What rules will I have to comply with that I didn’t when I was two or three employees? None of those things should hold you back from growing. Compliance with the regulatory requirements should not be an obstacle to growth. And it doesn’t have to be if you’re working with your team to make sure that you’ve got everything in place that you need to, and you’re not surprised about it after the fact.

So these are very important things to be considering even before you’re in that new hire process. So whether you have no employees today, five employees, 25, it doesn’t matter. You want to be thinking about these things and checking them because rules change. Right? These are things that we need to be aware of as leaders, as business owners.

We also want to be thinking about creating a digital footprint that is favorable to our agency when we’re hiring. So oftentimes we think about our website, our social media, in terms of how can we use it to attract new clients. But it’s not just about attracting new clients. It’s about attracting new employees as well.

And so some of the content that you’re putting out should be designed to make your agency appealing to those potential new hires. You want to make sure that they’re seeing that you are an innovative organization that’s working to, to advance the client’s interest, but also looking after the team. You want to make sure that your team section is, is robust, not just for your actual.

Client clients and prospects, but for potential future team members, they want to see that this is an organization that they want to be with because the team is someone that’s full of talent. That’s got interesting people. That is going to be a fun place to work and enlightening place to work. And so you want to be thinking about that.

You want to be thinking about the content that you’re putting out on social media. You want to be careful about putting out anything that could be perceived negatively by future hires. Right. So don’t use it as a place to vent about how hard it is to get good employees or things like that, because that sends the wrong message.

And I know we all have had those moments where we’ve said something on Twitter or Facebook or something and weren’t thinking. But remember, all of that is being looked at, not just by the prospects, which is what we think about all the time, but also by potential future talent. You want to use video in order to humanize your agency.

Again, this helps with both audiences. You may have interviews with existing employees, and you may want to build this more up as you’re going into a recruiting phase. If you anticipate that you may be doing hiring in the next three, six, nine months, you may want to ramp up some of that content. So you’ve got more resources because potential new hires, they’re going to Google you.

They’re going to take a look at your website. They’re going to take a look at your social media accounts. They’re probably going to look even more closely than a potential client would. And so you want to make sure that the content that you’re putting out, the digital footprints you’re leaving is something that will entice those individuals to come work for you.

You also want to be thinking about how you take advantage, well, how you pay attention to some of the review sites that are out there. So even if you’ve only got five or 10 employees, you may have a Glassdoor profile. You need to be aware of what it says. Now it’s very difficult because Glassdoor naturally attracts people who want to be critical.

You may have some of those out there already. If that’s the case, you just need to be aware of it. You, I wouldn’t encourage you to have your current employees go and post positive stuff that tends to come across as phony. But what you do need to do is be aware of it so that you can make sure that you’re putting out messaging that counteracts that.

You need to make sure that you’re addressing those unspoken concerns that potential recruits may have when you’re in the interview process with them. All of this goes to that digital footprint. All of those are things that you can be looking at now before you’ve even thought about who your next hire is.

Is, so those are things before you hire, but now we’re, now we’re getting to that point where you’ve figured out maybe you need some help. You’ve decided that maybe it’s time that you get some, some more manpower, some more woman power in place. You need to have the resources to get the job done, and you’ve started to get an inkling that you have the finances to support that.

Okay. Now is when you’re going into that planning process. And I’m very clear here about saying that it’s planning to hire, because we’ve moved out of that phase where we’re doing those general things that help set us up for good hires. We’re now thinking specifically about the need that we may have.

Now, this is where you need to be very clear with yourself about what your need really is. And it starts by being really critical of yourself and asking, do I really need to hire? And I don’t want to discourage you from having employees or more employees, but you do want to always ask yourself, be the devil’s advocate, have someone in your organization who can be your devil’s advocate, have an outside advisor who can be your devil’s advocate and say, do you really need this?

Is it something that requires a full time employee, a part time employee? Could you get by using a contractor and doing it within the bounds of the contractor rules? Is it something where you can simply rearrange how you’re doing things internally? Maybe you can find some greater efficiencies. As an agency, you want to be slow to hire.

And the reason you want to be slow to hire is because you want to make sure that you’re putting yourself in that position for success. You don’t want to put yourself in a position where you’re giving yourself higher cashflow requirements in the hopes that you’re going to have new business. Now, realistically, that means that you’re going to have periods of time where your team is probably going to be a little overworked as you’re hesitating to make this decision.

But I can tell you that over the course of 25 years, I have rarely regretted waiting on a hire. Sometimes, but much more often, I’ve regretted moving too quickly. I regretted hiring on the hopes or the dreams that I would be getting additional work. Or in the prospect of saying, if I have this, it will help me get additional work.

