Ep. 66: The Art of Interviewing With Return Guest Mitch Gray

Do you want to make sure you are asking the right questions to build your best team? Mitch Gray returns to share how you can hire the right people for your vision.  We discuss:

• What do do before you interview
• What not to ask an interviewee
• Recruiting the best possible candidates

Mitch Gray has combined over two decades of experience as a former pastor, life coach, entrepreneur, community developer, and creator to develop a brand of leadership that is at its deepest level- human.

Having worked with over 10,000 leaders and individuals across the world, Mitch empowers people to build teams based on alignment, design culture based on empowerment, and lead from their humanity.

Mitch is the creator and host of The Mitch Gray Show podcast, inspirational speaker, author, and leadership consultant.

Chapters

• 4:43 Before You Interview
• 16:19 What Not to Ask
• 32:38 Recruiting

Transcript

Kyla Cofer: 0:05

Welcome to the Leadership School podcast. I'm your host, leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal teach you how to be an extraordinary leader. Welcome back leaders. I am excited to bring back a former guest today, Mitch Gray. So Mitch is a hiring coach and expert. He can help make sure that you get the right person on your team, the right people on your team, the right team in place to really help your company grow and flourish. And so today we talked about more specifically, not just hiring in general, like we talked last time. This time I wanted to know when I'm interviewing somebody, how do I make sure that this person's the right person for the job? What are the questions that I ask to make sure it's a good interview, it's a productive interview? How do I get the right people to even apply? And once they do, how do I narrow that pool of candidates and how do I ask good questions that get me the answers that I need? So I can get the right person in place. He had some fantastic advice and thoughts on what this looks like, so I, this is a really, really important episode, especially for anybody who wants to grow a team of the right people. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast again, Mitch. It's such a pleasure to have you here. Well it's really nice to see you and catch up. I've been wondering how you are and and I, I appreciate you being willing to do another one with. But I wanted to reach out to you again because what I was looking to hire somebody to help me in my business, and I ended up not hiring them. It just wasn't the right fit. Although I still keep going back and going, did did I make the right decision? Should I hire that person? Like, would be, I'd be further along if I had, so like, I thought I really need to have a conversation with Mitch about this because like we talked about hiring, but I wanted to talk like specifically about. The interview process itself.

Mitch Gray: 2:08

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyla Cofer: 2:09

Like how do you post the job? How do you make sure the right things are in the job description? Do you post the salary, not post the salary, like then taking it from okay, maybe you get three applicants, maybe you get 300 applicants. Like, how, how do you, I have a lot of questions, so I'm gonna put them all out here and then we'll just go from there.

Mitch Gray: 2:28

I love it. I love it.

Kyla Cofer: 2:29

If you have only three applicants, Do you just take those and do you pick one or like do you brought on your search if you have 300, how do you narrow the pool? And then like when you're in an interview, what are the right questions to ask? Cause we talked so much last time and our last conversation was so good, but we really talked about, you know, like if you hire someone that fits your culture, then you're good to go. Right? And What questions do you ask to make that? Cause I've heard of jobs companies that have been like, okay, tell me if you were in a boat and

Mitch Gray: 3:00

Yep.

Kyla Cofer: 3:01

All like these random, weird questions. And I'm like, what is that even doing? And so I felt really like, I had all these messages in my head going ask the right questions and I just felt really uncomfortable in this interview, even though I've interviewed people before. And so I thought, I just wanna like hear from you. What if, if you could start me and just, let's just do me because anybody, this will be relevant to anybody, but from the posting of the job interview, how do you be clear about that to get the right applicants? And then what do you do when you get those applicants and how do you get the right person in there practically?

Mitch Gray: 3:36

Yes, I like it.

Kyla Cofer: 3:38

Opened up for thoughts.

Mitch Gray: 3:39

I like it. Yeah, I, I love the idea. I love of course I love talking about this. It's definitely something that I think more leaders than will admit, struggle with. Whether it's a solopreneur, entrepreneur Fortune 500, HR. And, and I really see this conversation happening in between the lines with HR people, mostly on social media. And you can just tell by the way they post or by the verbiage they use, that many of them haven't necessarily been given clarity on, the idealism and the strategy for hiring and, and recruiting and interviewing.

Kyla Cofer: 4:19

Yeah. And I've heard that there's like even trainings you can take on how to interview people well. And I, I think I even saw that on TikTok once. It was like, oh, this person doesn't know how to do an interview. And I go, oh, like there's a right way and a wrong way. And then it just really got me to thinking, so yah. Yeah.

Mitch Gray: 4:34

Yeah. And it's interesting, because, so we'll just start this way, how about that? And you can ask your forty million questions when you have them, cause I know you have them. I'm gonna back up a little bit. So the question really is how do you interview properly? Is kinda where we're going with this. I'm gonna back up even more.. Before the interview process even begins taking place, you have to have real clarity on who you need and why you need them. What does that mean? The who you need means what type of energy, presence, personality, aptitude, attitude are you looking for in a, a new team member, a new hire. And that's incredibly important because if you don't know those things in an interview, you can ask all the right questions, but if you're not connecting them to a target, then the responses really don't matter. And that's what I mean by I would say 70-80% of people in hiring positions don't actually have clarity on who they need. And why they need them. They're tasked with hiring someone, filling a position, but there's no connectivity there. You've already got a question or a statement. Go.

