218: Strategies for Hiring Well in Your Interior Design Firm

Michele  00:00

Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today we have Jamie Van Cuyk. Jamie is a hiring strategist, a podcast host, and a speaker. And today we are going to dive into all things hiring. I know that hiring a team has been very difficult for many of you, you've probably had some starts and stops along the way. You're wondering what the next right hire is, how to make sure you're choosing the right person. And that's the conversation that we're going to dig into. So welcome to Jamie Van Cuyk. 

Michele  00:41

Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice. Hi, Jamie, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have this conversation with you today.

Jamie Van Cuyk  01:21

Hi, Michele, thank you so much for having me today.

Michele  01:24

Jamie, as we get started, share with our listeners a little bit about your business trajectory, what got you to where you are today to be like hiring specialists which we all need.

Jamie Van Cuyk  01:37

Yes, yeah. So my background starts a little differently than most people would expect. Most people think that seeing I'm a hiring strategist, I came from the HR world, which I did not. I was in corporate leadership. In the internal operations side, I managed a team of account managers and my team was the kind of the entry level position into the company for a lot of people. I had a really good team, which meant my team members were always getting poached to go elsewhere into the organization as they grew their career. So I was constantly hiring. So I got a lot of experience interviewing people. And most of the experience was by trial and error of how to conduct good interviews, how to identify the right people see, and my team was also really great, I didn't have a lot of day to day problems that a lot of other managers were dealing with, with their team. So when they had a need to hire, sometimes they're like, oh, my gosh, I need to get this position filled. But I don't have time to review resumes or do the interview. And I was like, I'll do it. I'll do the interview for you. And even though for them, they were also hiring account managers, their account managers were working with different clients, and they're working with different sales teams. So I always had to find out, well, who exactly do you need, because your idea account manager might be different than my idea account manager. So I learned through that, how to really identify who you need for that position, versus who works well for this title. Also, I got tasks to work on a few projects with HR around hiring. So that did allow me to see the HR side of things and see what did they go through to create this entire hiring process that you don't always get when you're on the management side in a large corporate organization. So I'd learned all that knowledge. I always knew I wanted to start my own business. So shortly after returning to work after my second daughter was born, I said, You know what, it's the time I'm going out on my own. My husband and I had always talked about starting a software development company together. So it was like, This is it, we're doing it that lasted six months, because I was miserable in the world of software development. I realized I love tech, but being on the development side of it was not for me. So I said, Well, what do I do, I'm not ready to go back and get another corporate job. I want to do something on my own like so I felt like if I went back to corporate, I would never leave, I would never take that risk again. So we had a chamber membership. I decided, let me go talk to businesses find out what they need. Because I had done some side consulting projects. So I realized I liked consulting. And that's when I started talking to a lot of small business owners and learning that most small business owners never hired until they were doing it within their own business. Or if they had hired for someone else. They were given, supplied everything they needed the job posting sometimes being told what to ask in an interview, having someone else really be the ultimate decision maker. So they didn't have to make the decision on who to hire. They had so much support. And now that they're doing it on their own, they felt lost. So people were saying things like, I took seven years to have my first good hire in my business. I went through five people before I found the person that was right. And they were telling me about all the stories about getting bad hires and I realized then that there really was a need to educate small business owners on the hiring process. So that way they can learn to hire like a pro and you Get the right people on their team the first time. So that was coming up. We're coming up in about five years now that I started focusing on that with small businesses and growing growing your team.