Sometimes that pans out, but you need to be really cautious about it because a lot of agencies put themselves into a bad position where they’re then forced to take whatever business comes along in order to meet payroll. The corollary to this is you need to be willing to fire anyone that you hire. I always tell new managers, and this is not just in the agency space, but anywhere, if you’re comfortable with hiring, you also have to be comfortable with firing.

And there are two reasons why you have to be comfortable with it. The first is because it allows you the freedom to take some risks in your hiring decisions. You don’t want to get into a position of paralysis where you are so afraid to hire. Because you don’t ever want to fire, and I’ve seen this over and over again where someone holds back, they won’t pull the trigger on bringing in a new employee because they’re just not sure and they’re afraid it might not work out.

And so in those cases, not only were they slow to hire, they were too slow to hire. So you need to find that right balance. And part of finding that right balance is being comfortable with the idea that you will part company with someone as an employee. When and if necessary, you also have to be willing to fire or a better term would be lay off if the finances aren’t there.

Many agencies last year, when we were going through the first wave of challenges, from the pandemic hesitated to make cutbacks in their staff and those agencies ended up in a much tougher position than those who were more nimble and willing to take what action was necessary for the good of the whole.

And that’s a tough thing to do. And I understand that. But psychologically, if you’re willing to bring on new employees, if you’re willing to take on that burden of payroll, you need to be willing to go in the other direction when necessary as well. Just as I have rarely been disappointed in myself for slowing down a hiring process.

I have frequently been disappointed in myself that I waited too long to make a change. And it does a disservice not just to your business, it does a disservice to all of the other employees, and it does a disservice to the employee that’s not a good fit. Because the longer that they stay in a position that’s not a good fit, The less time that they have in order to position themselves for a more successful role in the future.

So don’t put yourself in that position. Make sure that every time you hire, you’re willing to fire. You also want to be careful about hiring more than one person at a time. And this can be particularly challenging if you’re going through a major growth spurt. So some digital agencies last year I know had, periods of time where they had a lot of clients who were transitioning from brick and mortar, into the digital space and so their businesses started going gangbusters and they were drinking through a fire hose and they said, we need to have some way to handle this and the way that you naturally try to handle that is Is by bringing on new bodies.

Here’s the challenge. Every time you bring in a new employee, it changes the team dynamic. It changed the dynamic, not just in terms of the relationships and how the team gets along and the camaraderie and all that, but it also changes the responsibilities because when you bring in someone new, it’s inevitably changing the responsibilities of every team member that they come in contact with.

It may be that they are able to move things off of their plate. It may be that they actually have more things on their plate for a period of time because maybe this is a replacement employee who, it replaces someone who had more experience and just sort of knew what was going on. So now those team members need to spend more time helping the new hire or taking on added responsibilities until that new hire is in a position to move on.

So each hire is going to change that dynamic. And frequently what you will find is once you bring in that new employee and you see how the team is operating, what you thought you needed for that second hire is not what you needed at all. And so sometimes if you hire two or three people at once, You will end up unbalanced.

You will end up with a team that doesn’t have the right mix. And you want to make sure that you’re avoiding that as much as possible because it makes you inefficient and it can cost you money in the long run. Not to mention it can cause problems with team morale if you don’t have the right mix of talent.

So think about that. And if possible, whenever possible, hire one at a time, give that person a month or two to settle in, figure out how it’s changing your dynamic and then move on to the next hire. Okay. You want to consider internal moves first. So before you are actually going out there and hiring, you need to think through, are there things that you can do, that you can improve operationally?

Are there things that you could do to change responsibilities? Should you be changing responsibilities? You always want to be careful when you’re doing recruiting, that you’re not putting your existing team in a place where they feel like they’re not getting what they deserve. And it may be that they think they deserve something that they don’t, and that’s fine, but you need to think those things through.

Think through whether you have an internal hire that could fill that slot. So if you’re, if this is a mid level position, for example, Look at your juniors. See if there’s someone who might be able to fit into that slot. If not, make sure that they understand what they need to do to get there. If there’s someone who has that ambition and that desire, you want to be thinking those things through.

You also want to think about, okay, let’s say I have Sally leave and Sally was in charge of SEO. So maybe what you want to do is you want to transition someone else into Sally’s role. Maybe it’s a lateral move. But maybe it’s someone who always wanted to do SEO or it’s someone who just has a knack for it.

And so they would be better utilized there. Think about whether there are lateral moves or other rearrangement of your team that you could do before you hire. So make sure that you’ve got your existing ducks in a row. You may also want to think about, even as you’re going through the recruitment process, if you identify someone who might be a better fit than one of your existing team members for what they’re doing and vice versa, that maybe you actually make a couple of moves in this.

in this game as you’re trying to figure out where to put each person on the bus. Because ideally what you want to do is make sure that every person that you’re hiring is in that right seat on the bus. That you believe it, that they believe it, and that you’re in a position to tell them that this is what the team is going to need to be most successful.

