How to Identify and Deal With Toxic People in Hiring

How to Identify and Deal With Toxic People in Hiring

Sean: Hey guys, what’s happening? Welcome back to the Leadership Stack channel where we talk about all things leadership, entrepreneurship, and management. It’s your boy, Sean Si, and I hope you’ve been well.

Today we have something very interesting. A topic that has been brought to my attention by the Leadership Stack team, and that is: How to weed out toxic people when hiring?

So we’re going to keep this simple and clean. No one wants toxic people in their team. Toxic people, they break down your team, they cause descent, they cause separation, they cause anxiety, they cause the team to not work well together. They’re a madness. They’re a disease, a cancer that you wouldn’t want pestering in your own organization.

So how do you identify them even before you hire them?

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The first thing that I do to recognize if someone might potentially be a toxic hire or not is I ask open-ended questions.

These are questions like: If there ever was a time when we need to extend our working hours or work overtime or work over the weekend for a certain project, what do you think about that? How would you feel about it?

And the reason why I ask this question is there are those days and times and projects that are unpredictably long. It would drag out and it would require all hands-on deck. And if a team player is there to win, if you are playing to win, you will do whatever it takes.

And what we’re looking for are those people who put a platinum premium on work-life balance and they will say, “Hell no! That’s a big no for me, because I am getting paid for a nine to five job and I’m only willing to work that far. And you know, if I need to do overtime or work over the weekends, that’s a big no no for me.”

I’m looking out for that answer because chances are if those people are asked to work beyond working hours or maybe prolong over the weekend, they might spread misinformation, gossip, bad and negative things about the management or clients and maybe some team members as well.

And those are really the kinds of toxic people that you wouldn’t want in the team. So watch out for those people who put a high premium on work-life balance.

The second question I ask is: Hypothetically, if I hire you today and you get fired a year from now, what would be the reason why?

And the reason why I ask this question is because I want to know if the person really knows their weaknesses, can admit it and can say it out loud. And what I’m looking for are honest answers such as, “I do procrastinate. Sometimes I get angry. I have a bad tongue. I lash out at people when I’m not having a good day. I have problems at home that affect my emotions.”

I look for the down and dirty, messy, grizzly things that really are weaknesses of a person. Now the answers that I don’t like are: “I’m a yes man or woman. I keep saying yes, I can’t say no. I work too hard and sometimes my health suffers because of that.”

Those are respectable answers, respectable weaknesses and my gosh, I have gotten so many of those answers that I just know the person is not being honest and open and is not humble enough to admit his or her weaknesses during the interview.

And chances are if they can admit their weaknesses during the interview, they are a good hire. The chances of them being toxic is a lot less. And if they have a problem with anger or a bad tongue and they lash out, at least you know who you’re letting in the door.

Next is, you have to get your core values straight.

Now, when we talk about core values, these are values that are non-negotiable for you as the entrepreneur, the business owner, the leader or the organization. And when I say non-negotiable, that means you are willing to be penalized for it.

For example, if you have a one million dollar deal coming in and yet that big organization is asking you to compromise on your integrity, you will say, “No”. You’re willing to be penalized to lose that one million dollar deal, because integrity is a core value of yours and it’s so important to you that you’re willing to be penalized for it and letting that deal go.

Now, if you have your core value straight, you know it, you have to communicate it and practice it. And when you keep communicating it to the rest of the people in your organization, then people know what you stand for.

When people know what you stand for, there’s a lot less chances that you’re going to get toxic people knocking on your door trying to apply. And even if they do, it is so easy to identify who they are because your culture is so set that now you know who’s going to fit in well and who’s not.

The next thing we have is our core values exam.

We actually put open-ended questions on our core values and ask that to every applicant that we have. An example of this is at SEO Hacker, unity is one of our core values. We ask a scaled question from that’s not me to yes, that’s really me.

And the questions that we ask in terms of unity is, for example: If you have a co-worker that you have problems with, do you talk with that coworker directly or do you talk with other people about it and ask them what their opinions are?

If the person answers, “Yeah, that’s me. I strongly agree with that. I’m going to do that.” Then that person has a high chance of gossiping. If the person answers “That’s not me, I strongly disagree with that.” Then that’s the kind of person we are looking for.

This core value exam has helped SEO Hacker in our hires because we know exactly who’s going to fit and who isn’t, granted that we still move forward with the verbal or face-to-face interviews if we feel like this person scored significantly high in the core values exam. If a person scores significantly low in the core values exam, that is a huge sign that we have to reject them.

Next is, check the references. Call their colleagues. If they allow you to call colleagues, parents, past leaders or managers, if they give you their number, call them, ask them about this person.

What tendencies does this person have? Ask them some of the open-ended questions that you have in the core values exam regarding this person. That’s how you would be able to figure out if this person really will fit your team.

Sometimes it’s hard for a person to see himself or herself directly. That’s why we all have blind spots. And this is why references are super duper important. You ask these open-ended questions, perhaps about your core values, to those references, so that they will give you a third party opinion and perspective about the person applying.

Next in SEO Hacker, we look for specific attributes that we consider non-toxic and essential, such as humble, hungry and smart.

Now I have a whole episode about this where I talk about humble, hungry and smart, and that is something that Patrick Lencioni, an author and a thought leader, has come up with. I’m not the original author of Humble, Hungry and Smart. You might want to check out his books regarding this.

But this is something that is super important in SEO Hacker and I’m going to brush through quickly what humble, hungry and smart is. When we say humble, these are people who can accept corrections. These are people who can admit to their weaknesses and mistakes. These are people who realize that the world does not revolve around them and they’re not superstars or super players who can carry it all on his or her own.

When I say hungry, these are people with drive and ambition. These are not people who were born rich and just want to be there and stay there, being rich and being comfortable. These are people who are open to being uncomfortable, open to being pushed, open to being stretched, perhaps to the point of exhaustion sometimes. But these are the people that we are really looking for, humble and hungry.

And when we say smart, we don’t mean book smart or school smart. We mean people smart. We mean that they can communicate with people and make sure they are understood by the other person and make sure that they also understand the other person where they are coming from, when they need to communicate with other people in the team or other people outside our team.

I remember a time when there was an applicant and I’m not going to name this person, but what we realized throughout the hiring process and this person did score pretty well in our core values exam, is when we talked with this person, there is not much humility there. This person is people smart. This person also has a good sense of drive, but not a lot of humility.

And humility is one of the most important traits that we are looking for as a hire here in SEO Hacker, in our organization. So when push came to shove and we had to make a decision, we unanimously decided not to take this person in, even if we really needed to fill that role and position, and that is because we have to protect our team.

You would not let someone you don’t know who can wreck your house inside your house, would you?

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And that’s it. I hope you learn from this episode and I hope it provides value to you. I know you wouldn’t want to hire a toxic person in your team. I mean, who does? But I hope these guidelines do help you out when you need to hire someone.

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