Unusual hiring procedures
The standard procedure for hiring is to interview a candidate, sometimes taking place in several stages. Often, testing or other methods of identifying the level of knowledge and skills of the applicant for the position are added to the interview.
We all have ever been interviewed, and some may have hired workers themselves. The usual procedures for hiring us quite understandable and familiar. However, there are companies that have decided to go far beyond the standard interview and have introduced into their hiring system unusual, and sometimes, strange procedures for hiring employees.
The head of the Gentle Giant transport company, Larry O’Tul, uses a special method of testing the endurance of new employees, and even participates in it. New arrivals to the company, headed by their boss, organize races in the stands of the Harvard Stadium. With his example, the 59-year-old Larry O’Toole shows young employees that maintaining themselves in good physical shape only has a positive effect on mental performance.
For Gentle Giant, such races have already become an ordinary procedure, through which all new employees must pass. Endurance testing trainees are held in the first two weeks of work, not later. Employees who have been working for the company for a long time are also not prohibited from participating in the marathon – about 25% of the regular staff regularly run around the stands along with the rest. After the races, according to tradition, everyone eats bacon and eggs together and discusses the company’s prospects.
Unusual recruitment procedures According to O’Toole, many who come to work in the company already know about this mandatory training. And this does not repel them at all, but rather the opposite – it awakens the desire to try their hand at such an unusual “interview”. Larry O’Toole allows only those who have passed the test run to work.
“If a person readily accepted this challenge and passed the marathon no worse than the others – for me this is a sign that he is not afraid of difficulties and difficult situations in the work environment. And our specialization just presumes the existence of non-standard situations practically every working day, ”says Larry O’Toole.
2. CXtec (telephone and network equipment).
In this company, in order to establish yourself in positions, you must go through coffee and donuts. Each new employee is taken first for an internship that lasts one month. And throughout this month, interns in pairs should bring to their colleagues working in the main office, lunch – coffee and fresh pastries.
Those whom this duty did not frighten and did not cause negative emotions are much more likely to stay in the company on a permanent basis. The idea of this idea is to enable previously unfamiliar people to quickly find a common language and make friends.
3. Foot Levelers (manual therapy).When a group of 5-10 people is recruited, they are seated in a conference room, supplied with soda and pop-root, and include the film “Rudy.” This is a drama dedicated to how a famous footballer, even in the absence of sufficient physical strength, still succeeds thanks to his perseverance and the will to win. When the film ends, the CEO conducts a small interview with each of the interns, asking about what they have learned from the movie and how they understood its main idea.
The goal of Foot Levelers is to create a staff that will fully correspond to the image of the main character of the film, who did not give up in spite of everything. The film “Rudy” has become so much a part of the company that employees use phrases from it in their daily speech. And when they face a task, the solution of which does not lie on the surface, but requires deep reflection, they never give up, but act “according to the method of Rudy”. You must always go to the end, and each time ask yourself, “Did I do enough to win?”.
4. CityMax.com (website creation).
The principle of this organization is rather related not to the procedure of hiring, but to the method of adaptation of the arrived employees at the new workplace. No matter what day of the week the newcomer is hired, for the first time he will enter the office only on Friday. On Friday, as a rule, employees are less tense and anxious about things than they did during the week, and are more willing to communicate with new people.
A real holiday is arranged for each new employee in the office: the room is decorated with colorful balloons, self-made posters are hung on the walls with greetings of the new team member and wishes of success. So, between the old-timers of the office and the newcomer, the embarrassment that is usually present during acquaintances is eliminated, and colleagues can freely communicate with each other and get to know the new employee better.