So think about those as you’re putting together job descriptions. You really need to do a good job of putting the job descriptions together because you need to understand in there what it is that you have that are must haves and what are nice to haves. And too often, I’ve seen job descriptions put together where they are essentially wish lists.

It’s sort of like RFPs. In the agency space, we all complain about RFPs being wish lists, where it’s simply the client putting out every possible thing that they could ever get from an agency. We’re just as guilty of that when we put together job descriptions. We’re trying to put together superhero job descriptions rather than realistic ones.

We need to be really clear with ourselves first, and then in our writing in the job description, what we actually need. What are the non negotiables? We need to think about this in particular when we’re putting together requirements, particularly for experience and background. And it’s something we need to be even more cognizant of now as we’re trying to find and build teams with greater diversity.

If our goal is diversity, we need to be careful about putting in requirements that will potentially prevent us from having as easy access to a diverse workforce. So think about all the requirements that you’re putting in and ask if they’re really necessary. One of the ones that I decided a number of years ago to get rid of, for example, Was the requirement for a four year college degree.

And that’s something that I had had in job descriptions for 20 years. But the reality is that there are lots of talented folks out there who don’t have four year college degrees. Now, many times we use it as a lazy way out. If you put in a four year degree requirement, it can help you weed out other people because there’s so much societal pressure to get that four year degree.

If you’re going to go into a field like communications, marketing, advertising, but it’s not necessary. And you only have to look around at some of the successful entrepreneurs to realize that you don’t need a four year college degree or even a two year college degree to be successful. So think about all those things that you’re putting in there and ask yourself, do I really truly need that?

Or am I putting it in there because it’s the way I’ve always done it. And many of you know that that’s one of the answers I hate to hear the most. Anytime I go into an organization, either as a consultant or in the past, when I was hired as an employee, if I asked why something was being done and they said, that’s how we’ve always done it, that’s a bad answer.

So don’t let that happen with your job descriptions. You should even think about starting your job descriptions from scratch rather than copying and pasting the last one that you used, right? Because if you copy and paste the last one, you’re going to leave a lot of remnants in there that are unnecessary.

If you start from scratch, the things that are most important are going to come immediately to mind. Doesn’t mean you can’t go back and look at that old description just to make sure you didn’t miss something at the end, but always be thinking about what you really need. If possible, talk with the team about this.

Now, obviously there are times where if you’re making a hire and it’s because you’re going to make some changes and you’re not able to talk about them with the full team yet, that may not be possible. But most of the time your team is going to know that you’re going through a hiring process. Most of the time, it makes sense to have a conversation with the team members to figure out what do they think you need?

Not necessarily in that particular role, but just talk through What are the challenges? Because they may have things that you’re not thinking about. There may be things that they’re aware of that you’re not. And you want to make sure that you’re incorporating all this in this planning process. And I know I’ve talked a lot about planning here.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking about planning, but it’s because it’s so important. Because if you don’t get the planning right, you’re not going to be in a position to succeed the way you want. And good planning will make the process go so much more smoothly. But enough of the planning. Now we’re into that recruiting stage.

And this is the first two steps, the what do you do before you even plan and the planning process. Those are the things that often get neglected. But when you start going into the recruiting process, you have to keep in mind, first of all, that it’s called recruiting. And recruiting means that it’s your job to convince the right people to come work for you and your agency.

And too often, we don’t treat the process as recruiting, we treat it as screening. We treat it more like we’re making a purchase. And that’s not the way it is for us. When you’re hiring employees anywhere, but particularly in the agency space where the employees and the talent that they bring to the table are so critically important to our success.

And so we need to be positioning the whole process around making sure that we’re attracting the right people. And this started two steps ago before you even started to plan to hire by creating the environment, the digital footprint, all those things that got you ready. For recruiting, but now make sure that you’re looking at all of the steps of the recruiting process with an eye towards how the candidates are looking at you.

How are they perceiving the process? You want to arrange something that is very friendly to them. It’s just like selling. Just as we’re selling a prospect on our agency, we’re selling new hires on our agency. So don’t look at it as screening first and foremost. Yes, you have to have screening in there. Yes, you need to make sure that they’re the right hire.

But it needs to start with the idea that you’re going to convince them that you have what it takes to make a good work environment for them. And so that means that you need to think about things like, how are you going to have the process go? You need to, that planning process that you had before should have timelines.

