10 Warning Signs of a Bad Hire

• Skillwork’s website
• Skillwork’s LinkedIn
• Skillwork’s YouTube channel

• Rveal’s website
• Rveal’s LinkedIn
• Rveal’s YouTube channel

Full Transcription: 

“The following text was generated using a transcription service and may contain errors.”

Tim Raglin  00:08

Well, hello, and welcome again to the score Forum. I'm Tim. As usual, I'm joined with my friend, my partner, Brett here, we gather on these podcasts and talk about industry issues, emerging trends and challenges surrounding the skilled trades. So today we're going to kind of talk about a reality if you're in the business of recruiting betting, hiring new employees, which I assume all of you either are or maybe you're somebody looking for a job. So today, we're going to talk about the fact that this whole thing is not an exact science. When you hire people, when you bring people on to your company. Sometimes it just doesn't turn out the way that you expected or hoped it would or planned for it. And so despite our best efforts and your best efforts in recruiting and vetting great candidates, it's still possible sometimes to make a bad hire. In fact, I looked at some stats were at close to half of all new hires fail within the first 18 months. And I would say probably closer to, you know, less time now I think that that window is shrinking, we thought we put together some signs of a bad hire. Some of these are pretty obvious, you know, the old captain obvious commercial, some of them may be a little bit more subtle. And it's interesting as last time in the podcast, we talked about how to effectively on board and you know, that if you effectively onboard people mitigates a lot of these, but so we came up with, we thought were 10 signs that you may have made a bad hire, and maybe a few ideas on how to mitigate?

Brett Elliott  01:31

Yeah, I think so. 10. I mean, you know, it's like you said, I mean, we're all so we need talent, you know, in our space, you know, skilled trade talent. And so I think sometimes you can almost want to overlook the signs. And like you said, it's probably why it's 18 months, when you probably should have been about six days. You have to have a level of patience, we talked about that, in onboarding, you can't get to sometimes I don't think you give a person time to settle. And so there is that piece, but you know, so So the first one that we identified, and I think this is one that is probably one of the most difficult in the interviewing process, and that is the skills are not what you expected. You know, what's really tough to figure out is some people are just really good interviewers, as the saying goes, you know, when you get them on site, you know, they're kind of all hat, no cattle, you know, that is, it's, it's something that usually shows up pretty quick as that person to, you know, wire a motor, and they've told you, they're an electrician, and they and they can't, that's a pretty good sign that maybe they embellish something on their resume, or like I said, they just were really, really polished, a good interview, or there might be a reason they're going to interview because they probably interview a lot, because they probably get fired a lot. Yeah. And so that becomes, you know, but we see it. I mean, we have people, you know, the ones that are hard to figure out are the ones that they're not great interviewers, but they really know their stuff trying to vet that out is is can be a real challenge.

Tim Raglin  03:00

Yeah, I was just thinking of this as you were talking about that. People not showing up with the talent that you thought so just a real real life story has popped into my head, but think I may have totally gotten over story. So I was doing, I was actually hiring, looking to hire and we were searching across the country, we were doing virtual interviews for this position, very, very unique skill set. Very, very crucial what we were doing, you had to really know this tool, and this process very well. So trying to find the candidate was hard. And we finally found we thought was a great candidate. We had a couple levels of interviews with this individual over a virtual interview, we could see each other like a Zoom meeting. And guy was really on point professional and knew all the answers. And I thought we hit a home run, move them across country brought him in whole nine yards, you know, paid to relocate him came in the first day and I told my folks that he was going to be working with I said, Hey, I want to meet him. Make him feel welcome the first day. So call me down, we'll come down the foyer. So I went down and the gentleman walked in. I'm like, I know you don't sometimes look the same on camera. But I still like hanging it doesn't look like that guy at all. And he starts talking I'm like, doesn't even send this guy's got a pretty heavy accent. Um, I don't remember that. And so, Mike, well, you know, I kind of just welcome aboard and forgot about a few days later. Like I checked in with my my, one of my guy, guys, that was his supervisor. Hey, how's it going with Joe? We'll call him Joe. How's it going? Joe? And he goes, not great. I don't think he knows anything about this. That's why he's probably nervous. You know, let it get settled in. I'll check back with you at the end of the week. And he comes in and then a week I remember I was I had to drive off campus for a meeting I call him he goes this guy doesn't know even how to turn the thing on. I mean, he knew nothing. And I'm like you gotta be kidding me goes nowhere. I started he my guy was telling me I started pressing him. And he admitted that wasn't him on the interview it was a friend of his that all the interviews and he literally drove across country not knowing anything. So I said, Well, I almost want to keep the guy just for his oil baldness. But But I told I told my guy I said, Well, he's Did you? What did you do? He said, Well, I fired him. And I'm like, Well, yeah, so that's number one. Go ahead.

