CHRISdotTODD

I’ve been on both sides of the interview table throughout my career. Having been hired and passed upon as well as hiring (and firing) great employees, I’ve had plenty of time to practice the skills in hiring and interviewing. In short, it’s extremely difficult to get to know someone from just a few hours (at most) of dialog. In most cases, I think the interviewers are doing it wrong and they’re missing out on great people. In this article, I’ll share some of my own experiences and best practices from interviewing and being interviewed. I honestly believe 85% of the work belongs on the interviewer side. If you’re looking for the best candidate based on how well they can interview, you’re missing out. If you want to find the best employees, you need to do the work! Think about the times you’ve started dating someone new. Most of us have experienced that person who was on their best behavior for a period of time, but that charade can only go on for so long. As an interviewer, you w

Let me start first by talking a bit about scope and strategy. The discussion on measuring your help knowledge base often gets caught up in the measure of call deflection on your website and the strategy of your knowledge base -- whether the knowledge base is primarily for your agents or customer help website. Regarding call deflection, it’s extremely likely that not all customers on your help website would contact you if they are unsuccessful with self-resolving, which is why how to measure or what to measure using call deflection is frequently debated. While your agents and customers have different needs from a knowledge base, it must serve both audiences! The fundamental issue is that agents and customers have different needs. In most cases, your agents know exactly the issue and what to do to solve it, they just need to find the right article to share with the customer. These leads them to often try searching based on a solution . Your customers , on the other hand, are vis

Recently a friend of mine asked me “I always wonder how to find a Boss rather than a job. Any pointers or experiences, kindly share. Let us assume I am on the interview and I don't know the Boss, the interviewer may be someone else.“ I thought that was a great question! I’m sure there are plenty of experts who have greater insight than myself, but this is what I offered. Ask the interviewers about how they like working at the company and with their boss. Also ask, what do they like most and may about their boss. Hopefully, you will eventually talk to the boss and you can ask him/her how they define success and what he/she likes most about their boss. Whatever he/she likes most is likely a strong trait of their own. Remember you're interviewing them, too. Don't be afraid to dig deeper for more insight. I’m sure there’s much more. A few more things have come to mind since this exchange. Prepare ahead of time and know what kind of a boss you like to work for. Th