Hiring the wrong person can be detrimental to an organization. Therefore, business owners must have a tight process for bringing in the right people. In this episode, Hiring HR Guru Zach Montroy and Summit CPA COO Adam Hale join Jamie Nau for a chat about hiring the right way and critical questions you must ask during the process.
“We’re not just looking to hire someone with an accounting degree. Customer interaction is very important to us.” - Zach Montroy
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Jamie Nau: Welcome to episode 4. Today we're going to talk H.R. so we brought in our H.R. guru Zach Montroy, and of course our, COO Adam Hale, to talk through the H.R. process and also our hiring process especially. So Zach, I know it's difficult hiring distributed for a lot of reasons, but if you want to go through that process and how Summit does our hiring process from start to the end.
Zach Montroy: Yeah absolutely. I think you know it's really interesting when you think about a good hiring processes, and I think what's really interesting is many companies, I think, don't spend enough time in the hiring process, and we all know hiring the wrong person can be catastrophic to a culture. It can be catastrophic to an organization, and so investing the right amount of time, making sure your process is clear, making sure that process results in the right hire is obviously really important. Jim Collins talks a lot about right people, right seats doing the right things in his work. And so we really worked on making sure that we've got a really good process that's going to lead to getting the right people on our team. And that's I think, very different remotely. For years I led H.R. processes for different organizations and we didn't have remote employees. We had, you know, we were brick and mortar, we had people in teams in some instances in different locations, but they were always reporting to, you know, a brick and mortar location. And so it was honestly a little bit easier in that scenario to really hiring the right people for a culture fit. Making sure that their skills and abilities align with what we were looking for. And so we've really kind of drilled down I think, a good process for doing that for Summit and for our team. And it really starts with obviously, making sure ,you know from a marketing standpoint, from a content standpoint, people know who we are. We're really clear about our culture. We're really clear about the right people that are on our team. What the skills and abilities look like. What that talent looks like. What we expect as far as client interaction you know, hopefully when people look at Summit, when people look at the job that they're applying for they know who we are as a company. You know we get over three thousand views per job post that we have a month. That usually translates into a couple hundred people actually applying for positions and you know from there we really start assessing that cultural fit right away. You know we obviously are looking to hire highly talented and skilled accountants, but one thing that we do that's very different I think that I've seen most companies do, is we ask for a video right away. We ask them to tell us a little bit about themselves. Tell us a little bit about their career and their professional journey right away, and so from that I'm hoping that they obviously know how to use a webcam and have some sort of technology.
Adam Hale: I've seen some of the videos. There answers is not always yes right.
Zach Montroy: Yeah. We've gotten some funny ones that's for sure. So like make sure you're not looking like Tony the Tiger, and like a silhouette background, all that kind of stuff. But you know, even there, you know, I think Adam is onto something. I think they have a couple of minutes to answer that question. But I want to know what's the story of your professional trajectory. We're not looking to hire just anyone that has a CPA or not anyone who has an accounting degree. Client interactions is really important to us. Making sure that you can communicate well is really important. So we see that, we see how concise you can be. We see you know how well you can communicate your own story over that and then obviously we're looking at you know some more technical questions like, you know, how long have you been in the industry what is your job experience look like. We ask the salary question right away. What are your expectations with salary. We pay on a national average because you can live anywhere. So you know you've got people in, San Diego, we have people in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and we have people in Nashville, and so we don't pay on geographic location because you know as a remote firm, a distributed firm. that's not something we have to do because you can work from anywhere. So just making sure that you know fair and equitable pay is based on the national average. So we ask that question right away, and you know people that are expecting, hoping for something more than that national average, that's a kind of a disqualifier. We want to make sure we're clear. Brene Brown says, “clear is kind and clear is unkind”. We want to make sure we're clear on that right away. You know from