Brett Elliott  05:22

Just Just for the record, that was when that wasn't skill word that was his

Tim Raglin  05:27

previous life. But I was like, couldn't believe it. The guy he didn't know. Yeah, that was that was a

Brett Elliott  05:34

that's yeah, that's going over the one thing to embellish a resume. You know, we've, we've seen, you know, college football coaches, you know, you know, it's, you know, things that people think won't get exposed. I mean, at some point, you're gonna figure it out. And the skilled trades if you can't, if you can't do it, and in that case, like I said, it's just it's kind of, it's kind of crazy.

Tim Raglin  05:54

Yeah, I mean, to try that you hire guys like, hey, you know, you, I need you to do PCL programming, or PLC programming. And they walk in and they have no idea. I've never even looked at one. So that's, that's not good. Thought. Number one, I just thought of that story. The second one then of our top 10 is attendance issues. And what we hear from many and I'm sure you guys are in the same boat, the idea of we just have to show up, just show up, be here when you're supposed to be here. So if you have somebody that you've hired, and they start early on showing find that they're, they're showing up late, they call on last minute, they just don't show or they have all these excuses why and we have some people and we call them red flags, he began to see and it seemed like a common one was like, Well, I was headed to the plant, but I had a flat tire. Okay, that that can happen. But we've we've even had some that have had like multiple flat tires. Yeah. Like, well, what do we need to do to get you some new tires, because so the idea of, of not being there. So if you've got a if you got somebody you hired, and they should be really on their best behavior early on. And if you make clear that we need you to show up on time, it's crucial. And they're beginning to show attendance issues by calling in or not showing up again. Now there are valid excuses. Sickness does happen. mechanical issues do happen with your vehicle, but it's a trend to be watching for. So this is a sign you made a bad hire if they if they don't take attendance and being on time serious.

Brett Elliott  07:21

Yeah. No doubt about that, you know, a couple of days, like you said, Tim, these are these early indicate you're gonna have some grace initially, I mean, with anybody, some obviously things can can happen. But those reliability flaws that start shoved, they usually they're hard to correct, yeah, they usually don't go away, you hope at some point, that individual will have a realization, whether it's with, sometimes the best thing you can do is fire him to give him a wake up to recognize that, you know, this, this isn't okay, just continuing to tolerate that, you know, is is not good. So it's kind of the same thing. The third one is, they're just a bad culture fit. So again, in that interview process, and that vetting process, no matter how extensive it is, and ours, here, it's Gorgons, it's very extensive process for both internal and traveling guys who would put out in the field, and ladies, but a bad culture fit. And so sometimes you get somebody and you try to vet that, you ask the questions, you know, are they going to work well with other people, or they're going to this that period, skill work, you know, we founded the company, when three very clear values, you know, honor to God and everything, we do values respect back to the trades, and to measure our success, but and then people would positively impact if you don't fit that, you probably won't want to be here very long, not because, you know, we're gonna say mean things to you just, you know, you either fit into that it feels right to be part of that. So not fitting the culture and not being part of the team. That's another one that it's hard to figure out the interview, but you can start to see it pretty quickly once you're on site. Yeah.

