Hiring. Firing. Interns.

​I am sharing my OPINIONS here because I was an
​HR novice till the day I retired. 

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​Hiring

Hiring is fun. 
We hired most of the staff we had through the grapevine. Ads and Services turned up lots of bad-fit people. We found it better to ask other architects if they knew of someone who might be interested. I stayed involved in the local AIA long past the ‘Best by’ date to have contact with other architects just to have a leg up when hiring. 

Bear in mind that the most hiring we ever did was two people in one year. Usually we had a need every three years or so. If you differ a lot, keep that in mind.

My first boss after college had an outlook on the appropriate number of staff that said you should always be ‘one person short’. Of course, this means lots of overtime occasionally, but it is safer financially. 

What do you look for in the job candidates that you interview?

Strangely, a great match with the level of experience that you need is not the main criteria. It is second or third. What I found is that it was more important that the person was a /learner/ and had a good /cultural fit/.

Learners
It isn’t easy to determine how much of a learner a person is. If a candidate thinks you value something, don’t be surprised to find they have it. You have to read between the lines. It also matters that their learning is related to architecture. Architecture is such a deep field of study that there isn’t time to be a budding musician, a master gardener, or a cabinet maker. So you are looking for someone who has deeper skills than they would ordinarily have at their experience level. Investing in themselves is another aspect of being a learner. A learner is going to get better and better. A non-learner is going to just get by. 

Cultural Fit
I am assuming that you aren’t a firm of 20+, but one of the majority of firms that have less than 10 people. In a small group, it is my opinion that you don’t have the time or resources to be distracted by people problems. This isn’t about race, religion, disabilities or foreign cultures. This is about the candidate’s willingness to become a member of your little group. You have your own culture that is expressed in your attitude towards: punctuality, accuracy, work ethic, general ethics and grooming. You should feel very comfortable about the candidate’s ability to fit in - with your firm and with your firm’s clients. 

Kolbe
There is one tool that can help you choose the right candidate. The Kolbe Profile. Check out this post for more about Kolbe. 

​​Firing

​Firing is not fun.
There is something wrong with you if you find firing fun. 

Lack Of Work
The main reason for firing someone is the lack of work. It is fairly expensive to get a new-hire up to speed with your processes, so you don’t want to have much turnover just because of small changes in your backlog of work. However when the next six months look increasingly grim, you have to act or face going out of business altogether. 

We usually took this approach. When our backlog started to dwindle, we cut back everyone’s pay by the same percentage. This will hopefully see you through. The cut might have to go deeper. But as soon as you realize that this reduction in pay won’t resolve the problem, you have to lay off someone (or two). My opinion is that you let go of the most expendable person, and do not give consideration to rank or longevity. 

Bad Fit
The other time when you need to fire someone is when you realize that you are treating them differently, making allowances, working around them. Even in a very small group this situation is likely to cause friction and morale problems. The weird thing is that the boss, who does the firing, is the last to realize that there is a problem. Everyone just assumes that the boss knows what is going on and tries to make it work. In my case, by the time I was told there was a problem, months had gone by. It was an expensive lesson. So ask, “How’s it going?” But be on the lookout for signs that something might be just below the surface of the “Fine” that you inevitably get in reply.

​​Interns

​How do Interns fit in?
My impression is that summer interns are a wash. We had about a dozen summer interns over 30 years. Unfortunately for interns, they are most valuable when you have loads of scut work that needs to be done. Even so someone has to spend time with them, so the financial benefit is at best a wash. 

But there is another side to the equation. Everything isn’t about money. Some interns are fun to have around. Others can “learn something for you”. Example. We wanted to impress a potential client with our 3D expertise, which was non-existent in 1990. Our intern figured out how to do it and taught us. 
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If you approach the idea of hiring an intern for the summer as a break-even adventure, you will be satisfied most of the time. 

​​Many of you have experience in “Human Resources”.
Add a comment below to help us all out.