Kyla Cofer: 5:40

Well, no, like I was just gonna say yes, absolutely. Cuz I think that's what happened when I was interviewing this person. Mm-hmm. What I'll, I'll just tell you the story cause it makes it easier for the conversation is I was thinking I really need an admin assistant. So then yes, the next day. I got an email from a virtual assistant company that said that I used before. The next day they said, Hey, we looked at your profile and we, this person's looking for a job and we thought they'd be a good fit for you. And I was like, well, that's the next day. Like,

Mitch Gray: 6:05

okay.

Kyla Cofer: 6:06

So I, then I went ahead and interviewed them and I realized I wasn't clear on

Mitch Gray: 6:10

yes

Kyla Cofer: 6:11

what I needed and what the job was. And that made it harder for me cuz I thought, oh, this person's really great and I really like them and they speak Spanish and like all of this stuff. And and then I realized, wait, that's not exactly what I need. What I need is,

Mitch Gray: 6:24

Right.

Kyla Cofer: 6:24

Three people, not just one person. And I kind of figured that out.

Mitch Gray: 6:28

Yes.

Kyla Cofer: 6:28

And, but it, it made the interview process really challenging because I was hearing everything that person was skilled at and going, I'm not, but I, I need that, but is that what I need now? And so I had to really make those decisions. So I think that's, I'm glad you started there.

Mitch Gray: 6:41

Yeah. And it's, and it's really important that, that's the perfect example. The other side of that perfect example is hiring someone because of their skillset, regardless of their persona.

Kyla Cofer: 6:51

Mm-hmm.

Mitch Gray: 6:52

So two, two major mistakes are often made. We hire someone because of their persona or we hire someone because of their skillset. Ok. My proposal always is hire on persona first, aptitude, attitude, energy, presence, positivity, negativity whatever that looks like. Measure those first. So you're hiring the person first. Then you're hiring the skill set of the job description.

And here's my reasoning for that: 7:16

90% of jobs in the marketplace can be taught, bought, or certified. So, let's say you need an admin assistant and you use, let's just throw it out there, you use the Google ecosystem. You don't wanna learn all about it. You just want someone who can do it. So you're potentially gonna hire someone based on the idea that they understand the Google ecosystem how use all the magic tools, etc. But you forget to measure the energy, aptitude, attitude, personality. And so you get three months into that hire and you're like, shoot, they're great at Google and they've mastered everything I need, but I really don't enjoy working with them.

Kyla Cofer: 7:55

Right!

Mitch Gray: 7:55

Let's go back to my theory. My theory is you hire the human first. Everything else can be taught, bought, or certified. So if you need someone who's great at the Google ecosystem, you hire based on persona for your team, and then you pay the 500 bucks to train them on the Google ecosystem. That 500 bucks is gonna be the greatest investment you can make cause you invested in their growth. They know that you value them and you've hired the right human for your team. And where we get confused so many times is people hire outta desperation. They're like, oh my gosh my accountant quit and now I need a new accountant. Heaven forbid we worry about team culture, we worry about alignment of personalities or we worry about passionate desire etc.. So companies are hiring, saying I need accountants. I need servers. I need waiters. I need bus drivers. I need Google Ecosystem people, whatever. Always forgetting that I have to hire the human first because I'm always dealing with the human first. I'm always dealing with the human long before I'm dealing the job. So that's I say you have to know who you need and why you need them. The why isn't the job description. The why is what void on your team as a human, are they filling. So your example, solopreneur small business needing an admin assistant. What are your personality traits? What are not your personality traits? What are things you like dealing with clients with that you or you don't like dealing with clients with? So now all the sudden since you're hiring one team member, you're gonna start really dissolving, here's my traits, here's what's missing on our two person team, so I need to look out for those first. I can buy, certify, and whatever, train, on all the other stuff. And so, especially when you're dealing with a really small team, you have to get the culture right. You have to get the personalities right because you're dealing with each other on a daily basis. If you're dealing with a team of 500, you can afford to make a few more mistakes, but when you're dealing with a small team, it's like you HAVE to get the human right. The job will work itself out.

Kyla Cofer: 9:58

Yeah. And I remember hearing someone say make sure you're, you're not hiring for what you need now, but hiring for where you wanna go.

Mitch Gray: 10:05

Yes. Yes.

Kyla Cofer: 10:05

So, like, if, and I'll, that's what I'm hearing you say is, you know, okay, I, right now I need someone who can do this, but in three months, like that part of my job's gonna be obsolete, and now I've got someone who I can't work with or train them to do something else.

Mitch Gray: 10:17

Right.

