| Being understaffed is less harmful to your company than having an employee that doesn’t fit. | Not all sickness leads to death—many of these signs can be remedied with the right tools. | Almost half of all new hires fail within 18 months of getting hired. | Knowing the warning signs ahead of time can help prevent you from making a hiring mistake. 
00:00–07:21 | Skills not meeting expectations and bad attendance 07:21–16:00 | Being a bad culture fit, bad attitudes, repeated mistakes and “old job syndrome” 16:00–22:44 | Team players, a lack of attention to detail and a lack of drive and self discipline 22:44–28:37 | “The incredible vanishing worker” and ten great qualities for new employees 
“I would say that half of our negative outcomes with new hires is when we have a candidate that’s not a good fit because they don’t match the culture and rhythm of the team.” – Tim Raglin COO of Skillwork “I want to see people that are willing to take ownership of what they’re doing. It’s important that people are looking for constant improvement, self-learning and trying to get better.” – Tim Raglin, COO of Skillwork “10 great qualities in a new hire that require zero talent: punctuality, work ethic, effort, body language, energy, attitude, passion, being coachable, doing extra and being prepared.” – Brett Elliot, President & CEO of Skillwork “All sickness doesn’t lead to death. Just because you’re seeing some of these attributes or traits, doesn’t mean it can’t be corrected.” – Tim Raglin, COO of Skillwork 
Full Transcription:
“The following text was generated using a transcription service and may contain errors.”
Tim Raglin 00:08
Well, hello, and welcome again to the score Forum. I’m Tim. As usual, I’m joined with my friend, my partner, Brett here, we gather on these podcasts and talk about industry issues, emerging trends and challenges surrounding the skilled trades. So today we’re going to kind of talk about a reality if you’re in the business of recruiting betting, hiring new employees, which I assume all of you either are or maybe you’re somebody looking for a job. So today, we’re going to talk about the fact that this whole thing is not an exact science. When you hire people, when you bring people on to your company. Sometimes it just doesn’t turn out the way that you expected or hoped it would or planned for it. And so despite our best efforts and your best efforts in recruiting and vetting great candidates, it’s still possible sometimes to make a bad hire. In fact, I looked at some stats were at close to half of all new hires fail within the first 18 months. And I would say probably closer to, you know, less time now I think that that window is shrinking, we thought we put together some signs of a bad hire. Some of these are pretty obvious, you know, the old captain obvious commercial, some of them may be a little bit more subtle. And it’s interesting as last time in the podcast, we talked about how to effectively on board and you know, that if you effectively onboard people mitigates a lot of these, but so we came up with, we thought were 10 signs that you may have made a bad hire, and maybe a few ideas on how to mitigate?
Brett Elliott 01:31
Yeah, I think so. 10. I mean, you know, it’s like you said, I mean, we’re all so we need talent, you know, in our space, you know, skilled trade talent. And so I think sometimes you can almost want to overlook the signs. And like you said, it’s probably why it’s 18 months, when you probably should have been about six days. You have to have a level of patience, we talked about that, in onboarding, you can’t get to sometimes I don’t think you give a person time to settle. And so there is that piece, but you know, so So the first one that we identified, and I think this is one that is probably one of the most difficult in the interviewing process, and that is the skills are not what you expected. You know, what’s really tough to figure out is some people are just really good interviewers, as the saying goes, you know, when you get them on site, you know, they’re kind of all hat, no cattle, you know, that is, it’s, it’s something that usually shows up pretty quick as that person to, you know, wire a motor, and they’ve told you, they’re an electrician, and they and they can’t, that’s a pretty good sign that maybe they embellish something on their resume, or like I said, they just were really, really polished, a good interview, or there might be a reason they’re going to interview because they probably interview a lot, because they probably get fired a lot. Yeah. And so that becomes, you know, but we see it. I mean, we have people, you know, the ones that are hard to figure out are the ones that they’re not great interviewers, but they really know their stuff trying to vet that out is is can be a real challenge.
