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“I need better employees.” Sometimes that’s true. There are people who won’t meet reasonable expectations no matter how clearly you explain them. But before deciding you need better employees, ask this: What would a better employee actually do differently on…
“Nobody stays.” When you’ve hired three or four people and watched every one of them leave, it’s hard not to start thinking this way. Maybe people just don’t stick around like they used to. Maybe it’s the labor market. Maybe…
“I need someone with experience.” I hear this a lot when talking about hiring. And I get it. You don’t have six months to get someone up to speed. You’ve probably hired someone before who needed way more help than…
Most companies say they hire for values. Far fewer are willing to lose a great candidate because of them. That’s the difference between values and preferences. Preferences are nice to have. Values change decisions. I’ve seen business owners spend weeks…
An exit interview shouldn’t be the first honest conversation. Recently, I’ve heard employees expressing that exit interviews feel like a trap. If someone never felt safe speaking honestly while they worked for the company, why would they suddenly believe it’s…
One of the most common criticisms of hiring is that “culture fit” is just a polite way to justify bias. Sometimes, that’s true. But here’s what’s actually happening: When an interviewer says “I just don’t think they’re a fit,” what…
When employees assume HR is hiding something, don’t start by defending HR. Recently, I came across a post encouraging employees to treat every conversation with HR like a legal battle. The advice was simple: assume HR is managing you, document…
You’ve probably heard the criticism: “HR protects the company, not the employee.” I understand why people say it. By the time many employees walk into HR, they already feel like the system is moving against them. Trust usually didn’t break…
Most hiring managers prepare for interviews by thinking about the questions they’re going to ask. Very few think about the questions they’re going to get. That’s a mistake. Because some of the most useful information in an interview doesn’t come…
I worked with a company drowning in applications. All of them looked identical. Same buzzwords. Same vague accomplishments. Same “team player” descriptions. After screening 100 resumes, they all blurred together. The owner’s first instinct was the standard one. “Nobody puts…