Kyla Cofer: 10:18

So like if I'm, if I'm focusing more then on, okay, here's the things that I'm great at. I'm like holding my fist up. Here's the things that I'm great at in this hand. Here's the things I'm not great at, and I need someone who I can communicate well with, who fits well with, who understands the goal, the mission, the purpose, who understands what it's like to work with me and doesn't get frustrated with the things that I'm not good at. And now I'm not frustrated with them, but like we can talk and communicate that out. Then then we can train and work together on some of those smaller tasks.

Mitch Gray: 10:46

One hundred percent you want to hire for areas of growth.

Kyla Cofer: 10:49

Mm-hmm.

Mitch Gray: 10:50

So what does that look like? That looks like, especially when you're a small team or a starting. What's interesting, I had someone on LinkedIn ask me this very question the other day. They're a solopreneur, potentially looking to hire someone. And a couple years ago, I was on another podcast with my friend Ken Sanders and he was hiring an assistant, so we did the same idea. This is really cool. And so, so when you're looking at that person, it's like, ok, if I hire the human first and they're high aptitude, they're great learners, they have a desire for learning; I'm not worried about the task and the job, becasue I know we're going to be evolving as a business.

Kyla Cofer: 11:23

Mm-hmm.

Mitch Gray: 11:23

So I'm probably hiring person as admin assistant who could potentially become my graphic designer or my number one salesperson or another coach or you know, whatever that looks like. So what is their aptitude and their passion for learning? Ok, so how do you measure that, Mitch? Here's how you measure it. We're gonna get to interview questions. If I'm looking for someone who has a passion for learning, one of the best questions I can ask is what your top five favorite books?

Kyla Cofer: 11:48

Oh, wow. Yeah,

Mitch Gray: 11:49

Because if they're a learner, they're a reader. If they're a reader, they're gonna be able to say, my top five favorite books are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and here's why; by the way, I'm in middle of book right now. That's changing my life. If I'm looking for a passionate learner, I wanna know how many books they're reading. If I'm looking for a creative, I want to know what their artistic outlets are, Hey, what do you do for fun as an artist? What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite type of art? If I'm looking for someone who's incredibly organized, Hey, what's your favorite program to use? Tell me a time you had to really organize people inside of some chaos, like what did that look like for you? How did you feel? What were you thinking? Did you share it with someone else? So now all of the sudden we are aligning our questions with what we need and who we need and all of those questions and responses are gonna give us measurables to say, that person's great, but they're not really who I'm needing now, but this other person they love reading, they love learning, they told me about the three different programs they learned about last week on YouTube, the take initiative, I know they're gonna be the right person to evolve with my growing team.

Kyla Cofer: 12:56

So before you even have the interview, well before you're, you're putting the job description out there, it, as you're creating that job description, it sounds like it would be really valuable to know your values. Like what are you valuing?

Mitch Gray: 13:07

Yes.

Kyla Cofer: 13:07

In this person, this employee, like what are the top, I don't know, four or five things I know I need in this position. What are the things I'm willing to be relaxed on and let go of? And then, And then you can, once you've got your interview pool of people, you can filter those questions based on those values that you've already created. So you're not in the interview going, oh yeah, no. What I need is someone who's operational. Like,

Mitch Gray: 13:31

right, right. Yeah. And that helps you really start designating the feets and thoughts. Right. And what I like to always tell people is like on LinkedIn the other day when the person asked me if I'm hiring my first person, you know, how do I go through the process? And my response, part of my response was, You go through the process by building your team now in your imagination so that you have a roadmap for filling in the seats on the bus, right? So we're right seat right people, right bus. Make sure you've got em placed in the proper spots. So start designing that now within your mind and going here's the top four positions I know I'm gonna hire in the next two years. Which ones take priority based on my action right now? And so who do I need; persona, aptitude, attitude for that position. Why is this so critical in the beginning? Cause you're gonna need a right hand person. You're gonna need a person that's really gonna have to really overcome some of your areas of weakness, or amplify your areas of strengths. You call them values, I call it placement and alignment. Yes. They have to align with the overarching umbrella of all that is your culture. And so you should be designing your culture now. That way you have clarity as you're pushing forward with bringing someone on.

Kyla Cofer: 14:47

So if I wanted to say, the two things that I'm thinking of are problem solvers and communication. So how would you ask people to find out their styles and that, cause I don't wanna give people like some, you know, Meyers Briggs or personality test.

Mitch Gray: 15:00

Nope.

Kyla Cofer: 15:00

Like that's, I don't think those are valuable. I wanna actually know, like in this interview, how are you gonna communicate with me? Like how are you gonna communicate with me when I mess up? How are you gonna communicate with me when you disagree? Like when something's really gone wrong like how can you help us move forward?

Mitch Gray: 15:16

Oh, totally. Yeah. It's got a million of them. I'm only gonna give you a few today though. It's really interesting cause last year I was asked by I dunno if you've heard of Hiring Our Heroes. So they're our national program for military veterans to transition out; helping them find job placement. Well under Hiring our Heroes is another program called Amplify. And Amplify is a national program, works with military spouses to help equip them in the marketplace to find jobs and learn how to leverage their experience. You know, cause military people are moving constantly and so what we forget is the spouses oftentimes have a difficult time finding job placements. So anyway. Last year I was asked by them to come in and speak at one of their trainings, and I'm actually going to be doing more of that in the near future. So my part of this training was interviewing with authenticity, what I call interviewing with authenticity; how to empower your story in the interview. So it was a role switch for me, right? It wasn't me giving advice on an interviewer, it was giving advice to interviewees,

Kyla Cofer: 16:18

Uhhuh.