Michele  05:11

Okay, so there are 7000 things we can talk about and all of that. I don't know, if you're aware, we haven't had a prior conversation about this. But my husband and I, we just started a software company. Because that was my first role for 10 years, I worked in corporate in a software company. And so we just started one, and it is a lot, it is a lot, and it's very different. So I can appreciate your sentiments regarding that. I'm in for a couple of years now. But we just launched and went public in September. So it's definitely regulations. Yeah, that is a lot. Okay, so here's the thing, I when I worked in corporate, and I was a hiring manager, so as a manager of a development team for software, and we had an HR department and we had a recruiting department. And to your point, they we would say like, we need a senior software developer, or we need a business analyst, or we need a QA specialist. And they already had pre written job descriptions for those titles and those roles. And they were for the most part, they were pretty generic across our company, we may based on the technology we were using, tweak them a little bit for they need to be proficient in this or proficient in that. And then they would go through and gather all the resumes, do all the first round interviews, and then give us a selected few for us to go to or they would let us look through the resumes and maybe pick out a few, but they went through a whole first process. Even so Jamie, as the hiring manager, I went to classes on how to hire questions that we could ask questions that we couldn't ask, here's what you do, here's what you don't do. But then the beautiful thing was when we were making decisions about hiring, I was never left alone to make that decision. So I was making the decision with a group have other advisors from HR to the teammate, you know, we would do all the different types of interviews, independent group interviews, all the thing. Okay, fast forward, start my own firm in 2000. And move that and decide that my business is growing and I need to hire. Well, I certainly have some idea of questions to ask and how to hire. It's been a long, hot minute since I've done it. And now I got to do it for myself. And now I have no job description. I just know I'm overwhelmed. I'm overworked. I need help. I need help yesterday. And so I'm kind of in a position of I'm gonna say I'm grabby. Just give me somebody give me a warm up, give me a warm body. And so the first time I went through the process, I tried to hold myself back enough to interview well, but I was a bit desperate and hired and I hired kind gal, it was fine. I wasn't prepared for her. Right? I wasn't prepared. So then when I brought her on, it was a part time hire. And it was like a virtual assistant when I brought her on. And I tell this, I've told her on the podcast. And I certainly teach around it because I did it the wrong way. But I hired her I wasn't prepared with. I had like a generic job description. But I didn't have any idea of how to onboard her. I didn't have any idea of how to give her information to make sure we could work together. I just wasn't set up. So then I also didn't know what to hire for explicitly. So I went very general. Right? Okay, we can tell that didn't last very long. Because it just wasn't a great fit for either of us. And like I said she was great. She just wasn't great for me. And I hear that with a lot of the women that I coach, especially if they've never had to hire before. It's daunting, it's overwhelming. I'm shocked. I'm just gonna say this, if you're listening and you do this, you're shocking me. So stop shocking me. Like they go into this many times. And I know it's just because they don't know and they're not ready and they don't. They're not equipped. So there's, you know, I've been there done that. But they have no job description. They don't know what they want them to do. They're grabby, they're desperate just like I was. And that is just not a good combination, without taking a beat and looking to say, what is it that I need? So I want to talk about that in just a minute. But the second thing I want to talk about is how long it takes to perfect hiring. I heard some somewhere I don't remember that you have to do like so many 1000s of hires, to go through the process over some amount of time to really know how to zoom in, how to look how to pick it apart, you know, just like anybody else does who is real really good at their job. And I am seeing especially I would say over the last two years, I'm seeing a lot of chatter online. But certainly within my coaching practice, I'm seeing huge chatter, about hiring people, mismatched expectations, mismatched management, lying to say, or misrepresenting will be kind, misrepresenting skill sets not asking for the questions, or almost feeling like you can't say no. So you just say yes, like, you don't, you don't know what to do. They also feel very alone. And when they've had two or three of these hires go really badly. They're now shy, like they are scared to death for the new hire, because they can't trust themselves anymore. And that then becomes a limitation for the scaling and the growth of their company, because they need to hire, but they're afraid to hire. And now they're ready to almost either shut the business or reorg the whole thing to get out of hiring.

Jamie Van Cuyk  11:00

Right. Yeah, and I've worked with many clients that have been in that that spot where they've had bad hires, and so they're just like, I'm not going to hire anymore. And then there, they get to that point where they're like, I can't sustain, I can't do this anymore. Myself, I either need to close close up, or I need to hire again, because I just can't sustain. And it it is one of those things where they don't have the confidence in the hiring process. They're afraid of making mistakes again. And we really worked through a lot of that to help them get the right person on their team and help build their confidence, and teach them how to make decisions, how to uncover someone's true skills versus what they say. Because even if they have experience in that area, experience means many different things. So yeah, they might have experienced, but it doesn't mean they have the experience that you need. So we teach them this process. And I've had so many of my clients come in hating the hiring process, but they're like, I gotta do it, I gotta do it. Let's get through it. It stresses me out, too, at the end are there like, that was so easy. Now that I know what to do. And there's a few things that that you said in there that I just kind of want to want to touch on first is like, you mentioned a lot of the support and everything in corporate, you mentioned that you went through training. What are the things that shocked me when I was a brand new manager is I was interviewing and hiring people for about nine months before my corporate company ever sent me through training on interviewing, and it was a training on what not to ask or what not to do during an interview. So we don't get into legal trouble. And I was just like, whoa, why didn't you put me through this training before I ever went into an interview? Because for nine months, I could have been saying things that could have got my company into legal trouble that could have gotten me into legal trouble. And I had no idea. And and there's just so much stuff that yeah, you have to learn. And you don't really know until you go through it. And like you said that there's this this research, research and study of like how many times you have to interview people and hire people in order to really learn. And that's because a lot of times we're doing it on trial and error. We're going in and learning from our mistakes, we're going in and getting better little by little. And instead, it's really helpful to get that support and guidance and education early on. So that way you don't have to make those mistakes. Because it makes makes me a lot.

Michele  13:32

Yes, they do. I didn't mean to interrupt, it makes me think of like when we've had a really bad client, we then start to get gun shy about another client or we start, you know, over time, we are perfecting who our ideal client is, well, the same way we're perfecting who our ideal team members are. And I remember this, I always laugh my husband. He's been hiring manager for years. And he hired a guy one time that they did all the background, they did everything they were supposed to do in big corporate. And when you mentioned experience, right, and I've seen this play out with my clients. So this was just like a hybrid version. But he hired this guy. And the guy came in he interviewed well, he could speak the language. Right? He could speak the speak. He had an on his resume. But when they put him in the role to do the job that he had been hired to do. He couldn't do it. He didn't know the programming language. And my husband asked him, like, why are you unable to do this? We interviewed you. We asked you these questions like you can answer it. He's like, Oh, I studied up enough to answer and like in other words, I know how to say it and spell it just don't know how to do it. I figured I'd figure it out when I got here. Well, he didn't stay very long to figure it out. But we're seeing that happen to where people especially in the interior design space right now. There are a lot of have young people coming in wanting senior level roles, but they don't have senior level skills. And being able to tease that out and asking those questions. I know that my first thought when I was hiring Oh, and I was, I'm like you I was hiring when I was probably 24 years old, like, I probably had no business hiring at 24 years old in a corporate environment. But whatever they put me in that role, but I was asking a lot of yes, you know, questions, which could shut because I didn't know, right? You don't know what you don't know. And it very much, yes, no, and then you're like, Okay, so what's next? And when I learned to start asking open ended questions when I've learned to start teasing out or give me examples of more situational type things. My interviewing started to improve. But I know one of the things that is super important for me, when I am looking at hiring somebody, I care more about a couple of things. After you get past, you know, where you fit into the culture into the values match, I'm really looking for things like, I want to understand what your critical thinking abilities are. And I want to understand your ability to prioritize work. Because of those are two things that if you can think critically, and you can prioritize work, and you fit within the value structure, and whatever, I can usually work with you. But when those two things are off, it, the whole house of cards starts to fall. If you don't mind, let's start talking just a little bit about maybe your methodology for learning to hire. And and what you think is most important to look at.

