Hire for Attitude, Train for Skills

I was reading about a health club in Florida that has one of the most interesting hiring processes I've seen in quite a while.  Here's what they do.

1. A 4-page application that's mostly puzzles and games. According to the company, that eliminates most of the lazy people right away.

2. References are checked by phone

3. A group interview with at least 8 candidates and a hiring team from the company (supervisors, department heads, etc.)

4. One-on-ones with the department head. This stage focuses on using creative techniques to determine whether candidates share the company's core values of integrity, willingness to work hard, commitment to helping others, and desire to create the future. One of these techniques is called the chair test:
Extra chairs are left in the interview room. The candidate is sitting in the room when someone comes in and says "They need some chairs next door", then begins picking up the chairs and carrying them out. They continue carrying the chairs out until there are only two left in the room, all the while watching what the candidate does. Does the candidate sit there and watch, or do they offer to help?

5. A high intensity workout on special fitness machines. The goal of this stage is not to see what kind of shape people are in, but to see how they react to adversity and how hard they work.

What I find very interesting about this process is how unconventional it is. In the fitness industry, interviews have traditionally been focused on the candidate demonstrating their own physical fitness and their knowledge of workout best practices. This process, however, focuses almost entirely on attitude - work ethic, previous work experiences, approach to difficult situations, etc. They're interviewing without really interviewing, but they've found some very creative ways to identify whether or not someone is a fit in the organization.

I talk a lot about how attitude is more important than ability when it comes to hiring and developing drivers, so it was very interesting to see a health club taking the same approach, and generating stellar results with it (these guys have a 77% client renewal rate, well above the industry average of 60%, and their margins are just as impressive).  

In trucking, everyone uses pretty much the same hiring process - get a list of previous employers, see how long the driver has been at each one, check their abstract, do a background check, road test, etc. There are some variations in there, but it's all basically the same thing. What would happen if the screening process focused more on a driver's attitude rather than past performance? 

Investors are used to seeing disclaimers stating that "past performance is no guarantee of future returns" on every potential investment, and driver abstracts are exactly the same - just because someone performed well (or poorly) at a previous employer doesn't mean they'll do the same for you. You can do all the road tests and background checks in the world, but if that individual isn't a good corporate fit, or doesn't have the right attitude, nothing else will matter. At the same time, if they do have the right attitude, you can fix the other problems and turn them into a money making machine.

What kinds of out-of-the-box techniques do you use to gauge the attitude of job applicants?