Mitch Gray: 16:19

So I Google. what are the top 20 questions that people are asking in an interview, and I found it really intriguing. Cause to me, 18 outta 20 were trash and I would never ask them. And what's funny is about 4 or 5 had illusions to Myers Briggs and other personality tests. Things like out the four, which would you pick that you're a shark, a lion, a zebra, whatever. And I'm like, well, what if you've never taken that? That's so an unfair question. Mm-hmm. Cause if you don't understand those, then how are you gonna give a good response to that? And we discussed that, funny thing is couple of those people in that, the participants, contacted me a few weeks later and were like, " yeah. We did a job interview and they asked us that exact question. So they said, they gave, they gave the answer that I, I, you know, advised them to give. But anyway, another one that I've heard a lot is, If you're at a karaoke bar, which which song are you gonna pick if you're at a karaoke bar? And I'm like, that's an asinine question.

A: 17:14

I don't like karaoke bars. And a lot of people don't. I'm gonna say, well, you're not gonna find me karaoke bar. And so all sudden, someone can judge me, well you're not fun, you don't participate, that's how people are going to view that. So here's the questions you do ask. Don't ask those. I got into another LinkedIn debate with someone about that very question a few weeks ago. So here's the question.

Kyla Cofer: 17:37

Question that's based on opinion. It's like, what political party do you align with?

Mitch Gray: 17:41

Think about it this way, when you interview, you want to put people in situations. So what does that look like? Mitch, I want problem solvers. Awesome. The question is simple. Tell me about a time that you had to make a really major decision. What was that like for you? What, what process did you go through? Tell me about a time that you've been in a difficult situation that depended on you. What did that look like for you? What decision did you come to? Did you involve other people? Did you make it on your own? Why? Why did you make that decision in that moment in time? Did it fail? Did it succeed? Did you look at why? Either one? I'm neutral on the response. What I'm looking for is just a response, and so if you ask someone, tell me about a time that you were put in a situation to make a major decision. Oh my gosh. Last year my family and I were moving you know, let's just use the military example. My partner was TDY I had to sell the house on my own. It's just what you go through as a military family. Someone gave us an offer and I just had to make a decision. That is a major decision for a family. And that person said, I'm going to take initiative and make the decision. We've laid out our ground rules of what we'll take. So I negotiated it and we went through with it and I hated it. Ok. Why did you hate it? Cause it was so much pressure, you know what I mean? Like you're just kinda what I call pulling the thread. Just cause they said they hated it doesn't mean they're negative. It might mean that they have three kids who are all toddlers and they didn't have the time to negotiate a quarter million house. And so now sudden they have empathy, they have compassion. They care for their family. I want someone who has empathy, compassion and cares for our team, our family at work. That's how we have to look at this. So that's a great question. Tell me about a time you were in a situation you had to make an important decision. Tell me about a time that you weren't expected to make a decision or solve a problem, but you did. That's another great question. To put them in a situation to show you that you're, they're actually gonna be problem solvers and take initiative. And it could be things like, tell me about, you know you were the manager of a clothing store, what kinda decisions were you expected to make, what projects did you create that maybe they didn't expect you to create? When did you go above and beyond? Those are the questions that you can ask that will quickly tell you, yes, this is a person that I can dig a little deeper on. That's why I always say, if you're a good interviewer, you only need about three to five questions. Because if you ask the right three to five questions, you'll get all the answers that you need.

Kyla Cofer: 20:16

And then you guess the follow up questions in between there, you, you, you know, like, tell me your story.

Mitch Gray: 20:20

100%.

Kyla Cofer: 20:21

I hear what you're saying. So explain it or tell me, yes, this is my favorite one. Tell me more. Tell me more about that.

Mitch Gray: 20:27

Yes,

Kyla Cofer: 20:27

Because people, you want them to talk because. In that you're getting to know them and you're asking them to tell a story. And in their storytelling, you're learning the way that they communicate, the way that they talk.

Mitch Gray: 20:36

Yes.

Kyla Cofer: 20:37

The way that they go from point A to point B, like, and you're just learning about them as people. If you know, if you wanna be a people first, organization, company, or if you wanna,

Mitch Gray: 20:46

Right.

Kyla Cofer: 20:46

Pay attention to the people that you're working with. And if the people matter, then you're getting to know them and they're building that connection with you too, which will ultimately build more loyalty, right? Like and more.

