Hire for eieio

Over the many years I have had the great fortune to recruit and lead many high performing teams. I have often been asked what I look for in candidates as I recruit. My answer: eieio, e for energy, i for integrity, e for enthusiasm, i for intellect, and o for opinion. And for those of you who remember the nursery rhyme that begins,?Old MacDonald had a farm, eieio, and on that farm…?Collectively the eieio means I recruit for individuals who will find the fun in their job and be fun to work with. On the latter I like to ask, how did your team celebrate success on one of your recent assignments and what was your specific role in planning or executing in the that celebration? Individuals who seek fun I’ve found, will often volunteer to do just that, plan or execute. And I’m not talking about the individual who climbs up on a table wearing a lampshade and starts dancing.

I have never been successful teaching these. Skills are certainly a differentiator if you meet all of these other criteria, but skills can be learned in the classroom, on the job.

e is for energy. I look for individuals who are energetic, they initiate, execute and follow through. Asking the behavioral question,??tell me about a time when you took the initiative to advance a new idea, marshal interest in that idea, execute on that idea and celebrate its success or learn from its setbacks.

i is for integrity. Self-explanatory. Non-negotiable. I have always granted my teams the latitude to complete their work in form and fashion so long as they embrace vision and mission and adhere to the organization’s core values. I need to implicitly trust them. Integrity is the answer to that question. Asking about a time when an individual failed to achieve a goal, they set out is certainly an opportunity for honesty and confession, attributes of integrity.

e is for enthusiasm. You know TGIF – Thank Goodness It’s Friday. I look for TGIM – Thank Goodness It’s Monday. Not that the individual didn’t take time to enjoy their weekend, vacation, or holiday, only that they enjoy their job, they’ve made the connection between their contribution(s) and delivering value and emotionally refuel upon delivering that value for the company and for the customer. Ask about a time when the candidate didn’t particularly enjoy an assignment and how they muscled their way through it or maybe, what is it you enjoyed and didn’t enjoy about your last project.

i is for intellect. Besides the dictionary definition – an ability to reason objectively, I stretch here by including an ability, willingness, and capacity to learn. I’m looking for a lifelong learner which might be exhibited in either their professional life or personal life. I like to ask, in your recent project, program, assignment what learning objectives did you build into the plan prior to its start and which of them did you achieve, and which did you defer.

o is for opinion. What I’m looking for here is someone who has an opinion, informed by fact, and maybe backed by a little intuition and is willing to express that opinion, take a position, bring it up in a scrum or planning increment or an ideation workshop. Diversity is a cornerstone of great, both diversity in the make-up of the team and diversity in the ideas and opinions offered by various members of the team. But we don’t get to hear them if the team members don’t express them. Ask them about a time informed by some research they conducted where they expressed a position contrary to what was being developed in a group conversation and how did the team respond to that expression of their opinion.

Your thoughts?