“Hiring and retaining your science team: Interviewing, selecting and onboarding scientists, technical staff and managers.”
One of the most challenging aspects of running a lab or department is the hiring of new post-docs, professional staff and technical personnel. So many times this is a process that is guided mostly by our “gut” feeling of who is the right candidate. And so many times we end up regretting decisions made in this way. Since hiring decisions have such a profound effect on productivity and scientific advancement, it makes sense that we should use discipline and methodology to guide our intuition.
In this half-day workshop, you will learn how to organize the selection and hiring process so that you get the data you need to make an informed hiring decision. You will learn why over reliance on selecting for technical skills and qualifications can lead you to make poor hiring decisions. You will learn and practice using a simple question-based approach to assessing a candidate’s all-important “personal characteristics,” such as their ability to hear and use feedback, their ability to manage setbacks and adversity, and their ability to manage disagreements and conflict. You will receive instruction on and practice in how to conduct candidate phone screens, and face-to-face interviews; and on how to ‘listen between the lines’ during phone reference checks so that you can accurately evaluate both technical skills and personal characteristics. Finally, you will learn how to make sure you retain good people once you hire them.
In combination with our popular half-day workshop “Managing your science team: Feedback, goal setting and performance review for scientists” these workshops together provide a comprehensive one-day “boot camp” for scientists at all levels of advancement on how to attract, motivate and retain the best scientific staff possible.