Mitch Gray: 20:57

That's right. And, and, and the, and the question stays the same. You just reshape it depending on what, what you think you're looking for. So we could ask the same question, say, I need a problem solver. What if you need you know, a creative. It's the same question. Tell me about a time that you've been in a situation you had to be super creative or that you loved the project, that you got to take part in. Did you work with a team? Did you work in isolation? Did you enjoy that? I mean, you're just really pulling thread on those simple questions and giving them the opportunity, like I taught last year in that Amplify program, to interview with authenticity. Cause the one thing you wanna find is that authenticity. And that simply comes from asking a question and providing them the space verbally, physically, and energetically to feel safe enough to open up and share those stories. And I think that is where interviews, interviewers really miss it. First of all, they often have a piece of paper that they have scripted questions on. Burn that. Second of all, they usually have a piece of paper where they're taking notes, man, ok. I would rather pull your phone out and hit record. That way you can give that person your one on one attention, or just cognitively work on your memory and make sure you can remember things, either one. But really what they do, is they don't create a safe space, even physically because they're not paying attention. I will never forget, I tell this story often and people think I'm crazy, but about, it was in 2012, I was looking for a job and I had gone a year without being able to find a job. I closed my business. Couldn't find a job. So I finally got an interview and needless to say, I needed the money for my family and everything. So, I walk into the interview and I've always been about interviewing with authenticity. And I think it was ten people on the interview committee, if I remember properly, and they are sitting around the table and I'm at the head of the table.

Kyla Cofer: 22:43

Not intimidating at all.

Mitch Gray: 22:44

No. And so they all have a piece of paper with their scripted questions, and it's one of those deals where they just go around the room and ask a question and about five questions in I observed that no one was giving me eye contact. When I gave a response, they were all just taking notes. And so in the interview they asked me about the fourth or fifth question, and I said, I'm gonna ask everyone to stop and put your pencils down. And they all kinda looked like, what is going on? And I said, I would appreciate the respect of you actually paying attention to what I'm saying, who I am, rather than taking notes. Because if I give a good interview, you're going to remember the stuff you need to remember without taking notes. So we went through the interview. A few days later I get a phone call, Hey Mitch, we're gonna offer you the job. And I just have to say, you walked out and everyone was like, ok, we've never had that happen before and it was actually for a government agency and the department manager said. We need to hire that guy. He's actually gonna take time, commit to connect, and he's actually gonna take time to make sure that there's relationships there, take initiative. And so it became a positive. Now, I wouldn't advise everyone to do that. I don't mind doing that, but the whole point of that is I had had so many interviews under my belt, thousands and thousands and thousands that I knew how to position myself. But I also knew what my ask was, and my ask was pay attention. Just pay attention to me in this moment. And as an interviewer, you wanna give that same respect. Part of that respect is how do you have clarity going into the interview, and how are you going to ask questions that allow the story to unfold for the person you are interviewing. Because the will tell you the truth. And as Oprah says, "When they tell you the truth, you listen. And that'll tell you whether you need to hire them or not.

Kyla Cofer: 24:32

Wow. And it's nice too in these questions that you're talking about is you said that I'm neutral in the response. And, and that really is nice cuz it does create this safe space for someone where they're like, oh, what kind of answer are they looking for? It's not that they're looking for the right answer, it's just, is this the right person? And, and it may, it takes the pressure off, I think, on both sides because then I know that this person, if I'm the right person in this job, they're gonna hire me. And if I'm not, then it's a good thing. Then I'm not coming in here and, and it, there's no like shame in that at all. It's we care and we just wanna know you. It's, it's not of, well do, do you match your skills match on the paper? Do you check off all the boxes and are you going to be someone that we can abuse later? Like it's, it's, can we work with, can we work together as this mutually beneficial and. And so whenever you ask that question, like, or when I ask it to the, when I'm interviewing someone, the response really doesn't matter. It's, it's just in that connection that you're building and in the way that they tell their story. So I started this podcast because I wanted to learn and grow in my leadership journey, and I have been so incredibly inspired by the guests and the conversations, and especially recently with this college tour, I've really learned so much. So once the interview ends, I actually keep the conversation going because I have found that sometimes the richest part of the conversation is when we feel like the interview's over and we can just kind of have a relaxed, more casual conversation. Also, if you've noticed, if you've been following this podcast for some time, I used to ask every guest two questions. What does Integrity mean to them and what does balance look like to them? Well, I haven't stopped asking those questions. We're just putting those over on our Patreon page. So go check it out at patreon.com/leadershipschool, and for six dollars and fifty cents a month, you can support this podcast. It takes a lot to produce every single episode. Honestly, I could use a little bit of support. So anything that you're able to contribute would really mean a lot to me and would able to help me to continue to bring these high caliber guests in to have conversations on what does it look like to be an extraordinary leader, and how do we practically do that. So those conversations are continuing over at patreon.com/leadershipschool where I'm asking guests some extra questions, some bonus questions, and you'll get some bonus content over there. So be sure to go check it out. Thanks so much for your support, and thanks for so much for subscribing, listening and sharing this podcast. It really does mean a lot, and I'm so honored to show up here in your podcast feed.

Mitch Gray: 27:09

Think of an interview as permission. You are either giving that person permission to tell them to hire you, or you're giving that person permission to tell them to not hire.