And as you’re going out there and you’re casting a wide net and looking for potential hires, you need to make sure that you’re clear with them. This is our process. This week we’re going to be doing phone interviews. The next two weeks we’ll be doing in person interviews or, you know, probably Zoom interviews in the current environment for the foreseeable future, at least.

Maybe not. Maybe you’re in a place where it’s better to be in house, but whatever it is, make sure that you’re clear with that process. Then talk about what your decision making process is going to be. There’s nothing worse than leaving job candidates hanging. So set the expectations from their first contact with you about what they can expect.

You need to set those expectations both internally and externally because you also want to make sure that your internal team isn’t anticipating a hire faster than you can actually do it. Because that can be demoralizing as well, because they’re looking at this person, someone who can help them, who can probably help relieve some of their burden and help get more done for clients.

You want to make sure that you’re setting yourself up for success by setting time aside for the recruiting process. Don’t make it an afterthought. Don’t make scheduling difficult, block out time, because you want this process to move as swiftly as possible without being irresponsible. You don’t want to make Immediate gut decisions on hires, but you don’t want to drag it out.

You want to make sure that this process is moving along at a healthy pace. Now I talked earlier about diversity, but during the recruiting process, we need to be really conscious of how we’re casting our net. And one of the things that I’ve always been a big fan of is using your existing employee base to help recruit.

They know your agency best. They know if people within their networks are likely to be a good fit. So there’s some pre screening that goes into the candidates that they bring to the table. And so I’ve usually used some sort of a referral fee for employees if we end up hiring someone that they bring in or that they introduce.

And that’s beneficial because it causes them to want to go out and promote the agency to their own network of colleagues and friends, and it rewards them for all that work that they’ve put into it and the risk that they’re taking by recommending it because it is, it is a risk. You have to recognize that because that that new employee, if they come in at a friend’s recommendation and it doesn’t work out.

Who are they going to blame? They’re probably going to blame their friend. So you don’t want people to be unwilling to take the risk. And so if you’ve got a program in place, that can help. But remember I said there was an asterisk when it came to using employees for referrals for new employees. The challenge with that is it helps us build teams, but it helps us build teams that looks like our current team.

And if we have a very diverse existing team, that’s fine. If we don’t, then we need to make extra efforts to go out and see what we can do to reach out to areas where we might not have otherwise. For And so that means that we should be thinking about not just using our employee network for referrals, not just posting on social media.

But also taking advantages of the databases that are out there and the job listing sites that we can use, even though it means we’re going to get some junk. We have to wade through. Don’t be afraid of that. It’s casting that wider net. So you’re finding new people. That you potentially could recruit. Look at local colleges and universities.

Oftentimes they have career centers that can be useful, not just for finding people who are currently students, but oftentimes they help alumni as well. And so that can be very beneficial. So just think really creatively and brainstorm with your team about other places that you might look. Other places where you might try to find those new hires so that you’re not just, hiring a homogenous team that just looks like your existing team, because you’ll benefit from all those different experiences.

Now, I would encourage you, if you’re using something like LinkedIn, not to make it too easy for people to apply. One of the reasons why we get inundated when we start using these job boards or LinkedIn, jobs or those kinds of places to recruit is because we make it too easy. And so, it’s perfectly reasonable to put in a requirement that there be a cover letter, for example.

We’re all in communications. You ought to be able to write a decent cover letter. Doesn’t matter whether you’re applying for a writing position or not. Okay. So if you’re going to be doing that, then make sure that that’s clear and be straight up that you’re going to reject anything that doesn’t have a cover letter.

For example, don’t allow the apply now button to be active on LinkedIn and instead direct them over to a jobs page on your site. Yes, it will reduce the numbers, but that’s okay. Chances are you don’t want hundreds of resumes to go through. You want there to be at least some sort of a bar so that someone has made that preliminary decision that you are a good fit.

Okay. for them or that you might be a good fit for them. So think about all of those things. and then finally be aware of your own biases. And this, I’m not just talking about biases that may address diversity, but just any biases that you have in hiring. And as I said, you know, one of, one of my originally was a four year college degree, but also, you know, it might be that you have a bias against anyone who’s coming from the client side.

Versus, or maybe you prefer not to hire from the agency side, whatever it is, make sure that you’re willing to be at least a little bit flexible because you may overlook really good hires. Otherwise, for many years, I, I had a strongly held view that I didn’t want to hire people for their first job out of college.

And I still have some concerns about it. I will often say that, you know, I don’t want to be the person who’s potty training a new employee. I want them to have worked somewhere else. So they get a sense for what it’s like to work in a professional environment. And I want someone else to teach them those basic skills of showing up to meetings on time and how to communicate with coworkers and all that.

