Mel Kleiman

Mel Kleiman is a speaker, consultant and author on strategies for hiring and retaining the best employees. He is one of only 650 speakers worldwide to have earned the prestigious Certified Speaking Professional designation and the president of Humetrics, a developer of recruiting, selection and retention systems and tools. Mel has written five books, including The 5 Firsts: A Simple System to Onboard and Engage Top Talent and publishes a regular blog.

Articles by Mel Kleiman

• Questions to improve your interviewing skills

  Monday, February 20, 2017

  When was the last time you had someone evaluate your interviewing process? It's the best way to improve your skills and make better hiring decisions across-the-board. Ask a co-worker to sit in on your next interview, not to evaluate the applicant, but to evaluate your process and technique. This article features a checklist of some of the things they might look for.

• When’s the last time you tested your hiring system?

  Wednesday, October 19, 2016

  The unemployment rate across the United States has remained quite stable since August of 2015 — sitting right at 5 percent as of September, ​according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's exactly half of what it was during the height of the recession in the fall of 2009.

• Employment applications: A refresher course

  Tuesday, July 12, 2016

  ​The most important piece of paper between you and the job applicant is the employment application. Yet the employment application is such a commonplace, routine document that we often overlook how vital it is.

• Top 10 ways to guarantee you hire the wrong person

  Thursday, June 23, 2016

  About five years into my career, I started to notice something. No matter the industry or even the country, employers worldwide tend to make the same, costly hiring mistakes time after time after time. Now, 30-plus years later, I regret to report that nothing's changed much.

• 10 ways to make sure your STARS don’t quit

  Wednesday, May 25, 2016

  ​Of all the people on your payroll or staff, how many are truly STARS? Your STARS are all the employees you value most highly because they are Self-motivated, Talented, Accountable, Responsible and Stable. If they should leave you, for whatever reason, it would be a real blow to your organization.

• Mediocrity kills: How to hire — and keep — only the best workers

  Friday, March 11, 2016

  The obstacle that all too often keeps any organization from being its best is the willingness to tolerate mediocre performers. Let's face it, dishonest, unreliable troublemakers are seldom the reason businesses fail to excel — those folks get fired quickly. What really keeps success an arm's length away are the mediocre players.

• Keep your best people happy with these unique pay strategies

  Thursday, February 04, 2016

  In the midst of an ever-tightening labor market, employee retention is a hot topic once again. Here are three ideas about how you can boost employee morale and retention with just a few tweaks to your existing pay policies. Let's face it, those policies were probably written years ago and have nothing to do with today's economics or workforce realities anyway.

• Is this job candidate a devil or angel?

  Tuesday, February 24, 2015

  It is human nature to prefer like-minded others who share our values, assessments and opinions, but it's in your best interest to curb this tendency when evaluating job candidates. Nothing could be a bigger hindrance to your organization's success than being fully staffed by cookie-cutter replicas of top management.

• How to make a great first impression on new employees

  Monday, January 26, 2015

  Does your company have an new-hire orientation program? Does your department? Have you reviewed it for content and effectiveness? If you're not in charge of orientation, drop in on what goes on there. There are lots of good reasons why you should. First impressions are lasting and, because of this, the key to employee retention is new-employee orientation.

• How do magnetic companies attract the best employees?

  Tuesday, January 13, 2015

  As we step into 2015, how will you attract the frontline employees you need to prosper and thrive this year? There are a few exemplary organizations showing the way. What they share in common, besides their legendary success, is that they know how to attract, select and retain the best. They are magnetic.

• The last thing you need is a lawsuit

  Tuesday, December 09, 2014

  ​Let's take a quiz. The results may save you from becoming embroiled in a costly lawsuit. Check off the questions you can legally ask job applicants either on your employment application form or in interviews.

• Opportunity only knocks once

  Thursday, November 13, 2014

  It's been a long time now since anyone went out and pounded the pavement in search of a new job. The Internet allows jobseekers today to let their fingers do the walking, and the once ubiquitous "Now Hiring" sign is fast becoming a relic.

• Do you make this common hiring mistake?

  Wednesday, October 29, 2014

  Most interviewers consider the interview to be a simple, one-step process that leads directly to the hire/don't hire decision. This misperception is largely the reason why a Michigan State University study found: "The interview, when used alone, is on average only about 8 percent more effective than flipping a coin."

• The ABCs of employee retention

  Thursday, October 16, 2014

  ​Employee retention efforts don't have to be elaborate or laden with perks. You just have to do a good job on the fundamentals. Take a look at the following ideas and add at least a few to your employee retention strategy.

• 5 fatal employee recruiting errors

  Wednesday, October 01, 2014

  Employee recruiting errors can indeed be fatal. In the long run, it won't matter if you have the world's best location, the lowest prices, the hottest products or the snazziest, most automated facility. If even one of the people you hire is dishonest, lazy, unconcerned or inattentive, that person has the power to cause paying customers to leave dissatisfied and never come back.

• Employee recruiting myth: I don’t have time

  Thursday, September 18, 2014

  Recruiting is like bathing — it's only effective if you do it every day. If you recruit only "when you have the time," you severely limit your ability to attract and hire the best. If you don't make any recruiting efforts until you actually need to hire someone, it's just like grocery shopping on an empty stomach — you'll grab the first thing that looks good.