Kyla Cofer: 27:19

Mm-hmm.

Mitch Gray: 27:20

That's all you're, you're just simply listening to the story and then you're going, ok, is this human as just a human entity? Are they a type of person I want on my team? If the answer is yes, then you go, okay. Are they gonna fulfill their role on the team? If the answer, answer is yes, then you hire them. In your situation, you're maybe having to choose outta three or four. So what you're looking for is the greatest value add as a person, not as necessarily, unless you have two people that are equal and one is a little more advanced in their skill, then you can kind of let that, override. But I would always hire the human first. So if you have three people you're choosing from ok, who, who made you feel the best. Who gave you the best energy? Who told the best story? Who did you believe the most? Who gave you the greatest permission to hire them? And if you do that nine times outta 10, you're gonna get it Exactly right.

Kyla Cofer: 28:18

So how do you avoid a bias in that? Oh, I just really like this person. They're a lot like me. I, I connect with them. They look like me. They act like me. We went, we have the same backgrounds. And, and that bias of like familiarity and comfortableness when you're talking with someone. Yes. I mean, I think. That just if you, you're starting with those basic values and you know exactly what you're looking for, that helps if you're being really clear on that to begin with. But, you know, it can be really challenging to be in a, in an interview and go, well, do I like this person? You know, or do I not like this person? You've got like maybe 30 minutes, an hour to make a kind of that kind of a decision. And, and how do you avoid that, that initial bias of maybe did this person just tell me what I needed the right things?

Mitch Gray: 29:06

Right, right. Yeah. So first of all, going back to the similarity, there's a, there's a very big difference in understanding value add and connection to your culture versus similarities and who they are compared to you as a leader. So if you are starting out hiring you almost want to go into the process going, I need to hire someone opposite of me, personality wise .Because you really do want that balance. And if you're just having, you know, a mini me, it's gonna amplify your areas weakness and amplify areas growth. The problem with that is the gap is going to grow larger. So probably, the frustrations that you already have which is leading you to need to hire someone, those frustrations are only going to grow and now you're gonna have a pointed target of that frustration, which is gonna be the person you just hired. So in other words, you're gonna have someone to blame other than yourself. And as humans, we usually don't like to blame ourselves. It's just a game we have to play. So I would go into it consciously thinking if this person has a very similar personality to me; if they have a lot of similar likes and dislikes, if they have a lot of similar areas of strength, then I'm probably not going to bring them on at this point in time. Because I know I need balance. Now, if I hire two to three people that are different than me, then I can bring on kinda of a mini me, and that then becomes a mentorship, which is really, really cool. But I would be very sensitive and it takes a lot of self honor and self truth to go I know who I am, know what my culture and my values are, and I'm not gonna hire me. Right now. I'm just not, if I walked in the door, I would not hire me right now, even though I think I'm awesome. And so it's a lot self truth to go, ok I have hold myself accountable here. Now I'm going to give a freebie,, if someone doesn't believe they can do, then have someone else do the interview for you. Like pull a friend down. Pull an experienced partner in, pull someone else in and just go, look, here's what I need, here's my clarity, here's my candidates, and I don't feel like I can be very self trustworthy right now, with not hiring myself. So could you give an interview now or be in the interview with me so that I have a sounding board? And that's a great strategy, especially for solopreneurs who are looking to kinda start their team. It just gives them a little bit of a sounding board. And I'll give your listeners maybe another freebie. If there's a few of them out there that are going through the same process and they're gonna interview virtually, I mean, I might even give a little bit of my time. I'll sit in the interview with you virtually and just give you some feedback. That's a no brainer. Because to have to kind of have those neutral eyes is really really important; especially for someone who has never interviewed or hired that often. It is, it is an art. Definitely an art.

Kyla Cofer: 31:47

Okay, so we've talked a lot about like the smaller pools. What if you have 300 applicants? And I'm seeing jobs, you know, I've seen jobs come through like on LinkedIn where like, they're like, how do you measure up to the other 700 applicants? And I'm going, how do they do that? And so, I mean, when you have a pool that big, usually they have some sort of a software that's pulling through resumes and like picking skills and stuff. But how do you narrow that pool? Because really you, what you've got is maybe like a cover letter and a resume. Based off of what you put that you needed. And typically the jobs people are looking at the skill sets. Like what skills, what are the required skills? Do I have them? Like, maybe I'm just missing one and I can apply like how, you know, so that people are applying based on what they think they're capable of. So how do you narrow that down, especially when you're like, I'm not looking for skillsets, I'm looking for character and culture.

