Episode 17

Scorecards: The Secret to Hiring for High Performance

Summary

Lucas Price shares his insights on avoiding the mistake of hiring candidates who seem wonderful in interviews but end up being a bad fit for the team. He emphasizes the importance of structured interviews, asking the right questions, using scorecards focused on role requirements, and forming independent opinions. Lucas also highlights the value of post-interview debriefs and being open to new evidence from other team members. By eliminating biases, companies can make better hiring decisions and achieve genuine sales effectiveness.

Take Aways

Over indexing on likability and experience in the interview process can lead to hiring candidates who are a bad fit for the team.

Use structured interviews and ask candidates to share their activities and results in previous roles to assess their ability to handle similar challenges.

Prepare potential follow-up questions to gain a detailed understanding of how candidates have addressed important issues in the past.

Utilize scorecards that focus on the traits needed for success in the role, rather than interviewing skills and likability.

Form independent opinions about candidates and be open to new evidence from other team members during post-interview debriefs.

Learn More: https://www.yardstick.team/

Connect with Lucas Price: linkedin.com/in/lucasprice1

Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

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Transcript
Lucas Price: [:

Let's begin with structured interviews. That engaging conversation about common passions with a candidate. Although it felt natural, off the cuff comments aren't a good way to interview for the traits that lead to success in your role.

To set up fair footing, ask the same question to all candidates. This will make it easier to compare candidates on the traits that matter.

What should those questions be? Use interview questions that ask the candidate to relay their activities and results. when they've previously faced challenges similar to the challenge they will face in the role you are hiring for.

important issues in previous [:

Hiring team members should form their candidate opinions independently. Having team members discuss or review another interviewer's notes before they've performed their own interview introduces bias into the process. Clarity and expectations is key. With clear and objective criteria, you can hire with a clear list of role requirements, ensuring evaluations stay on target.

Finally, have a meeting to debrief about the candidates. I've personally had several candidates where I had a blind spot and I didn't realize it until I heard from the other interviewers about the candidate. Form your opinion independently, but be open to new evidence that comes from other members of your hiring team.

ncourage team members to dig [:

For B2B sales leaders. Every hiring decision is very important by eliminating biases. You'll not only hire better, but also pave the way for genuine sales effectiveness. Let's elevate our hiring game

About the Podcast

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About your hosts

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Lucas Price

Lucas Price has nearly 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive leader. He started his career as a founder of Gravity Payments. Later, as a senior executive, he built the sales team that took Zipwhip from less than $1 million to over $100 million in ARR. He has shifted his focus to solving the waste and loss of failed sales hires.
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Dr. Jim Kanichirayil

Your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd is the producer and sometime co-host for Building Elite Sales Teams. He's spent his career in sales and has been typically in startup b2b HRTech and TA-Tech organizations.

He's built high-performance sales teams throughout his career and is passionate about all things employee life cycle and especially employee retention and turnover.