The 10 Laws of Hiring
by Stephen R. Covey

Perhaps no management decisions are more important than hiring decisions. Yet many managers fail to take the time to hire right, instead making fast decisions based on what looks good as an immediate solution. My experience suggests that it is far better to hire right than to hire fast and hope that training makes someone right for the job. Training is expensive. It takes time — sometimes years — to develop the person you want. Hiring the right person can take a matter of a few hours or days. The first rule: hire for attitude, train for skill. But beyond that, how do you break bad hiring habits? Here are my 10 guiding principles:

1. Acknowledge that hiring is more important than training. Most managers hire on the basis of urgent need. They read resumes and interview candidates with eyes and ears of hope. They don't explore, in-depth, candidates' complete track records. They don't find out the pattern of a candidate's motivations. And when they don't pay the price in the hiring process, they pay 10 times the price later with the problems that come down the road. They may then try to train, coach, and counsel people in an attempt to compensate for bad hiring decisions.

2. Pay the price to know each other well. Let candidates know you and the mission of your organization, so they have to make a decision before you ever hire them. Take the time, even if it takes a few weeks, to go in depth with the person. Let them get to know you and learn your vision and mission. They need to feel in harmony long before they make the decision. Also, you need to know them, particularly in the gap areas of their lives — those things they don't write in their resumes.

3. Start with the person's early life, and ask, What is it that you did very well that you loved doing? You might ask, What did you really enjoy doing when you were in grade school? What did you do well? What made you feel good about yourself? Did you have a paper route? Did your parents drive you around? How did you collect the money? Look for early initiative and motivation. Then ask about high school and college, and you will see what the pattern of the candidate's life has been.

4. Study the life pattern, and you will begin to discover their deepest motivations. You may find, for example, that the pattern is one of independence, not one of interdependence. That teaches you a lot. It may be a pattern of self-glorification rather than contribution, or the opposite. When you see eyes light up, you begin to realize this is what excites this person. When you ask him or her about high school, college, graduate school, and first jobs, you begin to see patterns that persist over time.

5. Determine if the person's habit patterns, motivations, values, and lifestyle fit well with the culture of your organization. Generally, those motivational patterns persist in the future. You can tell if people are independent or interdependent, selfish or service oriented. You can begin to see the totality of their lives. You can then better determine if they will fit well with your company's culture.

6. Allow team leaders to hire and fire. The personnel department or human resource manager shouldn't do any hiring. They should do the screening and processing. The people who should be hiring are the team leaders. Candidates should come before the teams, present themselves, and get to know each team member. It's also the team that does the firing. If some people aren't pulling their oar, it's the team that throws them overboard, not the helmsman.

7. Seek to build a complementary team in an interdependent culture. If you are trying to develop an interdependent culture, you don't want to hire independent-minded people, because the fit isn't there. You have to decide, "What do I need and whom do I want on my team?" The natural tendency is to clone yourself rather than to set up a complementary team where one person's strengths compensate for your deficiencies. Since likeness attracts, you clone yourself, and your strength becomes your weakness, rather than saying, "Where am I strong, and what are my deficiencies? I've got to hire for strength in my areas of weakness. That means I need to hire people who are different from me. That means they are going to do things differently. Am I emotionally prepared to go in that direction?" Don't clone, complement. That takes a lot of emotional strength, and a lot of self-awareness.

8. If you must choose one among many good candidates, invite those who aren't hired to keep trying. If all six hiring choices are good, say to the other five, "Keep us in mind. Keep at it. Now is not the right time, but come back in six months." When people make a second, third, fourth, or even fifth attempt to get in, they usually do. That's a measure of the power of their motivation. People who are highly motivated usually get the job they want. They begin to adapt themselves; they learn the culture; and they learn how to make an effective presentation.

9. Avoid being surprised at entry or exit by having clear criteria. Set guidelines and criteria for team leaders to work with when hiring. The criteria should come from your mission statement. If the culture buys into that mission statement, then the criteria is written in people's minds and hearts. The more all members of the culture have the criteria of the mission statement inside them, the less shocked they are with hiring and firing decisions. The less they have those criteria, the more dismayed they are when someone departs. They wonder, "What's happening around here?" and "When's it going to happen to me?" They feel guilty or depressed about the person being laid off, which usually robs them of their highest level of motivation and contribution. The more all team members share the criteria of performance against standards, the fewer people are shocked when someone exits. The more the criteria is based on performance rather than politics, on principles rather than principals, the more congruent hiring and firing is with the concept of principle-centered leadership.

10. Create a covenant, not just a contract. Remember: when hiring, you're creating an economic marriage, hopefully one based on covenant, not contract. In a covenant relationship, both parties give 100% instead of 50-50. In a covenant relationship, there are really two decisions: the decision of one party to hire, and the decision of the other party to be hired. That produces a powerful covenant. In a typical employment contract, only one party (the person doing the hiring) is making a decision; and so both parties feel that the relationship could end at any time. The relationship is transactional, not transforming. Also, when entering into a covenant relationship, one expects to pass through some sort of ceremony, initiation, or rite of passage. Consider what ceremony would best symbolize the "covenant" that comes with joining your organization. For example, many clubs have an initiation ceremony; schools have an orientation; and families have a celebration with the birth of a child. In some way the new person gets inaugurated into the society.

Stephen R. Covey is author of the best-seller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and founder of the Covey Leadership Center, in Provo, Utah.

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