Jamie Van Cuyk  16:42

Yes, so where I'll start with this is where we start with all of our clients. It's really knowing who it is that you need to hire, like, what that idea looks like, what are they going to be doing for your business? As you mentioned, there's a lot of people they're like, I need to hire, I need to get these work these up, tasks off my plate. But they're like, look, just give me a body just give me any warm body. And they're like, I'll figure it out later. And that never works out. Well. I won't say never, but 99% of the time, that's not going to work out. Yeah, and you really need to figure out what you're gonna give this person and what who your ideal candidate is before you enter anything else for the hiring process? Because that

Michele  17:22

Can I stop right there and asked you this question. Yeah. Because I really want you to say that one more time, because I think it's so important. Because what I see sometimes is people see a person, or they have a friend who needs a job. And they're trying to now create some position for a person versus looking at what the company really needs without a person involved. So can you say no, you may feel like me might not always remember what you just said. But can you share again, why it is so important to stop and think about what does your company need? Like not cookie, just what is your company needs?

Jamie Van Cuyk  18:00

Here is where you really need to think about who is your ideal candidate, what tasks you need done, what you need off your plate? And what makes up that person that's also going to fit in your culture. Like, Michele, you mentioned, that ability to prioritize and critical thinking or two of your top things. Well, those might not be the same top things for another company, they might have other stuff set up or other team members there, where it's like, okay, the person for this, this skill, this position, that's not so important. But for you it is. And you need to know that when you're going in. So you can uncover that in a candidate. If you weren't thinking about that. Yeah, you can get someone that's great at what they do. But then you're going to bring them in and you're like, This person is not a fit, they don't work out, well. Why don't they work out? Well, when they have like all these other skills, they could be great, maybe a great junior designer, they have a great book of experience, but then you're like, I just can't stand working with them, I can't stand them being on my team, they're not doing things the way I need them done. They're not caring about prioritizing things correctly. They want me to prioritize things for them. And I just don't want to do that I don't have the capacity. So you really need to think about who it is that you need, which could be very different than another company that's hiring the exact same title.

Michele  19:20

I think this is important too, because it can even be based on different roles, right? The reason that those two things are super important to me, and they're important to a lot of the people that I work with, especially in the higher level positions like an operations position or a senior position. We're wanting them to be able to anticipate what needs to happen next, prioritize the workload and get things done without continually coming back to the owner. Because that's when a lot of people will say things like, well, I could have done it myself faster than I've got to keep answering your questions or you're not asking enough or whatever. So it kind of creates this turmoil within the workplace because of that, but But then I could have positions that I just want you to do what I asked you to do, like I will feed you the task, you don't have to think that way. So I think that is a really great point to make. I will No, go ahead.

Jamie Van Cuyk  20:13

I will say like, the other thing to think about is like, let's just talk about critical thinking, for example, one of the things that I like to do with my clients is say, Okay, well, what does that really mean for you, because how you just describe critical thinking and doing things. So they're thinking things, they don't want to go back to the client and bother the client and creating this, this quick moving experience could be different than someone else. Where that's like you make the decisions, you move on, you use use everything there where critical thinking could mean something different, where it's maybe more of some of the internal things, and you don't want them making decisions for the clients and stuff like that. So it's like figuring out, they might have critical thinking skills, but can they apply them in the way that you need them to be applied? So for example, a lot of people will say, team player, well, what does team player mean? And so I will always ask, give me an example. What does that look like for you? What does it mean for someone to actually be a team player? We don't just stop at these generic terms. It's what does that mean inside your business? And why is that important?

