What is an employer really looking for?

I'm in the hiring process for a new photographer right now, so I figured I'd write an article explaining what I and other employers are looking for when we hire people. I've hired over 50 people since 2007 through my films, businesses, and personal life, and so I've developed a somewhat decent process to help me save time and ensure I consistently bring on the right people.

My goal with this article is to explain the most important things to consider when you're looking for a job or looking to move up in your career.

Everyone at City Headshots is an amazing team player!

​My hiring process:

​Here is the process I follow when I'm looking to hire someone:

1. Post the job listing - I go online and post, saying I'm looking for someone to work for our company. Why am I hiring? Because I want to save time and get more done, and I'm willing to trade money for that.
2. Wait for responses - I get 100's of responses within the first 2-3 days of my job posting because so many people are looking for work (jobs, acting work, or freelance work).
3. Narrow them down as fast as possible - I quickly sift through (I don't read cover letters more than 2 short paragraphs), and find that about 80% of the responses I get are from people who have no idea what they are doing and I would never realistically consider them. Why do I sift through so quickly? Because I don't have time to look at so many different responses - I have a lot of other work to do. I don't like when people send me long cover letters - they rarely get read.
4. Email the top 20% - The final 20% of people I'm left with will typically get an email response from me asking them for some further info. Why do I ask for further info? Because I need to qualify and ensure that the person I'm going to hire meets certain criteria, such as being legally allowed to work, agreeing to the pay rate, and being quick to respond to emails.
5. Wait for responses - About half of them will respond within a day or two. The people who take more than a day or two to respond are cut - I assume they won't be reliable.
6. Set up brief screening phone calls - I like to do some quick phone calls (no more than 10 minutes) to ask some preliminary questions and gauge whether the person is good enough to do an in-person interview with me. Why do I do phone calls? Because it's too time-consuming to bring people in for real interviews, and I want to ensure they don't have some general issue that would be a waste of my time, such as being very rude, forgetting about our scheduled call, etc. 
   
7. Do the in-person interviews - I'll bring in the top 5-10 people to interview in person. Why do I interview in-person? Because I need to meet these people and see what they are like. Believe it or not, some people smell bad, some people don't have good manners, some people are 10 minutes late to their interview, etc. I want to weed these people out and meeting in-person makes it easy to do so.
8. I make the final selection - The one(s) who seem to care the most about my company, seem excited and interested to work with us, and have great skills are the ones who I hire.

Note - this process is the same, regardless of whether I'm hiring an actor, an employee, or a freelance contractor (where I would be considered a client).

I am systematic with my hiring process, but emotion is present :)

​What do I Really care about?

I care about a lot when I'm hiring, but not about the things you'd probably expect. For instance, I don't care if you are great at using Nikon cameras. And I don't care if you know how to do clamshell lighting.

Regardless of what position I'm hiring for, personality traits are what really matter to me. If you can hit on each of these when you're sending out your cover letter and interviewing in-person, you'll be light years ahead of everyone who just assumes they know what the employer is looking for and tells them about all their "features" (i.e. skills).

• Make it Easy - I want someone who can make it easy for me to hire them. This all starts with the cover letter. Keeping your cover letter very short and readable while highlighting the two biggest benefits I'll get by hiring you is a good place to start. And then make it easy for me to interview you by showing up on time, being friendly, and showing me you're interested.
• Experience - I want someone who knows a lot about the specific thing they are being hired to do. And if they aren't experienced, they need to show me they are a quick learner by giving an example of something they learned on the job in the past. I honestly care more about quick learners than skills because skills can easily be trained.
• Looks Friendly - I want someone who has a photo of themself that shows a genuine smile. I can't necessarily tell your personality and if you don't have a good photo of yourself, or you look mean in it, I might not consider you - I have literally not hired someone based on their headshot alone because they looked unfriendly in it.
• Availability - I want someone who is not too needy in terms of working certain days or needing certain hourly minimums. The more desperate for cash or needy you seem, the less likely I will hire you because I feel you'll like you'll be more of a liability than an asset to me.
• Provides Added Value - I want someone who is able to provide me with even more value than I was expecting. If you have additional skills or personality traits that could be an asset to me or my company, I would love to know about them.
• Cares About the Position - I want someone who really cares about the job and can explain why they want the job. I don't want you to work for me if it's just for the money, because it means you won't do your best work. You have to really want it for the emotional reasons for me to bring you on.
• Honesty, Reliability, and Responsibility - I care about people who are honest and willing to be vulnerable. If you make a mistake and don't own up to it and apologize, but blame others, I will not hire you. I believe personal responsibility, honesty, and reliability are the top personality traits needed for a great team members.
• Ambition (to a degree) - I want someone who is ambitious enough to want to help me move my company forward, but I don't want someone who is so ambitious that they are planning to leave the company within a year or less to go start their own business. They need to be a team player and should want to grow with us.
• Emotionally Stable - This can be seen as offensive, and I apologize if it comes across that way, but as an employer, I want to be sure that you're easy to work with. I have had team members in the past who were on an emotional rollercoaster, and it led to inappropriate outbursts at work and fights between team members, which was bad for team morale. Most employers want someone who is generally cool, collected, calm, and rolls with the punches.

He's got different emotions, yes... But they're mostly friendly - and that's good!

​What do I care about most?

If I were to summarize everything into one all-encompassing statement, it would be this:

I want to bring someone onto my team who is competent, easy to work with, and will provide me with benefits, not features.

By benefits, I mean the following: I don't want you to tell me that you know how to use Excel and have a ton of experience working with dSLR cameras... Those are important, yes, but they are not the whole story. Why should I care? Why should I care you know how to do those things? Everyone applying for the job should know those things.

When you pitch yourself, explain the real benefits. "I know how to use dSLR cameras, and what that means to you is that you won't need to train me on how to use them. It means I will be ready from the get-go to immediately start working with clients. It means I can jump into it right at the beginning, and because I'm a quick learner, I'll save you tons of time on training, and I'll get the hang of it right away." Or, "I know how to use Excel, and that means I can serve your clients in a much more organized way. I will always be super quick to respond, which means clients are happy and you'll get more referrals."

At the end of the day, when you're applying for a job or moving up in your company, it all comes down to explaining how you'll benefit the organization or the person hiring you. What's in it for them? They don't care about your skills; they care about what those skills mean for them.

One caveat: Remember that if you're going through an HR Department, in some cases they might not be interested in discussing specific benefits you offer. In those cases, focusing on the personality qualities outlined above will likely make the biggest difference.

I hope this helps you in some way. Do you have ideas on how to apply this to your life? And do you have your own strategies to be yourself while still being professional? I'd love to hear them from you.

Shoot me an email or leave a comment below. I personally read every response I get. 🙂

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