Adapting the hiring process to a new era of agency staffing with Art Boulay and Sue MacArthur

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of what you make. The Build a Better Agency podcast presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to mid-size agencies survive and thrive in today’s market. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McClellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey everybody. Drew McClellan here from Agency Management Institute, back with you for another episode of Build a Better Agency. We are going to talk about a very important topic today. We’re going to talk about hiring and retaining great employees, which I know is at the forefront for many of you, of your worries. So we’re going to talk about that in a minute. But first I want to give you a little bit of information about, A, the research project that we completed late in 2022 and, B, the Build a Better Agency Summit.

We wrapped up a research project in 2022. We talked to agency employees, and it was really about how are they feeling about working in agencies post-COVID, what are they feeling about the work environment? Are they working from home? Are they working hybrid? Are they working in the office? How are they feeling about that? How are they feeling about communication and relationships in this new sort of hybrid world? And there were some really amazing takeaways.

In the next week or so. We’re going to have all of that information on in a 30-some page executive summary on the website for you, and I will let you know when we have that. But I will tell you that one of the things that they talked about was this idea of really having clear communication and what it’s going to take for them to want to stay at your agency. And that many of them are realizing they actually just aren’t built for agency life. They’re not wired to love the chaos and the deadlines and the pressure and the weird hours sometimes. Either they personally aren’t wired for it or their life isn’t wired for it.

So that’s one of the things I want to talk to our guests about today is how do you suss that out in the interview process so that you know that you’re hiring somebody who will thrive and love the agency environment? Because let’s admit that it is not for everyone, but if it is for you, there’s no substitute for it. And when we’re looking at hiring people and wanting to keep them for a long time, that seems to be a critical element that we should be factoring in.

I’ve been promising you that every episode I’m going to tell you about a different speaker at the Build a Better Agency Summit. So one of the speakers, one of the keynote speakers, I think we have him on day two, is a guy that I have known for 20-some years, a really great friend of mine named Mitch Matthews. Mitch Matthews is one of the leading experts in leadership, probably in the world, but for sure in our country.

He has two podcasts that are in the top 5% of all podcasts downloaded, and he’s a great storyteller. And he is going to talk to us about how do we show up as leaders in 2023 and beyond? What do our employees need and want from us and how do we show up as authentic as who we really are, but also how do we inspire and drive our entire team to have the commitment to excellence and the drive to do better and to keep growing, like we want them all to have. You’re going to love Mitch. He’s funny, he’s poignant. He’s a great guy. And I promise you will leave feeling fired up about your team and have new tools to communicate and connect with them.

He’s just going to be one of the many great speakers that we have at the Build a Better Agency Summit that is coming up in May. So if you’re an AMI member you can come to Family Day, which is May 15th, and then the full conference is May 16th and 17th. So we’d love to have you there. Grab your tickets now. They’re on the Agency Management Institute website. You just grab a ticket now and then don’t forget to grab your hotel room too, because the room block will also out.

All right, so let me tell you a little bit about our guests. Art Boulay and Sue MacArthur run an organization called Strategic Talent Management. They have been an AMI partner for 20 years, and in the beginning, what they really did was they were kind of leadership coaches, but they developed some really interesting assessments that assess someone’s motivation to do the work, someone’s sort of inspiration level to do the work, how much gas in the tank they have, are they a self-starter?

And, interestingly, how they’re going to mix and match with the rest of the people on their team if they came to work for you and with you. And we actually, for the last probably 15 or 20 years, what we’ve been doing is we’ve been using their test and we’ve been profiling the best of the best in agencies, the best director of account service, the best creative director, the best digital director. And so we have profiles of these rock stars and we can compare, well, when I say we, Art and Sue, can compare your candidate against the rock stars and tell you where they’re similar and where they’re different.

The data is remarkable. I’ve done the test. Here’s what I tell people, is when you get tested, when you take this assessment and you read all about yourself, two things are going to happen. Number one, you’re going to be astonished at how accurate it is. And number two, you are not going to want anyone else to read it because it shows you the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. It’s incredibly valuable in the hiring process, but we’re not going to talk about that very much today. But I just want to give you sort of a foundation that Art and Sue have been in our business for a long time.

They now do a ton of recruiting for agencies all across the land. And well, what I want to talk with them about today is what do we have to do different in terms of our hiring process given the environment that we’re in right now. So we probably won’t talk about the assessments much. We might touch on them, but it’s one of the more fascinating things that they do. Just wanted you to have that foundational knowledge. So let’s get to Art and Sue and welcome them to the show. Art, Sue, welcome to the show. Thanks for being with us.

Art Boulay:

Thanks for the invite. Good to see you again.

Sue MacArthur:

Thanks for having us.

Drew McLellan:

So if there is an understatement of the decade, the fact that agencies are struggling to hire people and that hiring has changed in the last couple of years, probably has to be the understatement of the decade. True? Are you seeing that on your end too?

Sue MacArthur:

Absolutely.

Art Boulay:

Occasionally.

Drew McLellan:

Just occasionally, Art?

Sue MacArthur:

The whole hiring process, the hiring market has just been turned on its head. Nothing is the same as it was three or four years ago.

