Kristin Heller Of Creative Consulting On How To Hire The Right Person

An Interview With Ken Babcock

Commit the time. Interviewing and hiring is a process. If you rush through it, you may not make a good hiring decision.

When a company is looking to grow, the choice of who to hire can sometimes be an almost existential question. The right hire can dramatically grow a company, while the wrong hire can be very harmful to morale and growth. How can you know you are hiring the right person? What are the red flags that should warn you away from hiring someone? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders who can share insights and stories from their experience about “How To Hire The Right Person”. As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kristin Heller.

Kristin left her industry HR leadership role to fulfill the HR gap for small businesses and small business leaders. The intent of HR Creative Consulting is to provide the HR function(s) to those organizations that do not have a strategic HR team to support their business hiring process, leadership coaching, training, employee relations and other HR functions.

Thank you for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I spent 25 years in industry working my way up the HR ranks. I left my prior company after a 17-year career in a strategic HR leadership role. I had a great job with a great company, but it was time to do something more, something different. As with most people, the pandemic changed the way I think about things, including the way I want to live my life. I said good-bye to my great job, great company, and some great people to embark on a new challenge, HR Creative Consulting.

You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?

After spending many years in industry, it was time for a change. I decided to use my strategic expertise to bring HR support to smaller businesses that do not staff strategic HR professionals but still have a need to develop their leaders and their teams with regards to hiring, interviewing, building accountability and leadership effectiveness.

What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?

The thing that I am most proud of is that I was part of developing many employees into successful, higher-level roles to include several that developed into very effective leadership roles. The people aspect of HR can be challenging but it can also be so rewarding. Watching employees work for it, ask questions, learn new behaviors, improve their skills, and evolve into higher-level roles is incredible. Being a part of their development and their success is the reward.

How about a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away?

Oh, the mistakes, I have made many, particularly early in my career. It may be tough to choose just one. I will relate one of my mistakes to hiring and interviewing as that is our subject matter. One very big mistake of my career was making a job offer to the wrong candidate. Keep in mind that this offer was prior to applicant tracking systems. While this mistake is still possible with an ATS, it is much less likely. This mistake took place at a time when jobs were not has available as they are today. I offered a candidate a job and then had to call that candidate back to retract the offer and take ownership my mistake. I was very fortunate that my candidate was wonderfully understanding but it changed my entire process for job offers. The biggest lesson I took away was to slow down. What we do impacts the lives of others, and it matters. Take time to do the job the right way.

How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?

I would not be where I am today if not for some great teachers and mentors. Early in my career I was without great mentorship. For the most part, I was not learning what it meant to have a voice in the business. I did not know what it meant to think strategically for the business. I have had the pleasure of working for some of the best. I have also worked for some leaders that taught me what not to do. That said, I owe all my success to those mentors. They made me better. They made me a better HR professional, a better strategic HR partner, a better team member, and a better leader. Never pass up the opportunity to work with or for a great mentor. It can change your career.

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?

Developing a leadership style takes time, practice and work. You must be willing to put in the work. I model my leadership style after all the great and not-so-great teachers and coaches I have had throughout my career. I have learned what to do and what not to do. I believe that leadership effectiveness comes from authenticity, accountability, transparency, and effective communication. These are a few leadership basics.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s change paths a little bit. In my work, I focus on helping companies to simplify the process of creating documentation of their workflow, so I am particularly passionate about this question. Many times, a key aspect of scaling your business is scaling your team’s knowledge and internal procedures. What tools or techniques have helped your teams be successful at scaling internally?

Creating and following processes. The best successes with regards to tools or techniques come from developing, documenting, training, and following the process. As tools have improved throughout my career, no tool is effective without proper development of the process followed by proper documentation of the process. Once you have the process, it is useless if the users are not properly trained. Finally, all the work on a process is a waste of resources if the process is not followed. If everyone does their own thing, there are too many inconsistencies. There is no single one-size-fits-all tool that works for all organizations. The trick is to find the one that best suits your org and develop the process.

The pandemic forced many companies to adapt. Implementing remote onboarding and professional development — in addition to maintaining culture — challenged organizations. Can you share with us the challenges you have faced, with remote onboarding and hiring? How have your internal processes evolved as a result?

Like most of the world, we figured it out. We got great at Zoom interviews. Ultimately, we did not make a hiring decision for any professional level roles without a face-to-face interview. We adjusted interview rooms and had to break the hand-shake habit, but we pulled it off.

With the Great Resignation/Reconsideration in full swing, many job seekers are reevaluating their priorities in selecting a role and an employer. How do you think this will influence companies’ approaches to hiring, talent management, and continuous learning?