And then I’ll take them after that. But I made an exception to that rule about, I don’t know, Probably five years ago, and it was a really great hire that I ended up making. So be aware of all those little biases that you may have. And while they may be based on experience, they may be based on past things that, that worked well or didn’t work well for you, but just be aware of them and be willing to make exceptions because you may overlook candidates that you would make, that would make great hires otherwise.

All right. So this is, this is how you get people into the pipeline. And so you have to be then thinking about, okay. I’m getting all these resumes in, how do I screen them and how do I move on to the interviewing process? And interviewing should be a multi step process. So you need to start by reviewing the resumes that, that come in.

I would strongly encourage that it not just be one person who’s reviewing those initial resumes. You should have at least two pairs of eyes on it. And if those two people have different outlooks on life, that’s even better. Because that will help you with a diverse pool of information. In all senses of the word, diversity.

And so if you, if you’re then doing that, then you need to sit down and say, okay, what’s a, you know, what’s a reasonable number of these to have phone interviews with? And so, you know, if you’ve got, you know, through the screening process, let’s say you’ve got 25 and I’m just making up numbers here. Let’s say you’ve got 25 that have have passed the sniff test.

The resume looked like this is a plausible hire. worth a conversation. Do you have enough resources to do 25 phone interviews or should you be pairing it back even further than that? So think about what’s reasonable as far as winning, winnowing the pool down. And then start with phone interviews. And I really encourage brief ones, 15, 20 minutes tops.

These are really just very quick. Get to know you. I would prefer that you do them by phone rather than by video, even though I’m not generally a fan of phone. I think there’s some advantages to doing it that way. And so you’re, you’re having that preliminary conversation. It’s a chance for both sides. You know, to see if they’re, if it’s worth pursuing so that you’re not investing heavily in a formal interview process.

And so from this, you should be winnowing the list down even further because some of these phone interviews are not going to pan out. Some of them, sometimes the, the applicant will not even bother to set up the phone interview and that’s fine. That tells you what you needed to know. They’re not interested.

Great. Move on. Don’t be chasing after a hire. If they’re not interested, you don’t want to do anything. That’s going to, convince them to take a job that they didn’t really want. So use this process to get that list down to however many you want to interview in person and, or, or by zoom that can, depending upon the circumstances that you have, wherever you are.

And I would say that as far as the number to do these actual interviews with, somewhere around a half dozen is probably the right number. You don’t want to have too many that you’re getting to that stage with because first of all, it’s logistically difficult. It’s taking a lot of your time, your team’s time and those sorts of things, but it will depend on the position.

It will depend upon how much, response you got, how many, initial, resumes passed that sniff test. So you’re going to have to judge it for yourself. But me personally, about a half dozen is all I really wanted to do for a formal interview process. And when I say formal interview process, you can go overboard.

So be cautious when you’re doing these interviews. Again, remember that this is a recruiting process. And if it’s a recruiting process, that means that you are not there to run a torture test. And I’ve seen plenty of these over the years. I was involved with a hiring process. Oh, I don’t know, probably 15 years ago.

And in this process, the, Job candidates were submitted to like, I think it was over a dozen one on one interviews. And this was a moderately senior position, but not, you know, it wasn’t a CEO or a president of a university or something like that. I mean, it was unnecessary, the number of interviews that were required.

Don’t make employees run that kind of gauntlet. I’ve been involved with organizations where Tech interviews have taken half a day because they wanted to run the prospects through a whole battery of tests to see what their knowledge was. Now, in some of those technical roles, you do need to dig a little bit deeper.

That said, keep in mind, again, this is a recruiting process. However, the most important thing is regardless of what your process is going to be, make sure you’re setting expectations correctly. Because I’ve seen some of these where someone’s being brought in for an interview and they don’t realize they’re going to be talking in sequence to like three different people.

And so it’s going to take two hours instead of what most people might anticipate would be at most an hour long process. So be very clear when you’re setting up these conversations, whether they’re zoom or in person, how long you expect them to take, who they’re going to be talking to. Let them do some research in advance.

That can be a really good indicator. And one of the things I’ve often done in interviews is listened to see how much research the person did coming in. If they come in and know nothing about my organization, that’s a pretty good indication they weren’t that interested. If I have to explain the basics of what I do, I mean, what level of interest are they really showing?

And you want employees who are excited about the prospect of working for you. And particularly in the agency space, there’s really not an excuse for not doing basics like visiting your website. Now, if your website doesn’t actually explain what you do very well, well, that’s a problem that you need to address on a different vein, but nevertheless, you want to be looking for those kinds of cues in the meetings, and you do that by setting the expectation, letting them know who they’re going to meet with.

