Close the Deal by “Tipping Your Hand”

When you’re playing poker, it’s great to have an ace in your hand.

It’s even better when that ace is surrounded by other aces and kings.

The food & beverage industry is no different. Logically, a high performer wants to surround himself with other great people – individuals who support his professional growth and success. In other words, he doesn’t want to be the only ace in your organization’s hand.

Use this fact to your advantage when hiring! You already have an amazing team of food & beverage professionals, so leverage their value to “close the deal” with a promising candidate. These ideas from Kinsa will help you tip the hiring scale in your favor, by “tipping your hand” for an exceptional prospect:

Get over the “cloak and dagger” approach.

Too often, applicants come into an interviewing situation with information from your job posting and company website (and not much more). Why the secrecy? The fact is, it’s in your organization’s best interest to help promising candidates prepare to succeed in the interview.

So drop the cloak. Before you meet, provide information about your products, culture and performance expectations. You’ll make the candidate feel welcome from the outset. And if he doesn’t use the information to his advantage during the interview, you will have learned something equally important about his potential value to your team.

Share the success profiles of your aces and kings.

In addition to providing standard information about your organization, tip your hand a bit further. While it may be impractical (and imprudent for security reasons) to proffer resumes of every top performer, share information about your team that clearly demonstrates the high quality of the candidate’s prospective coworkers:

• Compile short (one or two paragraph) profiles of top employees, using resumes or LinkedIn profiles as a starting point. Highlight the accomplishments and personal attributes that may be selling points for your candidate.
• Include a profile of the candidate’s prospective manager, too. Share a descriptive summary of the individual’s management style and philosophy, including how he communicates, empowers, leads, rewards and measures performance.
• Choose just a handful of profiles to share with the candidate, based on the position to which he’s applied.
• For security reasons (you don’t want to tip your hand to competitors), provide paper copies of profiles for the candidate to review during the interview. Do not let him take profiles with him.

Share team successes, too.

Beyond individual accomplishments, team successes can be another factor that sways your candidate’s decision. Comb through the team’s recent history to identify key product launches, process improvements, breakthroughs or other “wins.” While it’s important not to reveal company secrets, summarize your team’s achievements and provide those along with individual success profiles.

Final thoughts

In today’s competitive talent market, top food & beverage candidates have their choice of opportunities. It’s up to you to tip the hiring scale in your favor, by showing applicants that they won’t be the only aces on your team.

Growing your team? Kinsa has the high performing food & beverage executives and professionals you need. Contact us to learn more about our proven search and assessment process.