“Why the heck should I hire you?” is a question often fired at Lew Bennett’s interviewees. Says Bennett, veteran industry insider and now CEO of SpineMedica Corp., “I want the whole story on a person, practically from when they were in diapers. Most distributors I know of don’t take the time to thoroughly interview and vet the person. Weeks or months later they’re wondering what went wrong.”
Sometimes the answer to that question is in the mindset of the distributor. “Most people tend to look at hiring as a one-time event,” explains Bennett. “The truth is, however, that hiring is a process, not an event. The majority of distributors I know refuse to work from job descriptions and don’t check references. They are floating around the applicant pool relying solely on their gut reactions to people. Soon enough they learn what a mistake this is.”
But such an epiphany doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to hire going forward. Lew Bennett, whose interviews are all two hours, says part of the problem is that distributors are under pressure to fill a position. “They give up and settle for the best of the lot instead of pursuing the best of the best. A distributor should make a commitment to himself or herself to get the right person for the right job—no matter how long it takes. Ask the right questions and check references. After an interview, I check between ten and fifteen references. Three weeks ago I interviewed someone I thought I knew. He had been fired, but that sometimes happens through no fault of the employee. My instinct told me something was wrong, however, so after calling ten people, I phoned the last five and got the full story on this person. Being diligent saved me from a huge hiring mistake.”
Think of how much time you typically spend preparing to interview someone. If you’ve glanced at their resume, you may be ahead of the pack. Lew Bennett: “In most interviewing situations, the person walking in the door is more prepared than the interviewer, who oftentimes doesn’t have a solid idea of what he or she is looking for. When you need someone is the wrong time to interview because you’re desperate. I recommend spending one day per week interviewing. This allows you to create a background of people, as well as sharpen your recruiting skills.”
So you’ve decided to do a turnaround in your interviewing process. Where to start? “I recommend that you interview each sales candidate three times,” states Lew. “Before this, however, you should do a ranking of your existing sales force to determine the common qualities that distinguish successful reps from unsuccessful ones. I developed a template where I rank employees as ‘excellent,’ ‘good,’ ‘acceptable,’ or ‘low.’ Then I get to the details by doing an assessment of a variety of factors, including: how they impact others, judgment, verbal communication, planning, motivation, stability, persistence, ambition, etc.”
And what does Mr. Bennett recommend for the first interview? Essentially, shut up and listen. “Frequently, employers do the majority of the talking in an interview. In the first meeting in particular, you should talk 15% and listen 85%. How else would you get concrete knowledge about the person?”
In this first interview, your talking should be focused on questions. Lew Bennett: “You should formulate your questions in order to get the exact information you want. And to know the answer you want, ask the questions of yourself first. I start out looking for several things. For one, I want to make sure someone has a positive mental attitude. If you hire a negative person, they will poison others’ attitudes and will be a constant productivity and management problem. To assess attitude, I ask questions such as, ‘How do you bounce back?’ and ‘Do you feel lucky?’ If they say, ‘You make your own luck,’ that’s not good enough. I want someone who says, ‘I feel very lucky’ because they will look for, and find, the good. Second, I want to ensure they will make a commitment to the company and our customers, come what may. In this arena, I might ask ‘Tell me what happened when you lost a sale.’ Third, they need to be loyal. To assess loyalty, I would talk to their peers and ask, ‘Tell me what kind of management they like? Is he a team player? Does he help others?’”
And whoever your applicant is, he or she is likely going to do in the future what they’ve done in the past. For this reason, Lew says, “You need to identify their successful behavior patterns. Using my own scale of 14 items, I look at things such as initiative, direct management success, whether or not they have made money, risk tolerance, organizational skills, persistence, etc. If they don’t have at least 80% of these, I don’t hire them. As the interviewer, you must be clear on the following: what standards of education you need; the quality of their past work (for example, four years of sales at xyz level); what skills they have (look for self-motivated people with charisma who are articulate, energetic, and driven); and your expectations (must have sold to hospitals or clinics and developed new accounts).”
At this point, Lew is just getting warmed up. “At the second interview, I have what I call the Lifeline interview, six pages of questions that I go over with the applicant. I want to have as broad a picture of this person as possible. To accomplish this, I begin with their high school years, asking questions that would help me assess their level of commitment to an endeavor, as well as their leadership experience. I also ask every applicant how old they were when they made their first dollar and what that was like for them. I write down everything they say so as to have the full picture of this person.” (At one point Lew considered working for the CIA, but he didn’t like the uniforms.)
So you have your book on this person. Along the way, remember to be observant about the way they behave and the way they answer the questions. Mr. Bennett: “You have to give your instinct some space to operate. On one occasion, instead of completing the questionnaire, a female applicant stapled her resume to the application. Against my better judgment, I hired her. What a mistake. She turned out to be marginally productive when I was around; when I was out of town she didn’t do anything.”
“Remember,” says Lew Bennett, “if an applicant fails, it won’t be because of their strengths, it will be because of their weaknesses. Too many employers focus solely on strengths and fail to weed out the skill or personality issues that will be problematic later on.”
Speaking of problems later on, Lew has a strong recommendation. “After you’ve chosen your star and sent ‘I’m sorry to inform you’ letters to the applicants you didn’t select, some of the latter group may call you. They are likely interested in knowing why they weren’t hired. Don’t get into this issue. Depending on that person’s motivation, you could end up in legal trouble. Just say, ‘I found the person I was looking for.’ I would, in fact, recommend that everyone get training on how to interview. Some questions that sound innocent to a friendly interviewer are actually illegal.”
Lew Bennett says, “Learn from me. Every time I’ve made a hiring mistake it’s because I took short cuts and/or failed to thoroughly vet the person. Don’t hire on personality and be careful not to give in to the temptation to hire people like you. Get one or two really good hiring books and read nightly. I recommend How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling, by Frank Bettger.”
Finally, Mr. Bennett wants the reader to understand the importance of a positive attitude. “Look,” says Lew, “a negative person is the kind who goes to an orgy and then complains about the cheese dip. Weed out these people.”
One presumes the positive person skips the orgy and gets a good night’s rest for the next day’s work.
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