You should plan for a multi round interview process, so don’t plan on doing just one interview. And that’s because oftentimes someone can shine or not based on that first interview. And so you want to make sure that, particularly the ones that shine, that you don’t pull the trigger too quickly. You do want to have that second, that one, just to let it, you know, sort of soak in to you and the team, but also to take a look and see, okay.

you know, as the dust is settled, as we have a further conversation, what are the things have we thought of? What are the things have they thought of that we should be conversing about? Now, when you’re doing interviews, you also need to make sure that you’re doing them properly. And so I strongly encourage you, if you don’t understand what the rules of the road are with regard to interviews, what you can ask, what you can’t ask, I would strongly encourage you to work with a consultant and understand what those parameters are because you can get yourself into a lot of trouble if you are not, if you’re asking prohibited questions, right?

Because it exposes you to potential, lawsuits for discrimination. So don’t do that. And it’s, I’ve seen some, Absolutely off the wall interview questions in my day. One of my favorite ones was I was in an organization and I had someone, a manager come to me and they were talking about, you know, how they do interviews.

And they said, you know, my favorite question to ask. I said, no, what? And this person said, my favorite question to ask is what do you like to do on Saturday night? And I was just, I was dumbfounded. I’m I, why? I couldn’t understand why you would ask that kind of a question. It opens up a lot of questions.

the door to so many things that you as an employer shouldn’t be diving into. And this individual said, well, look, it just helps me get to know them better. And so he was looking at it in terms of, it’s a friendly way to try to get to know you and sort of break down the barriers or formality in the interview.

The problem is that there are many things that could have been revealed during that portion of the interview that would be problematic or that makes it might make the recruit. hesitant, uncomfortable, et cetera. So don’t do that. Make sure you know what you can and can’t ask. Make sure that if you’ve got other members of your team doing it, you’re having conversations with them in advance of the interview process so they understand these things.

Because it’s your job as an agency leader, as an owner, an executive, to help them figure those things out. Don’t throw someone into the deep end of the pool without a swimming lesson or a life jacket. And that’s what you’re doing if you just have them sit down or do a Zoom one on one with a potential new hire without going over the parameters with them.

Make sure that there’s some consistency amongst your team, too. You understand, you know, who, you know, sometimes, for example, you may break it up. So one of you may have a conversation that focuses more around, work experience, writing, if that’s appropriate or technical, if that’s what’s appropriate, whatever it is.

But then one of you may have more of a general conversation, maybe looking more towards the future. So have some coordination. So you don’t all ask the same 10 questions. and it is helpful for someone. If you’re, if you’ve got a large enough team to do it, you know, have two or three people. Involved in these conversations because it will help you figure out if someone’s really going to be a good fit Now all of those don’t have to be at the same time because your first and second round of these These what I would call proper interviews shouldn’t be exactly the same structure shouldn’t be the exact same people It’s helpful to bring in someone new in that second stage so that you know It gives you a fresh perspective as you’ve moved along.

So think about those things think about what makes sense for your organization But structure this process so that you’re able to get the information you need but that you’re also doing a good job of selling Your agency to these recruits because these interviews are your primary selling opportunity and so you want to be, you know Very focused about that.

You also want to make sure that as you’re evaluating These people in the process that you’re clear with yourself about what you were originally looking for But also the things that you can train The things that you can help get them the skills they need on versus the things that you can’t train and that they need to have already brought to the table.

So for me, one of the things that I usually look for employees to have already is problem solving skills. So I like to understand how they’ve confronted challenges in the past, how they’ve learned how to do a new task or something like that. I often ask questions around that, so I have a sense for how they think about addressing those kinds of challenges.

Because if you do that, those are the kinds of things that that will reveal a lot about an individual and how they think. And I can teach someone. How to do SEO or I can teach them a programming language or I can teach them how to format a press release or those kinds of things. I can’t teach them how to solve problems.

I can help make them a little bit better at it. But it’s going to take a lot of time and that time may be well spent, but I need to be realistic about it and understand that that’s a project versus being able to give someone the skills that they need by sending them to a training class or having them watch videos online or whatever learning method they prefer, whatever helps them the most.

So be really clear about those as you’re comparing one candidate to the next, because I’ve seen people get knocked out of the process. Based on things that they could learn with a day or two workshop. While people have stayed in the process who have issues that are much bigger that are, that are going to be harder to resolve.

So don’t allow some of those checkbox items to deter you from hiring the right people. Finallin the interviewing process. Once you’ve gone through. Whatever rounds you have and you’ve wintered it down to one or perhaps two candidates. Now you need to be thinking about how do you make some of those final decisions.

