Bespoke Hiring Masterclass: 5 FAQs

It’s 12:47pm on Wednesday afternoon, which means that our Bespoke Hiring Masterclass ended 47 minutes ago. And I’m beaming. It was our most registered masterclass to date. We had a great live showing, and that was a fraction of the registrants. If I knew how to do a cartwheel, I would do just that.

Internally, there are lots of reasons why this masterclass was such a milestone within Ellevated Outcomes. Externally, the reasons are clear: Julia and Dana did an incredible job teaching (IMHO). Takeaway for me: only teach long-form content in duos, in the future! The dynamic between two people with great rapport makes content more engaging; and in this case, it was powerful to hear Dana’s POV on “Here’s what this [as a recipient] feels like.” It was a highly personal case study that shared a powerful story, examples, and emotion. I learned a lot from hearing the facts and feelings in this format.

One thing I’ve learned over the past few years of live teaching is that the audience questions are the most important part. I think of it this way: the questions are your market research. They’re a peek into “What doesn’t the audience know? How did they interpret this information? What do they need more or less of?” And an Ellevated Outcomes fave: “What are their objections?” So today as a mini-recap, I want to share 5 questions that arose before, during, and after the Bespoke Hiring Masterclass.

1. When I’m illustrating my ideal employee in the Job Posting, what if I’ve never had an ideal employee? That means: I don’t know who I’m trying to replicate and describe.

First of all, don’t worry. This is going to be true for every small business owner in the beginning and heck: sometimes even years in. Maybe you’ve made lots of hires, and you still haven’t found your dream employee. You can go about this in two ways.

1. If you’ve made hires before (just not ideal ones), you can “quilt” together the great qualities among various employees you’ve had, and combine those for your dream employee illustration. Also ensure that you note qualities you’ve experienced that are not ideal. Include the inverse of those.

For example, during one Ellevated Outcomes exit interview, a former employee said, “I’m not sure that I really like helping people.” In the moment, I swallowed my eyeroll and exasperated laugh. Then as soon as the meeting was over, I updated our job posting to say

Your greatest motivation is doing exceptional work with exceptional people, to benefit other exceptional people.

It never would’ve occurred to me that I had to cite this in a job post. Lesson learned.

2. If you don’t have internal experience to draw from, choose a “muse” from the market. Surely you’ve seen someone IRL – or even online (you don’t have to know them) – who’s piques your interest. You just feel like they’d be your dream pick. Here’a a piece of Ellevated Outcomes lore: before I’d met Cara Jackson IRL, I’d written a Strategist job posting, describing her. So you can imagine my secret glee when she later told me: “My husband read it and said, ‘This is you.'” <Insert evil laugh>

2. When I’m considering where to find my ideal employee, what if they don’t hang out anywhere? They’re a busy professional (parent) like me.

Everyone “hangs out” somewhere / with someone. It may not be in a work-related space. Think about your ideal employee as a full person. If they’re a busy parent, they may be at their kids’ sporting events. Or spending their non-work time with a girlfriend at happy hour. They’re at a workout class or in their local council meeting. Your job posting should find your person where they are (not the other way around). Put it in these places. In front of their people. Who knows your ideal client better than they know themselves? Their friends, partner, hairdresser, personal trainer.

3. I know some prominent people in my industry with a lot of reach and respect. But the idea of asking for the favor of them sharing my job post makes me nervous. Any tips or advice?

Yes! For the person you’re asking (we’d call them a center of influence), it doesn’t feel like a favor. It feels like good business. A good business person is thrilled to add value and help people they care about in business. When you approach them with this ask, you’re saying: “I admire and respect you.” That’s flattering!

The key is to ensure you’re making it as easy as possible for them. If you have a well-written job post and can say to your COI: “This is who and what I’m looking for, and you’ve got a high caliber network where I think this person may be.” This is serving it to them on a silver platter. And BTW: this increases your reputation and social capital too.

4. How much of the hiring process is role fit versus culture fit?

In small business world, I say 60% role and 40% culture. They are equally important when you have someone in. However, during the hiring process, the candidate can’t enter your funnel unless they can do the job. It’s a mistake a lot of small businesses make: hiring people who half do the job. That can go on for a long time, and it doesn’t end well.

You must be clear on what the job is accountable for; and someone who doesn’t have the skills, desire, or capacity to do the job cannot be hired, no matter how much everyone likes them.

5. What’s the sell, and what’s the anti-sell?

I learned this terminology and practice from Matt Mochary. In the CEO Within, he describes “the sell” as:

Your decision to hire the candidate is only one part of the equation. The next and even more critical part is selling the candidate on joining your company. The key is to put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. Find out what they care about. And then care about it yourself.

Then to the contrary, the anti-sell is candidly sharing what they won’t like about the job. Look: no one loves every part of their job. Also: every job comes with surprises. Things you weren’t anticipating. So get ahead of this by eliminating as many surprises as you can. I kick this off by saying: “Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way…” or “Here’s where I’ve watched other people in your role struggle…”

The anti-sell is almost trying to talk your candidate out of the job, to make sure they really want it. Of course, balance this with selling too. Don’t only anti-sell, ha. You can hear more about this in Matt Mochary’s interview with Tim Ferriss (Effective and Efficient Recruiting is at 49:05).

Thank you again to those of you who registered for our Bespoke Hiring Masterclass. The Ellevated Outcomes Ecosystem continues to be just as warm as you are brilliant. We are lucky to keep your business company.