For many years, I was a ‘fix-it’ man of sorts with a large company. If a division was struggling, I was sent in to assess, retrain and retool as needed. Because of this, one of the skills I had to constantly practice and work on was the interview, hire and onboarding process which provided many lessons and almost as much entertainment. Here is a great example of a cover letter I received once.
Dear Mr. Moreland:
Please accept this letter and resume as indication of my interest in interviewing to work with you and your company. I have many qualifications… …Thank you for your time and attention and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Your name here
This is nearly verbatim what it said… Not one to miss an opportunity to help someone and provide myself a bit of entertainment, I did what any self-respecting employer should do and sent him a letter of receipt.
Dear Mr. Here:
Thank you so much for your interest in our company. I can tell from your cover letter and resume that you not only possess great service skills, but value thorough work and have an eye for detail. Your, I really appreciate someone that sees the little things as important and due to that, would like you to contact us regarding an interview. Please call my assistant when you receive this to set up a time. She will have the names of approved applicants and make your appointment accordingly.
Respectfully,
Burk Moreland
One of my favorite sayings for people who are hiring is that people generally don’t get better than the first date. In a dating situation, they are never going to get better behaved, looking, cleaned, mannered, etc. than the first date. They want to impress you the most they will ever want to impress you in that first interaction. After that, people generally get more and more comfortable and less and less concerned about impressions. Hiring is no different.
Now please understand that I am not telling ANYONE to treat an interview as a date… That is not only illegal, it won’t help your team… I am telling you to realize that if the first impression isn’t the best, the candidate isn’t going to get much better in future ones, much less if they were hired. This is a generalization and as always there are exceptions, however, I can remember many, many, many times when I hired someone with a reservation in the back of my mind about them and had to go through the mental pain and anguish months later when that reservation reared its ugly head. Any good manager or leader (in my opinion) doesn’t like firing people, doing a better job on the front end is the first key to not having to.
A good manager doesn’t need reclamation projects. Put your savior complex aside. How about you find some saviors instead. Target team members that could do your job or better. Find people that will push your entire team to improve. I was the youngest manager in the company for many years. What I had in drive and ambition, I lacked in experience. Many managers fear putting people in place around them that could pass them. That belief will become self-limiting. If you can’t find and develop the talent to replace you, someone else will. If you aren’t growing enough to be promoted, someone else will. If you can’t help the company get where it needs to go, someone else will. So get out there and find the best people you can. If they leave, learn to do a better job keeping them. You are better to have had them on your team and grown a little than to never have and not grown at all.