Michele  21:16

Okay, so I love the definition. I'm huge into definitions. And it's interesting, I was just having a conversation yesterday with a designer, and we were talking about when we use any word, even a word that is in our general, you know, conversation, really, looking at the undercurrent of that word, or looking at the use of that word, or the application of that word. For example, design does this all the time, somebody might say, I want this room to feel warm and inviting. Well, the next question is, tell me what that means to you? Are there textures that make you feel warm? And are there a colors that evoke that feeling? Like, tell me tell me more so I can understand, because warm and inviting to me, could be different than warm and environment? You it could be very different on the East Coast and the West Coast and the mountains in at the beach. And so we're asking questions to fully understand the same holds true here, right? How far do you want that decision making to go? What is it that you want that position to do? What what load? Do you want them to carry? How do you want them to have autonomy or not have autonomy? And what does that mean? And then being able to ask not only know it but then like you said be able to tease it out and ask questions with regard to that to see if there's a fit. And there may not be a direct fit sometimes, but you could see like a corollary Right? Like, oh, well, if you can do it over there, you can do it over here. Or you may go oh, this is not going you can do it only over there, but not over here. And so it starts to make sense, versus just using generic words. And assuming that we're saying the same thing, the communication piece of this, I think is huge. And I do believe that I think a couple of things, from my experience, I'd love to hear what you think about this, like this feels like we need to pull it and get some tea and just like you got your tea, I got my thing. We just need to sit down have this conversation about 14 hours. And I see a lot of fear of asking the almost like, the interviewer doesn't think they have the right to ask that question. And then to ask a follow up or leading question or give me an example. Show me how explain to me what does that mean to you like those? There's really, you know, digging in clarifying questions. There's almost this feeling sometimes if, for whatever reason, I'm overstepping to even ask that. And they're not right. As long as you're not asking all the questions you shouldn't ask about race and religion and all that stuff. As long as that's off the table, and you're talking about job and ability and workplace there. You can dig in until you're satisfied that you've got a clear enough answer to move on. And it's okay. And then even knowing and trusting, because I think there's a lot of not trusting themselves and over trusting the applicant.

Jamie Van Cuyk  24:11

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So with that, like, I even know, I experienced that when I first started interviewing and one of the mistakes that I was making that now I coach all my clients on before they go into that first interview is I would ask the question, and then I would keep talking right? Almost like, let me guide you exactly to what I want to hear. And then I realized that I was doing that because I thought the candidates needed that in order to feel comfortable answering my question. Exactly. And then and then I learned, ask the question and shut your mouth. Do not say anything else. Now if they ask for clarification, and they say, Well, do you mean this or this? Yeah, answer their question that they asked. But you don't want to keep talking after you ask the question. Let them answer. And you mentioned follow up questions you might Asking for examples. Yeah, the interviewer guides we create, we are constantly asking for examples. And sometimes we ask for it in the main question. And other times it is one of those follow up questions where if they don't give us an example, we're going to ask for it. We then ask other specific follow ups to dig in deeper, because just because they give us an example, there could be a million details. So that example, they might just not share one of the ones that we want to know. So we prepare with some of those follow up questions to say, All right, if they don't share this, let me ask, it's okay to uncover information. It's okay to dig deep with these candidates. They want the job with you, you want to make sure that they're the right fit, you have to ask the questions, because you don't want to learn the information when it's too late. And you're already having them on your payroll.

Michele  25:44

I think it's that that where I said a minute ago, there's like a lack of trust, maybe in our hiring skills, if we've not done this before. And to cover that lack, we're trying, like you said, to make them comfortable on and ourselves. I think, you know, we learned years ago, even in the sales process, you present the proposal and then use it like the first one who speaks loses is kind of what we were taught and you don't say anything, you give them a chance to process like you've had a chance to process as you've created it, and they have a chance. And the same is true here we've had a chance to process the question, we're asking why we're asking it and what we're looking for. So there needs to be a couple of beats for them to process. What did she just asked me? What could she be looking for? How do I best respond? And the more we keep talking during that silence, like you said, we're either guiding them to get the answer. And then we wonder why they didn't match later. Or we create almost this. I don't know this frenetic pace of like this nervous tension in the hiring process. And so I think we have to be comfortable with asking a question, and then just waiting.

Jamie Van Cuyk  27:00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is hard. And it's it takes practice, it takes feeling comfortable there, I always say is, you should go into every interview with a prepared list of questions, you should never just be going off the cuff with what to ask. And so really know those questions, go through them a few times. So you know, what you're asking you know what you're looking for. So that way, you can feel more comfortable than just reading them. For the first time going into that interview, and you're talking to that candidate. And it's, it's one of the things that I always tell people to remember is you have those nerves and feelings going on during the interview, and the candidate does, too. So some people will say, Well, I knew in the first 30 seconds that this person was not a good fit. And sometimes you're really good to know that other times, it's, that candidate is really nervous in those first 30 seconds, and you need to give them some time to get into their flow and actually be able to give you good information. So it's like remember that there's nerves on both sides. I also a lot of times will tell candidates, especially if they're someone that seems to be talking a lot wanting to fill all the the holes in the interview, just reminding them it's like, Alright, I'm taking a bunch of notes. So there might be pauses, I'll let you know if I need anything additional for your answer. But otherwise, just relax, take some deep breaths, drink some water, especially if the candidate seems really nervous. I'll say Take some deep breaths and drink some water. And then we'll move on when I'm done writing down my notes.

