Goodbye Good Girl Biz Tips #5: Stop Your Snooty Hiring Practices!

Look, I know we have all been trained to believe that what we see is what we see and no more; that certain jobs don't take that much ability or talent to do, and others have worth and importance built in.

All of which - sorry to burst your bubble - is pure poppycock.

We also have a tendency to judge a project by its outcome, and not by anything that goes into it, which is the death knell of our project's immense opportunities.

You need to be looking at the puzzle pieces that create the whole, so it would be helpful to know what they are!

I am going to give you the simplest example from my own personal experience: a good ol' Excel spreadsheet.

L'Excel Spreadsheet - Oh La La!

Let's say you have someone above you calling for data, and you are up to your eyebrows in work that can't wait, your team is similarly drowning, but you need that data and it's going to take more than a few days to get it all into that new spreadsheet you're thinking is a great idea.

So you put out a call for a temp - a.k.a. a Contractor.

The amount of thought you have put into this is negligible. "All I want," you're thinking to yourself, "is someone to throw 1,000 people and their data into a spreadsheet so we can do a lot of awesome, data-based things with it." Warning! The person you will eventually hire is therefore someone who does exactly what you expect: throwing data into Excel cells and offering nothing else. The hard part is that it is your fault for not having explored some key aspects of your project:

1. The types of data that you will need to pull later (so that the professional knows how to best format your data now)
2. The best ways of formatting the data you're putting into the spreadsheet so that it is not only accessible but clearly understandable to anyone who looks at it.
3. The formatting, also, that allows for the most flexibility in pulling all those types of data you didn't think about early on.
4. Do you have time to answer the questions your Contractor will have?
5. What else does your Contractor bring to the table?

I want to bring to your attention all of the hidden aspects of this situation so that you are aware, conscientious, and understanding the actual worth of the help you are choosing, and bringing in.

The Value-Driven Contractor

What do you need to find out about a Contractor in order to value this person, and pay them what they are worth?

• What are the qualities of the Contractor that you want them to have?
• Is this the kind of Contractor who will take that spreadsheet and level it up in a way you never even thought of?
• Is this the kind of Contractor who will take the extra step to untangle any information that is impossible to understand, and think about how those cells of missing information might be formatted in such a way as they can be left out without impacting your data?
• Are they a leader Contractor - one who will bring critical thinking to their work?
• Are they someone who is self-confident and more interested in quality and usefulness than in how your ego might be injured when you are asked a question you realize you should have asked?
• Are they self-directed and able to balance keeping you updated while getting questions answered by others so that you don't need to take that time to do it yourself?
• Are they the kind of committed professional who is proofreading their information so that you don't have typos in the work they left for you?
• Do they see in 360 degrees and help you by noting how this spreadsheet will be needed also by that team over there - or how this need will require that a different piece of software altogether might be used to better effect than Excel?
• Are they Quality-driven rather than payment-driven?

And here is the kicker:

Did you ask them what else they can do?

What else can this Contractor do for your spreadsheet - something you may not have even thought of? And what else do they do that might impact your work while they're there helping you out?

See, if they walk out the door with just a bunch of data inserted into a spreadsheet, you have just lost the war and the battle. Game over.

Why? Well, I can nearly guarantee you that in your pulling of data you will discover plenty of things that don't work, don't make sense, and which makes your work 10 times more difficult than if you had hired someone for their qualities, and not for a surface level completed task.

This is not a task. It is a part of the fabric of your team, your work, and your company's quality!

Don't be a snooty hirer

Get over any sense you may have that you are too important to bother with this building-block no-brainer task (which you know isn't...). Look honestly and thoroughly at what you need help with, and when you call in the troops make sure you first spend time talking to your people about the step that comes after that work is completed - what is going to be dependent on it being done correctly the first time. And, finally, when interviewing the Contractor, do so smartly: ask them what they think is involved in the work, and ask them what they would need in order to do their best work with and for you.

The quality and nature of their answers will tell you everything you need to know about how they view their work. And trust me, if they agree with you that "it's just a spreadsheet", you don't want to save the money by hiring them. You want to pay the bucks and get someone of quality.

Because your work is worth that.

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Lori E. Kirstein is a Business Development Consultant in the Communications and Connection space. To schedule a time to talk, choose a time: https://tidycal.com/goodbyegoodgirlproject/30-minute-business-development-call-with-lori-e-kirstein