there then we actually send a number of other questions you know we're letting you answer those on video. We want to know about not only that journey that you've been on professionally, but what do your technical skills look like? How do you handle difficult client interactions? What things are you most proud of that you've been a part of working on? What are you expecting from a job? We want to make sure that we can glean again that cultural fit. We're not necessarily looking for someone who has 20 plus years of experience in accounting. We obviously want to make sure those skills are there, but we more importantly want to make sure that you're a good fit for the work that we do. Which I think is really different from most CPA firms. I believe strongly in team interviews, and so we have the hiring manager interview, we have people that are on the team that that person will be working with in the interview. Obviously Jamie, you're in a lot of the interviews and we kind of save Adam, we save our senior leadership for last. We want to make sure that this person is going to be a good fit. That they understand we're not looking for data entry, we're not looking for someone who likes to necessarily sit in Excel all day long or in quick looks all day long, but can understand how does this relate to the client's business, what's the bigger story here. What's the story behind the numbers. What strategically are you learning from the data that's going to help this this business owner make better decisions. That's why you're there. You're a consultant and they're trusting that voice and that experience, and so making sure that there's a comfort level there and making sure those motivations align with the position. So that's what we're looking for especially in those team interviews, and you know, we're honest. We let our teams say the good, the bad, and the ugly of what it is that we do. We're always trying to grow and get better, but we want to make sure anyone who comes on our team has a clear picture of expectations of what the job looks like. What's difficult about it. What our team loves about the work that they do. We run a few assessments as well. We run an assessment on emotional intelligence. There's a lot of research, a lot of work that's being done on the impact of emotional intelligence profitability of companies. We want to make sure that we're hiring emotionally intelligent people to be on our team. We want to make sure their motivations and strengths align with the job. So we're not only assessing those, we're debriefing those assessments in the interviewing process as well to really hopefully make that decision of getting the right people on the Summit bus and getting them in the right seat right away.
Adam Hale: Yeah what he said. You can tell just by Zach talking how passionate he is about hiring, and H.R., and culture. And I think that's what was kind of missing. It was kind of a check the box thing for Summit a long time ago. Of course we tried to focus in on technical skills. So permission to play is that, you know, in accounting we assume that's kind of like ground level where we never really focused. We would tell our story, we'd be super excited about our story, and make it sound like everything's just gravy all day long because we were so passionate about what we did. What we didn't do though is really kind of make sure the cultural fit was solid, and bringing somebody like Zach in that who could set up those different steps including meeting the team, and all those kind of things was huge. He also has a good eye for, you know, he can take that first video and he can kind of get a good feel whether or not he wants to talk to somebody, and then whenever he talks to somebody then he decides, okay this person I think is going to take us to the next level, let's look at the assessments, let's get the team involved and I think that the EQI is as he mentioned has been huge because that's not only about self-awareness which is really important, but it's also about understanding other people, and their emotions, and how to be able to work with them in an environment. That’s all we're doing all day long. We’re supporting customers. We’re helping them through tough times. We’re helping them make decisions that aren't easy. And so it requires a high level of emotional intelligence to be able to kind of get on that that roller coaster ride with them really, and be able to communicate that back. And I think that it's super important that we do that at the client level but then also on the team level as well. So EQI was one of those missing pieces. But overall like I said, as you heard Zack talk, the real missing piece was just having somebody like Zack monitor and oversee the process that way you know by the time it gets to me I trust what Zack's opinion is.
I trust the team. So for me it's not really like final decision, Caesar says you know thumbs up thumbs down kind of a thing. For me it's just about expectations setting and that's what's super important to me as a team member and as a leader. I just want to make sure that everybody is on the same page with what we expect out of them and then what they can expect out of us. So that's really all my role is at that point.
