You may have heard the old adage, Hire slow, Fire fast! But what does it actually mean?
Hire slow means avoiding your gut instinct, and identifying whether the candidate will actually be a good fit for the culture, the team and the job.
A toxic employee can be especially damaging to a team, so be on the lookout for signs of incivility. Try these questions:
- Ask what their former employees say about them (the good and the bad).
- Ask them to share a time they had to deal with stress or conflict- and follow up by asking how they dealt with it.
- Ask them what they’d like to improve about themselves (in fact, ask them this question a couple of times to get them to dig deep and share 3 things)
And finally, ask the Receptionist how the candidate treated them, or take the candidate out for lunch and see how they treat those who serve you. You might even want to have the restaurant mess up their order (like Charles Schwab CEO, Walt Bettinger has been known to do) to check their response.