Art Boulay:

Yeah, we used to say hire slowly and fire fast, but we need to tweak this today to really say you got to hire in a structured and deliberate way. And similarly, given the difficulty of hiring, you need to let somebody go in a structured and deliberate process. But here’s the catch, you’ve got to do both of those quickly. That’s really the story.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, and I think too, one of the things that’s changed, and I think it’s softening a little bit, but one of the things that’s changed is, while an agency is talking to a candidate, they’re entertaining five or six conversations and offers at the same time. I can’t tell you how many times I had an agency owner say to me, “God, we found the perfect person, but before we could get through our process, they took another job,” or “We made a job offer and they came back and said, ‘Well, I have three job offer, and I would need to match the salary of the highest job offer, which is not yours, so if you want me, here’s what I’m going to cost.’” So things are boiling right now, I think.

Sue MacArthur:

It’s a lot like the real estate market in some areas, where there’s multiple offers. Everybody’s coming in over asking price, and it’s going for a ridiculous amount. And there are no discounts in this market

Drew McLellan:

Right, without an appraisal or… Yeah, yeah.

Sue MacArthur:

No inspection, nothing. No tire kicking at all. Just come in with as much money as you can possibly spend.

Drew McLellan:

And that’s frightening for the agency owners. I mean, people are already their biggest expense and when they’re having to come in at 20% higher than what every salary survey says they should be paying, that’s a scary precipice to be on.

Sue MacArthur:

And also we’ve lost the ability to have a local discount in smaller markets. Folks in smaller cities and in rural areas are used to being able to pay less than New York and LA and San Francisco. That isn’t the case anymore because everybody’s working remotely, or a lot of people are. And when your whole talent pool is the country rather than your own local market, you’re also having to play with the salaries that that demands.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Art Boulay:

But given that, there’s still things that can be done. I know Sue and I worked with a client of, I don’t know, a couple of years ago who literally took six weeks to make their hiring decision in an average situation. I course they were using that same technique when we worked with them, but we finally convinced them six weeks is wholly, totally unreasonable. It’s really got to be more like six days and we see even less. I think there is a way for, especially, I think, small agencies that you represent do have an edge because they can make decisions quickly. That’s the beauty of a small business. And they really need to. So frankly, they’re going to be in a better situation to speed up their process than a great giant global agency with a thick manual of how do you hire people.

Drew McLellan:

So let’s talk a little bit about… Because what I’m hearing you say is we have to move faster, but we also have to move wisely. Again, this is not a nominal investment for most agencies, and we all know what it costs when you bring the wrong person into the organization, especially if you introduce them to clients, the team starts to like them and then all of a sudden they’re not able to do their job.

Art Boulay:

Or the team doesn’t like them.

Drew McLellan:

Or the team hates them, right. That’s right. Yep. So let’s talk about process. What should agencies have in place before they put out the job description or start looking for a candidate?

Sue MacArthur:

Well, I recommend that they think really hard about what they absolutely need in the position and what are some things that would be nice to have, but they might be able to train, too. So they can upskill someone who might be ripe to move up. That will open up some opportunities. But also by knowing exactly what they need, they can structure their interview in such a way that they really drill down into those particular issues. And I also advise that they have more than one person involved in this process. Have various stakeholders in there, but be prepared to move that along. It’s not a have them in to interview with one person this week and invite them back next week. It is move them from one office to another or have them sit in the conference room and shuffle in different people in one visit or over a course of a few days.

We don’t have the luxury of doing this over the course of weeks. But structuring the interview knowing who’s going to ask what question, and even more important, what do you want to hear, and what are some responses that are yellow or red flags? What do you not want to hear? A question I often ask people is what are you looking for in the next step of your career and what would you like to avoid? And I had one candidate recently when they answered the “What do you want to avoid?” They basically described exactly the position I was interviewing them for.

Drew McLellan:

Aha, okay. Well, I can help you avoid that, then.

Sue MacArthur:

So there’s a hint.

Drew McLellan:

Right, right.

Art Boulay:

Well, and building on this idea of a structured interview, it’s important when you’re asking the question, and Sue alluded to this earlier, but you need to know why you’re asking the question, and there is a precisely correct answer you’re looking for. We can’t afford to be asking random questions because there’s a study that’s been done on this, probably more than one, but it shows that hiring managers who are reading the notes from an unstructured interview, in other words, just sort of random questions and feel-good questions, if they were reading those notes, they were more likely to make the wrong hiring decisions than if they didn’t read any interview notes whatsoever.

Drew McLellan:

Wow.

Art Boulay:

It’s misleading because the problem with a non-structured interview question or series of questions is it’s going to reflect the bias of the interviewer, an interviewer or the team. As soon as those biases slip in there, or kind of no direction at all, the outcome is purely random. So you end up either hiring somebody you may not, should not have, or frankly, this is the worst outcome, given the hiring situation, you pass over somebody that you should have hired. And people often forget that because you can’t measure that as easily. But it’s critically important that the interview will be highly structured, you know exactly what you’re asking and why you’re asking, and what is the right answer.

Drew McLellan:

So are there some interview questions that should always, regardless of the position, be in the mix of questions? And I hear what you’re saying, Art, I think a lot of agency owners, when they go in to interview someone, agency owners or leaders, when I eavesdrop on those conversations, they’re spending so much time to trying to convince the candidate that the agency’s a good place to work, they don’t actually ask any really drilling questions about is this person for the agency. It’s almost like they’re afraid to offend.