Mitch Gray: 32:38

So I'm gonna give you my, my automatic filter. Okay. And I'm gonna go, go back little bit to how we started this conversation. Now we're getting into recruiting. Ok. So, so we began with kinda the interviewing. We've clarified our culture, we've clarified our values we've clarified some questions we can ask. Now we're getting into recruiting. You obviously need to recruit before you can interview. Cause if you don't recruit, you don't have anyone to interview. The smaller your team, the more hand selected everyone should be. What does that look like? If I know I need an admin assistant, the first place I'm gonna look is within my network, I'm not even gonna put a resume job opportunity anywhere, except in my mind. And I'm going to go ask does anyone know a great person looking for an opportunity? Does anyone know a great person looking for an opportunity? If I'm at the grocery store, I'm gonna ask the cashier. You're awesome. Your customer service is great. You know anybody looking for a great opportunity, I'm hiring someone. Parttime right now. You can find one great person within a 24-hour time span, easily, especially if you live in a large populated area. I think anyone can do that. I can out within 30 minutes and find five people to recruit. So what I'm doing there, the reason that's so important is what I'm doing there is I'm actually controlling the environment. So I no longer have 700 applicants. I'm now saying I know who I'm looking for. I've seen you in action. I've actually interviewed you, interviewed you. Before we even do an interview. I've seen your work ethic. I've seen how you engage with other customers. I've seen the whatever, your attitude, and now I can kind of dig a little deeper. And I'm not asking them directly necessarily, but the magic question is, Hey, do you know anyone looking for an opportunity? Because the odds are birds of a feather flock together. If they are great at all those things, then they know someone who's great at all those things. And I've done this for about 25 years now, this very technique, and what often happens is they look at you and go, yeah, me. I, I'm actually looking for an opportunity and so it kinda becomes this awesome conversation where they've proven theirselves to you cause you've seen them in action or you've been, they've been referred to you and now you've created a real opportunity. So my suggestion always is if you have a team of, I would say, 50 or less, you should be hand selecting 90% of those, easy. If you're gonna go out and take the time to do it. So where does that happen, happens at the grocery store, coffee shops, while you're getting your tires changed, while you're eating out, while you're at church, while you're on podcasts, like it's happening all the time. Recruiting is a lifestyle. So what we've done is, Mitch, what do we do with the 700 applicants? You get rid of them by hand selecting your team. Ok, that's great. But what if I wanna advertise online? Awesome. You share your culture first. Not the job description. You share your values second, not the job description. You share about how you value aptitude and lifelong learners and attitude, not the job description. And that became your first posting. And so when you share that information, when you say hey, I'm looking for great people, if you know someone that fits this culture, send them my way. What that's gonna do automatically is almost remove the people that are just job hunting. Cause it's making them think. And so you're automatically screening the process by not worrying about the job description, and focusing solely on the culture, values, and humanity of it. Because the people who are just job seeking aren't gonna respond to that post. It makes them think too much. So my guess is that 700 will automatically go down to 200 or 250 and then you can relinquish that even more, depending on what you want your post thread to look like. But that's where I would begin. I would never post a job listing. And by the way, that's even for Fortune 500s. I think they make a major mistake by going we need an accountant. Ok, but what type of person do you need? Because I've heard the complaint. In fact, I saw on LinkedIn few weeks ago, someone posted, man, we get 1100 applications for this one role. So I went and looked at their job listing, it never talks about culture, never talks about values, never talks about the type of person they want. It talks about the job. Well, yeah. A lot of people are looking for jobs.

Kyla Cofer: 37:00

Wow. And what's really interesting is but throughout the three years of this podcast, I've noticed how we always have themes and and we talk about a lot. Yeah. I, I've heard over and over and over about company culture and what you're hiring, what you're trying to do, and are you people first culture, are you leadership? Are you service servant leadership, and all of these different things. And so when you start that way, it, you can share your mission and what you're trying to do. And you could say, we want people who are excited about serving, serving meals to the homeless, or excited about creating, you know, bags of chips for Frito Lay. Like whatever it is. But we want people who are excited about this goal that we have. And, and that will bring people who are excited about that. Cause if someone's not, they're like, oh, I don't wanna do that. You know, and they'll figure out that pretty quickly. That, that makes a lot of sense.

Mitch Gray: 37:46

Yeah. Let's go back to our book analogy, right? We said we want people that are learners that are passionate about learning. So if that's the case and you're gonna post something, why would you not put, do you love reading books? When's the last time you took a college course? When's the last time you took a class? That is automatically gonna sift the people that don't really care about learning, but are just looking for a job. Cause that's where people miss the tell, in poker there's always a tell. They miss the tell because they never give the interviewee the chance to give their tell. But if you start with, Hey, do you love books? Do you love learning? What's your favorite movie? When's the last time you created something? That's gonna totally filter out the people that are just looking for a job. Cause those people don't wanna take the time to figure it out. And those are very hard to lie about. Like you can see through that tell really, really quickly. And so I would be really creative in my approach. My first approach is to always hand select people. Even me, I'm not adding to my team right now, but I'm always keeping a list of people I would recruit so that when I work with clients, I can be like, Hey, you need to go look at this Starbucks. There's two baristas that are amazing and I have a feeling they're about to quit. I almost get that right every time too. Cause you can just see by the energy. Was at a restaurant, this waiter, I mean, you could just see the frustration on their face. They're gonna quit pretty soon. So if I gave them a great opportunity and they were in the right environment, it might change the game. So I'm always hand selecting, I'm always making sure I'm creative on the approach if I'm posting online or posting job descriptions.

