Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

More About Hiring The Right Person

I wrote an article 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.
I received a very interesting comment from a reader named Chris:
Comment: Although I can see why a manager would ask a potential employee this question, I'm inclined to disagree. Like many kids in South Africa, I never had the chance to work part time as a kid for numerous reasons but, unlike the modern Western kid, we wasn't handed anything we demanded on a platter either. We did not grow up expecting to receive anything we wanted as a right. I find many of us who were not spoiled as children, even though we didn't have paying jobs, make loyal, hard working, trustworthy employees.
I responded with this:
Chris,
I certainly agree with you. My point of the article was however, that this is a good question to add to the interview process. By far the number one complaint I hear from small business owners is, “I can’t seem to find good workers.” I personally have hired and trained people for 40 years. Also we have all seen a business owners hire someone new, and then come back later and that new person just hired is gone. A startling statistic I heard last year at a conference was 80% of the time when a media sales rep sells a business owner advertising the business does not ever see that rep again. The guy had good evidence to back it up too. The reason: employee turnover.

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in this area, but in my humble opinion, when a child grows up having done no work for money until after high school and college then gets their first job; work is a slap in the face, a surprise, and difficult to get used to. If I have two applicants and all else is equal and one worked mowing yards every summer from age 10 thru age 18 and had a part-time job delivering Pizza in college and the other applicant did no work as a child or in college...you can say I'm wrong all day long, but I will hire the one who has done some work. Why? Because of my experience in hiring and training people. I have 23 people working for me now and every one of them did work as a child. They are the kind of workers that any employer anywhere would love to hire.

As in your case, I have seen many people come here from another country and do extremely well financially because of a great work ethic. Respected speaker and successful author Zig Ziglar says, "One in four legal immigrants after living in America for ten years are millionaires." But I believe children growing up in America have different attitude than those growing up in South Africa.
Many kids growing up here do not see America as the land of opportunity. Many think that they are owed something and that it is some one else’s responsibility to take care of them. Those kinds of kids do not make very good employees; just ask the owner of any restaurant in America.
Sincerely, Clay Campbell

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.