Friday, October 7, 2011

Finding the Perfect Fit

Over the last couple weeks, I've noticed an increasing amount of stories about US companies finding great new employees from our military veteran community.  As one such company I can attest that hiring a veteran was the best decision we have made in business thus far.

Neither Ryan or I had experience hiring an employee.  And with a string of bad hires on construction projects over the years, we were scared that we would make the wrong decision when it can time to bring someone on board.  In turn it took us 3 years to take a leap of faith. 

The tricky part was that the business is not cash positive yet.  It pays for  rent, utilities, raw goods and marketing every month, but that is all it pays for.  Still we felt that bringing on an extra hand made sense to allow Ryan to do what he does best by selling.  So we decided to place an advertisement on Craigslist in the gigs section because that section is free.  Unfortunately you get what you pay for and we had a series of relatively unmotivated unemployed workers who seemed to feel entitled to having their cake and eating it to.  After a few face to face interviews we started to doubt that there was anyone out there who would be able to work for what we could afford and who would have a passion for what we do.

Determined to find someone I convinced Ryan that we should place a formal job posting on Craigslist at a price of $20 for the month.  The investment was well worth it.  Within a matter of minutes applications were pinging my inbox and continued to for 3 straight days! Of the applicants I'd say that 75% stated some form of military background.  Most had been discharged without deployment.  Of those 90% were from the Marine Corps.  Coming from a strong military family background, I was immediately excited by the possibility of hiring one of these candidates. 
However when some of these applicants arrived for the interview it was painfully clear why they were relieved of their duties.  Most had served their terms and now lived their life without a future goal and no idea what they wanted out of their lives.  Some had family issues which would have proven difficult in our fluctuating schedule and others really needed a structured work environment we knew were couldn't provide. 

The economic downturn also left many technologically qualified workers without employment especially with Oregon's high amount of technology fields.  Even though we knew that someone with a degree in engineering and or computer aided drafting would likely tire of making rocks quickly we invited a couple into the shop for a sit down.  One gentlemen in particular seemed as though he might actually be a good fit.  He was determined, focused and sounded like he had his feet on the ground.  But once it came time to have him in for the second interview he never responded to our requests and completely fell off the face of the planet.

From the beginning of the process, I felt that a person younger than us, possibly in school would make a good addition to our team.  The thought was that younger people can be more open to learning and with little financial burdens they can be a bit more flexible on pay and hours.  Going on this theory we talked with 3 candidates who might fit the bill.  All three were in their early 20's, high school graduates or GED holders and had experience in a wide range of labor jobs.  The first candidate had a young family to support as well as a prior arrest yet we thought he might have the drive we were looking for and we invited him to the 2nd interview.  The second candidate had graduated for Ryan and my alma mater and was attending college part time while also raising a small daughter and living with his parents.  Again we thought he might be a good fit and we invited him to the 2nd interview.  Finally there was a young man who had taken a 1:30 hour bus ride from the other side of town to meet with us.  He insisted that the mother of his child with whom he was estranged would allow him to crash at her apartment on the days we needed his help. He was also a recovering alcoholic with only 60 days sobriety under his belt - needless to say a little too much to handle for us.

Two hours before we were going to stop interviewing completely we received an application from a young man with a background in the Marines, who lived very close by, attended part-time classes and held a second job.  At that point we'd narrowed our search down to 5 candidates and where pretty decided on one of them but thought we'd give the guy a chance.  That decision was the best one we could have ever made.

Bert walked in as our last interview.  He had been relieved of duty because of a kidney problem military medics discovered.  Having undergone the riggers of basic training his discharge earned him full military benefits including grants to help him continue his education in his chosen field of Geology.  He had no priors, no history of addiction and no family drama back home.  Really he almost seemed too good to be true.  So we asked him to join the other 5 candidates for a walk through of the shop and briefing of the job requirements.  He was the first to arrive, the last to leave and the only one who took us up on our offering of Krispy Creme donuts and coffee. As soon as everyone took their leave it was obvious to both Ryan and I that he was the person for the job.

Excited to share the news we offered him the job that afternoon and I made the mistake of announcing it on our Facebook fan page soon after.  The reason I say that it was a mistake is because I hadn't thanked all the other 2nd interview candidates yet and one of them was following the page.  When he saw that he had not made the cut, he was angry and blasted us publicly for being unprofessional.  Really it made him look like a sore looser and once Ryan called to explain he deleted his rant but that incident showed us how close we were to making a very bad decision, we were thankful we dodged that bullet!

One thing this process taught us was that you should never settle for less than we need.  Both Ryan and I had decided that our little position was only going to attract someone with little motivation or who had no other means of getting work.  We were open to hiring someone who needed to be given a second chance at the expense of our own ethics.  I'm glad that someone out there was watching over us and didn't let us settle for less than we needed or deserved.