Precision Talent Matching: How To Hire Without The Guesswork with Juan Pablo Forno

0:02Who's ready to rock today? Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down precision talent mashing, how to hire without the guesswork. To drop these value bombs, I brought Juan Pablo Forno, aka JP, into EO Fire Studios. JP is from Guatemala and has over seven years of experience hiring, training, and managing international teams. He's the founder of Meteor, a company that helps entrepreneurs buy back time with top virtual assistants. And that's what we've talking about today. We'll talk about hiring, precision talent matching.

0:42We'll also talk about getting people to stick once you hire and train them and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to JP and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, high level and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession resilient businesses and create legacy income for their families through franchising.

1:24Get started today with Franocity's franchise funding guide packed with real world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings. visit franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com. JP, say hey, what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? John, thanks for having me here. Yeah, I think that, I don't know if most people would disagree with, but my perspective on success is that truly there are no rules, right? There's no rules on what it takes to become successful. There's no rules on what success actually really means, right?

2:08Success maybe is just achieving a goal or a desired outcome. And that truly looks different from everybody else. Some people is wealth, respect, or fame. Some people is making an impact. Others look for work-life balance. Other things balance is BS, right? So like, I think most people chase others' definitions of success. I don't know if you've ever seen that Andrew Wilkinson tweet that he says like, oh yeah, yeah, where he's just like entrepreneurs giving advice is like, hey, here's the number I use to win the lottery. You know, it's like an already cash ticket, right? For me, I like to take my cues from nature a little bit.

2:44When I was a teenager, I was introduced to this concept of biomimicry. Not sure if you've ever heard of that. But biomimicry is really the practice of learning and imitating from nature strategies to solve problems. It's usually used with like product design, like Velcro or bullet trains and those are those examples. But it could really help you with like models and frameworks. And so for me, like when I look at nature, I see two main purposes in life to grow to maximum potential and to contribute to an ecosystem where other species could do the same. Kind of like that Jim Rohn quote where it seems like every life form on this planet strives towards maximum potential except humans.

3:25Like you will never see a tree growing half to its potential size. So yeah, like for me, like success in life means living a life of growth and contribution where I grow towards my maximum potential and at the same time contribute to other people doing the same. Well, Fire Nation, you can tell that we are going to have one heck of a chat today with JP, because he is just full of value bombs, full of quotes. And of course, we are going to be focused on precision talent matching because we want to know how to hire without the guesswork. And JP, let's just break it down because man, my audience has recognized this time and time again, as of I.

4:01Hiring is so tough. I mean, for most, it really does feel just like this coin toss. I mean, you didn't get heads or tails, good or bad. And we're even talking for experienced entrepreneurs. What are your thoughts on this topic? Yeah, I mean, like, it feels like a coin toss because, you know, people don't usually have, like, a system that produces predictable results. And, I mean, like, nobody teaches recruiting. Like, I went to business school as far as I know they didn't teach it, right? And so it feels like a gamble because decisions are made, in my experience, with a serious lack of useful information, evidence or proof is almost always entirely made on surface level data like resumes or interviews or even gut feelings.

4:45Truth is that hiring should be more of a deduction, not an assumption. And that's why it's closer to guesswork because there's no reliable way of gathering these signals. And so if we want to take a simplistic approach, what you need to make hiring work is number one, knowing exactly what it is that you're looking for. And number two, knowing how to recognize when you've found it. So on the knowing what you're looking for, the first problem is that entrepreneurs don't really spend enough time gaining clarity on what they actually need. They think in terms of tasks instead of business outcomes.

5:23you know so if you don't know what you're looking for you won't recognize when you found them so strategy really business strategy should dictate what you're looking for because strategy at its core tells you like what you should focus on as a business it should tell you where you want to get to where you're standing what stands in your way and like how to overcome obstacles so when a person is the way to overcome an obstacle that's when you should be doing hiring right so it can be to, I don't know, like increase capacity of work if your team's bandwidth is shot, or you want to bring a specialized expertise into your team, or maybe you want to reduce risk or dependencies on like key hires, or take advantage of timing in the industries, right?

6:04Like whatever it is, like you need to gain clarity of what this role is going to do inside of your company. So that's like number one, right? Like determining what you're looking for. Now for recognizing if you found the right person. I watched a TED talk when we were like starting this company from a guy called Mads Farholt-Jorgensen. I believe his name is serial entrepreneur, built like dozens of companies. And he got his team to like really optimize for like what makes a good hire. And he found three things. Technical competence. Can somebody have the skills to do the job culture fit will somebody have the um the norms and values that fit your organization and job fit is this representing a meaningful step in their career so those are the things that you you want to look for and we'll probably talk a little bit more about this but uh when people when i say this people listening might be like yeah duh right like this is something that we already do.