What are some of the basics that you need to do? Things you should be doing at this point, thinking about at this point are background checks, reference checks. I think they’re valuable. I have yet to have a reference check where I’ve gotten a negative response. All I, I have given them. Although not directly because it’s just, you know, it’s not a good idea to give a negative reference if you get a call, but there are ways that you can communicate, to the person on the other end, the reality without actually saying it.

So, for example, you know, I was, I was called many years ago for a reference on someone who had been terminated for cause. And we couldn’t speak about it. Our legal counsel was very clear about that. And so when I got this reference call, I don’t know why I was listed as a reference, honestly, it to this day still boggles my mind.

I fielded the call and I said, I confirmed the employment. I said, but I, I can’t say anything else. I really wish I could, but I can’t. The person on the other end understood what I was saying. Okay. I’ve yet to have that happen to me when I’m calling a reference. Yeah. I always make those calls and the reason you make those calls is just to make sure that they’re there, they’re legit, and that the one in a million doesn’t happen.

So don’t skip that step in the process and don’t skip at least doing a basic background check. This doesn’t need to be an FBI level, you know, Senate confirmation hearing level kind of thing, but it needs to be enough that you’re comfortable that you have done your due diligence. And these days, of course, that includes a nice thorough social media check we’ve seen just in the last week or so and constantly really situations where someone’s caused problems for their new employer because of things that are in their past.

Doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t hire people based on what you find. Because a lot of times you’re going to find things that maybe you’re uncomfortable with in social media, but you do want to make sure you’re at least aware of it because you don’t ever want to be in a situation where you’re blindsided by something that you could have easily found out in advance.

So now that you’ve done this, now you’ve figured out, okay, this is the person that I want to hire. So now you’re down to the offer. And so this is where you need to think through what are you going to offer? And you, you, you should have started the process already having in mind. What you were expecting for a compensation package, but now you’ve gone through a little bit more you’ve learned a little bit more And by the way, keep in mind that in a lot of states, it is now not permissible to ask for salary history information.

It can come up. That individual can volunteer it. I would certainly encourage you to share the salary range for the role when you’re in those processes, so you don’t get through all the way through the process to an offer where you’re giving an offer that’s, you know, a third of what the, the hire thought it was going to be.

Be really clear about the, I was talking about expectations. One of the key ones is compensation. If it doesn’t come up from the recruit, make sure that you’re at least setting some goalposts so that they’re not going to be surprised if and when an offer is made, but you need to think through strategically what you’ve learned through the whole process, what you’ve learned about the individual that you’re making an offer to, what should that offer look like?

Consider not just the financial aspect, but the non monetary compensation too, because during the process they may have said, you know, I really value my ability to do X, take time off work from home two days a week, whatever it is. Keep those things in mind because what you’re offering is not just a salary, not just a bonus structure, you’re offering a whole compensation package.

Make sure in your offer that you’re clear about what you offer for benefits. Many times recruits won’t ask questions about health insurance or time off or those kinds of things. Make that part of your offer letter. Make it clear what those are. Maybe share a copy of the employee handbook or a link to it or however you want to share it.

Maybe you hold back and don’t give it until they ask for it. Your call, but think about what information you’re going to provide to help them make their decision. And that’s based on everything that you’ve learned through the process. So you’re structuring it. Don’t low ball. Don’t go in there and say, well, you know, I, I think I can get, Sam for, you know, 10, 000 less than I had planned.

So I’m going to try to go for it. That rarely makes sense. It doesn’t mean you need to overpay for a role. It doesn’t mean that if you had a 50, 000 role and you’ve got someone who’s really only at the 40, 000 level, and you have to make some adjustments to the role in order to, to accommodate the fact that they’re not quite as seasoned as you would like to see them as not quite as experienced as you’d like to see them.

That’s fine, but don’t look at it as an opportunity to get a discount. Make sure that you’re paying fairly because that helps you in the longterm. You may save some money in the short term by low balling, but first of all, you’re less likely to get that hire. And if you do get that hire, they’re less likely to stick around because eventually they’re going to figure out they got low balled at the same time.

If you’re getting. into a negotiation with a new hire, be really clear with how much negotiation you’re going to allow. And I generally am willing to accept one counter from the employee, from the prospective employee. And generally speaking, if it’s not outrageous, I’m inclined to accept it because I want someone coming in with a good taste in their mouth.

Because really this negotiation that you’re having with the new hire, that’s the first step in the onboarding process. And so you want to make sure that you’re putting yourself in a position where they’re not just accepting the job. They’re not settling. They’re excited about it, and they’re excited about every aspect about it.

They’re excited about your agency. They’re excited about the role they’re going to have, and they’re excited about their total compensation package. If they’re in a position where they’re taking it because they have to, and that’s the only reason they’re taking it, they’re not going to last. So don’t put yourself in that position.

