Being the Interviewer

In 25 years in practice I've had 168 different people (yes, I counted) work for me in various capacities. This includes associates (full and part-time), secretaries, paralegals, law students, college students, high school interns, and per diem attorneys. I interviewed all of them, even the high school interns, and surely have interviewed 500 other people where the fit was not right. One way I know interviewing is a real skill is that I keep learning how to do it better. I learned strictly through experience, as will you, but here are a few tips I wish I'd had:

1. Don't talk so much. If you liked someone's resume enough to interview them, you may be pre-disposed to hiring them and are already giving them a job description and talking about your practice. The candidate will not interrupt you when you go on and on, though they may think you are a windbag who doesn't know how to interview. Stop yourself if you are talking too much. If you have described some aspect of your practice, a simple thing to do is stop, and say "What do you think about that?"

2. Listen to the candidates questions. I will come out and tell someone that I really evaluate a persons potential by the quantity and quality of the questions they ask. I am comfortable saying this because it's true. I may make a statement or describe something that's going on and ask the candidate to ask some questions about it. I try not to accept "I don't have any questions", and the fact is, if someone sticks to that answer, it is highly unlikely I'd hire them. I want a good dialogue in an interview, and I will want a good dialogue when the person is working. Remember, once a clam always a clam.

3. I did not get this one from a book, but I really like "What do you see yourself doing, career wise, in five years?". What I am looking to uncover is what I call "employee mentality". This is a person who treats the job like a job, does the minimum and will let you down in the clutch. I value longevity and commitment, and despite the number of employees I've had, I've had many long-term devoted people. I tell the candidate I won't hold them to their answer, and I won't hold an answer against them if they think they will not be with me in five years. I tell them I prefer being around people with lofty ambitions.

4. Don't be afraid to probe the resume, especially if there was something on it that impressed you. I like open ended questions like "Tell me about some of the contracts you drafted at Smucker & Jelly?"

5. If there are specific things you might need, don't hesitate to ask. Sometimes I absolutely needed someone with a car, and you don't know if you don't ask.

6. I would never explicitly ask about family life, intention to have children, lifestyle, or anything else that would offend the person or cause them to give me a legal problem. Naturally though, as an employer you have a vested interest in knowing these things. That's why you shut up and listen, and draw correct conclusions from the discussion. People will often list hobbies and interests on their resume, and you can sometimes get an impression from this, but you can tell even more about the person when they talk about it.

7. I don't think it violates any law, so I ask people if they smoke. I've hired a few, and let's just say I ask the question and weigh the answer carefully.

8. When I first started I did not call references, but now I do. I will especially call a prior job where I know the past employer or someone at the firm.

9. Trust your gut. I once interviewed someone who was working someplace else. It happens. I didn't have a great feeling, but I needed to hire someone and my "friend" had recommended her, so I offered her the job, and said that I assumed she would need to give at least 2 weeks notice. The next day she called and said she was ready to start immediately. This was a very bad sign, and she turned out to be the worst person I ever hired....and yes....I eventually fired her.


Next blog.....hiring and business relationships in the per diem world.

Hiring 101

One of the hardest things about solo practice is hiring and keeping good employees. Like many aspects of real life practice, this is not taught in school. At some point you will need one or all of the following: associate, paralegal, secretary, law clerk. Part of the problem is your practice may not justify a full timer for any of those roles. What you really need is a part-timer who can fill ALL those jobs. It's never a perfect fit....you can only do your best, keep business growing at a healthy rate, and expand staff accordingly.

Here are some tips on hiring people (Note: if you are a human resources person in the corporate world, these tips are really elementary. Please realize that for us lawyers in solo practice, we ARE the human resources department, and the accounts payable, accounts receivable, mailroom, word-processing, proofreading, marketing department, janitorial crew......and practicing lawyers. Not only do we not have a human resources department, the main way we learn these things is through experience.) Sorry for ranting, here are the tips:

1. WRITE A JOB DESCRIPTION. I cannot emphasize this enough. Take your time, and write down everything you need someone else to do. Don't hold back. Look the list over carefully, and see if there are things that naturally group together. I like to go one step further and start seeing how the tasks fit on specific cases RIGHT NOW. For example, if I wrote down "draft bills of particulars", do I have one case or do I have 20 cases where this is needed? Would I let someone else do the BP on the Wilson case? No? The Wamsteker case? No? Hmmmm.

Oh, here's a related one: Write YOUR job description. By knowing what you want to do, what you expect you, the owner, should be doing with your time, you can help focus on what your "staff" should be doing.......the stuff that needs to be done that you should not be doing.

2. Write an ad for EXACTLY what you want. This is related to the job description, but here you have to condense it down to ad size. Every word is valuable, make them count.

3. If you place a classified ad, use a box # or freshly created anonymous e-mail. If you place an ad in the law journal, or the newspaper, or at a law school, you WILL get a large response.

4. When the resumes and letter come in, spend some time reviewing and thinking. I have a "3 stack system" for my first impressions. Stack 1 is for apparent possibilities. Stack 2 is for possibles. Stack 3 is no way. I sometimes make a 4th stack for funny, but then I put them with stack 3. Of course, you have to read between the lines, but don't forget to read what's there. People will tell you what they are looking for, and if it's clearly not you, don't waste your time.

5. I look at cover letters carefully. Frankly, the best resume cannot overcome a crappy cover letter. Remember, if you hire someone, the next cover letter they do will have your name on it.

6. Location counts. Sometimes it's disappointing that the best candidate would have a long commute. Experience teaches that this is a big problem. It will be tempting to rationalize this, or allow the candidate to rationalize it, but long commutes lead to big problems. I actually give extra points for proximity. The one opening I would give would be for a student or recent grad, where they might be moving from the stated address. It's worth asking.

Are we ready to interview some people?

More on this tomorrow