Michele  28:30

That's a good point. You know, I think it's interesting. In one of my last hires, I worked with a company to do the hires. And then I also had some video of the applicants to review prior to that, and certain generic questions had been asked. And when I watched those videos and looked at resumes, Jamie, I kind of zoned in on one particular applicant thinking that, that they were the closest match to what I was looking for. The other one was great, but the one that I looked at had a couple of just little bullet points that I thought might give them an edge, right? We go into the to the interview, and I started doing some of those uncovering questions. And by the end of it, I hired the other person. Because I was like, I on paper. And on bullet point. It looked like almost an exact version of what I said, I want it. But when I started, you know what it was really about when I started uncovering the motives behind their work, and what they do and how they do it and how they want to show up. The motives and drivers behind there wasn't wrong. It didn't align with mine. Yeah, and I knew this might work short term, but this would not have been a long term where the person over here had different bullet points, that when I started uncovering those and digging in It showed more of an alignment. But if I had just gone off, first glance, first, quick, you know, five minute interview, how you present yourself that kind of thing, I probably would have chosen the other person. Without that those deeper connections in deeper questions.

Jamie Van Cuyk  30:20

Yes. And when we create interview processes for our clients, we say there's always a minimum of two interviews, because you need to touch points with the candidate in order to really uncover who they are, and if they're the right fits. And I can tell you for both of my employees that I have hired my front runner after that first interview, we go into that second interview, and we're probably about a quarter of the way through and I'm like, No, this person's not the right fit. Because we asked different questions, we uncover different things. One of them was because I realized they were almost exactly like me. And that's not what I needed in that role. But the first interview, I'm like, Yeah, this person is answering great saw these great answers all these questions. And I had that connection, because they were a lot like me. And then once I dug into the second interview, these other things that I really needed this person to be good at, it was like, No, that's not them. They're not the right fit. And the other the other time, it was just like, Okay, once again, once I learned this additional stuff, they're just not the right fit for this role. They're great at what they do, but they're not right for me. And I also actually, just this week was meeting with one of my clients that we were helping with recruiting. So we did the first round of interviews, and then they their teams during the second rounds. And my front runner from the first round of interviews, once I saw the notes from the second round of interviews, I was just like, nope, nope, they're not the right person. Because once again, there was different questions that were being asked and everything. And so yeah, they passed that first interview with flying colors, they did not pass that second interview at all. So it's like, you never know. And that's why you want to have multiple touch points with a candidate and ask those deep questions and dig into different areas that matter for that role, because they could have 75% of what you're looking for. But if they don't have that other 25%, it could be a big fail if you bring them in.

Michele  32:08

It's interesting, because I worked with the hiring agency when I was doing some of that. And the hiring resource that I had helping me just said that there was more than just me having this conversation, which I also think is important. And she thought the same things that this was going to be the ideal. I mean, we both saw at the same. And after that long form interview, she said in awhile, I did a long form interview just to see and to be aware. And the minute the call was over. She's like, Oh, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so either. And I think we were both me, we were both shocked. Because we everything up. I mean, we had done, you know, the small interviews, we had done paperwork we had done, what is your strengths and your strengths finder, we had done all kinds of assessments, we had done all kinds of work, everything. And then we were like, I think so. And so that shakes you a little bit until we walked into the next interview. And then we're like, Okay, this is actually it. So I have a question with in that regard. A couple questions. A couple of you mentioned to me before we talked in the in your write up. So you mentioned at least two interviews. Right? How many applicants should we be looking at? Should we be looking at the 7000 that apply on Indeed, just so they can say they applied? How many do we look at?

Jamie Van Cuyk  33:27

So that's a great question. And the answer is as many applicants as is needed to find your ideal hire. So it could be that you will only interview five people, those first five is resumes that come in, you're like, these are amazing, I want to interview them, you interview them, you find a person that you're like, Yes, this is the fit, and you don't go any deeper. It could be that you have to review 100 resumes and schedule interviews from there, you really want to focus on finding the right person. And there's not an ideal number there. I always tell my clients because I've worked with some clients in the past where they'll say, I want 10 people to get to this final round of interviews. And I was like, I am not setting a goal to send you 10 people, I'm going to send you the people that fit what you're looking for. And one of my clients, they had a we had a really hard time getting them out of that mindset that they needed to interview so many people in that final rounds, because I'd sent them three candidates, and they love those three candidates. They were having a hard time deciding between those three candidates, but they're like, I need to see more. And I'm like, Why do you need to see more when you already have three people that you would consider hiring? You know, bringing someone in, else into the process doesn't make someone better or worse as an individual. That individual either fits what you're looking for, or they don't. So if they're not what you're looking for, and you have some hesitations, yeah, we want to talk to more people. But if they're right, like the person you're looking for, we don't want to say but we have to interview so many people so we're going to keep them on the hook and maybe offer them a job or maybe may not, but we're going to take two more weeks to interview people, because what happens, that person sits there and might get another job offer? Or could say, well, if they're really taking two weeks to decide if they want me, they must not really wants me. And I'm going to get this position just because they're not finding anybody else. But they don't really want me. So when you find the person, hire the person, but I think there's also the flip side of that, that I just want to stress is like you mentioned, you went through that process of the person that was your front runner, you're like, No, I've worked with clients where that is happens. And they'll only push one person through to that final interview phase, because we're like, this is our person, we want to confirm that this is our person. And then they don't like that person. And they're like, but maybe we should hire them anyway. Because we don't have anybody else yet at this, right? And I'm just like, No, don't do that. Yes, it might take us another week or two weeks to get someone else to that rounds. But though that time is worth it to get the right person on your team.