Make sure that you’re You know, willing to have some degree of negotiation, but you know, don’t allow it to be a constant back and forth because that’s not the kind of situation you want either. So if they say, well, look, I need an extra five and you say, I can do an extra three. Great. Do it and say, that’s, I can do three, but that’s it.

And just make clear that that’s the end of that negotiation. And, and now it’s time to make a decision. And speaking of making a decision, be very clear. about how much time the individual wants to contemplate your offer. And the offer, by the way, should be in writing. I would prefer you communicate it verbally first, but have pre written the offer so that you can then immediately Send it by email.

So you present it orally because you’re selling still at that point, but then have it backed up in paper because oftentimes they’re going to want to think about it. They’re going to want to talk to a significant other or a family member or a friend and, and just make sure that they understand what it is.

So make sure it is available in writing. Don’t have a delay where you say, I’ll write it up, should already be written, but be clear about how long that deliberation is going to last. And I’ve learned this again the hard way. I’ve had situations where I wasn’t clear about it, and someone has basically ended up taking, you know, a week or 10 days, and that’s putting me in a holding pattern.

And one of the things I think it’s important to do is to not, your other finalists, until you’ve got something signed, sealed, and delivered, I don’t generally let the other finalists off the hook, assuming that they are potentially viable candidates. If they’re, if I’m clearly never going to hire them, then I do want to let them know.

And you should be clear all along the way with all of the recruits, As soon as you know, they’re not a fit, let them know, don’t keep them hanging. Don’t drag them through the process. Don’t say I’m going to have an interview with you just, you know, sort of as a, as a freebie, as a, to make you feel good. I mean, it, it, it sucks to deliver bad news, deliver bad news because they’ll remember that and hopefully respect it.

If there’s another opportunity to come work for you down the road, we all live in a very small community, the agency space. And so it’s not uncommon to see job applicants come up more than once.

So those are those are the processes. Hopefully then you get someone to get to yes. So when you get someone to yes, now you need to think about that initial onboarding. And so this initial onboarding really has to be all about all of the things that you’re doing with this new hire. So they’ve signed the off letter.

It’s come back. Make sure you’ve have, you have a plan in place for what takes place. Now, make sure you’re sharing information in advance of day one. And we’ll have another webinar at some point on the formal onboarding process, the first say 90 to a hundred days of a new hire. But in that window between when they accept the offer and they probably give notice to an existing employer, what takes place then, and make sure that you’re.

Setting expectations clearly, help them understand what that first day is going to look like. Make sure that for that first day you have all the paperwork ready to go. Don’t be scrambling. You know, make that good first impression. If there’s paperwork that you can share in advance so it can be pre filled, all the better.

Here in the U. S., send them an I 9. Send them all the forms that they need to fill out so that they can get it in place and they don’t have to waste a lot of time on the first day because you don’t want to waste a lot of time on bureaucracy that first day. Yes, there’s a piece of that. But you want to help them to get excited about the new role and that isn’t by sitting down and just doing paperwork.

It’s by starting to talk to them about the role. So, get some of that paperwork off. on to them in advance. Share a handbook with them in advance if you can. Okay? think of it this way. It’s sort of like that new hire process. It’s sort of like the delivery of a new car. And think about if you’ve ever gotten a new car or even a used car, the dealership has a whole process and it’s all meant to build the excitement until you get the keys and get to drive out of the parking lot.

You want the same thing with your new hires. So create a process that helps them do that. All right. So that will bring us to, the conclusion of the hiring process. So we’ve talked about everything about from how you have to think about this from the very initial processes. You need to think about how you are thinking about hiring before you’re even doing.

a hiring process before you even decide there’s a specific need that you have, then plan it correctly for that hire and go through the recruiting and interviewing process properly to hopefully get a successful offer where you can then onboard someone. And, I’ve, I’ve gone on a little bit longer than I thought, but I think we’ve covered a lot of hopefully very fruitful ground for you.

And there’s a lot of good nuggets in here that you can use to make your future hiring process even more effective. If there are any questions, I will try to, to take one or two. Let me see if I can bring up the questions here and see if, hold on, I’ve lost my window.

All right.

Ah, okay. so the, good question. The, the question is, do I have a sample offer letter? That’s a good question. I don’t think there is one in the resource library right now. but that’s something I can produce easily enough. and, our. I mean, I can take one that I’ve used in the past and, and clear out the, the contact information and all that kind of stuff.

And we can put that into the resource library. So, happy to do that. and, so with that, that will bring us to an end of our time here together. If you have additional questions that you would like to ask or any feedback that you would like to share, On this webinar, or perhaps suggestions that you have for future webinars, please feel free to email me chip@sagaimpact.com. I would look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again for joining me and have a great rest of your week.