Whether it is your first or last employee, does not make any difference in my world, because you are hiring an ambassador for your organization. Hiring is not about filling a seat or getting a warm body to do a job, it needs to be a strategic action. My top tip is very simple: “Hire the smile and train the skill.”

As a business expert who teaches and works with Human Resource Professionals, it is clear that companies are now hiring the smile and training the skill. Companies, regardless of their industry, are in the relationship business. 74% of HR professionals today say that people with emotional intelligence, which are people who are great at building relationships, are their top hiring priority. 

The one thing that anyone in a leadership role has discovered over the years, whether you are a small or large business is; you cannot train people to smile. This starts with the interviewing process and if the first (or last) employee will be using a telephone as part of their job duty, you should interview everyone over the telephone first. It takes five minutes to interview prospects over the telephone and no less than 30 minutes in person.

If you interview prospects over the telephone first and you don’t like their phone voice, then why would you invite them in for an in-person interview or consider hiring them? Over the telephone, 14% of how your company is judged is the content of the person’s message (the words they use), but 86% is the quality of their voice. The customer is going to try to determine if your employee is friendly, knowledgeable, compassionate, helpful and many other things, simply by their voice. A smile is not only important in-person, but on the telephone as well because customers can hear if you are smiling.

If the prospective employee passes the “smiling voice test” then invite them in for an in-person interview and look to see if they have a great smile. Do they connect with you on an emotional level and the question is; do you really like them? If they can connect with you and build a relationship with you, then they will more than likely do the same with customers. This is the person you want to hire and then train them to do the “stuff” you need done.

I am also a fan of pre-employment testing, so once you make the decision to hire a person, I would still ask them to take a pre-employment test that evaluates their cognitive skills as well so you can determine if this person is smart and can handle challenging situations (and not just smile). If you hire everyone with this same philosophy in mind, your chances of success go up dramatically.

Brad Worthley is an accomplished consultant and behavior change specialist with over 
32 years of service culture, personal development and leadership development 
experience.

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