Finding the right employee.
Every equine employer wants people who are organized, self-motivated, punctual, attentive, loyal, and trustworthy. However, these are subjective qualities that you as an employer will need to assess in each applicant for your horse jobs. Putting words like these in your help wanted ads reveals your ignorance of sound hiring practices and may send the message that you have trouble hiring good help.
So, just how do you find the organized, self-motivated, punctual, attentive, loyal, and trustworthy horse people? Conventional wisdom says, “Check out their background. Get references.” Background checks and references are important, but they are not the best indicators of how an applicant will perform on the job. To find out if your applicant is likely to be organized, self-motivated, punctual, attentive, loyal, and trustworthy on the job, give your applicants tasks to perform. For instance, when you schedule an interview, be clear about the time an place and ask the applicant to bring a written resume. If your applicant shows up on time, in the correct place, and brings a carefully prepared resume, you have learned that they are probably attentive, punctual, and organized. If they are late and don’t bother to call with a reason, if they get lost because they didn’t write down the directions, or if they give you a hastily prepared or sloppy resume, you will know that they are NOT very attentive, polite, and organized.
Be creative in the tasks you assign to your equine applicants. Ask applicants to look at your advertising or at your web site and come to the interview with a written list of at least four suggestions to make your web site or your advertising better. If your applicants would be handling horses on the job, ask them to catch and move a horse from one pasture to another. If the job involves hauling horses, ask applicants to hook up your horse trailer. Give your applicants some cash and ask them to go out and pick up lunch for the crew at the barn. Tell the applicant to find out what everybody wants, give them directions to the nearest McDonald’s and turn them loose. When they return, notice if they bring you a receipt. Did they get everybody’s order straight? Did they return the exact change?
Devote some time to thinking up tasks that will help you uncover the truly outstanding applicants. Be sure to ask all applicants to do the same tasks. This will not only help you compare applicants more effectively, it will help avoid the appearance of discrimination.
