Join America Back to Work, a weekly podcast, video, and blog series that covers timely and relevant topics affecting the labor market and workforce with industry experts. The series includes recruiting, hiring, retention, employee satisfaction, customer service, background screenings, and more.
From the Experts: Culture-Building During the Hiring and Onboarding Process
The keys to making a good hire: paid project assessments and value-based interview questions. Learn more secrets for hiring and retention from the guy who’s building a brand-new tech hub in the middle of the country.
In this week’s episode of America Back to Work, S2Verify co-founder and chief strategy officer (and former U.S. Secret Service agent), Arnette Heintze, sat down with Ryan Landau, founder of Purpose Jobs, to discuss the dangers of unstructured interviews and today’s modern hiring landscape.
Located in the rapidly changing city of Detroit, Purpose Jobs is the largest startup and tech community in the Midwest.
As Landau points out in the opening moments of the interview, tech companies have–for decades–been built in coastal cities. That means there’s a major opportunity to build them in the middle of the country where the talent pool is still largely untapped, and costs are a little cheaper.
As Purpose Jobs grows before his eyes, Landau has a front-row seat to the changing labor landscape and emerging hiring trends. His top two observations:
- In this hybrid/remote work era, you need an objective, standardized way to evaluate skills and truly vet candidates. While project-based interviews have come under scrutiny in recent months, Landau believes they’re still the most effective way to screen the candidate’s relevant skills if conducted fairly–and paid in full. Paid projects that represent a part of the job description can go a long way in helping employers get tangible proof that a candidate can be successful in the role (or not)–and can also help candidates determine whether the role is a fit or not.
- Many organizations list workplace culture as a top priority, but struggle to improve it. Landau suggests documenting organizational values–and incorporating them into the interview process–to cross-check that the candidate is value-aligned in addition to being a skill fit. Value-informed screening can help you build a healthier culture, which will help you retain employees in the long term.
Click here to listen or watch the recording–and get more of Landau’s expert hiring tips from the front lines.
Onboarding to Prevent Offboarding
Be sure to check back next week for another episode of America Back to Work. We’re sitting down with Katie Marchetti, Vice President of Community and Operations at VC3 DAO, an innovative VC investing infrastructure based on the principles of Web3 and decentralization.
From tech-based private equity to venture capital, Marchetti is an expert when it comes to building cultures of success that drive business success. Tune in to hear why she thinks onboarding is the key to building effective, cohesive teams–and why it’s critical for attracting top talent in the modern labor market.
Plus, discover how to build culture-driven hiring and onboarding programs in the hybrid work era. Prior to VC3 DAO, Marchetti spent ten years with the Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) in London, where she ran the firm’s Credit and Macro segments for all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
She’s an expert when it comes to navigating the risks and complexities of doing business from afar and will provide an expert-informed framework for sourcing, onboarding, and retaining talent remotely (even internationally).
Listen wherever you get your podcasts by clicking here.