Selling the Job to Your Candidate, The Ratio That Predicts Your Death, Learn to Mind Your Own Business
Business
Selling the Job to Your Chosen Candidate
We’ve had a couple weeks off from our series on how to attract and hire “A” players. We are wrapping up the series today.
If you have a great workplace, you and your people have been selling the candidate throughout the interview process. You were selling to attract candidates through your career page and your job advertisements. Every person the candidate met was telling them about how great of a workplace you have, selling them on your town, the schools, etc.
Once you know you have the right candidate, the “A” player that you must have, there are 3 steps to making sure they accept your offer.
- Know the Candidate – Geoffrey Smart recommends focusing on the 5 F’s and finding out which matter most to your candidate. They are Fit, Family, Freedom, Fortune and Fun. Make sure you and your team are finding out what a win is for the candidate in each of these areas throughout the interview process so you can sell to them how your firm is a great fit. I like to dig deeper and focus on the candidate’s purpose in life. If your firm can help them accomplish their deepest, God-given desires, the candidate will accept your position and be the best team member imaginable! I always go back to the Be, Do, Have, Help framework. Ask the candidate to list the top 5 things they want to Be (great father, husband, CEO, triathlete, etc.), Do (experiences), Have (stuff) and Help (giving back). If you can find a way to help them accomplish their Be, Do, Have, Help goals while they help your firm accomplish theirs, you will be golden!
- Deliver on their Top Needs – How is your firm, your town, the details of the job able to specifically accomplish the candidate’s top needs and desires. Do you need to change something about the job description so the candidate can focus more on work they love and are best at? Do you need to provide extra flexibility for a candidate with a young family? Do whatever you need to do to make this job perfect for your “A” candidate.
- Sell to the Family – Even if you are recruiting a lifetime bachelor or widow, family matters. As we get older, family matters more and more. How is this position going to help the candidate have, keep or create a great family? Will the job allow regular travel to see loved ones? How can their co-workers or community organizations create “family-like” relationships? What are the needs of your candidate’s spouse, their children? Figure all of this out and find ways to deliver for the candidate and their family.
Money is rarely the key motivator in a candidate’s decision, but it can be a disincentive if it is too low or not linked to performance. As Honeywell Aerospace CEO Robert Gillette told Smart, “If all you have to sell is the compensation, that is not good.”
Getting and managing great talent is the number one factor for business success. I’ve given you the tools, now it is up to you to do the work. Like most things in life, the steps are simple, but not easy. Do the work and you will attract and retain the talent you need to excel.
Health
Waist to Hip Ratio
This year we left traditional insurance and moved our family to a Christian medical sharing program called Medi-Share. I’ll post more on that decision at a later time. One of the neat features of this program is that they encourage healthy living my giving you a 20% discount for meeting healthy living criteria. Their primary criteria to qualify are Blood Pressure below 125/85, Waist Circumference under 38″ for men, 35″ for women and a Body Mass Index between 17.5 and 30.
Since everyone understands that BMI does not work for every person and situation, they provide other options such as body fat testing and measuring your Waist to Hip ratio to gauge your obesity related risk. I had never heard of Waist to Hip ratio but after doing a bit of research I found out that it is currently the best indicator of mortality! This is because the fat around our bellies and surrounding our organs is the most deadly fat we have. Bad news for us “apple shaped” people.
How do you measure your Waist to Hip ratio? What are good vs bad numbers according to the research? I found a great article that explains it all (with pictures) here. Check it out.
I am loving that our new health insurance alternative is actually encouraging us to take active steps to improve our health! I am a bit of a health nut and I still learned a lot through their application process.
Life, Fun, Whatever
How I Learned to Mind My Own Business
Thanks to Brent Moore at Proficient Pool & Landscaping for sharing this one with me. Don’t learn this lesson the hard way!
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