Do You Think Fried’s Hiring Methods Are Reasonable? Will They Lead To Good Hires For His Growing Company? What Are The Best Features Of His Approach (if You Believe There Are Any)?

Do you think Fried’s hiring methods are reasonable? Will they lead to good hires for his growing company? What are the best features of his approach (if you believe there are any)?

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December 31, 2020

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Intentional Selection
It takes excellent people to build a great company. Since launching Chicago-based Web applications company 37 signals in Jason Fried, its founder and president, has developed a careful and deliberate approach to nding and managing people for his company. Why is he so intentional in his hiring? This is how Fried answers that question: Hiring people is like making friends. Pick good ones, and they’ll enrich your life. Make bad choices, and they’ll bring you down. Who you work with is even more important than who you hang out with, because you spend a lot more time with your workmates than with your friends. The company has a deliberately small sta of and it works hard to keep them happy. After 11 years in business, only two people have left to pursue opportunities elsewhere -and one of those returned after working at another company for seven years. Fried’s hiring method has served 37 signals well, but it is unusual in some ways. For example, he hires late (only “after it hurts”) and never before a new employee is needed. He won’t even hire “the perfect catch” if he doesn’t have “the perfect job” open for that person. Invent a position to keep a talented person from getting away? Never! And Fried won’t hire for a job he has never performed himself. In his mind, there is no way to nd the right person for a job if you don’t understand the position on a deep level. Fried’s approach to evaluating job candidates is also a little out of the ordinary. Résumes are ignored (“they’re full of exaggerations, half-truths, embellishments cven outright lies”). Cover letters are given extra weight, because they reveal who wants the specic job being oered (and not just any job), and they also show who can write well. “When in doubt, always hire the better writer,” Fried suggests.) And during interviews, Fried listens carefully for signs of self-initiative. He reasons that candidates who ask, “How do I do that?” or “How can I nd out this or that?” often are not used to guring things out for themselves and thus would be a drain on others. On the other hand, Fried likes it when a candidate asks, “Why?” He interprets this as “a sign of deep interest in a subject” and “a healthy dose of curiosity.” Details can make a huge dierence. Even if all indications are positive, Fried still chooses to go slow. “We try to test-drive people before hiring them full time. We give designers a one-week design project to see how they approach the problem,” paying them for their time. Fried sometimes extends the project into a month-long contract “to see how we feel about the person and how the person feels about us.” The point is to avoid hiring mistakes that would be bad for the company and unfair to the candidate. As the economy continues to struggle, many small businesses are nding that they have to hire very carefully – as Fried is doing – or even get by with fewer workers. Some are turning to exible management practices, like cross-training employees, hiring temporary workers on an as-needed basis, or forming outsourcing partnerships to adjust to uctuations in market demand. But one way or another, the small business show must go on-and that means having the right people on board when you need them.
Do you think Fried’s hiring methods are reasonable? Will they lead to good hires for his growing company? What are the best features of his approach (if you believe there are any)
Do you think it is a good idea for Fried to take a pass on “perfect” candidates because he doesn’t have an attractive job open for them at the moment? Is it smart for Fried to let talented candidates get away by refusing to create more suitable positions to keep them?
If Fried were to use the behavioral interview format, what kinds of questions might be especially helpful, given what you know of the types of people he prefers to hire?
What recommendations would you have for Fried regarding his hiring practices?

Answer and Explanation

Solved by verified expert

Do you think Fried’s hiring methods are reasonable? Will they lead to good hires for his growing company? What are the best features of his approach (if you believe there are any)?
Answer
Fried hiring practices practices are pretty unique in nature .he does not follow the traditional way of hiring the candidate in his organisation.It has resulted in high retention among the employee along with the job sanctication 2 people have left the job for better opportunities.He undertake dierent activities such as working in the post for greeting familiar with the job requirement for that particular job before hiring a candidate for particular candidate.This method is eective as it ensure
employee loyalty
High motivation
sense of belonging
less waste of resource
high retention
less error at work
the best feature of this approach is that every employees will feel the sense of job security which is a very essential part of job.also fried approach to work on a job before selecting a candidate for that particular job provide him with better graps over the expecation from the person he is haring.thus establishing a cordial relationship between the two

Do you think it is a good idea for Fried to take a pass on "perfect" candidates because he doesn't have an attractive job open for them at the moment? Is it smart for Fried to let talented candidates get away by refusing to create more suitable positions to keep them?
Explanation
Yes, it is right that Fried passes the perfect candidates if he does not have the right job for them. Hos idea of having an understanding of the job before employing someone to work on it ensures that if the employee needs help, it will not much eort guring out how to help[ them sine he has sucient knowledge in handling of the job himself. His strategy of hiring is also benecial to the candidate because they will not be spending time on the role that they are not good at. An employee not only works for an organization but also improves and develops their professional life. It would be wrong to employ a 'perfect' employee for a job that they are not suited well for just because the vacancy is there. In the long-term, the employee will not be satised and may leave the organization at a time when there is a high demand for human resource. Letting talented candidates walk away because suitable positions could bot be created for them can be smart or not smart. On the smart side, the organization will not be overstretched in its resources of keeping extensive human resource when it was not necessary. On the other side of the smart, creating a position for them could have been the best option because they will develop and share their talent with other employees and encourage creativity and innovation. Following a rigid plan will prevent development since creativity is discouraged.

If Fried were to use the behavioral interview format, what kinds of questions might be especially helpful, given what you know of the types of people he prefers to hire?
Explanation
Tell me about the time you made a mistake and how you handled it.
What do you follow when setting your goals, and how did you achieve those that you did?
How did you manage the cause of failure that you have experienced?
Have you ever led a team? How successful was it and how did you manage the team members?
Tell me about the time you had to work under pressure and how you handled it
These behavioral questions are used by organizations to nd out how a candidate can handle dierent conditions in workplace. Unlike
traditional interview questions whose answers can be memorized, behavioral questions show the real behavior of the candidate and
their level of thinking. Skills such as decision-making and interpersonal relationships are assessed using these behavioral questions

What recommendations would you have for Fried regarding his hiring practices?
Answer
Fried hiring practices practices are pretty unique in nature .he does not follow the traditional way of hiring the candidate in his organisation.It has resulted in high retention among the employee along with the job sanctication 2 people have left the job for better opportunities.He undertake dierent activities such as working in the post for greeting familiar with the job requirement for that particular job before hiring a candidate for particular candidate.This method is eective as it ensure
employee loyalty
High motivation
sense of belonging
less waste of resource
based on hiring practice adopted by fried i will recommend his following points
exibility because under performing should be punished for there under performance
training programs for employee to keep the updated
incentive for the better performing employees
clear set of rule and regulation to make it clear among employee intend and goal of company
on time hiring of candidate
speeding up of hiring process
these are my recommendation for the fried