Increase your chances of hiring the right person

You can never be 100% right, but you increase your chances of success in hiring, if in the interview process, you add this question to your list.

Small business owners always tell me, “It’s difficult, and seems almost impossible to find people who want to work.” Finding someone who will show up on time, have a good attitude, and actually do the work, is a problem all over the USA and with all kinds of businesses. Many small business owners have tried and failed several times and have become discouraged and reluctant to hire more help even when they really need to, in order to grow their business.

I have a habit of asking successful business owners questions. The answers have often helped me avoid serious problems, help my clients, and do extremely well with my own business.

There are perhaps many keys to success finding good people. There's one thing that has never failed me, and the business owners who use it.

“What did you do to earn income when you were a child?”

If they can’t think of anything that is a warning sign. If the first job they’ve had was at Pizza Hut after graduating college, that’s another warning sign.

If they did baby sitting, mowed yards, had a paper route, was lifeguard, or similar work, there’s a real good chance this person would work out very well. When I was twelve I begged Mom and Dad for saddle for my horse. We were very poor, so my Dad said, “Go out and earn the money, and you can buy with it whatever you want.” That summer I picked up soda pop bottles and sold them. I picked blackberries, picked up walnuts, scrap iron and earned the money to buy a new saddle for my horse. The next year I traded it and a pig for a 1939 Martin guitar. My Dad and Mom taught me there was no free lunch.

He said they had no resources to help me. “You work you get money. You don’t work you don’t get money.” Wouldn’t be great if everyone you hired had that kind of training?

It’s very difficult to be right every time you hire someone. Five small business owners this year have confided in me that they had employees they trusted that were stealing money. A guy I knew pretty well (I thought) worked as a manager at a Hardee’s just up the road. He had a wonderful family, went to church here in this county and by all indications was the typical all around nice guy. He had a very likeable personality, was an Eagle Scout and volunteered as a Scout Leader.

I was shocked when I went in to Hardee’s one morning and found he had been fired. I talked to the new manager and he candidly told me that this very nice guy had been stealing an average of $4000 a month for the last two years.

You can never be 100% right, but you increase your chances of success in hiring if in the interview process you add this question to your list: “What did you do to earn income when you were a child?” It will certainly tell you a lot about that person.