The employee and the parallelism of the table.

Regarding the correct selection of personnel there are dozens of opinions and analyses, according to which we can distinguish an employee who can be a competent and dynamic piece that will come as an adequate fit to the already “difficult” puzzle of our business.

Many times, we go into the process of thoroughly analyzing the characteristics of our prospective partner, resulting into  complicating, the already complicated selection process. Talking with our clients we always try to explain to them that the simplest way to make a first serious approach to whether this person can be our next member is to ask them to imagine this person as a table with four legs.

These four legs that support our table are the following characteristics that every employee has:

• Experience / expertise: What has this person done up to date? Does he seem to know the job or do we have the feedback about him that tells us so? Is this person’s previous experience / know-how such, that he can fit into our space?
• The dynamic / evolution: Do we see in our candidate a dynamic that can make us think that beyond today? Will tomorrow with this person have logic and continuity? Is it a movement that will probably have a future development?
• The cost: Each candidate evaluates his monetary claim differently. Is his claim close to ours? Does the money and other benefits our potential partner wants match what we can and think is worth giving them?
• The character / personality: this is where a very difficult process begins. Do we have the experience to judge or guess the character of our candidate? If so, will this character fit in our team? Will he/she be able to collaborate, perform, grow and evolve our business? Are we, as his/her employers, willing to accept his special characteristics?

By adding these four legs we have the first idea if our table is solid and we can lean on it to enjoy our work. A general rule of thumb tells us that if all four legs are strong we are well on our way! If just one or two legs are fine, maybe we should consider finding an employee that suits us better. If three legs are fine and the fourth is "lame" then we must calculate the cost to “repair” the leg that is troubling us and if we can accept it we move on. A word of advice . . . . If the leg that worries us the most is the character of the candidate, it is better to let it go. . . . This leg is difficult to fix and experience has shown us that our efforts are almost always fruitless.

Do you want to evaluate the table legs together? We look forward to your call!