Emily Kumler - How Not to Hire

2020 HarperCollins Leadership

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Leadership, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Published in association with Kevin Anderson & Associates:
https://www.ka-writing.com/.

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates.

ISBN 978-1-4002-1969-8 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-1866-0 (HC)

Epub Edition June 2020 9781400219698

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936144

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

1. Section 1
   The Search
2. Section 2
   The Interview
3. Section 3
   The Hire

T his book is dedicated to the next generation of rascals: Max, Camilla, Charlotte, James, Ben, Arlo, Jude, Chloe, Charlie, Violet L, Henry, Etta, Sidney, Sydney, Thomas, Sam, Max, Cat, Violet M., Quinn, Em, Kai, Finley, Kavi, Jack, Teddy, and the little Kaplan on the way. I hope you always find the perfect balance of grit and perseverance, mixed with heavy doses of love and kindness, so that you may continue to evolve and always feel the support around you. May your lives be filled with meaningful mistakes that inspire deep learning and growth. My heart will always hold a special place for each of you. My arms are always free to hug you when you fall, and my mind is always here to help you strategize when youre ready to get back up and grow. I cannot wait to see the path each of you takes.

To Sandy, Marci, Carrie, and Natalie, thank you for holding space for me and keeping me grounded in all our worlds!

A special thank-you to Katy, Doug, Anne, Nicola, Jessie, Jessica, Payal, Lindsey, Jason, Kate TR, Harley, Ames, and big Camilla. I am acutely aware that every time I have fallen, broken in two, and wanted to hide in a pit of doom, youve come into the darkness, found me, held my hand, and shared in my sorrow. Then youve carefully and gently encouraged me, reminding me to get back up, to keep trying, to be true to my ideas. Risk-taking is less risky when you know you have an incredible crash pad. Failure doesnt feel so final when friends unrelentingly believe youll find a way, maybe not the way you thought, but that youll find a way to solve the problem. Im endlessly grateful for your love and encouragement. Without it I would surely be a different person.

To my children, who in the span of three summer months survived their mothers mania: writing two books, hosting a weekly podcast, running three businesses, and venturing to Peru for two weeks. Thank you for inspiring me to get so much done! You two are the brightest lights in my life and have made me realize time is not something to take for granted. Who we spend our time with and how we spend it are by far the most important choices we make in life, a lesson you both have driven home for me. I am a better mom because of my passion for my work, and Im a better worker because of my love for my family. I hope you will find your own balance and harmony, and perhaps even find that my example was helpful. Always remember: no matter where you go, no matter what you do, I will always love you. Oh, and I love you more. (Now that that is in print, I think we can agree its official.)

To Mom, Dad, Kate, Dave, Aden, Marge, George, Robin, Michael, Billy, and Greta for being my family.

And to Bobby, my great love, who has constantly had to deal with my unsolicited advice. Your drive and intellect are unmatched. Your determination to find the truth, to question everything, to pursue the unpopular, inspires me every day. Im deeply indebted that youre on this journey with me. Thank you for giving me the space and freedom to pursue what I believe matters. Your opinions are always the ones I value most. When we dont agree, I know it means Im about to learn something important because your thoughtfulness is always revealing to me. And nothing is more validating than having your support and love. Thank you for sharing this life with me. I love you.

Y ouve probably seen the books that prescribe a path to success. Ones with titles like 10 Things You Must Do to Be Successful and Landing the Sale Every Time. These books are a lot like fortune cookiesgeneric, obvious, and frankly, filled with hindsight bias. A look back at some of the best-selling self-help books of the past decades will lead you to a plethora of success stories, which today are viewed as horror stories. Cherry-picked examples of profiled companies offer modern readers a glimpse into the likes of Enron, Lehman Brothers, and other now-defunct companies once touted as shining examples we mere mortals should try to emulate.

What I intend to do here is the opposite. Like most women in their forties, Ive learned that the path to success must be defined by the individual. There are far too many variables in life to be pre-packaged into a perfect formula that will guarantee success. Most of the fortune-cookie books describe the need for grit, perseverance, and drive as their secret weapon. But look at almost any black, single mother in America, and I guarantee shes got grit, perseverance, and drive in spades that doesnt guarantee her a C-suite position. Like it or not, the bias and prejudice of the real world is a variable few self-help books consider when theyre offering up their magical recipe for success.

Like it or not, the bias and prejudice of the real

world is a variable few self-help books consider when

theyre offering up their magical recipe for success.

I agree that many of the commonalities in those formulas are important, but in isolation theyre not going to miraculously make you a millionaire, as some have suggested. Instead, we can take a realistic view of our options and consider what we know doesnt work and therefore what can be avoided, which I think is actually useful advice.

After two decades of reporting on business leaders, innovators, and criminals, its clear to me that a lot of lifes outcomes have to do with the lot you were handed. However, there are common pitfalls that can prevent you from achieving your personal potential if youre not cognizant of them. Youll look back on mistakes that hampered your pursuits and want a do-over. What if someone gave you a road map to those mistakes? Wouldnt that be better than generic advice on what you should do?

This book is about hiring people. We will assume youre reading this because youre in a position where youre hiring people, which means youre in a position of power. You now have a responsibility to hire the right people for the right roles. This sounds easy enough, right? But, actually its an area of any business that can make or break the future, so wouldnt it be great to know mistakes others have made so you dont fall into the same trouble? Thats my goal: to help you learn what not to do.

This book is not a legal guide to hiring; it is instead filled with stories of mistakes people have made and hardships theyve faced in the hiring process. Each chapter offers different advice about hiring from the initial job posting to interviewing to offering a candidate a job. The stories are a mixture of reported, true stories and of amalgamations of my own experiences and those experiences Ive heard about in my time working as an entrepreneur, speaker, and journalist. In those composite stories where Ive taken the liberty to blend stories, to make up characters and details, the subjects are only referenced by their first names* in order to help the reader decipher between the accurate accounts and the fictionalized accounts. Those should not be confused with the stories of Cindy Brown, Emily Chang, Doug Levine, and Doug Stone who bravely shared their stories in interviews for this book in hopes of helping you all avoid the same pitfalls. All other stories are fictionalized portrayals of stories Ive rendered from real life.