Tim Raglin  08:58

And I think it goes to your onboarding and hiring processes to to tie that into this because, you know, how do you avoid that we sometimes we get fixated on just the skills and the experience. And it's really important that that needs to be kind of the entry level stakes to get it you know, to get in the interview. After that, you really got to focus on those sort of things that are important to your organization. And a lot of times if we don't have the right people in the interview process that are going to be working with them every day you miss on those cold culture things. And it's crucial, it's really important, I would say that probably half of our what we call a negative outcome when we have a candidate that's not a good fit somewhere or because they're just they don't fit in with your culture or with your team's rhythm and how you do what you do there. So it's really an important one. So that's those are the first three number four then is kind of along with this, but it's really this self important or really arrogant attitude. And sometimes you have that that candidate that shows up and they Think on day one they know more than the guy who's been there for 20 years. And you know, maybe they do know some things, maybe there's some knowledge that they can bring. But that that attitude that know it all attitude can put off your staff, and can put off your team, and really make it very difficult for that individual to fit in. And people like this, you know, often when when new people show up, they're very nervous. And it's just human nature that some people cover up with nervousness and insecurity by coming on strong and overcompensating for that by appearing as though they know more than they know. So a lot of it has to do with onboarding and talking to them and making them feel comfortable and not intimidated. Those those guys that come in, come in being offended at being corrected, I know everything, they won't take constructive criticism, those people you know, like all of these, you need to coach and correct and try to help along. But if that's going to be the way they are, then ultimately, that's probably going to cause you more headaches with your current staff, than then the problem you're trying to alleviate by bringing in someone new. So, again, try to correct that try to coach that, but the know it all the self important arrogant worker, that's a sign of a bad hire. So that's number

Brett Elliott  11:14

four. Yes, yep. And all of these are, you know, as we were discussing here, you know, they're, you tried to pick them up in the vetting interview process, but they're, they're difficult, like I said, you can, what feels to be a strong level of confidence on the interview, then when you get on site, if it maybe it is confidence, that's what you're hoping for that they're very confident in what they do very skilled in what they do. But but if it turns into that arrogance, or that almost a hero muntaner pattern, and Tony always says, you know, hire, you know, hungry, humble, smart. And so, you know, these people, they lack the humility, you know, which can be a challenge. So, another one, and it kind of fits in a lot of these fit into similar personality traits, but somebody that just continues to make the same mistakes or just not, this one can go two ways, you know, you can say they, they're not learning, it's that may not be, don't tell me what to do an arrogant, like, the one before, this may be an aptitude issue where we talked about a minute ago, Jim, you know, having the skills, you know, to do the job is kind of the, that's a given. And we we do here that's go or we do I believe, you know, a really good job of vetting the skills, it's these other pieces, you know, what your aptitude you know, we talk to clients all the time that would rather have somebody that that has a drum and upward growth curve, they learn they're quick learner that that type thing has to somebody where we've showed him this five times, can you continue to make the same mistake, that's a tough one, you know, and when at some point, you have to, again, gotta give it some time, you know, people are not just going to walk in, you know, the difference between, you know, we have it with our internal recruiters, the difference from a recruiter, day one, to once they've been here six months is night and day, you know, you got to give it some time. But they also got to be showing the ability to, to learn and not just repeating the same same issues.

