HOW TO HIRE RIGHT

Here are some tips when it comes to hiring

BY Jayashantha Jayawardhana

When the Vice President of Engineering at Netflix Anthony Park was being interviewed to join as a programmer, the chief talent officer at the time was Patty McCord. She conducted the final interview with him.

McCord writes about this experience in her book titled ‘Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility.’ And Harvard Business Review (HBR) adapted the article ‘How to Hire: Chances are you’re doing it all wrong’ from this book.

She writes that Park wasn’t a slam dunk for a Silicon Valley company. At the time, Park was working for an Arizona bank where he was a programmer and not a software developer. He was a pretty buttoned-up guy.

Park was called for an interview because in his spare time, he had created a Netflix enhancing app, which he’d posted on his website. And when he came in for the interview, all the interviewers at Netflix loved him.

When he met McCord late in the day, she told him that he’ll be receiving an offer. Since he seemed overwhelmed, she asked him if he was okay and Park replied: “You’re going to pay me a lot of money to do what I love!”

However, McCord was still not sure whether he would fit in with the high-powered team he’d be joining and hoped it wouldn’t burn him out.

She writes that “a few months later, I sat in on a meeting of his team. Everyone was arguing until Anthony suddenly said: ‘Can I speak now?’ The room went silent because though he didn’t say much, when he did speak, it was something really smart – something that would make us all wonder, damn it… why didn’t I think of that? Now Anthony is a vice president. He is proof that organisations can adapt to many people’s styles.”

In the HBR article, McCord encapsulates what she has learned about making great hires during her 14 years at Netflix, and subsequent consulting on culture and leadership.

In a nutshell, this process calls for probing beneath the surface of people and their résumés; engaging managers in every aspect of hiring; treating your in-house recruiters as true business partners; adopting a mindset where you’re always recruiting; and awarding compensation that fits the performance you need and future you’re aspiring for.

At one time, McCord wanted to lure some programmers away from AOL as they were doing the kind of technical work that Netflix needed. Despite the fact that Netflix was a much sexier place than AOL to work for, they wanted to stick with the latter.

Perplexed, she asked them why – and their response was that they had the most amazing boss. He was the best communicator they’d ever known and they couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him.

And McCord told her recruiters: “Go get that guy!”

That guy was Christian Kaiser. He had a thick German accent and stuttered, and McCord found him to be jittery. Although she was sceptical about his gift of communication, when asked to explain in simple terms the technical work he was doing, she found that he was in his element.

Kaiser still stuttered but offered her a riveting description. And she knew right away that he was great at making very complicated things understandable. They hired him and he has been an amazing team builder at Netflix.

Had McCord – guided solely by her first impression – failed to probe beneath the surface, Kaiser wouldn’t have been hired and it’d have been Netflix’s loss.

It’s important to engage managers fully. Many companies rely on external recruiters; but seeing Netflix’s rapid growth, its mana­gement decided instead to form an internal team of experienced recruiters.

This internal team of recruiters would coach the hiring managers one-on-one and explain how they should plan their interviewing process. So in the end, the ultimate responsibility for recruiting interviewees would lie with the hiring manager.

Recruiters should be treated as business partners. And as with any other department or division head, your HR chief should understand the details of your business, how you earn your revenue, who your customers are and your strategy for the future.

If your HR chief falls short here, you have to make sure that he or she really understands all of this.

Netflix attracts candidates from all over the country but certain fundamentals are strictly enforced. The company’s goal is to have every person who comes in for an interview walk away wanting the job.

Once a hiring decision is made, McCord’s team loses no time in laying down the groundwork needed to get the recruit on board.

Another valuable point is to decide on compensation that makes sense. McCord writes: “Jobs are not widgets and neither are people. A candidate may have skills that can’t be measured by salary surveys.”

Top talent is scarce and expensive. So you must establish a competitive compensation scheme to attract talent.