Quote: "Seppuku Arts I thought the interview process was a given. I mean I don't know anyone who did not interview for their job. The problem was they did great in the interview. It's the after the interview part that is killing me. Sadly enough people lie like dogs in interviews. Also want to point out; the forum has a lot of younger viewers/posters who have zero knowledge about the topic and only an opinion. So I don’t think I'm being naive about the situation. Everyone is on different skill levels on the forums.
Before I hired these people, I had a list of skills and requirements I was looking for that the applicant must meet before being considered. After going through hundreds of resumes, I picked 30 candidates and called them in for interviews. Out of the 30, I found 5 good candidates I found to be outstanding. So obviously choices must be made who do you pick? Just like any recruitment, you review skills and education. At the end of the day, I picked these two for the jobs and it appears I might have made a mistake. I’m going to attempt to correct my mistake through further training/coaching them and see what happens as suggested above."
Then I don't understand how you've come to the conclusion that graduates are less risky than experienced people. Surely through the interview process you'd have asked said experienced people what their experience actually entailed and know if Joe blow with 20 years experience was counting pennies or not. The guy you hired sounds exactly like student number 3 in my previous post. It might have been interesting to see what his references said. But we're all human, so I of course accept you can misjudge a candidate and of course, when somebody lies you're acting on false information.
So I think from that experience you ought to have less of a bias towards graduates. I can't believe as a graduate I am saying it, but I've often been turned down a job because Joe blow with 20 years experience is more experienced than me and therefore more suitable for the job.
Quote: "Just like any recruitment, you review skills and education."
Review skills, experience, education (though experience can be better), attitude, personality, interest to work, how they feel about your guidelines (always good to make clear how much work they're going to do and what work they'll be doing, rather than rely on common sense) and if you're able to get a reference from them (make it a requirement) you might be able to reduce the risk by finding out how reliable the person is, but also how honest they are. We ask referees things like how honest somebody is, what their attitude to work is like, how flexible they are and what their attendance is like. Candidates who seem really good can turn out to have their own flaws, which may be revealed through a reference.
However, I think Rolfy makes a fair point, whilst I don't know a lot about running a business, it does strike me that you are making mistakes and of course if you can find a business group or even an online business community if none exist in your area then you might be able to get the best advice. You're trying to seek advice from successful businessmen here, so it would be a step up on the quality of advice you'd receive.