Sue MacArthur:

Right. And you know what? It’s okay if you offend in an interview because you want this to be a fit, not just for you, but for the candidate. Because if they come on board, so often, when I ask people, “Why are you leaving your current role?” it often comes down to a difference in expectations, especially if they’re moving on quickly. “It was not what I expected.” And what that tells me is the person they talked to when they took the job did not paint a realistic picture of what they were getting into, either the role or the company. It’s like dating. You’ve got to get the good, the bad, and the ugly. Is this somebody I want to commit to? And they need to know exactly what the landscape is before they come on board. So don’t be afraid to offend.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Sue MacArthur:

But the question of why are you leaving? Why are you looking for a new role? What are you hoping to find here that was missing?

Drew McLellan:

Oh, great questions. Yeah.

Sue MacArthur:

And asking about their plans for the future. Is the picture that they’re painting clear? Because that’s a really good sign that they have some goals, which is a good indicator of energy and drive for performance. They know where they’re going and they’re focused on getting there, and listen to whether what they’re describing is in sync with what you’re able to offer them.

Drew McLellan:

Any other questions that, no matter what the job is, I should be asking?

Art Boulay:

Well, by the way, and this get gets to cutting the time out of the interview process. Sue mentioned earlier in the old days, we’d have round after round of interviews, this is why you’d get to three, four, or five, six weeks. But if you combine those all together and have the three or four key stakeholders in one interview, that’s more efficient. But even before that, think about having, we call it an initial vetting interview. And the entire purpose of that is to decide if we should even move on with this person. And some of the questions Sue’s already raised come right out of that.

We talk about that in our updated Interview Guide. And one of my favorite questions is “Tell us what are the favorite things about your current position, or maybe the last couple of positions?” And they’ll answer that question. And then you want to ask, “What are the least favorite things, things that don’t want to do again?” And as Sue said earlier, if they’re describing your position, the things they don’t like to do, they don’t like to sell, they don’t like to take direction, they don’t like people standing over their shoulder, I mean, that’s a great vetting question because what’s the point of moving on. Now we want to put our energy into somebody that got through the vetting interview, and so far so good.

Sue MacArthur:

I also recommend putting together a series of scenarios, and I’m sure every agency owner can come up with half a dozen situations-

Art Boulay:

Yes.

Sue MacArthur:

… that this person could encounter in this role. Real-life examples. Throw them out there and ask, “How would you respond? How handle this situation?” And if their description of how they would respond is in line with your values and the way that you would want the situation handled, then that’s a great sign. If they go off and do something that makes you cringe, then there’s another sign that this is not the right hire, but real-life examples. And that serves the other purpose of helping to paint the picture of what this role is really like. “These are things you will likely encounter if you come on board in this role.”

Drew McLellan:

What are some interview mistakes that we are making, particularly, and then I want to really dig into the structure of how do we get all this done in a week and what else do we have to have in place? But while we’re talking about the interview part of the process, what are some of the mistakes that you see business owners and leaders making in that interview process that send them down the wrong path?

Art Boulay:

Well, I think that you mentioned the number one problem, which is the owner or the hiring manager talks too much and they’re often talking too much to promote their agency.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, selling.

Art Boulay:

While we understand that, the rule of some is the interviewer should talk 10% of the time so that 90% of the time the airtime is going to the candidate. So that’s probably a classic situation. But again, I think a lot of that comes from, as you said, selling. These people are used to selling their agencies all the time, so they fill the dead airspace with some sales talk. But again, if it’s a carefully structured process, you’re going to fill the airtime with a powerful question that takes the candidate five or 10 minutes to answer. So again, the secret is structure, but resist the urge to sell your agency, and just ask those questions. And I think related to that is we’ve talked about one of the favorite questions I know Sue asks is, “What in our ad got your attention?” Or “Why do you want to work here?”

There’s a couple of reasons you asked that. Number one, again, if they describe something you don’t have, then that’s probably not a good fit. But even the simpler responses or conclusion would be, “Hey, they did some investigation of me. They already know about me. They’ve gone to Glassdoor, they’ve looked at my website. Maybe they’ve even talked to ex-employees. They know something about the agency.” And that’s critically important because if they know something about you when they came into the interview, guess what? They’re going to do the same thing with your clients before they go to a sales pitch.

Drew McLellan:

Right. So you mentioned the evil Glassdoor. Let’s talk about that before we talk about how I structure those six or that week of interviewing. Agency owners are petrified of Glassdoor. They take those reviews super personally and they’re convinced that one review will tarnish their reputation forever. How do you see candidates reacting to Glassdoor and bad reviews? And what do you recommend to clients if they do have a bad review on Glassdoor? How do you recommend they handle it?

Sue MacArthur:

That’s a tricky one, but I think that people are coming to understand that the folks who post reviews on Glassdoor, 90% of them are negative reviews. The people who were happy as they went out the door don’t bother to get on there and post something. I think people are starting to understand that. So I wouldn’t worry about it, but I would definitely pay attention to what’s being said and be prepared to respond to a candidate that may ask about that in terms of, if it said “They didn’t give me any professional development,” be prepared to address what your professional development opportunities are. Find the nuggets in those reviews that you can directly respond to if they come up with a candidate. And there’s really not much that you can do about it online. You can respond. I would be very, very careful about that.

Drew McLellan:

I was just going to ask, should we respond?

Sue MacArthur:

My general thinking is it opens up the door for things to spiral, just like the trolls on the internet for other things. And the minute you open that door, it’s just a dangerous place to go, I would just say, internally.