Zach Montroy: I mean there's a huge weight in response to related to that as well you know by the time a candidate gets to the CEO, the COO, or the CFO, whatever that leadership structure looks like, Adam has the final say in hiring. Jody has the final say in hiring. By the time a candidate gets to them like I want to make sure that I haven't missed anything. But there's a great deal of trust riding on the process. Riding on the vetting process especially. Adam pointed something out there that I think is really important in the hiring process. Two things actually. One, when we talk about core values it's been really helpful and important that we've done the work of operationalizing those core values within the organization. Those are the ultimate filter on whether someone is going to be a good fit for the team or not. You know we value curiosity, we value humor and collaboration and adaptability, empowerment, candor. We've operationalized those values within the culture we know what healthy humor, healthy curiosity looks like, and we know what those slippery behaviors are when those aren't being used correctly or they're not being valued within the culture. We want to make sure that there is deep alignment with the candidate in living those core values and that should already be a part of who they are. Yeah we're going to teach what they look like within our culture, but we want to make sure that that foundation is there. And secondly, we're not afraid to hire people who are better accountants than us. We have to be okay with hiring better consultants, better people at strategy, better people that you know people that know the technical tools that we use better than us because we only grow like that. That raises the level of the team over and over and over again. There's always that. You know I think we see this in unhealthy teams. You want to hire someone who's not as good as you. Someone who's a little worse because like you want to look better. That's not that's not okay. We're not OK with that. We're a team. We value collaboration and frankly we're going to celebrate the win of hiring someone who knows a certain area of accounting better than us.
Adam Hale: I would say that there is a little bit of a difference whenever we hire a CFO. So when we hire the CFO instead of it just being expectation setting at the very end we do bring Jody and I both into the equation, and we want to just have a lot of real good conversations. So we have met some of the CFOs, those in the city we'll just go and spend a day. Jamie I know you've accompanied us. We'll walk through everything we do, how we do it, just kind of get a vibe if there, you know, if they understand what we're talking about. Get a feel for how they deliver, and then we just want to hang out. So we'll go out to dinner and just have normal conversations. Fine out more about them so we can kind of see if those culture and those core values are kind of in sync as well. So it's definitely a little bit different for the hire of more senior level people.
Jamie Nau: Yes I think one of the big things that Zach talked about as well as I feel like one thing Summit does really well is the qualification process. So I've been in interviews before and the qualification process usually just has to do with salary and are they CPA and all those things. I think adding in the EQI to that. Adding in trying to figure out what the core values are. Every time I've interviewed a candidate. Everybody's been in those interviews where you’re like, oh wow five minutes and this guy's a dud. This isn't going to work out, or this person is a dud it's not going to work out. We very rarely have those interviews at least when it gets to me because of the qualification process we have. So I think that a lot of reasons we do that, I'm guessing, it's because we're distributed. We want to make sure we have a lot of candidates coming in so kind of the limitations I see for us being distributed, or that the difficulties are one is, we get a lot of candidates we can hire from anywhere which is obviously a benefit, but it also makes it a little more difficult. And two is the interview process being in video. Sometimes people just aren't very comfortable in front of the video and how that interview works
Adam Hale: Which is great by the way because that's how we deliver our service. So if they are not comfortable in front of the camera, thank you for figuring that out right away. That is the core part of what we do so.
Jamie Nau: Right And then I think the third difficulty is, a lot of people think of the work from home model as being a part time thing. A lot of people come to us and say, oh great thing about working at Summit is I can have my child right next to me while I'm working for the day, and I can stop giving breakfast breaks and lunch breaks, and that's not really how we work. So those are three of the obstacles that I've seen. Is there any I'm missing Zach? And how we adapted to those obstacles?