Tim Raglin  13:14

Yeah, I was thinking about this one, early on, when we were first getting going. We were all trying to cover multiple jobs. And there was a period where I was a backup for somebody here that does some of our basic payroll and stuff. So I remember those days very nervous days for me. And yeah, let's just say that I don't care how much time I spend with our great accounting back office team, I am not going to be good at that I just don't have an aptitude for it, you know, to me, close enough is good enough. But that doesn't work in accounting. So, so the good example that and we all have things we're good at, and you gotta sometimes there's just not a good fit. So number six is this kind of gets back to the personality. But we've all experienced that new employee that is, I call it old job syndrome. This is a way we used to do it at my old job, you guys, the way you're doing it here is is not as good, we did it better. And it constantly reminiscing about the old way that we did it. You know, my boss didn't do it that way, or we didn't have our line set up this way or our maintenance program was better and other place you guys are doing it wrong. kind of ties into that, you know, that arrogance, but again, I think a lot of these are protection. You know, the question is begged to ask for them. Why did you leave? If it was so great, you know, what was what was wrong with that. So somebody that tends to come in and disrupt your workforce and continually focus on that I think this one can be corrected with just a little bit of coaching, you know, self awareness, people just lack generally self awareness. And somebody just making them aware of that, that you know, this constant talking about your own place, it's not really setting well with the team here. Why don't you put that in the rearview mirror and work on so the old jawed syndrome that sometimes is a sign of a bad hire, if they can't

Brett Elliott  15:00

Yeah, you can get past that. So yeah, yeah. I mean, we've all seen it, you know, you know, those people that just live in the past, and you got to really have people that are going to grow with your organization, you know, but like you said, I do think that's, that's a coach both and if it's not, then, you know, make the decision.

Tim Raglin  15:15

You know, back in the day, you know, when you were been married a long time. Now, back when you're dating, you need to start dating a girl while she wants to talk about the old boyfriend.

Brett Elliott  15:26

I've been married 31 years and, and so if she's still talking about that, is that a bad time? That is probably best. She doesn't, but she just got over that. So we're having a conversation this morning. I got a podcast today. And I said, I've actually never watched one of our podcasts. He said, Well, I haven't watched him either. So I can say whatever I want on here. So the

Tim Raglin  15:47

I brought that to

Brett Elliott  15:51

say that

Tim Raglin  15:52

we hope you guys watch it, but our wives aren't necessarily big fans.

Brett Elliott  15:56

So the she gets enough for me just straight face to face. The next one is number seven. Number seven. Yep. So that that person that's that, you know, we love the score guys we send out into the field and gals, you know, one of the big things we talked about is are you willing to pitch in and get it done? Whatever you need. Yeah, I know, you're, you're you're a PLC person or this, that, but if they, you know, sometimes they're going to need you to, you know, and those people that have that, that attitude of hey, yes, you know, do I want to do that every day, you know, this is my skill, you know, I want to be utilized my talent, you know, they didn't send me there to do X, you know, this, but, you know, I'm a team player, you know, it's really comes down to, are you a team player, if you're that, you know, there's the saying, you know, you know, not my circus, not my monkey, kind of a thing, you know, there's people unfortunately, they'd rather set in the break room than then help out, that's a sign you know, it's an it's surely an arrogance, it's a little bit of laziness, to write, attend, they're all things that clearly, you've got to coach them out of out of them. Or, again, it's going to disrupt your culture, all these things that we're talking about here. If you accept them, and you tolerate them, you don't coach people up or coach people out, if that's what it takes, eventually has started to erode your culture is the ultimate, you know, impact. Yeah, I

Tim Raglin  17:21

think that's one of the things we found early on, we do we try to vet that out and ask put scenarios out there and see if the people are willing, and this is where reference checks really come in, you know, look at look at a previous employer and ask the question, were they willing to chip in when needed, you know, when the chips were down, if you're in a production facility and the lines down, you got to have everybody willing to jump in, do what it takes. And the idea that's not my job, you know, there's some mentalities exist out there, it's just not good. So that's, that's a sign, maybe you got a bad hire, and potentially something to work on. So number eight, then is a lack of attention to detail. And that's really falls into safety issues, and specific process that affects quality, I'd say quality and safety. And those are the two things where lack of attention to detail really can impact your product line, your customer relations, and just a safety of your employees. So failure to adhere to protocols to guidance and things that you put out. And most of these things have been bedded out for a long time, and they're in there for reason. Again, if you have that person who's arrogant and doesn't want to listen or get offended, if somebody corrects them, they may fall into this. A great example is in a lot of our facilities, lockout tagout. You know, if you don't pay attention to something like a lockout tagout process that will get you walked off out of the facility, you know, and it should, because that's as critical safety. And it's, it's not that hard to do, but it's the the impact if you don't do it is really high. So. And I also think that if you got a new employee, and they're failing to follow these things, and failing to adhere to them, that's going to start deteriorating trust. And the fact that now your supervisor, though, or their new co workers have to look over them their work all the time and check it to make sure it's right. Well, you basically just defeated the purpose of bringing somebody new on because now you've got them doing double work, maybe correcting work. So somebody that refuses to pay attention to key processes, kind of goes back to your culture. If safety is a huge part of your culture, if we do things in this way, it's important to make sure that they understand that and they're adhering to that so that's number eight.

