How hiring decisions are made at car-rental company Myles
This anecdote is a part of a series from the People Matters June cover: Travails of Team building. The story focuses on learning the first principles of attracting and enabling the core team from entrepreneurs. Read it in two parts Travails of team building: Learning from startups and Travails of team building: Enabling, not retaining.
It is very important to understand if the person who am I talking to is convinced with the idea behind Myles because only then it make sense to move forward.Being attracted to the sector is also very important; the candidateneed not have a background in transportation sector but they need to be passionate about it. To identify whether the person will be good for the organization or not, you need to ask them what they will do for the organization, how they will leverage their experience and skills, how they envision their role and how will they approach solving problems. What I am trying to find out isthe amount of enthusiasm, effort passion they have and how innovative they are in their thinking.
For all important positions, I meet the persons twice, the first time, it is important for me to sell the organization’s vision to them, but second time I expect them to articulate what they will do for Myles. To identify whether the person will be good for the organization or not, I ask them how they envision their role in the organization, how they will leverage their experience and skills, how they will approach their role and solve problems. What I am trying to find out is the amount of enthusiasm and effort they have put into understanding their role. Have they been thinking about the role and are they passionate? Also I want to assess if they can think innovatively. Their ideas don’t necessarily have to be practical as they lack our specific context, but what matters is their ability to think beyond what they have done previously. I have had some wonderful experiences where future employees have shown us some very creative ways to solve our various problems, from technology to marketing to consumer life cycle.