Tim Raglin 03:00
Yeah, I was just thinking of this as you were talking about that. People not showing up with the talent that you thought so just a real real life story has popped into my head, but think I may have totally gotten over story. So I was doing, I was actually hiring, looking to hire and we were searching across the country, we were doing virtual interviews for this position, very, very unique skill set. Very, very crucial what we were doing, you had to really know this tool, and this process very well. So trying to find the candidate was hard. And we finally found we thought was a great candidate. We had a couple levels of interviews with this individual over a virtual interview, we could see each other like a Zoom meeting. And guy was really on point professional and knew all the answers. And I thought we hit a home run, move them across country brought him in whole nine yards, you know, paid to relocate him came in the first day and I told my folks that he was going to be working with I said, Hey, I want to meet him. Make him feel welcome the first day. So call me down, we’ll come down the foyer. So I went down and the gentleman walked in. I’m like, I know you don’t sometimes look the same on camera. But I still like hanging it doesn’t look like that guy at all. And he starts talking I’m like, doesn’t even send this guy’s got a pretty heavy accent. Um, I don’t remember that. And so, Mike, well, you know, I kind of just welcome aboard and forgot about a few days later. Like I checked in with my my, one of my guy, guys, that was his supervisor. Hey, how’s it going with Joe? We’ll call him Joe. How’s it going? Joe? And he goes, not great. I don’t think he knows anything about this. That’s why he’s probably nervous. You know, let it get settled in. I’ll check back with you at the end of the week. And he comes in and then a week I remember I was I had to drive off campus for a meeting I call him he goes this guy doesn’t know even how to turn the thing on. I mean, he knew nothing. And I’m like you gotta be kidding me goes nowhere. I started he my guy was telling me I started pressing him. And he admitted that wasn’t him on the interview it was a friend of his that all the interviews and he literally drove across country not knowing anything. So I said, Well, I almost want to keep the guy just for his oil baldness. But But I told I told my guy I said, Well, he’s Did you? What did you do? He said, Well, I fired him. And I’m like, Well, yeah, so that’s number one. Go ahead.
Brett Elliott 05:22
Just Just for the record, that was when that wasn’t skill word that was his
Tim Raglin 05:27
previous life. But I was like, couldn’t believe it. The guy he didn’t know. Yeah, that was that was a
Brett Elliott 05:34
that’s yeah, that’s going over the one thing to embellish a resume. You know, we’ve, we’ve seen, you know, college football coaches, you know, you know, it’s, you know, things that people think won’t get exposed. I mean, at some point, you’re gonna figure it out. And the skilled trades if you can’t, if you can’t do it, and in that case, like I said, it’s just it’s kind of, it’s kind of crazy.
Tim Raglin 05:54
Yeah, I mean, to try that you hire guys like, hey, you know, you, I need you to do PCL programming, or PLC programming. And they walk in and they have no idea. I’ve never even looked at one. So that’s, that’s not good. Thought. Number one, I just thought of that story. The second one then of our top 10 is attendance issues. And what we hear from many and I’m sure you guys are in the same boat, the idea of we just have to show up, just show up, be here when you’re supposed to be here. So if you have somebody that you’ve hired, and they start early on showing find that they’re, they’re showing up late, they call on last minute, they just don’t show or they have all these excuses why and we have some people and we call them red flags, he began to see and it seemed like a common one was like, Well, I was headed to the plant, but I had a flat tire. Okay, that that can happen. But we’ve we’ve even had some that have had like multiple flat tires. Yeah. Like, well, what do we need to do to get you some new tires, because so the idea of, of not being there. So if you’ve got a if you got somebody you hired, and they should be really on their best behavior early on. And if you make clear that we need you to show up on time, it’s crucial. And they’re beginning to show attendance issues by calling in or not showing up again. Now there are valid excuses. Sickness does happen. mechanical issues do happen with your vehicle, but it’s a trend to be watching for. So this is a sign you made a bad hire if they if they don’t take attendance and being on time serious.