Kyla Cofer: 39:17

I think it's important to, we're gonna wrap up here, but I think it's important to, to mention diversity, equity, and inclusion and how, from what I'm hearing, it's really easy to incorporate those things in there because if you're recruiting from everywhere you go, as long as you are being diverse in the places that you go, you can, you can do that and you can offer those to anybody and be equitable in the, the offering. And, asking and recruiting process. So you're not going and just asking people in your small circle, but go outside that. If you're at the gas station, you can ask anybody. You know, if you're at the restaurant or you hear the table next to you, like it doesn't matter who they are, you talk, talk, and ask anybody.

Mitch Gray: 39:58

Yeah. And when we're talking diversity, equity, and inclusion, we're talking those same elements within personalities. So again, we want diversity, equity, and inclusion and the obvious things like ethnicity, belief system those are kind of the cover of the book right. But we really, you know it's possible to hire someone of a different ethnicity that is still mirroring me. And so you really, again, have to take that self audit and look around to your team and go, did I hire a bunch of Mitches, or am I actually hiring a Kyla here and there, a Sarah, a Sam, a Joseph. Like am I really balancing this out? And what the barometer for that is if you're at the table with your team, your, with your team and everyone agrees with everything you do. You've made, made a major mistake. Major mistake.

Kyla Cofer: 40:47

It might feel good, but you're not gonna go far fast.

Mitch Gray: 40:49

It might feel good, but it's a major mistake. Yeah. And so if you're at the table and people respectfully and honorably, challenge and give problem solving and creativity, and they're coming up up with the solutions and ideas. Now you've empowered diversity equity and inclusion in more ways than just ethnicity, faith, and gender. Cause those are again, kinda the easy, and I think that's where a lot of, companies have missed that as well. It's like we need diversity, equity, and inclusion. And my first question is what does that look like? Does it look like a bunch of people of different ethnicities, or does it actually look like a bunch of different humans? Again, I'm measuring solely on the humanity of it, bringing different offers to the table. That is when we've really dug deep on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And if you dig deep there, the funny thing is ethnicity, faith, gender is all going to work itself out. Becasue if you're bringing different humans to the table, you're gonna be bringing those different cultures and belief systems to the table automatically.

Kyla Cofer: 41:50

That is why we talk about this at leadership school because that is what, what you do as a leader and, and if you can be the person to lead that discussion at a table where it's okay for somebody to disagree with you and you can be comfortable with that, then you are going to be successful because it's Leadership really requires us to be able to converse with people who are in disagreement. Yeah. And be able to dialogue and be able to see different perspectives and be able to empower other people to really grow in their own roles, not just to push ourselves forward.

Mitch Gray: 42:21

So 100%. I wanna give you bonus interview question I didn't share with you earlier. Are you ready for this?

Kyla Cofer: 42:26

Yes.

Mitch Gray: 42:27

If you were telling me a story about an employee, what would that story be? The kicker is you're the employee. Mm. And that is usually the response. And the reason I love that question is cause it makes people go reflective immediately. They're like, Ooh, I can tell a story about employee. Oh shoot, I'm the employee. And most people, most high aptitude people won't brag on themselves. They'll tell a few positive things, but, but when you get that reflection and that introspec, that is a huge sign of a really competent, confident, intellectual person that's gonna go, oh yeah, lemme think about this for a second. So there's your bonus question. That's a great one.

Kyla Cofer: 43:11

Oh, that's such a good question. That's awesome. Hey, do you happen to have like a list of questions that you offer that we can throw in the show notes? You can say no.

Mitch Gray: 43:20

I should totally, I should totally create that. No, I don't, but I should totally create that.

Kyla Cofer: 43:25

Well, if you, if you had that, we'll throw the show notes. But if you, you ever do let me know and we'll send it on. We'll shoot, I'll send it the group.

Mitch Gray: 43:33

Send it your way. Yeah, yeah.

Kyla Cofer: 43:34

This is great. I, I really appreciate you coming in cuz I it was so nice when I had that moment of going. I know there's a better way to go about this. And I ended up, like I said, not hiring that person. And I was glad, I'm glad now that I didn't, especially after this conversation, because I would've probably been at the same place later and going, okay, was this, I don't know, I don't think I'm gonna try and make this work. Cuz I'm like a really, I, I, I'm recovering people pleaser and I really care about people. I wanna give

Mitch Gray: 43:58

people opportunity. 100%. I get it, I get it.

Kyla Cofer: 44:01

I can, but sometimes you're like, I'm gonna have to trust that this person's gonna get the right opportunity for them because this isn't gonna be it. And, you know, hiring the wrong person can really be detrimental. Just, just, especially if you're just trying to help somebody, because it could keep them from doing something that's gonna really benefit them in the future. So,

Mitch Gray: 44:19

100%. 100%. Yep.

Kyla Cofer: 44:21

Yep. Anyway. Exactly right. Mitch, thanks so much. I, I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Hey, thank you so much for listening. If you've liked what you heard and you want some more tools and resources to help you on your journey, go check out kylacofer.com/freestuff.