If you have not read “The Mafia Manager”, you are missing vital business management tips not found anywhere else. Here are 16 lessons on hiring the best employees from Mafia Manager.
The Mafia Manager is a book containing the distilled wisdom of men who have managed one of the largest, most profitable and long lived cartels in the history of capitalism. The Mafia Manager gathers for the first time in one book the knowledge and percepts of the ruthless bosses whose genius at organization and management contributed far more to profitability and growth than the brute strength or conventional wisdom of the legitimate CEO.
At this stage, i will be share with you 16 lessons to recruiting or finding good employees; which I learned from the book “The Mafia Manager.” There are many business lessons in the Mafia Manager but I will specifically be extracting the lessons on hiring good employees. If you have not read the book “The Mafia Manager”; then you are definitely missing some uncommon business lessons.
Hiring the Best Employees – 16 Lessons from the Mafia Manager
1. It is not necessary to have a large family with many soldiers and button men. In fact, the fewer employees you have, the fewer betrayals or disappointments you will experience. Many employees, many betrayals, many disappointments and also higher overhead.
2. Your staff must be of the highest possible quality in critical positions. One good man is, of course, better than a hundred fools.
3. For a truly responsible job involving others in its performance; don’t hire someone just out of school, no matter how impressive his record. Hire the person who already has demonstrated an ability to work with others.
4. For jobs less critical to the success of your organization, you will want to hire a good attitude before experience. Attitude reveals itself in a number of ways. For example, if an applicant asks about salary early on in his first interview; his is a bad attitude and moreover, he is stupid.
For a truly vital job, don’t hire a high powered expert; no matter how impressive his credentials. Experts care only about their credentials and their fees; and their caring never stops.
6. Don’t hire more than two members of a household (except possibly your own) and never hire lovers or husband and wife; no matter how necessary their individual skills may be to your organization.
7. Before you hire, you will interview. Knowing what skills and performance you want from the person you will hire give applicants time to think about your questions on those matters.
8. Be specific in your questioning. Generalities begat general (thus useless) responses. Require applicants to be specific in their answers. Use the questions “why” and “how” to follow up responses.
9. As for the interview strategy itself, seat applicants beside you if possible; rather than across the desk from you, in order for you to better gauge his reactions. Pick up his/her resume, frowning every now and then as if pondering on something.
When this bit of play acting is finished; and the applicant suitably is unsettled by it, begin by asking the applicant why he wants the vacant job and why he feels qualified to do it. Let him sell himself as much as he wants to; interrupting only with specific questions. Finally, if the applicant is presently working, ask him why he wants to change jobs.
10. If the applicant should frown, squirm or stroke his cheek with apparent concern while you are outlining the job difficulties; you should begin kissing him off. In polite language, let your feelings be known to the applicant. Unless the applicant tries to sell himself back into contention, do kiss him off. Tell him you have others to interview and you will let him know, one way or the other in a day or two.
11. Also kiss off any applicant who is full of questions about his career’s future with you.
12. In any case, close interviews when you have found out all you need to know; whether this takes five minutes or fifty.
13. When an applicant seems worth another look, check out his business references and employment history. Forget about personal references; he’s not going to list someone who will bum rap him. If you happen to know one or more of his personal refs, a call or two may get you some useful inside info.
14. Bring in the most likely candidate for a second interview, preferably at lunch and at this meeting; zap him with whatever you may have turned up bogus in his business references or employment history. If those doubts; real or imagined are resolved to your satisfaction, sell the job to the applicant.
Sell the job; make no promises of future raises, promotions or broadening of responsibilities. What the applicant gets is what he gets; nobody, not even you have the crystal ball that works. Let him do the job applied for and we’ll see what happens.
16. Following your selling of the job, pose a few hypothetical problems the applicant may encounter on the job and ask him how he might go about meeting them. If the applicant passes muster; make an offer and hire him. If not, back to the office to schedule a second interview with the next most likely candidate.
And lastly, never you hire someone of the opposite sex in hopes of future erotic reward. It might be the beginning of the end for your business.