Michele  35:59

It really is true that we need to hire slowly and fire quickly. I mean, it's so is, you know, one of the things for me is I always wanted to interview if more than one, if at all possible, just because you have nothing to compare the one two. So I agree with you. It's kind of like in design, you don't want to show somebody three to five designs, and then they say show me everything available, and then I'll choose is too much. Right, right. And either they are or they are not. I remember with my last hire, I think they the team that I worked with narrowed it down to four, they sent me four, and I kicked two out just by visually looking at some of the answers for the questions that I said, were really important to me. And so two people got removed from consideration right there. So it came down to two and my final. And then I hired one of them. You know, I think another I'm just gonna throw this out there, because I'm seeing a lot of it, and I'm getting ready to podcast on it. But I'm just gonna be everybody that teaser. If it matters to you that the people that you hire, have and show a version of responsibility for the job and the role, ask questions around that. Because I had to part ways with an employee one time, who refused to say I'm sorry, she refused to take any ownership. Anything that went wrong. And I actually did my last hires, ask people, do you say you're sorry, if you screw up? Like, I'm not looking for you to pay for it? I'm not looking. I'm just looking for you know what, oh, I messed that up. Let me fix it now. And let me look at the process to see how we can make it better. That is a personality trait that I can work with but constant deflection, that it's somebody else or something else, never taking that full ownership is a that's another big deal breaker to me. Right? And so I asked a lot of questions around just are you willing to own it when you did it wrong? Or you made a mistake? Because we're all human? And we're going to make them? Are you able to say, I think that one's on me, let me see if I can fix it. Because most people can work with that all day long. But it causes a major tension when the person that you've hired, I mean, I'm working with a couple of people right now that have employees that refuse to say, or take any ownership for any mistakes, and it is causing big issues in the workplace.

Jamie Van Cuyk  38:30

Right? And that's one of the reasons like there's a lot of times that there interview questions, we will ask about things that went wrong. We want to see, how do they act in these situations? Do they take responsibility? Or are they always? Or is the example they pull up? It's blaming it on someone else? Versus we was like thinking like we don't say this in the interview, but sometimes they sit there and think like I specifically asked for a time when something went wrong in your work. Not a time was coworker screwed up and you just knew about it? Yeah, so things like that. Because I was just like, if you can't tell me anything that you've ever screwed up on, you're like, we have a problem. That's right, because we're human, we make mistakes. You know, sometimes they're big mistakes. Sometimes they're little mistakes, but we make mistakes. And, and sometimes like with that, you can also see that candidates are afraid to tell you about a mistake. But those are probably also the people that are going to be afraid to tell you about a mistake when it happens. And they're going to hide it and they're going to try to fix it on their own. And then you as a business owner are going to find out possibly too late. And, and Nothing's worse than a client talking to you about a mistake or something happened and you'd be like, what, what happens, like, and those are learned skills of being able to be open about your errors and your mistakes. And knowing that it's better to tell your boss up front, then then try to hide it and make it so they so they don't ever know.

Michele  39:53

That's exactly right. Jamie, let me ask you this. You talk about a higher framework to prepare people for success. Tell us about your higher framework. Yeah, so

Jamie Van Cuyk  40:03

Our hiring framework is the process we take our clients through to really make sure that we're focusing on the right people. So we start with the H and hire with our hiring details. So as we talked about, it's really knowing who your ideal candidate is, because we need to know that so we can target them throughout the rest of the process. The eye is then what we call the initiate the advertising plan, you can't get your right candidate if you don't communicate to your right candidate that the jobs open. So this includes writing a job posting that speaks directly to that person you want to hire, that job posting should turn off people, and also should say other have other people say, Yes, this is the job. For me. It's like in business, we learn about marketing, if you market to nobody, or you market to everybody, you really market to nobody. And it's the same with a job posting, if you put out this generic job posting that speaks to everybody, you really speak to nobody. So create one that speaks to your target candidate, and then post it in places where your target candidate is actually going to be looking. Then the AR is the review process. So we're reviewing those candidates, we're determining, we create a process and we guide our clients on how to review a resume. So it's, you're not taking 20 minutes per resume to decide if they're qualified. You're not trying to read between the lines and create this life story that you're probably wrong about from the few words on the resume. How do you properly review a resume so you can get the right people into your interview process? And then how do you interview those people? So you can ask the right questions and uncover the right information. And then the E is expectations for success. So once you select your person, how do you get them on your team and onboarded? So that way, they're actually doing what you want them to do? How do you communicate your expectations, so that way, you're happy with their work. And you feel that every time you give them their paycheck? It's a value versus a drain on your business?

Michele  41:55

All right, you ready for the big question? Yes. When is the right time to hire Jamie?