Brett Elliott 07:21
Yeah. No doubt about that, you know, a couple of days, like you said, Tim, these are these early indicate you’re gonna have some grace initially, I mean, with anybody, some obviously things can can happen. But those reliability flaws that start shoved, they usually they’re hard to correct, yeah, they usually don’t go away, you hope at some point, that individual will have a realization, whether it’s with, sometimes the best thing you can do is fire him to give him a wake up to recognize that, you know, this, this isn’t okay, just continuing to tolerate that, you know, is is not good. So it’s kind of the same thing. The third one is, they’re just a bad culture fit. So again, in that interview process, and that vetting process, no matter how extensive it is, and ours, here, it’s Gorgons, it’s very extensive process for both internal and traveling guys who would put out in the field, and ladies, but a bad culture fit. And so sometimes you get somebody and you try to vet that, you ask the questions, you know, are they going to work well with other people, or they’re going to this that period, skill work, you know, we founded the company, when three very clear values, you know, honor to God and everything, we do values respect back to the trades, and to measure our success, but and then people would positively impact if you don’t fit that, you probably won’t want to be here very long, not because, you know, we’re gonna say mean things to you just, you know, you either fit into that it feels right to be part of that. So not fitting the culture and not being part of the team. That’s another one that it’s hard to figure out the interview, but you can start to see it pretty quickly once you’re on site. Yeah.
Tim Raglin 08:58
And I think it goes to your onboarding and hiring processes to to tie that into this because, you know, how do you avoid that we sometimes we get fixated on just the skills and the experience. And it’s really important that that needs to be kind of the entry level stakes to get it you know, to get in the interview. After that, you really got to focus on those sort of things that are important to your organization. And a lot of times if we don’t have the right people in the interview process that are going to be working with them every day you miss on those cold culture things. And it’s crucial, it’s really important, I would say that probably half of our what we call a negative outcome when we have a candidate that’s not a good fit somewhere or because they’re just they don’t fit in with your culture or with your team’s rhythm and how you do what you do there. So it’s really an important one. So that’s those are the first three number four then is kind of along with this, but it’s really this self important or really arrogant attitude. And sometimes you have that that candidate that shows up and they Think on day one they know more than the guy who’s been there for 20 years. And you know, maybe they do know some things, maybe there’s some knowledge that they can bring. But that that attitude that know it all attitude can put off your staff, and can put off your team, and really make it very difficult for that individual to fit in. And people like this, you know, often when when new people show up, they’re very nervous. And it’s just human nature that some people cover up with nervousness and insecurity by coming on strong and overcompensating for that by appearing as though they know more than they know. So a lot of it has to do with onboarding and talking to them and making them feel comfortable and not intimidated. Those those guys that come in, come in being offended at being corrected, I know everything, they won’t take constructive criticism, those people you know, like all of these, you need to coach and correct and try to help along. But if that’s going to be the way they are, then ultimately, that’s probably going to cause you more headaches with your current staff, than then the problem you’re trying to alleviate by bringing in someone new. So, again, try to correct that try to coach that, but the know it all the self important arrogant worker, that’s a sign of a bad hire. So that’s number
Brett Elliott 11:14
four. Yes, yep. And all of these are, you know, as we were discussing here, you know, they’re, you tried to pick them up in the vetting interview process, but they’re, they’re difficult, like I said, you can, what feels to be a strong level of confidence on the interview, then when you get on site, if it maybe it is confidence, that’s what you’re hoping for that they’re very confident in what they do very skilled in what they do. But but if it turns into that arrogance, or that almost a hero muntaner pattern, and Tony always says, you know, hire, you know, hungry, humble, smart. And so, you know, these people, they lack the humility, you know, which can be a challenge. So, another one, and it kind of fits in a lot of these fit into similar personality traits, but somebody that just continues to make the same mistakes or just not, this one can go two ways, you know, you can say they, they’re not learning, it’s that may not be, don’t tell me what to do an arrogant, like, the one before, this may be an aptitude issue where we talked about a minute ago, Jim, you know, having the skills, you know, to do the job is kind of the, that’s a given. And we we do here that’s go or we do I believe, you know, a really good job of vetting the skills, it’s these other pieces, you know, what your aptitude you know, we talk to clients all the time that would rather have somebody that that has a drum and upward growth curve, they learn they’re quick learner that that type thing has to somebody where we’ve showed him this five times, can you continue to make the same mistake, that’s a tough one, you know, and when at some point, you have to, again, gotta give it some time, you know, people are not just going to walk in, you know, the difference between, you know, we have it with our internal recruiters, the difference from a recruiter, day one, to once they’ve been here six months is night and day, you know, you got to give it some time. But they also got to be showing the ability to, to learn and not just repeating the same same issues.