7:05And maybe you do, right? But the reason why it feels like a coin toss, the issue is not what you're checking for. It's how you're checking. So it's not that you're asking the wrong questions, it's that you're using the wrong ruler to measure the answers. And I think that that's what it feels like a guesswork. And JP, you are right. We have a lot to get to. And we're going to be touching on a lot of these topics in more depth that you've already kind of brushed over here, which is a great way to start the conversation. But I think one question a lot of people in my audience have, because I know that this was what I was most scared about at first and actually stopped me from starting when I should have, which was earlier, is just the biggest mistake that you see founders make over and over again when they start building that team.

7:49If you could just point to one to start, what would that be? The main one is the people hiring based on credentials and interviews alone. I think that that's what most people are doing. And it's the most common mistake. Typical hiring process is like, let's post a job that probably chat GPT wrote for us, get applicants, screen resumes and do interviews. And that's what most people use to make a hiring decision. But that's like the equivalent of you deciding to marry someone after you look at their Tinder profile and go on a first date. Oh, you're a spontaneous person that walks on the beach. Me too.

8:29Right. You wouldn't dream of doing something like that. I mean, some people would. But most people wouldn't dream of doing something like that. And yet, that is how most people are bringing others into their companies, people that are going to be stewarding your mission. So yeah, there's other mistakes like bias hiring or desperation hiring. But yeah, I could see that, you know, that'd be the most one. And these are expensive mistakes, right? Like if you look at the cost of hiring or the time it takes. It's incredible. I mean, if business owners just understood the cost of churn, the cost that it takes your actual business, your time, your energy, your mental bandwidth to like create that, you know, to try to find that individual, then to create that setting where you're having that interview, then to hire them, then to train them, and then to get them up and running.

9:17and then maybe you lose them because they're not the right person for just many, many reasons. I mean, that is so costly for so many entrepreneurs. Like churn kills more companies than people would ever imagine. That's why we have a lot to talk about around this topic and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business and they are also our featured partner high level. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, High Level is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack.

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12:59Visit Franocity.com, that's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to download your free franchise funding guide today. All right, JP, we're back. And listen, you saw this problem that we've been talking about around hiring. And that's when you said, I'm gonna create a solution to this problem. I'm gonna create a very valuable tool that people can use. And that's where we're gonna get to precision talent matching framework. what is precision talent matching framework and how the heck does it change the game so the precision talent matching framework is a essentially a series of structured steps that help you define exactly what you need and find the person who matches that description with precision so it's kind of like what we were talking about at the beginning right like how do you turn hiring from a gamble to a repeatable evidence-based process and yeah like it's a series of five main steps that we follow and to get reliable results every single time.

14:03Let's go over those five steps one by one. So the first one is the profile definition. And we talked a little bit about what that is. It's gaining clarity on the skills that you're looking for, skills, responsibilities, expectations for the role. It's really painting the picture of what this role is going to be doing inside of your company. You know, think about soft skills, technical skills, tools, identifying compensation, what schedule they should work on, what are the working conditions, which stakeholders are they're going to be having access to, like you really want to understand what this role is to develop a North Star.

14:41And two main constraints to consider here, John, is like a profile match. There is such a thing as, you know, like proclivities and inclinations. I don't know if you've seen it, but like, for example, accountants tend to be like, you know the introverted type or analytical like very detail oriented they usually don't thrive that much in like client facing dynamic roles whereas we both know somebody who's like super like uh people based uh like creative that would hate doing like uh spreadsheets and bank reconciliation right so profile match is is something that you look for and the second constraint is bandwidth match.

15:22Whenever you're defining a profile, people go crazy and then just put a laundry list of things that this role can do. But everybody has a 40 hour work week constraint, right? Like you have to make sure that this fits within that and not setting the role up for failure from the beginning. So that is kind of like the first part, the profile definition. Then the second step is candidate acquisition is attracting the right people by targeting the right channels and speaking in their language. Depending on the role, you might decide to do a headhunting approach versus a recruiting approach. Headhunting is you're more of a sniper, right?

15:59Like you're going for the few target candidates that you see and they're very fought over in the industry, right? And like, how do you get them to engage in a process? And recruiting is a little bit more of like a fishnet approach where you're, you know, advertising your role and you're getting as many applicants as possible. The key thing here is to select the right channel. So where are these people usually hanging out? For example, we hire virtual and executive assistants at Meteor. And in Latin America, those types of hires are not on LinkedIn or job boards. Oddly enough, they're on WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups.

16:38That's where we've had most of our success. And so that's why the clarity in step one is important because you are able to identify the channels better. number three by far the most important part of the framework is candidate filtering so how do you separate from promising applicants uh to like the ones that are not so promising and you have to do this through evaluations that assess for skill sets um so um you need to evaluate people in context and we could talk a little bit more about this because this is something that you we definitely want to double click on. But it's better to like assess candidates on what they can do, not what they say they can do.

