Don’t Recruit a Ventriloquist Who Hates Talking

October 10, 2007

In Agencies, Lies and Lazy Girls I shared my first staff recruitment mistake.

Employing people can be tough, and unfortunately, I didn’t get it right when I tried to replace her either. You wouldn’t recruit a ventriloquist who doesn’t like talking would you? Well, I did. And here’s what can go wrong.

1) When You Write A Job Ad That Sucks - You Attract Candidates That Suck: I’d never had any experience in writing job ads. But, I wrote one anyway. And it attracted plenty of people, but not one single one was anywhere near right for the job. With hindsight, I should’ve got someone with experience to write the ad, or at least learned the basics of writing one.

2) Don’t Believe Everything Your Read In Books: By the time I interviewed the final applicant, I was becoming desperate. She was really nice, but I knew she wasn’t right for the job. For a start, the job involved making and receiving a lot of telephone calls to book in jobs. And she did tell me in the interview that she didn’t really feel confident using the phone, but she was willing to give it a try.

Well, I foolishly saw this as a challenge. I’d read somewhere that you could train absolutely anyone to do any job. And, I was silly enough to believe it.

3) If Someone Wants To Leave Hold The Door Open For Them: We practised calls a lot. I wrote scripts for inbound and outbound calls, and I would go into the other room and play customer. And my new employee got on with her job and everything seemed great. So I ignored all warning signs to the contrary.

Other members of staff said that my new assistant sounded so down on the phone, that it made them feel miserable when they spoke to her. Then after a month, a note arrived on my desk saying she wanted to leave - she was really unhappy. The computer system was too complicated, and she really couldn’t cope with the phone calls. She hated it.

Now, I really should have listened to what she was saying. She hated her job - hated speaking on the phone - hated the computer system. But, instead, I persuaded her to stay. All she needed was a bit more practice and training and in a couple of months time she would love it right? Wrong.

4) You Should Always Have a Back Up Plan: As Asako pointed out, in a recent comment, you should be looking for new staff and interviewing year round, as it is difficult to find the right people.

I didn’t do this. I carried on with the belief that against all the odds, I was going to train this woman to be the best assistant on the planet. Then we got really busy at work - we had a claims surge, and some of the staff were on holiday. And naturally, she cracked, because we now had a whole heap more of the work that she hated doing, and she couldn’t cope. So, she gave me a months notice.

Whatever Happens, Don’t Be a Doormat: The months notice came with a clause. She would do the bare minimum eg - just answer the phone, as she found it too stressful to do the whole job. Now, you should never agree to pay someone their full salary to do the bare minimum. But, I did. I figured that having my phone answered was better than nothing. And since we were short staffed and I was also covering the jobs of staff on holiday, I simply worked all my waking hours and only slept four hours a night. It wasn’t enough, and we got desperately behind with paperwork. And it took a long time to catch up.

But, it was all my own fault. And if you find yourself in the same situation, don’t recruit a candidate who doesn’t like certain aspects of the job. There will be someone out there who is the right fit - you just have to keep looking. And never try to persuade someone to stay when they want to leave.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Don’t Recruit a Ventriloquist Who Hates Talking”

Barbara on October 10th, 2007 9:27 pm

Catherine,

I don’t envy you, having to look for good employees.

Employees……Wow, over the past 15 years, we have had our share. My file drawer of past applicants, proves that.

One thing we do a lot of the time, is when an employee gives us their notice, we just tell them they can leave “today”.

From experience, my husband found that once they give their notice, their “mind” has already left the job, and their performance decreases radically.

He said that in a lot of these instances, all that is left, is a mindless, “warm body”.

In other instances, we have called a “day laborer” agency, and just ordered “3 warm bodies”, since the work they will be performing is pretty mindless.

Finding good employees these days is difficult. You do want to give them a “chance”, but unfortunately, a lot of them really don’t even want to work.
Asako on October 15th, 2007 1:07 am

I agree with Barbara. If someone wants to leave, let the person go on that day, if that is feasible from legal perspectives. Otherwise, it will start impacting on the office morale.

Employees are not stupid, so they tend to notice that some one is having the hard time, doing the minimum, and still getting paid full.

Unfortunately, the office is filled with gossips. No matter how much works I give to my team in my ex-employer, I noticed people still spend time gossiping. Particularly, they like these cases that someone is obviously not coping. (I guess that is the human nature??)

I hope you will find her replacement soon. Does your agency help you to find a temp? Hiring a temp with a trial period is a good way of having someone available, but giving a trial first.
Catherine Lawson on October 17th, 2007 7:05 am

Barbara - that is definitely something I will be doing in the future. Thanks.

Asako - Sorry, I should have explained properly. This is something that happened about 4 years ago, not recently. The employee in question found a different job, which was more the kind of thing she enjoys, so everything worked out fine in the end.