Brett Elliott  19:37

Number nine is just a lack of drive and self starting. So this is somebody that just don't take any initiative to you know, if there's if there's a specific machines down there, they're there they're working on it, but when it's not, is this somebody that's willing to do the extra things do what you know, you know, keep yourself busy. As he, you know, maybe take that time to look through the, you know, study the manual, so that the next time so it really somebody that you don't have to constantly, if you're not telling them, okay, I need you to do this, this and this, they just basically sat back and do nothing, you know, or very little, there's just a lack of drive and that, you know, willingness to be a self starter. So I think it's another one of those something you can you can set an expectation, a lot of these things are, you know, well, what's the, you know, if they see everybody else doing it, then that can kind of become a little bit of that tendency. So part of it for us as, as business leaders or maintenance managers, in this case, maybe, you know, it's it's setting that expectation and letting employees know, but then if they, if this person's kind of leads into the next one, if they're, you know, Tim, you get the 10th one here, but if their personal, it's hard to find, and you know, then that you can kind of start to figure that out. So

Tim Raglin  20:59

yeah, I think that one that you covered there bread, that's kind of a pet peeve of mine, I want to see people that are willing to take, you know, take ownership and what they're doing. And it's important, that people are looking for constant improvement, self learning, trying to get better, if they're not, if that's not their attitude, you know, that's one of the things we look at here that if you're not a self starter and willing to learn on your own, then probably not a good fit for us. So lack of drive is a big deal. So the last one, number 10, we call the incredible vanishing worker. So this is the person that just seems to, you know, like, they should have been a sniper for the Marine Corps or something, they just kind of disappear in a Where's Joe, what needs us here, I'm heading to go, you know, they, they have an inordinate amount of time in the men's room, for example. And, you know, they seem to always be up to date on the latest news and information going on, because they're, they're spending time doing what they shouldn't do. And they always have a lot of excuses. And these people are really good at it, because they always seem to have a viable excuse that hard to disprove. But the bottom line is, they're not there when you need them. Invariably, and they tend to leave shift a little early, they start a little late, and meetings in either math or either show up late or they miss them, and they've got some critical thing they have to do, I was doing this I was doing that it didn't ask for a lot of time off, you know, things that kind of tend to align with their priorities, or they just, they just simply don't show up. So these kinds of folks are really irritating, because remember, number one is just show up. So if they don't, if they do show up, but you can't ever find them, or they're off disappear, and doing something may be a sign that bad hire.

Brett Elliott  22:44

So well in these facilities, you know, talking about on this podcast, you know, 30 plus years in the manufacturing space, and a lot of these facilities that we send our folks out to I mean, they're big facilities, it's pretty easy to hide. I mean, if that's your goal, I mean, and so we hear it we hear from from folks is that, you know, is that type of thing, they're not they're not where you need them when you need them, kind of a thing. And that's, that's usually a bad, a bad sign. They're kind of, you know, get into that habit. So yeah, so those are the 10, you know, there was all of these kinds of feed and there was a list that was kind of running solid a lot on LinkedIn there for a while and I pulled it up for, for this podcast, I think a lot of these things that we just talked about, kind of fall into this. And so I'm gonna read this list, and then we're let Tim, kind of kind of bring this thing home. But you know, these are 10 things that requires zero talent. And if you think back or you want to go back and listen to what we have said, so again, 10 things that requires zero talent that that you're looking for, and your employees being on time, work ethic, effort, body language, energy, attitude, passion, being coachable, doing extra and being prepared. As we said before, the skills are the entry level, you know, we we can we can find the people with with the skills you know, we're really good at that. This is the piece right here, if every every person that we sent out, if they fed ADA these 10 If they would just enter their requires no education, you know, this requires no education. It's just just things that if you bring these you as an employee, and then for the employer makes all the difference in the world and culture and your and your opportunity for a skilled skilled worker specifically.