Art Boulay:

A more powerful thing is something you do, Sue, for a lot of our clients. And sometimes it is helpful that a third party, maybe Drew, could do it or we could do it, but it’s exit interviewing. Somebody’s leaving, maybe they just need a minute to vent, and they can vent to the exit interviewer, but at least the interviewer then… You can go back and forth and get to the root cause of the problem. Maybe it was one manager or a customer that they really didn’t like dealing with.

But kind of related to the exit interview, which I think a lot of people do or at least consider, is the stay interview, which is something Sue’s been talking about lately. But way before you get to the point of having to deal with a resignation, is to find out or talk to the people about what you like about them, why you hope they are looking forward to another year with you or a career with you. And again, we get so busy sometimes we forget to have those kind of conversations, but either the exit interview, it’s probably a little late. It’s making sure the barn door is locked after the horse left, but the stay interview is an opportunity to feed that horse, keep the horse happy, and keep him in the barn.

Drew McLellan:

And talking about what your view of their opportunity is and where you want to see them going and having a conversation with them about their career path. We just did the ninth Agency Edge research project in late 2022, and we talked to agency employees because so much has changed. And one of the things we saw over and over and over again from the respondents is they want to know where the boss thinks they’re going and what they have to learn and do to get to that next level.

And a lot of agency owners we’re so busy going to the next thing and not just owners, it could be managers or whatever, but we don’t have those conversations and we also don’t say, “Look, you’re a junior Wood Chuck now. The natural path is for you to become a Wood Chuck, but if you would rather move over here because you have some aptitude here too, let’s talk about that.” I don’t think we do a good job of those sort of in-work conversations, as you say, stay interviews or just career path conversations. I don’t think we do a great job of that.

Art Boulay:

Well, and I think a lot of people think, oh my goodness, that’s going to be hours and hours of conversation and discussion. Really and truly, it can be 15 minutes. We recently had a situation on our own team where, in a five-minute conversation, I found out the individual was excited about staying here, excited about the prospects, and it reinforced my image that we were on the right track with her. And that was, like I said, it was part of a normal conversation. It wasn’t even a special meeting. So it doesn’t have to be a two-hour commitment.

Sue MacArthur:

Also, we have an agency client who does something that I am recommending to all of our clients now. And what they do is they expect each employee to come to their annual review with their own professional development plan for the coming year. So they’ve outlined what they’re interested in, what the investment will be, and then the agency owner is able to make some decisions on where he sees his role in investing in those plans. But the employee has skin in the game. It is not handed to them. They create it.

Drew McLellan:

Right, right. Well, I think, too… Go ahead, Art.

Art Boulay:

Well, I was going to say the three of us have a little tiny bias for good assessment tools, but a good assessment tool can do a couple things. Number one, I think it’s a key way to speed up the whole initial interview process because you get key information right away. You can get right to the heart of the matter in the second interview. You don’t have to have three or four interviews. But also, in terms of this issue of staying and promoting and keeping them engaged. As Sue said, have them work on their own development plan.

But if that was preceded by a good assessment and that assessment was reviewed with that individual, they would probably already have a sense of where they’re going. Or, “Oh, goodness, I didn’t realize that was a strength of mine.” Or maybe you didn’t realize it was a strength I had, especially if, as you said, they’re a junior Wood Chuck and just getting started in their career. So there’s a lot that a good assessment tool can give you in terms of information about a key employee.

Sue MacArthur:

And does that person have the capacity to become a Wood Chuck, for example? Do they have that capacity? What’s missing to reach the benchmarks for that position? So then we know where to make our investments.

Drew McLellan:

All right. We’re going to take a quick break and then I want to talk about just the structure of, if I have a week from first interview to making a job offer, what do I have to have baked? What do I have to have ready? Because I think a lot of times one of the reasons why agencies take so long in the hiring process is because they don’t have the interview questions. If they’re going to assess someone in terms of the practicality of can they do the work, they don’t have the test ready, they don’t have all that stuff. So let’s take a break and then let’s talk about the list of things I have to have in the can ready to go so that I can effectively interview and hire in a shorter timeframe. So quick break and then we’ll come back and talk about that.

Hey everybody, I promised I would not keep you more than a minute, but I want to make sure that at AMI, one of the things that we offer are virtual peer group, so think of it as a Vistage group or an EO group, only everybody around the table, figuratively in this case, is an agency owner. So you have to be an agency owner to belong. The virtual peer groups meet every month for 90 minutes on Zoom. This was not a COVID creation, it was pre-COVID. You see the same people in your cohort every time. So you get to create relationships with them. And it is facilitated by AMI staffer, Craig Barnes, who has owned his own agency for 25 or 30 years. So plenty of great experience, both from Craig, but also learning from each other. So if you have any interest in learning more about how that works, head over to the AMI website and under memberships you will find the virtual peer group and you can get all the information there. All right? Okay. Let’s get back to the show.

All right, we are back with Art and Sue, and we’re talking about the reality of interviewing and hiring in today’s environment. So here’s what I’ve heard you say so far. Number one, if your process takes much longer than a week, you’re going to lose out on probably some of the best candidates because they’re talking to a lot of other people and everybody else is moving quicker. Number two, I should have structured questions and an interview process that is well defined that everybody goes through the same questions and has the same experience. And I should, rather than having serial interviews, either do all of them in the same day or have all of the stakeholders that are going to have to talk to this person in the same interview at the same time. Yes?

Sue MacArthur:

Yes.

