How to interview and manage employees that are more knowledgable than you!

[Fakeittillyoumakeit1]

Hello,

Can we have a support thread for buisness owners than can bob on to ask for help, advice or give support or just general chit chat about the stresses and enjoyment of running your own buisness. (And totally winging it like me! )

I’ll kick it off if any one can help or I’d interested..

We need to hire two critical employees. (Both different departments) They are not cheap but they will take us forward. If we don’t we will go bust it’s as simple as that. My first issue is they will be way more knowledgable than me and I’m worrying about interviewing them as I don’t want to come across as I’m totally winging it (which I am) also how do I appraise them?

Second is - to hire one of these people we have to let go a member of staff. They are a family friend. They are ok at their job but the job can be easily picked up by another member of staff.

We are literally at skeleton staff at the moment as it is. But we need to do something as the wheels are coming off. 🙈

Anyone been in a situation like this ?

Yes. You need to borrow somebody from your network who understands that particular area. Ask your friends and LinkedIn contacts. Otherwise you are a sitting duck for bullshitters!

Nettle thanks, I do have some one in mind a friend actually but was worried about sharing to much. But yes I’ll go ahead with that.

We were shafted a while back because dh totally believed in a bullshitter and It cost us a lot of money so ultra cautious now

There might be some kind of freelance HR Consultant, with specialist industry knowledge, who you could hire to help you through the recruitment process.

Google the job description of each position for your industry. I'd say start from there.

leaves good idea!

delph I have done and know what I need from them it’s just when interviewing and actually managing them.

Had a bad experience in the past where the employee really took the piss as I didn’t really know how to manage them and appraise their work

I don’t know how you would access this but when my previous employers were recruiting to fill my post they used some kind of psychological profiling. I would have been sceptical but I had actually worked with one of the candidates previously and it was absolutely spot on. It picked up the traits that made him very difficult to work with.

Thehaunted that’s really interesting !

I actually love interviewing people who know more than me about a given subject. I like to hire experts in their field who know far more than me about things.

I always approach it from the perspective that in order to excel at their job, they need to consider their impact on the wider business. As such, when interviewing I focus on how they would do bits of this job, thinking about the overall benefit to the business, Rather than just focusing on precious experience

Of course, get someone in who’s an expert themselves if it’s really techy. But I do like to say “I have problem XYZ, how would you solve that?”

shirley that’s good way of looking at it and I shall take that approach.

Having been managed by someone less knowledeable than me what I would say is, don't be afraid to acknowledge you don't know everything.

My former boss was a total nightmare, I knew more than her (not on everything but on a few things) and she knew it and she knew I knew it but heaven forbid it ever came to light... made her very defensive, secretive and power trippy. She could never admit she was wrong, so when I knew she was wrong I had to pretend she was right for fear of tripping up the old ego. Made it a nightmare for everyone in the team and no one respected her.

So don't be like my old boss is all I can say.

littlemissed