{"id":49,"date":"2011-05-18T03:43:10","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T03:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/?p=49"},"modified":"2011-06-09T22:12:11","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T02:12:11","slug":"the-advantages-of-hiring-employees-from-other-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"The Advantages of Hiring Employees from other Fields"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>When looking for a new employee, a common complaint among Small Business owners is that they can&#8217;t find anyone with adequate experience.\u00a0 Conventional wisdom states that individuals with experience in the field will be easier and quicker to train and perform better.\u00a0 I couldn&#8217;t disagree more!\u00a0 From what I&#8217;ve seen, the &#8220;experienced&#8221; employee is carrying more baggage than an airline porter on Thanksgiving weekend.\u00a0 <\/span><strong>This is why, in my opinion,\u00a0potential employees from other fields and market sectors are your best bet:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>They don&#8217;t have industry standard (that&#8217;s code for &#8220;ineffective&#8221;) approaches to old problems.<\/strong><span>\u00a0 You&#8217;ve heard me say that Small Business ownership is really just a <span>continual<\/span> series of problems presenting themselves for solution.\u00a0 Frequently we keep trying to (unsuccessfully) solve these problems the same way.\u00a0 Someone who hasn&#8217;t been exposed to these\u00a0repeated failed attempts\u00a0has the capacity to look at the problem from a fresh perspective and come up with a more creative, and results-oriented, answer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>They won&#8217;t accept deficiencies.<\/strong><span>\u00a0 I have a door in my house that always falls off the hinges every time I try to open or close it.\u00a0 Finally, I stopped closing\u00a0that door, and my problem went away. \u00a0Well, a few months ago\u00a0a house guest,\u00a0not being aware of\u00a0the true decrepitness of my home, tried to close the door with calamitous result.\u00a0 He looked at me and was like, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you get that fixed?&#8221;\u00a0 Well, duh.\u00a0 But,\u00a0for me\u00a0the situation had become normal.\u00a0 The same thing happens with our\u00a0Small Business paradigms.\u00a0 We become complacent.\u00a0 An individual coming from outside the industry will recognize a default for what it is &#8211; an obstacle to doing better business &#8211;\u00a0and challenge you to address it.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>They may be familiar with new technology not yet applied to your field.\u00a0 <\/strong><span>Toyota is running a great ad campaign right now exemplifying how technological advances developed for the automobile industry are crossing over into\u00a0other areas, like crash mechanics applied to football helmets.\u00a0 An employee can introduce to your Small Business similar new applications for existing technology they may have used in their former line of work.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>They may not have\u00a0bad habits typical to the industry.<\/strong><span>\u00a0 When we opened our Small Business, Bottle Washer was adamant that, except for\u00a0our professional staff, we not hire anyone who had worked in our field.\u00a0 Office personnel in our type of business are notoriously not customer-centric, and Bottle Washer is all over customer service like a\u00a0<span>fashionista<\/span> on a <span>Prada<\/span> sale.\u00a0 He wanted to train our staff to his expectations.\u00a0 As a result, our customers always comment on the unanticipated level of attentiveness and friendliness of our staff.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>They may be more open to your way of doing things.<\/strong><span>\u00a0 If an employee can&#8217;t compare their current job with their last one, they are less likely to whine the dreaded &#8220;We didn&#8217;t do\u00a0that when I worked at blah-blah-blah.&#8221;\u00a0 This is especially appreciated if you tend to do things outside of the box or need to maintain especially high standards.\u00a0 For instance, a\u00a0Small Business with\u00a0high compliance requirements which it takes\u00a0seriously cannot\u00a0afford to have an employee falling back on\u00a0shoddy habits from a less-stringent previous office.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>The idea of hiring from outside your industry is not new.\u00a0 Paul Hawkin (the garden tool guy) writes about it in his book <em>Growing a Business.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 (This is a book I have found particularly helpful and highly recommend for every business owner&#8217;s nightstand.)\u00a0 He calls this practice hiring the person, not the position,\u00a0and has some different reasons for doing\u00a0it, but the concept is the same.\u00a0 Although it isn&#8217;t always appropriate to hire an individual without experience in your industry, it has worked well for Bottle Washer and I.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Do you tend to value experience in the same or related field when hiring your employees, or do you try to hire those from other industries?\u00a0 How has it worked out for you?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When looking for a new employee, a common complaint among Small Business owners is that they can&#8217;t find anyone with adequate experience.\u00a0 Conventional wisdom states that individuals with experience in the field will be easier and quicker to train and &hellip; 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