October 16, 2018
We are so proud to make the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest growing companies. This week we’re off to the Inc. 5000 national event to meet all the other amazing companies on the list, including 136 Colorado companies. Congratulations to our clients on the list, too, like Chomps and Simple Energy.
Inc. Magazine also checked in with Creative Alignments’ founder, Peggy Shell, to get her advice on hiring great employees. Visit Inc. to read the full article or see an excerpt below. 11 Creative Listening Tips to Identify the Right Job Candidates.
“As a business owner, you understand the critical importance of hiring employees who are a good cultural fit in your organization. Determining whether a candidate has the skills and ability to perform specific functions is important, but ultimately, for real success, the candidate’s values must align with those of the company.
Depending on the organization, role and interviewer’s style, questions can be posed in unique and creative ways or more straightforward and traditional ways. The real creativity comes in deploying the art of creative listening to glean both overt and subtle cues from a candidate’s response.
The art of creative listening
So, how can you brush up on your creative listening skills? During the interview, ask yourself these questions:
- Does the candidate provide an appropriate amount of descriptive detail?
- Are they able to provide specific examples?
- Are they able to comfortably answer detailed follow-up questions?
- Do they put thought into their responses and bring new insight into the topic?
- Do they respond with real-life examples, rather than answering with hypotheticals?
- Do they have questions for you, showing that they have done their homework on your company and the specific job for which they are interviewing?
Listen creatively to identify your A-team
Here are 11 ways the power of creative listening can help you find the right candidate:
- Understand what drives them. Ask,”What gets you up in the morning?” Is their response related to professional motivators, personal ones, or both? How will their drivers play into what you need to move your company forward?” read more.
