In Guy Kawasaki’s latest and greatest book, “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
He says “Hiring and firing are black arts for most people. Few people are trained for hiring –instead we are led to depend on our gut. Few people are trained for firing –instead we are led to believe that companies never make hiring mistakes and always develop their employees properly, so you’ll never have to fire anyone. The realty is that hiring and firing are difficult processes, and this section will make you better at both.”
In the chapter on “The Art of Recruiting” he gives a good tip on reference checking.
- It goes something like this…most of us rely only on the references provided by the applicant. We like the person and our intuition tells us they are the one. So we only check the references provided by the applicant because “we don’t want to hear that we like a bozo.” What we should be doing is checking independent references–at least one person they worked for and one person who worked for them. Guy recommends using LinkedIn to find these independent references.
Great tip! There’s something in this book for everyone.
From “Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things” to “How to Prevent a Bozo Explosion.”
Photo Credit: Mavis