Jamie Van Cuyk  42:02

Oh, great question. So it's gonna differ based on each business what's going on in your business. And so it is one of those things where lead times he talked about earlier, people are overwhelmed when they go to hire, and then they're kind of rushing through the process. And typically, that's a sign that you waited too long that you should have hired sooner. So there's four signs that I say, to look for in your business to say, you really need to hire and I encourage you to look at your the signs, or look for the signs about once a quarter, because it's so easy to get overwhelmed. And just into the day to day that you do you don't realize you've reached these points. The first is, you're saying no to your ideal customer. So you can't take on any more projects because you don't have the capacity. And so you could grow your business and scale your business if you had more help. The second is you're losing customers due to poor customer service. So someone doesn't like working with you anymore. So they're saying I want to cancel my contract, you're not giving me what I needed, you're not holding up your end of the bargain. But on the flip side of that, it's also before that contract was ever signed, where people reach out to you, they don't have a relationship with you yet, they might be reaching out to another company as well. And the other company responds first. So they're like you took a week to respond in that week, I've already gone with this other company over there. So you're losing business, because the fact that you're not providing the response times and the customer service that people expect. The third one is you can't expand your time, it just has to focus on what you're currently doing in your business. There's things that you want to do. There's other ways you want to serve your target audience. But you can't add that to your business because you can't take the time to add that new thing. And then the fourth one is that you don't have a certain skill or expertise needed. And you've reached the point where it is more worth your money to hire someone for that skill or expertise than it is for you to go out and learn it. Practice it, try to perfect it, do it probably not do it. Great. So then you have to redo the work, where now it's like okay, yes, it might cost me $100 an hour to hire this person over here. But that saves me a lot of time where I can make more than $100 an hour because I'm focusing on the right things in my business.

Michele  44:21

In our group coaching call this week and the designer's inner circle. That question came up, and it was around continuing to get inquiries, right? And how far when should I hire or should I just push out timelines? What should I do? And one of my questions, these are seasoned designers that are you know, kind of looking because we're always looking at this this isn't a just starting this is every company looks at this all the time to make those decisions. And so one of the questions that I asked of the the designers that were contemplating this, should I hire is it just for now Oh, I asked them, What are your current lead times? And are you okay with that? And then are your clients okay with that? Like, are you in a place where you think that the lead times that you have are sufficient? Okay, where is the line where it's no longer? Okay. Like, what is that? How close are you to that? What is the capacity of the team that you currently have, as compared to the inquiries that are coming in, like if the inquiries coming in aren't work that you want, I wouldn't hire to take that. If you are bumping up against where you're comfortable with lead times. And the work is continuing to come in and you're signing the contracts, not just the tire kickers, but you're signing contracts, then we need to start looking at expanding and hiring more people. But if you still have capacity for the team that you've had, and you've not reached your upper limit, you may be able to wait a little bit longer. Or if the, or if the calls are not coming in as quickly, you might be able to wait a little bit longer, but they're really strategic questions that need to be asked. And it shouldn't just be a knee jerk reaction. What I often see is not asking those questions in advance or having them on your radar to continually ask and review. And getting to the point where you're so desperate that you were like I was that I mentioned when I, you know, did my first hire all those years ago. And then you're just reaching out and taking anybody and doing whatever you're looking for the warm body versus being more strategic in that hire? And in that positioning?

Jamie Van Cuyk  46:33

Yes, yes, exactly. And one of the things when I mentioned that first sign when saying, you're saying no to your ideal client, one of the things I often talk about is weightless. And then the question always comes up is like, well, sometimes we people use weightless, kind of as a marketing thing. Well, we are a full firm. So in order for us to take a project from you, you project can't start for four to six to eight weeks out more. But we use that to show that we're in demands. And and that is a great way that you just described it. Are you comfortable with that lead time. So there's a waitlist, because you just can't take on any more business, but you want that business, you need that business to grow your revenue, and to scale and take your business to the level, then that waitlist that you have is hurting your business versus helping your business, see if that waitlist is okay with your business. If that weightless means you can increase your prices because you're really in demand. And that's how you're going to grow your revenue, then it's okay to have a waitlist. So it's figuring out what is right for your business. If you're the type of person where someone's like, Oh, you have a waitlist, so all your ideal clients are going elsewhere, then that's it's hurting your business, and you need to do something about it.

Michele  47:45

That's exactly right. You know, there was another, I read this somewhere, and I've seen it play out in my own business, I'll throw it out to you and see if you've seen the same things. But as we have, you know, especially the say business owners listening to the podcast, who may be getting ready to hire for the first time. And they're not really sure what they want to do and how they want to do it. Or they're not even maybe sure how they want to scale because we can grow and scale our businesses in a multitude of ways that you mentioned this in kind of our two minute pre conversation. And it's true for my business as well. We don't do cookie cutter. So what I do the same way that you come in and try to help them understand a framework for hiring and a framework for acquiring talent in their company. I help them create a framework for decision making. So that means that I've got people that run all kinds of businesses in the design and workroom industries. And while they may be doing similar things and similar tests, they don't look exactly the same, right. And so one of the things that I heard and I've seen play out is that when you're first starting out quite often, when you go to hire, you might need to hire more of a generalist. And then the more you get close to scaling and want to scale, we hire more of a specialist. And that really goes to kind of what you just said, like, I remember that was one of the things that held me back Jamie when I first had to hire was I was like, Well, I do Canva and I do Vimeo and I did like I started thinking of all these myriad of things that I did, because I had to not because I was great at them. But because I was scrappy. I didn't have the money I was trying to figure out so I was that what did they say the Jill of all trades and master of none that that's what I was doing with some of those things, just trying to keep it going. And even at this point, I don't even edit my own podcast anymore. When I first started, I recorded it, I edited it, I wrote it, I did every single thing around it. And now I you know subcontract all of that out and get assistance with that for people that can do it better, faster, cheaper than I can do it. And so I have a specialist but at the beginning I didn't I didn't know Have you seen that as maybe you know something to consider sometimes you need a person who can help you broadly and then you can go more directly into specialized on hiring.

