I spoke to Matilde Ott, Head of Marketing at the Silver Diner Development, for this assignment. Matilde has a lot of freedom when creating and budgeting for new positions in her department. She recently went through the process of getting a Social Media Coordinator position approved. The process of getting the position approved is simple, the “tough” part is negotiating the pay range with her bosses. What I found most surprising is Matilde is given a range and she chooses based on the experience of the applicant. I didn’t find it surprising that experience is factored in when making this decision, what I found surprising is that I thought most jobs had a set pay, I didn’t realize the hiring person has freedom to determine the amount. As F. John Reh states in “Learn How the Hiring Decision Is Really Made”, hiring managers look at the “cost-value ratio” and look at what a candidate will cost the company. According to Gershon, they must also look at the risks involved with candidates and maintaining a good public image of the company (197). I think I found this surprising based on my experiences. where minimum wage is offered and the pay is the highest possible amount.
When Matilde makes a hiring decision, she looks for “passion” in the applicant. It would be easy to have a checklist and look for the ideal fit, but that’s not who she wants. According to Matilde, the restaurant business moves very fast and she needs someone who knows what they are doing, but most importantly loves what they are doing. The biggest challenge when making these decisions making the right decision. She shared an experience with a former employee where they checked off all the boxes, the perfect candidate. He ended up being the exact opposite, always late, never answered emails, and didn’t do his job. She fired him but lost a lot of resources for the company. In “How to Overcome the Biggest Challenges in Hiring Top Talent”, Sujan Patel states that “the actual process of hiring has become only a small part of a hiring managers responsibilities”. More time is spent on training and development. This was surprising because interviewing with Matilde is a process. I’m familiar with the company’s hiring process: you go through an extensive application and questionnaires, if you pass that screening, you are interviewed by a general representative of the company, if you get through, then you interview with Matilde. In “Three Ways To Hire Great People”, Brian Tracy and Mark Thompson state that this process is crucial because “the more people on the team who approve of a candidate, the better chance that the staff will have an interest in helping the new person be successful”. This was interesting because as Gershon states “more people in the office contribute to making a hiring decision” the responsibility doesn’t fall on one person (188). This person went through the long process and did a poor job in the end.