Art Boulay:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. So I’ve interviewed somebody and there’s some yellow flags, but I have a good feeling about it. They answered the questions in a way that makes me think they would be capable of doing the job. What do I have to do next? What else do I have to have? So let’s say on Monday, I interview them and on Friday, I have to make a job offer. So what do I have to have ready Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to be ready for that job offer on Friday?

Sue MacArthur:

Well, I think the first step is a quick phone call. Before you invest a lot of FaceTime or even Zoom time, because we were talking to so many people virtually, have a quick phone call, 30 minutes, about 10 or 15 questions. Those basics, like “Walk me through your background. Why are you looking for a new job? What are you seeing in your future?” Those kinds of basic questions just to get a read on whether this person is worth the time for the rest of the-

Art Boulay:

And by the way, those can be the exact same questions for every initial interview.

Sue MacArthur:

Right. And it doesn’t matter what position, it’s just “Does this person seem to be a good fit for us?” If the answer to that is yes, get them into an interview on Zoom or in person right away. And you can do it a couple of different ways. You can have all of the stakeholders there at the same time or have all of the stakeholders ready. So if it passes muster with the first person, if that’s the agency owner, for example, or it’s the HR person, they pass muster, then they know, “Okay, if you can hang on a minute, I’m going to connect you with Art because he’s going to be the person you work most closely with.” Stack them up that way. There’s two different ways to do that, but that allows you to get through that interview process quickly.

And then of course, we always recommend an assessment in this process. And after that first, whether it’s Zoom or in-person interview, is the perfect time to deploy an assessment. And what that allows, especially if you work with us, is that allows you to see what follow-up questions you need to ask, what yellow flags have come up. Really, what you want to make sure you do before you are done with this candidate is leave no questions unanswered.

And I also recommend, particularly for positions in the creative area, but even on the account side of things, a project, a very short project that maybe you give them, say, “Can you come back to us tomorrow? Can you submit this tomorrow?” That is a kind of skills test. And that’s different for everybody because there’s different requirements.

Drew McLellan:

It could be different for the role, right.

Sue MacArthur:

It really shows you, first of all, can they move quickly? Are they committed to this position enough to put in that time? And what kind of work are they going to produce under the gun?

Art Boulay:

And to recap, briefly, there’s really three types of interviews, as Sue described. The initial vetting interview, which is standard, everybody gets the same questions because the entire focus of that interview, again, going to structure, what are we looking for? The reason for the vetting interview is just to see if we want to pursue this candidate. If the answer is yes, then you can do a screening interview. And those are largely the same type of questions. It might vary, given the position, but the purpose of that interview is strictly to see do they fit our culture and the job? Do they think like we think?

And again, those are going to be fairly standard questions. And then, as Sue said, if you plug in some sort of an assessment, not only the type of assessment we offer, but a job or a project, it will trigger some very specific questions that you can cover in the third and final type of interview, which we call an exploration interview, which is, again, the purpose for that is just to cover those red flags or caution flags and make sure that we’re okay for the Friday morning decision that we’re going to hire or not hire this individual. So again, it’s not just structure for the questions, but it’s structure for the overall process.

Drew McLellan:

And trying to get all of that done in a week’s period of time.

Art Boulay:

No problem.

Drew McLellan:

Piece of cake?

Art Boulay:

It is. If it’s structured-

Drew McLellan:

I was going to say, if it’s structured.

Art Boulay:

… it is not a problem.

Drew McLellan:

So I would assume that, if you’re interviewing somebody on Monday, then you are very quickly setting up the follow-up interview for Wednesday or Thursday in that conversation or immediately after, if you’ve determined that they kind of passed that muster at that level, right?

Sue MacArthur:

Be prepared to set up the next interview right then and there. We don’t have the luxury of, “Let me think about this and get back to you.”

Drew McLellan:

Right, right. So probably, if I’m interviewing, I’ve got to have my calendar cleared for the week. I’ve got to be dedicated to this process of filling this position, and I can’t have a lot of other client things. I can’t be hard to schedule around.

Sue MacArthur:

I recommend blocking time in all the stakeholders’ calendars, just a placeholder. And if they don’t have anybody to interview, then that’s an hour that’s been given back in their day. But if you know what everybody’s calendar is that “Sue has X number of hours, these are the days and these are the times that are available specifically for interviewing,” then you can schedule that right on the spot. And if they don’t move on to that process, then you don’t use that time, but at least it’s there for you.

Art Boulay:

I can see people rolling their eyes and thinking, oh, they don’t know my schedule. But if you think about hiring an average, say, $90,000 or a $100,000 position, think about that for a minute. If you were buying a $100,000 piece of office equipment, you would clear your calendar for a month to make that decision. You’d put all kinds of time into it. You’d have your CPA look at it, you’d have everybody involved. But for some reason, we don’t always take that same approach with hiring. And a $100,000 employee, if they stay with you 10 years, guess what? That’s $1 million employee.

Drew McLellan:

That’s right.

Art Boulay:

So if you think about it in those terms, you don’t have to literally clear the calendar for 40 hours, but at least have some time available. We were having this exact discussion with somebody the other day and they interrupted us when we were talking about the vetting interview and said, “Well, couldn’t you just speed it up by going right into the screening interview right then and there?” Absolutely. But have some time ready because this is probably the most expensive decision you’re going to make in your business.

Drew McLellan:

That’s right. All right, so what I’m hearing is I need to have my interview questions for all three types of interviews, for the vetting interview, the… Did you say it was discovery interview?