Tim Raglin  24:38

So yeah, I love that. I think those are those are great and intangible qualities. It'd be great if we had a test that tested those things. The trick is, of course, a lot of these are really hard to uncover and a normal vetting process so no one can predict with 100% certainty how a new employee is going to turn out he just can't but she Chances are if you're seeing some of these signs, you may want to look at your hiring and onboarding and vetting process, we had schoolwork, that's what this is what we do every day, all day, we vet great candidates, we're constantly honing our process, we're constantly trying to make sure the guys that we put out in the field in your facilities are the best. And we do a lot of time, a lot of spent a lot of time work with you to make sure we understand your culture, what sort of aptitude is required, what sort of intangible skills you're looking for. But even then, it's an exact, it's imperfect, and we don't get it right all the time. But we have a saying around here, if you're going to fail, fail fast. And that is, if it's clear that you've done everything you could do take steps to do everything you can do. But if it's clear, that's not going to work, make a decision, make a change, and move on. And don't continue to pursue that bad decision. So a bad hire can cause you a lot more work for your team for your staff can be a detriment across the board. So watch out for these signs. But an old coach that I really used to like a lot used to say this, all sickness doesn't lead to death. In other words, just because you're seeing some of these attributes or traits, doesn't mean it can be corrected. So there's no replacement, participant coaching, good counseling, and good, clear, strong communication. Many of these can be reversed. As a matter of fact, most can be reversed. And if it doesn't look like they can be again, make a decision to move on. Any final thoughts or any anything you want to add before we wrap it up? Brett?

Brett Elliott  26:31

No, I think you know, like he said, I think it's a challenging thing. You know, you know, Dave Ramsey always says, you know, sometimes you just, it's unkind to be unclear. So I think he's like you said it, Tim, you know, you, you got to coach people up, you got to take the time, people are not, you know, they're not just throw away. So you know, you've brought him in for a reason. You got to you got to try to help get them there. You got to put them in the right culture. But then ultimately, you have to make a decision, like you said, you know, fail fast. If it isn't going to work. It isn't going to work. Yeah,

Tim Raglin  27:02

cut bait or fish or cut bait or fish. Yeah. So anyway, thanks for joining us here on the skill work forum. Hopefully, these were helpful to you probably at some points a little bit, you know, painful reminder, maybe, but at any rate, continue to try to bring good topics to you. As we move forward in this podcast. Speaking of podcasts, we have another one as schoolwork here that we do focused on the skilled tradesmen specifically on the things that matter to them. You know, if you're a skilled tradesman out there, things that might help you. If you're an employer out there listening to the heartbeat. What you're skilled tradesmen are saying is called the proud skilled worker. You can find that everywhere you can find podcast, come to our website, you can get it there are one of our director ROPs leads that up and they do a great job. So the proud skill worker, we also want to mention our partners and friends, Texas boys outdoors, it's a great outdoor hunting and fishing show. They focus on helping the disenfranchised, disabled, marginalized, first responders military, so they really just go all out to give opportunities for folks like this to get out in the great outdoors. Brett and I have had an opportunity to go down there and do a couple of episodes with them. Super great guys, Roy crush and his team. So check it out. It's on the pursuit channel, Texas boys outdoors and you can YouTube and look it up and be sure to support them as well. So until next time, thanks for joining us on the Skoll World Forum.