Episode #35 -- The Top Five Interviewing Mistakes Cleaning Business Owners Make

Jean Hanson

Is employee turnover getting you down? Are you used to using your gut instinct to make hiring decisions?  Unfortunately, gut instinct isn't enough these days. Job hunters know how to play the hiring game so they'll probably tell you what you want to hear unless you know how to avoid these five common mistakes when interviewing job applicants.

If you'd like to put systems into place for hiring employees, check out the webinar, How to Hire *STAR* Employees for Your Cleaning Company.

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Episode #35 - Video Transcription

Employee retention continues to be a hot topic among cleaning business owners. It's such a challenge to find and retain good help these days, isn't it? But one of the things I've noticed is that it's very easy to place the blame for turnover on the poor quality people available, or a number of other issues that is the fault of the employee. But how many of you have asked yourself, "what did I do wrong?"  Did I choose the wrong person, did I not do a good enough job of training? As business owners, we are not perfect, and hiring is certainly a subjective part of what we do.

We often rely on our gut instincts when making hiring decisions. But many cleaning business owners make the same mistakes when interviewing potential employees, so I put together a list of the top five interviewing mistakes cleaning business owners make.

Number One. Not creating a job description. You want to hire the best person for the job, but how can you do that if you haven't even defined what "the best" is? And creating a job description is more than just listing the tasks they will perform. It also needs to describe the specific skills needed, and the type of attitude and personality traits needed to be successful in this position.

Number Two. Making hiring decisions based on first impressions. A University of Chicago report states that 90 percent of interviewers decide whether they like someone or not in 14 seconds or less. So if you decide that you like someone that fast, chances are you won't bother asking the hard questions that could change your mind. So put aside your first impressions and start asking those tough questions. If you don't, you could end up regretting your decision to hire the person when it doesn't work out.

Number Three. Interviewing from the resume. Why in the world would that be a mistake? Two reasons. First, resumes lie (or at least tell you want you want to hear). And second, it puts the the applicant in control of the interview!  Let's say the applicant puts on his resume that he won an award for outstanding customer service. Your natural response to seeing that is to ask, "what did you do to receive the award?". Now he can rattle off his rehearsed response to that question, which may or may not be the truth. You've done exactly what he wanted you to do - ask the questions he prepared for. Instead, throw him off guard by asking the hard questions he's not expecting.

Number Four. Not asking the right questions. How many times have you said: "Tell me about yourself", or "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Every applicant knows these questions are coming and has probably even rehearsed their answers! Instead ask more probing questions. A good example is to start a question with, "Tell me about a time when..."  This puts them into a very specific situation and tells you a lot about how they respond to difficult situations. For example, "Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an irate customer. How did you handle it?" Here's a question they probably aren't expecting: "Tell me three things that you learned from your last job." In fact you could ask that same question about their previous THREE jobs. Their answers will give you a good idea of the applicant's work ethic and commitment to the job.

Number Five. Talking too much. Remember in number two I talked about first impressions? If your gut is telling you this is a good candidate, then you'll probably skip over some of the tough questions and move right into telling the applicant about the job. That's a huge mistake because you can't learn anything about the applicant if YOU are doing the talking! Here is a good rule of thumb when interviewing applicants - the applicant should do the talking at least 80 percent of the time. So be quiet and let them do the talking!

Ok, those are the top five interviewing mistakes, but in reality there are a few more, such as; asking illegal questions, hiring based only on the interview, and putting too much emphasis on past work experience. Do any of these mistakes sound familiar?  What I'd like to do is continue the discussion below this video. Answer this qauestion -- what interviewing mistakes have YOU made in the past and what did you learn from it? Post your comments below the video at CleaningBiz.tv.

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