Art Boulay:

Screening interview.

Sue MacArthur:

Screening interview.

Art Boulay:

Screening, and then the exploration interview. I need to know if I’m going to do an assessment where I’m going to go to do that and how quickly they can turn it around. And then I am going to have my test, whatever that skills test is, that is tied to that position ready to go. And I’m going to have everybody who’s got to weigh in on this decision or participate in any way, I’m going to have blocks of time on their calendar throughout the week so that we are not delayed by somebody else’s calendar. Yeah?

Sue MacArthur:

Correct. And it’s all about preparation. This is really easy if, well, it’s not really easy, but it is much easier if you’re prepared ahead of time. This is not something you want to do on the fly. You can move through this process much more quickly if you know exactly who’s asking what questions and at what point in this process. So it’s not like you have to have a meeting to say, “Okay, we’ve got an interview coming in tomorrow. What are we going to ask them? Who’s going to be there?” That’s already figured out way ahead of time.

And we’ve had people question the idea of having all the stakeholders in one room. One client in particular was taking a really long time because there were six or seven people involved in the interview process, and they’d interview with one person this week and then try and figure out, okay, what time next week can Bob interview? And we said, “Have everybody around the table at the same time.” And they’re like, “Well, won’t that intimidate the candidates?” Maybe. And what’s wrong with that?

Drew McLellan:

Right. Yeah. They’re going to be in a room with six client points of contact or something at some point, right?

Sue MacArthur:

Yeah. Make them sweat a little. It’s okay.

Drew McLellan:

I think agency owners are so busy trying to be liked and make the agency look cool and all of that, that they often don’t ask the hard questions because they don’t want to do exactly that, Sue. They don’t want to make the candidate uncomfortable. And I think you’re right, we have to push the boundaries a little bit and see how they react to the stress of a hard question or a room full of executives or whatever it may be.

Sue MacArthur:

Their clients aren’t going to be nice.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Sue MacArthur:

So why should the agency be? I mean, you’ve got to see how people are going to react under pressure.

Art Boulay:

And it’s a key answer to that question, “Why are we taking this approach? Why are we asking this question?” And this stress factor is important because for all the reasons we mentioned, but don’t be afraid of it because that’s why you’re doing it, and that’s a key outcome you need to be aware of. In fact, we suggest a lot of people, you keep digging on a question until you get the right answer. Well, how do I know? And you know if you keep adding stress to the question, for example, “Why did you leave your last position?” “Well, it didn’t fit,” or “It wasn’t a good fit for me.”

“Well, you didn’t know that going in?” That ups the stress a little bit. Or “Did you have issues in performance? Let’s explore that.” The point of raising the stress factor is that, if the candidate at the end of two or three or four questions on that same subject is perfectly calm, holding it together, giving logical answers, bingo, you know you’re done. But if they start, as Sue said, literally physically start to sweat or get nervous, that’s probably an indication there’s more there that is going to crop up at an inopportune moment with one of your clients.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah. Today, more than ever, we are hiring people sometimes who we’re never going to meet in person before we hire them. And for many agencies, this person is not ever going to or hardly ever going to be in the home office, if there is one anymore. So understanding how to tell if someone can be productive on their own in a remote environment or a hybrid environment is critically important today. What kind of questions should we be asking to ascertain whether or not somebody is a self-starter, is going to get distracted by having to do the dishes and walk the dog and do the thing, or can they stay focused, that they don’t need to be in a group environment, that they can be productive on their own, that they can sort of manage their own time? How do we figure that out?

Art Boulay:

Well, we call that a systems judgment, and that’s one of the specific things we measure, and we really started paying close attention to it as an indicator of independent work, able to work independently, during the pandemic. But one of the key issues there is the word independent. And Sue has a number of questions I’m sure she can add to this list, but one of them would be just present a situation where you have a question or something’s come up and you’re not 100% sure of the answer, what do you do?

Well, again, you can add stress and keep on that line, but what you’re looking for there is somebody who basically says, “If nobody’s around, I can’t call anybody because I’m not in the office, or I’m in a different time zone, I’m going to figure it out myself. Here’s how I’m going to do it.” Or “I’m going to bend the rules a little bit.” Oh, “How are you going to bend the rules?” And sometimes, as owners, and I’ll count myself on that list, we get a little nervous when we hear things like that, but bending the rules is what an independent thinker does, and they’ll apologize later if there’s a need to apologize. So you want that kind of quality in a candidate who’s going to be remote most of the day or most of the time.

Sue MacArthur:

And asking for examples of projects that they’ve had to manage on their own. “Describe to me a project that you had to manage from start to finish with little input from others. How did you structure that process? How did you get yourself organized? What were the outcomes? What would you do differently?” Can really show you, do they have some experience working independently? If they can’t come up with any examples, then you might want to think about this, but it really tells you something about how they manage their time and their projects, and can they do that in a way that allows them to be productive without some handholding?

Art Boulay:

Well, in those kinds of questions, it brings up the topic we often suggest to our clients, pay as much attention to body language as words. Because if you keep asking questions like, “Well, how do you keep yourself focused? How do you keep from being distracted?” and all those kind of things, the person may be giving you the right words, but you can tell they’re a little uncomfortable, they’re-

Drew McLellan:

Right, they’re fidgeting or… Yeah.