Tim Raglin 13:14
Yeah, I was thinking about this one, early on, when we were first getting going. We were all trying to cover multiple jobs. And there was a period where I was a backup for somebody here that does some of our basic payroll and stuff. So I remember those days very nervous days for me. And yeah, let’s just say that I don’t care how much time I spend with our great accounting back office team, I am not going to be good at that I just don’t have an aptitude for it, you know, to me, close enough is good enough. But that doesn’t work in accounting. So, so the good example that and we all have things we’re good at, and you gotta sometimes there’s just not a good fit. So number six is this kind of gets back to the personality. But we’ve all experienced that new employee that is, I call it old job syndrome. This is a way we used to do it at my old job, you guys, the way you’re doing it here is is not as good, we did it better. And it constantly reminiscing about the old way that we did it. You know, my boss didn’t do it that way, or we didn’t have our line set up this way or our maintenance program was better and other place you guys are doing it wrong. kind of ties into that, you know, that arrogance, but again, I think a lot of these are protection. You know, the question is begged to ask for them. Why did you leave? If it was so great, you know, what was what was wrong with that. So somebody that tends to come in and disrupt your workforce and continually focus on that I think this one can be corrected with just a little bit of coaching, you know, self awareness, people just lack generally self awareness. And somebody just making them aware of that, that you know, this constant talking about your own place, it’s not really setting well with the team here. Why don’t you put that in the rearview mirror and work on so the old jawed syndrome that sometimes is a sign of a bad hire, if they can’t
Brett Elliott 15:00
Yeah, you can get past that. So yeah, yeah. I mean, we’ve all seen it, you know, you know, those people that just live in the past, and you got to really have people that are going to grow with your organization, you know, but like you said, I do think that’s, that’s a coach both and if it’s not, then, you know, make the decision.
Tim Raglin 15:15
You know, back in the day, you know, when you were been married a long time. Now, back when you’re dating, you need to start dating a girl while she wants to talk about the old boyfriend.
Brett Elliott 15:26
I’ve been married 31 years and, and so if she’s still talking about that, is that a bad time? That is probably best. She doesn’t, but she just got over that. So we’re having a conversation this morning. I got a podcast today. And I said, I’ve actually never watched one of our podcasts. He said, Well, I haven’t watched him either. So I can say whatever I want on here. So the
Tim Raglin 15:47
I brought that to
Brett Elliott 15:51
say that
Tim Raglin 15:52
we hope you guys watch it, but our wives aren’t necessarily big fans.
Brett Elliott 15:56
So the she gets enough for me just straight face to face. The next one is number seven. Number seven. Yep. So that that person that’s that, you know, we love the score guys we send out into the field and gals, you know, one of the big things we talked about is are you willing to pitch in and get it done? Whatever you need. Yeah, I know, you’re, you’re you’re a PLC person or this, that, but if they, you know, sometimes they’re going to need you to, you know, and those people that have that, that attitude of hey, yes, you know, do I want to do that every day, you know, this is my skill, you know, I want to be utilized my talent, you know, they didn’t send me there to do X, you know, this, but, you know, I’m a team player, you know, it’s really comes down to, are you a team player, if you’re that, you know, there’s the saying, you know, you know, not my circus, not my monkey, kind of a thing, you know, there’s people unfortunately, they’d rather set in the break room than then help out, that’s a sign you know, it’s an it’s surely an arrogance, it’s a little bit of laziness, to write, attend, they’re all things that clearly, you’ve got to coach them out of out of them. Or, again, it’s going to disrupt your culture, all these things that we’re talking about here. If you accept them, and you tolerate them, you don’t coach people up or coach people out, if that’s what it takes, eventually has started to erode your culture is the ultimate, you know, impact. Yeah, I
Tim Raglin 17:21
think that’s one of the things we found early on, we do we try to vet that out and ask put scenarios out there and see if the people are willing, and this is where reference checks really come in, you know, look at look at a previous employer and ask the question, were they willing to ch