How to hire outside the box

This is just a super article by Maureen Farrell of Forbes.com dated April 16th, 2008. The focus is on the pros and cons of deciding to hire someone for your company who has a non traditional background. Many companies elect not to go outside their industry when hiring replacements or perhaps filling a newly developed position. It’s easy to understand – “employees with traditional backgrounds and similar skill sets yield predictable results. Predictability is good on some level, but it can be limiting, too. A non-traditional hire with different perspectives can inject sorely needed energy and creativity into the mix.”

But according to Margaret Neale, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who has studied the effect of diversity on companies - "When you increase the diversity of a group, you increase the probability that the group can have the necessary perspective to create the next big thing. People with different backgrounds ask different sets of questions. You ultimately get more information."

As the article states though, their can be pitfalls following this strategy. One must stay the course and ask the same set of interview questions as they would for a candidate inside the industry. Asking specific examples on ideas and problem solving strategies is especially critical to see the depth of an individual’s experience. Another key issue – be sure you have your team involved in some component of the interview process. This is such a good tactic for both your teams’ development and for the candidate.

Finally, a crucial element to consider – doing the thorough reference check. Be sure to ask the person to reflect on a time when the candidate displayed the qualities you're looking for. You'll learn more.

Following some of these tactics as well as using your invaluable experience in previous hiring decisions will lead to creating an organization that is capable of ‘thinking outside the box’ in regard to so many of the issues facing us in our great industry.

Until next time….

"Focus On The Positive"

Greetings everyone,
It seems like everywhere we turn today, we hear more and more negative news – whether it is global or closer to home. We always find it refreshing when a publication takes the initiative to report on a situation which although is negative, they ‘focus’ on what the company has done right. Case in point – the article titled “Rock Bottom’s job cuts deeply affected everyone, including staffers who stayed.” The article appeared in “Nation’s Restaurant News” March 24th edition. Evidenced here is a situation where a company has determined that in order to survive, they must make necessary cuts for the company to be capable of remaining solvent. They looked at all avenues of opportunity but determined they had to make job cuts. Obviously this was the company’s last resort and they attempted to ease the pain for those affected personally. BUT, what this article mentions and we believe is too often overlooked – the leadership of this corporation turned its attention – to those left behind. We applaud the leaders for realizing that any and all changes within an organization have an impact on ALL of its people. After all, a company IS ITS PEOPLE! And we also want to applaud Nation’s Restaurant News for taking the initiative of reporting and focusing on turning the negative into some of the positives which can be done.

Have a great week everyone!

New Look

Well, Good Morning Everyone,

We want to inform you that we are currently working to make our web page – www.crosspointsearch.com more ‘user friendly.’ In the very near future, visitors to our site will find it easier to navigate and quicker and more efficient when attempting to send us information. We have secured the services of Glexia Inc., www.glexia.com to make the upgrades to our site. It is our hope that the changes will continue to set our company apart as to how we listen to and respond to comments from our clients.
Until next time…

Cross Point Search Blog Created

Today we released the Cross Point Search blog. This blog will be a composite of information related to the hospitality and related industries and our comments on various externalities related directly to our work. We hope the readers obtain new knowledge, new ways to approach a certain topic, and are able to see critically through our perspective.