MarketMe 2.0

A résumé and a brief job interview can’t answer the question that matters most to a new hire’s co-workers: Is this person an absolute pain?Despite a labor shortage in many sectors, some employers are pickier than ever about whom they hire. Businesses in fields where jobs are highly coveted – or just sound like fun – are stepping up efforts to weed out people who might have the right credentials but the wrong personality.

Call it the “plays well with others” factor.

Job candidates at investment banks have long endured dozens of interviews designed, in part, to see if new hires will get along with everyone they’ll work with. Whole Foods Market Inc. holds group interviews, in which people who will work under a manager are part of the team that grills candidates and collectively picks hires.

Now other companies are setting up higher hurdles.

“In this bloggable, cell phone camera world, your brand on the inside is going to be your brand on the outside. If you have a bunch of jerks, your brand is going to be a jerk,” said Tim Sanders, former leadership coach at Yahoo Inc. and author of “The Likeability Factor.”

With the national unemployment rate low, at 4.7 percent, and the baby boom generation heading into retirement, employers from Microsoft Corp. to rural hospitals are worrying about finding enough workers. But companies like Rackspace Managed Hosting are bucking that trend, working hard to find reasons to turn people away.

Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said, “We’d rather miss a good one than hire a bad one.”

The 1,900-person computer server hosting company is divided into 18- to 20-person teams. One team is so close, the whole group shows up to help when one member moves into a new home, Napier said. Job interviews at the San Antonio-based company last all day, as interviewers try to rub away fake pleasantness.

“They’re here for nine or 10 hours,” Napier said. “We’re very cordial about it. We’re not aggressive, but we haven’t met a human being yet who has the stamina to BS us all day.”

There’s a possible downside, however. In a Harvard Business Review article titled “Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?” Tiziana Casciaro of Harvard and Miguel Sousa Lobo of Duke University point out that people generally like people who are similar to them, so hiring for congeniality can limit diversity of opinions. One venture capitalist told the authors that a capable manager he worked with built a team that “had a great time going out for a beer, but the quality of their work was seriously compromised.”

At KaBoom, a nonprofit that builds playgrounds, the board was hammering co-founder and CEO Darell Hammond four years ago over the organization’s high employee turnover.

“I rationalized that they were on the road too much, when in reality, it was the wrong fit in the wrong role,” he said.

He started thinking about who left and why, then focused on the characteristics of workers who stayed. The list of traits: Can do, will do, team fit, quick and smart.

His team kept a closer eye on job applicants in the reception area, which is set up as a playground, to see how they acted around playground equipment.

“If you’re early, you may have to sit on a swing or the bottom of a slide,” Hammond said. People who stand with a tight grip on their briefcases instead of sitting on the playground equipment aren’t asked back.

KaBoom sends prospective project managers to one of its four-day playground building trips, with the actual build on the last day involving 200 to 300 volunteers, many of whom have questions for KaBoom staff.

“If they’re not easily approached, or they’re easily stressed – this is the way we find out and they find out if it’s not going to work,” he said.

When all 90 of the people on his staff meet that criteria, he said, “It’s incredible. If you have 89 who do and one who doesn’t – it’s painful.”

Beyond the résumé

South Sound employers also attempt to discover who the job applicant is – beyond the résumé.

At Roman Meal, President Gary Jensen speaks on the phone with every likely job candidate.

“I take the person through a review of our vision, our mission, our strategy, our business imperatives and our goals. I ask them if they can align with that. If they can’t answer positively, I ask them to reconsider.”

If a person passes the initial review, Roman Meal invites the candidate for a visit to the South Tacoma headquarters and a meeting with the executive leadership team. After that, if all goes well, they meet with a member of the Matthaei family, which brought Roman Meal to prominence 80 years ago.

At Tacoma Goodwill Industries, Richard Corak, director of workforce development, says applicants for staff positions are asked to participate in a scenario.

“If they’re going to teach a class, we ask what they would do with a disruptive student,” Corak says. “How do they handle that situation? If they say they would take the person outside, then what would they do with the students left inside? Their answers help you further explore the response.”

C.R. Roberts, The News Tribune