Jamie Van Cuyk  50:04

Yeah, I think it all depends on what you need help with, so to speak, there's some things where you need that specialist to start because it is such a specific task that you're looking for. And let's just use the podcast thing. Yeah. Sometimes you need that specialist who can really know how to edit podcast and work with audio and all that versus someone where it's like, yeah, I think I can do that. And add all these other Exactly. So there's are going to be some things that were unique that specialists from the start, but then there's a lot of other things. Yes, a lot of those first hires, I see for businesses, they are kind of more of that generalist assistant type position, because you have a hodgepodge of things that you want to give them. My only advice for that is, you can't make them also that Jill, of all trades master of none. So you need to look at it and say, what goes together in terms of skill sets, what goes together in terms of, okay, if they're good, you're hiring someone for marketing, what else fits in that marketing realm. You can't say I'm hiring someone for marketing, and then give them all these bookkeeping tasks, because they might not have that skill, and they might hate it. So you have to look at it to say, what fits in this generalist position. And we've done some projects with our clients where we have actually split it out where in the back office, not what we post out there, that this role is really two different roles that now falls under one title. But we already map it out to say, this is how this role will split once you get to that level. And yet things in that might tweak a little bit as they continue to grow. But we can look at it to say this title, right now feels these two roles in the organization, because there's only enough work here for it to fall under one person. And then as it becomes too much for one person, here's how it naturally splits. So we already planned for that split on the back end.

Michele  51:59

That is so smart. And I know we've had to do the exact same thing, even in my firm. So I have Director of Operations. And I did, I gave her some, not everything because I already have other other support people. But I gave her a really nice little hodgepodge of things that were coming off my plate and on hers. And as she has learned about them and helped write processes for them and helped to dig in. And we've realized that some of those areas needed more specialized attention, we've taken them off her plate and hired out for those things individually. But I love that idea of because I always have them group things. But I love that idea of maybe having them also grouped together knowing that there will be a natural split, once the work increases. And we are in a position to do that. So smart.

Jamie Van Cuyk  52:47

Yeah, the other thing about already having it pre planned is it helps reduce the fact of people holding on to tasks just because they like it. I recently worked with an organization where we are helping them with a huge reorg they were a 200 person organization. And one of the problems that we found out with their senior senior level people is a lot of them had been with the organization for 30 years, or 20 plus years. And they when they started, they had those hodgepodge roles, will some of them grasped onto certain things and wouldn't let go. So now we have this person at this title who's doing work that doesn't fall under that title, because they liked that work, and they didn't want to let it go. And we've had to have really tough conversations with those people to say, but this doesn't fall under your role. And part of it is, like I said, some of these people have been there 30 years, and they're getting close to retirement within the next year to five years. And we said, when you retire, we will never be able to fill this role as is. So we need to start structuring things correctly. So the right tasks fall to the right titles. So that way we can fill the positions when it's needed, and the people are doing what they should be. And the tasks belong in the same in the right buckets in the organization overall.

Michele  54:04

hard conversations everything.

Jamie Van Cuyk  54:07

Yes, definitely was there.

Michele  54:07

Jamie, as we wrap up, is there anything else about hiring or anything else about our conversation today that you want to make sure that the listeners know or have access to?

Jamie Van Cuyk  54:19

Yeah, so just one last tip, and we've talked about this a lot, but I just always want to stress that is just because someone's good at what they do does not mean they're right for you. So just keep telling yourself that is what we talked about. You have to know your ideal candidate and find your ideal candidate throughout the process, not just someone who's good at what they do, because they can be amazing, but doesn't mean they're going to be amazing inside your organization. And, and so keep that in mind. And then as a gift for all the listeners. I have my FREE hiring checklist that you can go and download. It's the hiring checklist, how to hire the right team for your growing business, and you can go over to growing Your team.com/profit is a choice and download that checklist.

Michele  55:05

That's awesome. Thank you so much that you could download it myself to have.

Jamie Van Cuyk  55:09

That checklist does bring you through that higher framework.

Michele  55:12

Awesome. Great. Thank you. So, Jamie, tell them again what your website is and where they can find you and other socials.

Jamie Van Cuyk  55:20

Yes, so my website is growingyourteam.com. And we are under Growing Your Team on social media channels, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Michele  55:30

Well, thank you so much for coming on today. And I'm excited to continue our business relationship because I think you have a whole lot to offer. So thank you.

Jamie Van Cuyk  55:38

Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Michele  55:41

Hiring is something that we really need to take seriously, it is true, we need to hire slowly and fire quickly. And then that hire slowly. It's important to do it with a strategy. I know you hear me talk about that on the podcast all the time, the importance of strategy, doing things with the plan, and Jamie and her team are doing the exact same thing when they help you create a hiring strategy, what you're doing, how you're doing it and the follow through. So if you need any assistance in that, check out Jamie and her company. And if you need help overall with the strategy in your company, whether it be your financials, your strategic plan or anything else, please check us out at scarletthreadconsulting.com and sign up for a discovery call. And don't forget MetriqueSolutions.com to create a strategy and a plan to watch into measure your financials. And as always, hire carefully because that creates profit and profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening, and stay creative and business minded.