Zach Montroy: Yeah I mean I think that those are all huge pieces. And again, that's where we just really clarify within you know there's some boundary setting there. We want to make sure that if you're working from home you've got a dedicated space to be able to do that. You know, it's you've got a home office. I've got a two and a half if you're old. Like I know it would, you know, it would be super distracting to have my two year old in the background right now. Right? Like no work it would be getting done. So making sure there's that deep understanding. Knowing what is okay and what is not OK when it comes to working from home and making sure that you've got those boundaries in place. And we've got flex time, and that's a great thing about working from home. The other thing too that I would add in there is I think there's a professionalism that we want to make sure is there. You know we're talking to owners and CEOs of companies and we want to make sure we're professional in our interactions with them. And I also think in working from home you you've got to make sure that you can, you know, I'm more of an extroverted person, and so one of my big fears and working from home was like, am I going to really feel like I've met this need of interacting with people all day long? And sometimes the opposite is true for people. They think if I'm working from home I'm not going to have to interact with anyone. That's not true. Right? We are on zoom, we're on go to meeting, we're in Sococo, we're on these tools in meetings all day long, and so making sure that you've got that ability to relate to other people and you're available, and you've got not only the ability to do that but, to really understand how to relate from the technical side how to relate that to our clients. And so I find that to be kind of a challenge to make sure that people understand that working from home is, you don't get to hide behind a computer and not talk to people all day long. And on the flip side you do like you're going to get to exercise those extroverted tendencies as well.
Adam Hale: Yeah and I think it's important to also bring that back in to promote employees as well because you know there's not a whole lot of firms out there that are distributed like us. But a lot of people have a remote workforce where people work a couple of days a week from home or they'll work a week or however that works maybe a certain time of day. It's still important to have that dedicated space. It's still important to know that you can't be babysitting. That doesn't mean that if your kiddo is sick or whatever you're home working, that's not the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I'm saying like just as a normal reoccurrence. I don't have a sitter on Wednesday so I'm going to stay home and work. Well that might not be the best working arrangement either. So again make sure all these things apply to remote staff as well not just distributed teams.
Zach Montroy: I think you know there's a pacing there too. Right? Like you know I remember being in a brick and mortar office setting and there's a lot of time that can be spent on walking into the kitchen and grabbing a donut or your coffee and you have that extra time during the day, you don't have as much of that. And so there's a little bit more I would say like a heavier pace to the work that we do. And obviously you set that. So the big thing there is we want to make sure we're hiring self-discipline people who, you know, we're going to make sure that they're working when they say, they're working and so making sure that they've got integrity. That they're doing what they say that they're doing because there's a high level of trust and responsibility that we're granting to anyone on our team. And I would say it's even more important in the remote setting that we've assessed that on the front end because I mean at the end of the day, if you're in Dallas, Texas, and I'm in Nashville, I'm not watching over your shoulder and you know obviously there's that accountability to time tracking all that kind of stuff.
But you know we want to make sure that we've got people with integrity and responsibility on our team as well.
Adam Hale: That’s what I'm saying. I think that we have to do those things because we're distributed, but everybody should be doing those things. So you should have that kind of stuff and that level of trust. So I think all of those things that you mentioned in our entire process I don't know that we would have been forced to be as deliberate about it if we were not remote or distributed. But I'm glad that we do it and if we were ever a brick and mortar I would want us to still follow the same the same process because I think it's very effective.
Jamie Nau: Yeah for sure. I mean you talked a lot about core values and to me I've interviewed a lot of my career and I think once we defined our core values that made interviewing a lot easier for me because I knew what I was looking for and I knew what those skills were. So Zach can you go a little bit to what an interview should look like what kind of questions you should ask and what really what you're looking for in that interview?
Zach Montroy: Yes. So you know people make fun of my questions, I always start with like, tell me about a time. Help me understand. You know, there is never a yes or no question. There shouldn't ever be a yes or no question. I been in an interview but you know the easy question is going to be like one of our core values is curiosity. Tell me how you're curious. Okay well like you just lobbed a softball at someone, right? Tell me about a time that you had a really difficult challenge that you had to solve and you didn't know the answer, what did you do? So you're picking up core values in someone's narrative. And so I've created a giant guide of interviewing questions because we're looking at behavioral. We want to know those behavioral traits. And so you want to ask those narrative based questions that are really going to get at helping you understand how they apply the core values within their work within their even their professional story. And so making sure whatever your core values are and you know I listed ours there you know I want to make sure that we're asking questions that are going to really drive that. Like how is that a part of your everyday life? How is that a part of your work?
