‘Talent and recruitment’ has proven to be one of the biggest challenges facing our entrepreneurial community today. Founders and CEOs across the UK struggle to find and retain the right people who can help to take their business to the next level. Talent and recruitment is a theme that E2E would like to explore further this month. So we caught up with Keeley Deininger, Founder of Angel’s Face who is speaking at #SCALEUP2SUCCESS Birmingham on 27th March.
Keeley said:
“I have often made the mistake of hiring people whom I thought knew what they were doing, when in actual fact many of them were very good talkers and very poor doers!
The problem lies in that most entrepreneurs are very driven people and our expectations of others are high. In not only work ethic but in believing that the tasks set are actually achievable. To an entrepreneur nothing is unachievable if enough work and effort is put in, and if that means working all hours even weekends then that’s what it takes. There are times when it is tough and more effort is needed equally there are times when it is not as challenging.
When hiring now I don’t really discuss what is needed but get to know a little bit more about the person without it being a job interview just an informal chat. I ask what they are looking for in life, what they enjoy doing, this way I get a better insight into the type of person they are without the pressure of it being a job interview. If I feel that we fit in our outlook on life and they are positive about what can be achieved then I get someone else to interview them.
There are 2 types of people the ones who have achieved everything and the ones who are quite reserved about what they have achieved within a company.
The over achievers usually use the word I a lot and never acknowledge that it usually takes a team of people to make things happen, these are to be avoided at all cost.
The reserved ones will talk about their past companies in terms of we did this and achieved that. They are respectful of their time there and acknowledge that they learnt a lot, here you know you have a team player. This is the type of person that I would want on my team, I am great at what I do, really I am, but without my team players what I do would never get off the page. I am an ideas person a creator and I need rock solid people around me to make it happen. They have to believe we are able to achieve our goals and that means putting in the same amount of effort as I do. I only look for people who want to buy into the company ethos, they want to be part of something that will grow into something much bigger.”