17:18So structuring different sort of exercises in context to get a display of skill sets from the candidates. And that's how you start filtering the goods from the bad. Number four is a candidate is how do you select candidates? So now that you actually got real good data, how do you weigh this data and make a decision without falling into the trap of bias hiring or overthinking. So how can you have a numerical score of candidates? And finally, like this isn't really like, it's part of hiring and most people neglected. Your job isn't done until like you find the person. You have to have a good onboarding that ensures momentum, reduces churn, sets the tone for like the next steps.

18:01Like I can't tell you how important the first 90 days of a new hire is inside of the company, right? So at a high level, those are the steps that we follow, which sounds like a traditional, you know, hiring process, but it's really how these things are done and the steps that we follow on each one that make the difference. And I do love that one phrase that you used, which is what candidates can actually do opposed to what they say they can do. Because listen, of course, people want to get hired, And especially in today's day and age with Chad GPT, I mean, everybody can literally sound like a rocket scientist.

18:36I mean, you can just have this at your fingertips. So there has to be this filtering process that JP is talking about that's actually effective. So I do want to talk JP next because you really just got me going on those first 90 days because it's so true that so many people fail in the first 90 days as leaders, as founders of the company when they bring people in. And, you know, they have this person with potentially great potential and they never see it because it's actually the leaders fail in the first 90 days. And that's really interesting to me. So for somebody who's been through this, like you, like me, hiring's just the start.

19:15How do we actually train to integrate someone so they stick? You know, those first 90 days, what do they look like? Yeah, I think that, and you're right, like most people neglect this part. and finding the right talent is just like the start. You can have the best talent ever, but it's kind of like, I don't know if you're a basketball fan. I tend to use basketball exams because it's like Michael Jordan, right? Under Collins, he was still the best basketball player in the world. They never won a championship until they got Phil Jackson coming in who had the right coaching, the right culture, the right systems.

19:51And it's only then that creating that environment which allowed a good player to thrive. And so it is, you know, so important to optimize for a good integration. And so in terms of like training, I think that most people fall into the mistake of confusing telling with training. It's not about saying like, here's what you'll do. And here's like a checklist of things. Training actually means walking them through the why, showing them the how, doing repetitions. Like, for example, I've seen people hire sales representatives, giving them a script and then just like giving them a phone to start dialing.

20:31Right. When they really should be doing like role plays on like section by section, doing 100 repetitions before you go out on the phones, shadowing a good, a key performer, listening to examples of what good looks like versus what bad looks like. and having a constant ongoing support mechanism where you track data, you listen to call examples, you repeat things that you haven't done. A good framework for learning is that whole show me, guide me, let me try approach where you first show them how something is done. You guide them like while you're on their shoulder whispering the steps and then letting them try and then just making sure that they're not making mistakes.

21:12And obviously like a natural next step of that is having them train somebody else, right? And so I think that is just having more of like an intentional approach to integrating somebody, not just like telling them what to do. I mean, JP, this is such a big topic, which I'm sure it's one reason why you tackled it, because I mean, there's so much need for good and great solutions to this massive problem. So I mean, we could have hours and hours of conversations here. But really, the next step is people need to learn more about you to learn more about your company to learn more about the precision talent matching framework.

21:51So let's end with a bang. Give us the one key takeaway that you would really love for our audience to get from our entire conversation today all around hiring and training, et cetera. Then give us the call to action, how we can learn more from you, how we can connect with you and your company, and then we'll say goodbye. Yeah, so I would say to the audience that hiring doesn't need to be complicated, but it does need to be intentional. And making sure you get good information before you make a decision. I mean, hiring isn't about finding the perfect candidate. They don't exist as a spoiler alert, right?

22:32It's about de-risking. Spoiler. Yeah, it's about de-risking the hiring decision. And you do that by getting like a display of attributes that you're looking for. You can't test coachability in a vacuum. Like don't ask about coachability in an interview. Have them, give them coaching on something and see how they respond, right? Like, so that is, I guess, the approach that I would take is focus on gathering good, getting clear on the information you need to see and getting good at gathering that information. And I know that it's very like short conversation to go through all this in a conversation.

23:07So if somebody wants to learn a little bit more about this, just open up a new personal channel on Instagram. So it's jp.forno. If somebody wants to get a copy of our playbook and specifically how to design exercises that will help you see a display of skillset on your candidates, just DM me playbook and I will send you like a lot of resources and guidance on how you can do this with your process. But that's really what we do all day and what will help people upgrade or update their hiring mechanisms. And Fire Nation will link all this up in the show notes because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

23:44You've been hanging out with JPH and JLD today, so keep up that heat. and for links to everything that we talked about, just visit eofire.com. That's eofire.com. Type JP in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up with the links to whatever JP just mentioned right now. And JP, I wanna say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, brother, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, John. Appreciate you having me here. Hey, Fire Nation, A huge thank you to our sponsors and JP for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

24:33I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, which is personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit HighLevelFire.com to start your free trial today.

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25:47Thank you.