Art Boulay:

Yeah, they’re fidgeting or whatever. And you can tell that on a Zoom call as easily as in person. So again, don’t only listen for the words. You want to be a camera as well as an audio specialist. You want to watch for those signals that this is an area that Art’s clearly not comfortable with, or he’s probably had trouble before. Or another way to look at it is, if you get fast, competent, logical answers that just flow off the tongue, maybe the person’s just a good speaker, or maybe they really know this-

Drew McLellan:

They prepped.

Art Boulay:

… inside out and they’re able to answer it quickly. And no matter what you ask, you don’t fluster them. They seem very comfortable. So again, pay attention to body language, not just the words of an interview.

Drew McLellan:

And that’s another advantage of having more than one person in the interview, right? One person can be assigned-

Art Boulay:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

… to pay attention to body language while the other one is asking the questions. Or they can say, “Look, if it’s your question, I’ll watch for body language.” Vice versa.

Art Boulay:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, yeah. What are some other red flags that would suggest to you or that, when you guys are interviewing folks, that suggest to you that remote work may not be their strength?

Sue MacArthur:

Well, a lot of these interviews are taking place virtually, so it is a reflection of what your clients will be seeing whenever they’re working with them. So pay attention to the background. I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve had when somebody’s got all their dirty laundry on their unmade bed in the background. Pay attention to those things. What kind of impression are they giving me? Put yourself in the seat of a client. Is this setup, just physically, professional.

Drew McLellan:

They’ve thought that through, right. Yeah.

Sue MacArthur:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

I had one agency owner that had an interview and the bed wasn’t behind them, that person was actually in the bed during the interview.

Sue MacArthur:

Awesome.

Drew McLellan:

You would think no one in their right mind would have dirty laundry behind them, but they do.

Sue MacArthur:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

So what else should we look for that would give us a warning sign that maybe remote work is not in this person’s purview?

Art Boulay:

Well, this is sort of, you might not think of it as a negative sign, but we see this all the time, is people who, they’re wonderful people, they’re nice people, they talk a lot about relationships and team orientation and so forth, and that’s fantastic. However, it can be overdone. And if you’re super oriented to pleasing people and working in teams, that’s going to be a signal again that you’re not as independent as perhaps I’m going to require if you’re going to work remotely.

So there’s a delicate balance there. We’re not saying if somebody mentions team building or teamwork or they seem nice, you’re not going to hire them, but you’ve got to pursue that a bit and find out how deep that goes. And is it so much of a part of their thinking that it’s going to be a problem for remote work or managing a remote team? Because if I’m so much of a people pleaser that, in person, I can’t direct my team effectively, I’m certainly not going to be able to do it remotely.

Drew McLellan:

Or I’m not going to be happy doing it, right? It may be that I’m capable of it, but if I talk all the time about how I love working with other people and all of that, then the independent work may not be as satisfying for me. And retention is such a critical issue today, we have to be thinking about that too.

Sue MacArthur:

And we’ve all had times when it’s necessary to balance work and personal and families issues.

Drew McLellan:

Of course.

Sue MacArthur:

And this is even more difficult when you’re working from home. So have the candidate give you an example of a time when they had too many things going on in both areas of their life and how they went about prioritizing those and dealing with those. That can show you where their loyalties lie, and did they have a logical way that’s acceptable to you of prioritizing all of those things, both in the work side and the family side.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, I have so many more questions, but we are running out of time. So last thoughts from each of you of what is the most critical thing. Right now, if I’m hiring in the next quarter, what is the most critical thing that I have to be mindful of and that I can sort of increase my odds of getting the right candidate and actually getting them to accept the job?

Sue MacArthur:

We’ve talked a lot about the process once you have a candidate in play, but I’d like to talk about the things that happen on either end of that, and paying attention to what your brand is, as an employer, and what the candidate experience is before they ever directly engage with you. Take a look at what your website says about you as an employer, your LinkedIn page, all of your social media. Make that as welcoming and focused on what it is really like to work for your agency. Paint that picture very clearly. And yes, focus on the positive, but if you’re the kind of shop that really focuses on work-life balance, great. If you’re the ones that are still there at 9:00 at night, you need to let people know that upfront.

Drew McLellan:

That’s right.

Sue MacArthur:

“We’re hard charging. We are workaholics,” however you want to describe that. Paint the picture of what people will really experience there. And then, in getting applicants in the door, make sure that your process of applying and engaging with your agency is as easy and welcoming as possible. Don’t throw a lot of legalese in. If you’re a really relaxed and fun environment, then don’t let the lawyers get ahold of your job application.

Art Boulay:

Which we have seen.

Sue MacArthur:

Which we have seen.

Drew McLellan:

I’m sure.

Sue MacArthur:

And if that paints the picture of “This is a place where people are going to have their thumb on me all the time,” I’ve got two pages of disclaimers I’m reading here before I ever get to the application part. So think about things like that, that every step in the process needs to really paint the picture of who you are, and be engaging to that candidate. And then on the end, even if you don’t hire somebody, that communication piece is vital, because it paints you in a good light. The worst thing you can do is have somebody come in for two or three interviews and spend a lot of time with you and then they never hear from you again.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Sue MacArthur:

What does that tell them about you? And what are they going to say to their friend who might want to apply to this job, too, is “I never heard from them.” That does not paint a good picture. So really think about that experience from beginning to end.

