Category: Management

(Image: shot using my Nokia 3110 and polished off with Paint.Net)

The following story was sent to me by a close friend. Brilliant. Read on.

A little boy went into a drug store, reached for a soda carton and pulled it over to the telephone. He climbed onto the carton so that he could reach the buttons on the phone and proceeded to punch in seven digits (phone numbers).

The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation:

Boy: “Lady, Can you give me the job of cutting your lawn?
Woman: (at the other end of the phone line): “I already have someone to cut my lawn.”

Boy: “Lady, I will cut your lawn for half the price of the person who cuts your lawn now.”

Woman: I’m very satisfied with the person who is presently cutting my lawn.

Boy: (with more perseverance): “Lady, I’ll even sweep your curb and your sidewalk, so on Sunday you will have the prettiest lawn in all of Palm beach, Florida .”

Woman: No, thank you.

With a smile on his face, the little boy replaced the receiver. The store-owner, who was listening to all this, walked over to the boy.

Store Owner: “Son… I like your attitude; I like that positive spirit and would like to offer you a job.”

Boy: “No thanks,

Store Owner: But you were really pleading for one.

Boy: No Sir, I was just checking my performance at the job I already have. I am the one who is working for that lady, I was talking to!”

This is what we call “Self Appraisal”

There are some very important personality-analysis questions, that one should ask, while interviewing a person. I re-emphasize here, these are over and beyond the technical interview that one needs to do – to make sure the interviewee (if hired), will do his/her job well.
Trent @ simpledollar does a wonderful job in summarizing this. Some questions that I routinely ask (and are mentioned in this post) are:

4. Describe to me the position you’re applying for.
11. Tell me about the most difficult project you ever faced.
21. Are you applying for other jobs?
23. Where do you see yourself in your career in five years?
24. What are your long-term goals – say, fifteen years down the road?

Each of these questions give a good feel of the candidates energy, and honesty. Read the full article here.

DLB has a brilliant article on how to hire (and how not to hire actually). He writes this piece, detailing him hiring a person based on his previous method of interview, and how it failed. He then does a post-mortem, and shares his current way of interviewing. One neat idea that he proposes is to setup a 60 minute interview. Ask your technical questions for 40 minutes, and stop. With the candidate having informed that it was a 60 minute interview, now ask him, how he felt about the job. Ask him how he feels the interview is going. Observe him. If he is unsure, and shifty, then you know — this guy is probably just a master of interviews. Do you really want to hire him.

Then, with about 10 minutes left, give him a problem to work out right there (a problem which resembles the real-world job that you are about to entrust to him). A problem which would take atleast 60 minutes. Does he groan? Does he say that he needs to leave (it is perfectly fine, if he has a legit reason, but is he trying to weedle out?)

I would want to add a couple of things that I do as well:

I usually give the candidate to ask a few questions. This can gauge the amount of interest that he has in joining your organization. Observe how deep his questions are. Make sure the are not superficial ones (like how is your corporate culture – that is a textbook question).

I also ask the candidate to describe in his own words – what he understood about the job he is applying for. Is he just describing what was in your job description? Is he being more verbose? Did he go through your corporate website before he came in to the interview?

The full article from DLB is here.

The simple dollar has an amazing article on working smart.
He talks about how people should first stop blaming other people for what they are doing.

The paragraph that I liked best, and I paraphrase here:

Folks of various ethnicities would complain about white folks, women would complain about men, white men would complain about rich people, liberals would blame “trickle-down Reaganomics” conservatives, conservatives would blame “socialist” liberals. Everyone had “the man” holding them down, and they looked for someone else to blame.

He has listed a long list of things that anyone can do, to better himself/herself. A very well thought-of list.The simple dollar has done it again. Kudos !

Read the full article here.