Adam Hale: So said another way, you're not really listening for, because you're not going to know the technical answer to some of the stuff anyway. What you're really listening for whenever somebody is talking to you is how they're articulating it as their answers clear and concise but also listening to the more about the context and the quality of the answer as opposed to the specific result. Right?
Zach Montroy: Right. Absolutely. I mean one of our core values is adaptability you know that flexibility we assess that in the emotional intelligence inventory. But I'm also looking for grit. I'm looking for resilience. This industry, you know there’s a seminar on the forefront of embracing technology that is changing in this industry. The way that accounting looked ten years ago is very different from outlooks today, and how it's going to look ten years from now. In my previous role I have worked with accountants and CFOs. I want to make sure that they've got that grit. That adaptability. That resilience that's going to be really important to them working on our team and still being on the bus 3, 5, 10 years from now. That they've got that good work ethic to doing what it takes to deliver for our clients because at the end of the day that's what's most important in what we do.
Jamie Nau: Another thing I think that's helped me out a lot in interviewing is you know not assessing their interviewing skills but assessing their actual skills. A lot of times you throw a question out there and they'll just set it up. So like when I heard about behavioral interviews someone told me you should start it, right. You should give me the situation, the action and then the result. And so a lot of times people will just lay out the situation and I'll ask a lot of follow up questions so I can get that action and get that result because that's what I'm concerned with. Like they might do a really bad answer but then maybe I ask those follow up questions and they give me a really good action result that happened from them like, oh wow I could totally see that applying to Summit. I think that's something that's really helped my interviewing is making sure that I'm actually assessing their abilities instead of just how well they interview. Again you want to make sure they can handle themselves on the camera because of what we do. But you want to make sure that at the same time that they have the right skills. So that's been helpful.
Zach Montroy: And I think what you said there, there's actually something deeper, I think, that's really important and what you just said you've got to be a really good listener. When you're interviewing somebody, and I've sat in so many interviews where people are not listening well they're just thinking about what they need to say you know, what the next question that they're going to ask is. You should be listening to ask follow up questions. To dive really deep into it like you just said whatever story they just told, like help me understand that better. I mean figure out what those questions are that you can ask but really listen. Pick up on those cues because that's where the answers are. That's where you're going to figure out if they're a good person to have on their team or not.
Adam Hale: Yeah and I've seen that in some of the notes and everything. By the time somebody gets to me or somebody doesn't get to me that I thought would. I've seen Jamie and some of the other team kind of respond back like, great answers, really solid responses, well put together, not a whole lot of content there. And so his follow up questions as he's trying to kind of tease that out a little bit I think uncover some holes that might otherwise be covered up by just somebody that's super polished in an interview. So yeah. And I think you and Jamie and I were just talking about this the other day like sometimes you can tell people who have this like agenda of what they want to communicate in an interview and you're like, I wasn't really looking for you to articulate history to that question…
Adam Hale: Right, it's like, hey man I've been prepping for this one for like two days. You're going to hear this answer.
Jamie Nau: And they've been doing a lot of interviews and they have three stories that they're going to tell no matter what the questions are. Any questions I'm going to tell you these three stories.
Jamie Nau: So Adam we've talked a lot about the process. Just one final question for you. Anything we missed? I know you're the COO. You are the one making the final decisions. Anything we missed talking about the process that you want to make sure it gets into this podcast.
Adam Hale: No. Like I said. I think that by the time it gets to me I'm just qualifying you know expectations. which is great. It's really saved a ton of time because as Zach mentioned we would get a couple thousand resumes a year and to be able to read those and get those like being able to shrink that process down for somebody like myself that still wants to be involved in the final say. It's been a lifesaver. Like countless hours. So the process I feel like is super solid and the results are in our team. You know we've had some really, really strong hires so I'm happy.
Jamie Nau: Yeah definitely. I think narrowing down the process like as it gets to each person in the process to be even closer to the final decisions. I think that's really helped and hopefully this discussion has helped a lot of our listeners. I think we do a lot of unique things. Like I said the qualification process, the core values, so hopefully this podcast helps our listeners. I do think it's a great process.