In my opinion, like most things, there is no one single answer. People, industries, and organizations are all so different. It is frustrating at times to think that there is an expectation to find a solution that fits everyone. It simply is not realistic. I think business leaders must work with their leadership teams and their HR/Talent teams and come up with a way to source, interview, hire and onboard that works best for them. Sourcing the best talent that can work within an organizations’ guidelines whether it be work from home, in the office or a hybrid is challenging, and it takes a tremendous amount of diligence and patience during these times. Keep trying until you find methods that work for you. Don’t worry that it is different than what works for others.

Super, thank you for sharing all of that. Next, let’s turn to the main focus of our discussion about hiring the right person. As you know, hiring can be very time consuming and difficult. Can you share 5 techniques that you use to identify the talent that would be best suited for the job you want to fill? Please share an example for each idea.

When hiring, there is a process that evolves over time. The more you hire and interview, the better you get at the process. Some basic tips that I use in all interviews:

1. Create a list of interview questions prior to the interviews. A list of interview questions will keep you organized throughout the interview process. The list will also provide you a place to take notes. The list may change over time or vary slightly depending on the role you are filling but it will provide you a framework for your interviews.
2. Ask all candidates that are interviewing for a particular role the same set of questions. Asking your candidates the same set of questions allows you to assess all of your candidates on a level playing field and therefore allowing for a more balanced decision.
3. Ask your candidates both technical and behavioral based questions. The technical questions provide insight to their ability to do the job for which you are interviewing, and behavioral based questions will provide some insight to who they are and how they may or may not fit within your organization.
4. Commit the time. Interviewing and hiring is a process. If you rush through it, you may not make a good hiring decision.
5. The most important part of the interview process is DO NOT SETTLE. If you do not feel you are finding the right person for your open position, keep your search going. Do not settle. Settling on a candidate almost always ends with regret. Don’t get me wrong, there will be times it works out but, oftentimes hiring managers settle because they simply do not want to commit more time to the process. Settling on a candidate may result in bigger issues down the road.

Move quickly. Your candidates are looking for job. If you don’t make an offer, someone else might!

In contrast, what are a few red flags that should warn you away from hiring someone?

The longer you interview the better you get at picking up on subtle behaviors. It comes with time and lots and lots of interviews. Because people are so different and because the roles we are filling are so different, it takes all types of people to best fit all of those roles. What is a red flag for one role may be a desired behavior for another role. For example, if I am hiring an salesperson, I will likely be looking for someone outgoing, dynamic, and engaging to sell my product. However, if I am looking for an engineer, I am looking for someone that can support the technical need of my business.

That said, there are a few things that to which I pay attention:

1. Level of engagement in the interview. Is the candidate providing thoughtful responses?
2. Is the candidate’s attire appropriate for the role? The days of wearing a suit for every role I hope are gone. However, attire still matters and should be appropriate for the role.
3. What is the body language of the candidate? Are they paying attention? Or are they slouching while gazing around the room? Does it seem like they care about this interview or this position?

The most important thing to remember about red flags is: ‘Will the behavior that stands out impact the candidate’s ability to effectively perform the role in which you are filling’?

In the end, there is no perfect recipe for hiring the right candidate. We do our best to hit as many markers as possible but there is no way to determine how someone will perform in a role. As leaders, we can coach and train, but we cannot force performance. Once we have exhausted all efforts to encourage performance, we must not fear making a change if and when necessary.

What software or tools do you recommend to help onboard new hires?

I am not really one to boost a particular software, but I do recommend that software decisions include several business leaders to try to capture multiple business needs. Talent and HR should not make the decision alone. Software must be user friendly and interactive and as I mentioned early, there must be trained users that follow the processes of the software.

Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.

In my opinion, an organization that believes in effective leadership and makes an investment in training their leaders is the best way to positively impact the most people. I feel organizations do not invest enough in training leaders on transparency, effective communications, accountability, and authenticity. If we had organizations full of effective leaders, we would have less roles to fill. Strong, effective leaders impact the people in an organization. The more of effective leaders we have in our orgs, the more good will be brought to their teams. Good breeds more good.

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!

About the interviewer. Ken Babcock is the CEO and Co-Founder of Tango. Prior to his mission of celebrating how work is executed, Ken spent over 4 years at Uber riding the rollercoaster of a generational company. After gaining hands-on experience with entrepreneurship at Atomic VC, Ken went on to HBS. It was at HBS that Ken met his Co-Founders, Dan Giovacchini and Brian Shultz and they founded Tango.