Mel,
A few years back, I needed to fill a couple of roles on my team: an affiliate manager to herd the unruly mob of Planet Perry referral partners, and a "content czar" to manage all the blog posts, emails, newsletters and courses I was putting out.
And I did NOT want to find myself buried under a pile of unqualified applicants.
80/20 hiring says:
- Put your money where your mouth is
- Judge people not by what they say but by what they do
- Use simple, black-and-white criteria to separate the cream from the crap
Here's how I put those principles to work...
Step 1: I established a $25.00 application fee to apply for the job.
This modest fee REALLY offended a lot of people.
But you know what? It spared us a ton of headaches by weeding out the time-wasters and yahoos.
Had I not charged the fee, I would have ended up with 150 applications instead of the 30 we got.
80% of those 120 extra apps would have been garbage. The additional good ones would not have been exemplary; but the mountain of apps would have made the whole hiring process take 5 times as long.
When you can find a shortcut that will buy you 5X speed, take it.
(I imagine that it's probably illegal to charge an application fee for an actual employee-type job. There are other ways to force them to spend money to jump through a hoop. Even something as simple as requiring them to mail a letter or package will eliminate a LOT of time wasters.)
Step 2: I put the applicants through their paces.
In America, most companies hire people based on what they say.
When I hire people—or choose independent contractors—I want to see what they've done, and what they can do.
I eliminated half of the applicants based on what they said and had done, and for the rest, gave an assignment:
"Take this pile of raw material (MP3's, PDF's, etc.), mash it up and make me a product." And if the product was good I would sell it and I would judge the applicants based on the market success of the product they created.
Here's how my 80/20 hiring funnel worked:
- Between the two openings, I got about 30 applications. Only one was substandard.
- Of the content czar contestants who made it to round 2 and were given the assignment, only two failed to complete it – the rest delivered a finished product and a sales letter before the deadline.
- Of those who had been eliminated during the first pass, two begged for a chance to stay in the running and submit
a product anyway. I admired their tenacity and decided to let them give it a whirl.
Most business owners who've ever selected people would be astounded that I got an 100% delivery rate on that assignment.
John Paul Mendocha likes to say, "Sales isn't a convincing process, it's a disqualification process."
So it is with hiring: You're out, you're out, you're out. You're in. You're out...
Rack that shotgun, baby.
I use a variation of this process just about every time I hire a contractor. It's how I've build a team of top-shelf people who know how to hustle—and more importantly, know how to follow through on their commitments.
And lately, the first place I turn to when I need to fill a role on my team is Marketers 24/7.
Marketers 24/7 is 80/20 hiring in action. Why?
Because every single consultant and contractor you find there has already "put their money where their mouth is" by ponying up for Mastermind Club.
So I know that when I make a "help wanted" post there, I won't get flooded with unqualified applicants—and the ones I do get are serious contenders.
Ready to try 80/20 hiring in your biz?
Start here.
Carpe Diem,
Perry Marshall
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