Art Boulay:

Well, Sue did the very beginning and the very end. I’ll go back to the middle and I’ll just repeat the one word that’s critical, structure. And while Sue was talking, I was thinking, be as structured in your hiring process and interview process as you are in your pitch process. I mean, you would never go to a client with your whole gang and just wing it from there. People prepare for this. And a lot of materials they’ve prepared is materials they can use in various situations. They’re not all unique to a particular pitch.

Take that same attitude, that same approach to the actual interview itself and have it completely structured and organized so that you can deliver it in a few days and make the right decision in the end. I mean, that’s the key, that on that Friday morning, we make the right decision quickly, efficiently, and if we have, then we’ve beat the big boys to the game and we may score a great hire. And it also tells the candidates something. Maybe they’re looking for more money or something, but they’re going to think, “Wow, I worked with this agency and they were efficient. They made their decision quickly. They seem to like me. I like them. Wait a minute. Why am I going to turn them down for a $10,000 raise somewhere else?”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, all good points. Interesting times, for sure, for agencies trying to hire their folks, and I know you guys are keeping super busy helping our people, so thank you for that. Art, you mentioned an interviewing guide, and I’m sure you probably have some other tools that perhaps we can include with the show notes so folks can tap into more of your expertise, yes?

Sue MacArthur:

Yes.

Art Boulay:

Yeah, we just updated the interview guide and Sue, in particular, added our standard vetting questions, which people could use almost directly.

Sue MacArthur:

Beautiful.

Art Boulay:

You can get that and some other resources by going to our website, strategictalentmgmt.com and find the resources page. And in fact, I believe the Interview Guide is right near the top of that page, but there’s a lot of other things out there.

Sue MacArthur:

We also have an onboarding guide that can be really helpful in that whole process, and it addresses remote workers as well.

Drew McLellan:

Okay, awesome. We will make sure that we include the link to all of those. Sue and Art, thank you so much. If folks want to learn more about you, Art, you already gave the URL. Are there other ways that folks can track you down? I know that you’re putting out some really good content now. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? How can my audience engage with you guys to ask more questions, to learn more about what you do, how you serve AMI agencies, and even those foolish agencies that are not part of AMI?

Art Boulay:

Well, they can always call us, the telephone still works.

Drew McLellan:

You’re so old-fashioned.

Art Boulay:

But if they don’t want to call us, we have podcasts. Sue’s been doing a lot of podcasts lately that are excellent, so podcast is one way. As I said, there’s a lot of resources out there. There’s a lot of them around interviewing, which I think most people would find very practical and useful, but not only for the hiring piece, but the orientation, for the exit interview, the stay interview. There’s a lot of good information out there.

Sue MacArthur:

And we have a weekly email that provides resources. So if you’d like to sign up for that, any page on our website will have an opportunity to sign up for that list. And sometimes it’s podcast or it might be a tool or a guide of some sort, but every week you’ll get something that we hope is helpful and practical.

Drew McLellan:

Awesome. And of course, folks who are going to be at the summit, will see Strategic Talent Management there as well, so we’ll look forward to seeing you guys in May. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your expertise. You have been an important partner to AMI for a very long time, and I know that a lot of our folks are super grateful that you’re in our community and serving them the way you do. So thanks for your time today and for all that you do for our folks.

Sue MacArthur:

Thank you.

Art Boulay:

Thank you, Drew, and all the folks listening. We love working with you.

Drew McLellan:

All right, guys, so this wraps up this episode, but I’m hoping that you were taking notes. And again, in the show notes, we’ll include links to some of the guides that Art and Sue were talking about because they’ve done a lot of your prep work for you. But here’s, here’s what I’m hoping you heard from today. Number one, prep is important. This is definitely a measure-twice-cut-once situation. You have a very short window of time to get this right and to get it done before the best candidates are pulled out from under your feet.

So prepping, making sure that you have those interview questions ready, knowing if you’re going to do the assessments, which, as I said in the intro, I cannot tell you how helpful those are. Twice in my career as an agency owner, I disagreed with… Well, I liked the candidate, so I wanted to hire them even though Art and Sue said, “No, do not hire this person.” And twice within six months, I fired both of those people because, sadly, I was wrong.

So I’m telling you, these assessments are scary accurate and super helpful. So have your interview questions. Know how you’re going to do an assessment, if you’re going to do one, and have that test. I’m a big believer in testing for skills and competency. And again, whenever you can, having them present their test, whatever their test was, back to you, so you can see their presentation skills. Because in our world, being able to talk to coworkers, to clients on Zoom, in person, whatever it is, is so critical regardless of the position. But this is all about preparation and really being ready to make this your core job for the week and allowing for the time and the attention that it needs so that you can score the best candidate. We are in a race for good candidates right now.

You all know that. And I think today’s conversation gave you a lot of tools to win the race. So do not take that for granted. Don’t push that aside. Use the tools that you were just given so that you can be more successful in hiring. And when you hire well, it means they stay longer. So it’s also a retention tool as well.

Before I let you guys go, two things. One, big thanks to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they’re the presenting sponsor of the podcast, have been for several years. They provide white label dev design and PPC for all kinds of agencies. And for many agencies, they are the web department. Excellent people, good work. On my agency side, they have saved our bacon many a time with their skills and their speed and their responsiveness. So check them out at whitelabeliq.com/ami.

And last, but certainly not least, I am really grateful that you keep coming back every week. It would be very weird to just be talking to myself and know that no one was out there listening. So thanks for coming back. I’ll be back next week with another guest. In the meantime, you know how to get ahold of me if you need to. I’ll talk to you next week.

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.