• 10 ways to guarantee your best people quit

  Monday, August 04, 2014

  ​Are you tired of working with good employees? Looking for ways to ensure that your best people leave? Follow these 10 easy steps to guarantee your best people quit.

• ​Mythbusting: Job boards and your website are not great recruiting tools

  Wednesday, July 23, 2014

  While job boards and your website make it quick and easy for the employer and the applicant alike, they are far less effective than the top three, proven sources of great employees.

• Can you really afford mediocre employees?

  Thursday, July 10, 2014

  Hundreds of research studies have quantified the difference between an "A player" versus a "C player." Every one of them concludes that the difference in productivity and the impact on the bottom line is anywhere from 20 percent to over 1,000 percent greater return when you compare the best, most productive employees to those who are "average."

• Could they do it if their lives depended on it?

  Wednesday, June 25, 2014

  Do you have a hiring problem, a motivation problem or a training problem? To find out, ask yourself: "Could they do it if their lives depended upon it?" The "it" can be any set of desired behaviors. For example, "it" could be completing a certain set of reports by noon on Friday each week.

• Job candidates aren’t the only ones who lie in interviews

  Thursday, June 12, 2014

  Many people stretch the truth or even blatantly lie during job interviews. What may surprise you is that it's not only the applicants who fib in order to put their best fictional foot forward. Employers are just as likely to embellish the truth.

• Make applying for your jobs easy

  Wednesday, May 28, 2014

  ​There are always plenty of people who want to work, but there are never enough good and great ones. That's why the largest, most attractive pool of potential recruits are all the folks who are now employed. They are the proven, dependable, honest, diligent people savvy employers covet most.

• The 10 commandments of employee onboarding

  Thursday, May 08, 2014

  It's important for businesses remain focused, dedicated and committed to hiring the best and giving them an outstanding onboarding process that builds lasting relationships. If you follow these commandments, your organization will become just that — the best.

• How to make better hiring decisions

  Thursday, April 24, 2014

  ​The best applicant and the best employee are rarely one in the same, so I recommend following a "hire tough, manage easy" philosophy. Even if you occasionally miss the mark, you will still be hiring to a higher standard.

• The 10 commandments of hiring and employee retention

  Friday, April 11, 2014

  Recruiting and hiring the right employees is essential to the success of your business. If you will follow these commandments and remain focused, dedicated and committed to hiring the best, you will soon see that your organization becomes just that — the best.

• On the importance of customers and employees

  Tuesday, March 25, 2014

  ​Is it as important to value your employees as highly as you value your relationships with your customers? You bet it is! There is a direct correlation between employee job satisfaction and length-of-service with profitability.

• 10 key hourly employee prescreening questions

  Friday, March 07, 2014

  Once you have a stack of applications for a job opening, it's best to develop a list of preliminary, prescreening questions to ask promising applicants at the earliest possible stage in your hiring process.

• 7 steps to hiring great hourly employees

  Tuesday, February 25, 2014

  ​Most employers don't take a systematic approach to hiring, especially when it comes to hourly employees. They just post an ad on their website or a job board, collect applications, interview a few people and choose one. Unfortunately, this no-system, easy-hire approach is self-defeating.

• How to hire winners, not whiners

  Thursday, February 06, 2014

  If you're a manager, who do you want on your team — a bunch of whiners who moan and groan about everything little change or challenge, or the winners who know what they have to do and are willing to meet every obstacle as an opportunity? Of course, you'll say you want the winners, but I bet you have a few whiners on your team right now anyway

• Experience and skills are no match for talent

  Wednesday, January 29, 2014

  Human knowledge is now doubling every 3.7 years. This means 50 percent of what you now know will be out of date in less than four years. For this reason, it is no longer about hiring skills and/or experience. Today, it's all about hiring talent.

• Who comes 1st? Customers or employees?

  Monday, January 20, 2014

  Who comes first, the customer or the employee? Some argue that running a business is pointless without customers and that making the customer happy comes first. One expert believes that having customers is pointless unless you have employees who will do their utmost every time to create a positive experience for your customers, so making your employees happy comes first.

• Top 10 mistakes interviewers make

  Monday, January 06, 2014

  ​Recruiting and hiring new employees is both an art and a skill. Unfortunately, too few business owners and hiring managers have ever had any training in the proven, best-practice techniques used by employers-of-choice like Disney and Southwest Airlines. Without training, most interviewers just "wing it" — ad-libbing their way through interviews and making decisions based more on instinct and impressions rather than logic. No wonder costly employee turnover is such a constant headache.

• What workers want in a job

  Thursday, December 12, 2013

  When an employee quits, most managers take it personally — and for good reason. For more than 20 years, employee exit interview research has been telling us the No. 1 reason the best people leave is because they feel they are being poorly managed. Whether you're recruiting managers or hourly employees, there are five specific things everyone wants from a job. If you can provide most or all of them, you'll be able to attract and retain the employees you deserve — the best.

• How to build your dream team

  Wednesday, December 04, 2013

  In response to every survey we've conducted over the years, hiring managers and business owners report that employee referrals generate the best job applicants. These results are also right in line with independent studies that show employee referrals are the only recruiting tool that delivers high-quality workers who stay on board about three times longer than those from other sources.

• The 4 interview questions that count

  Tuesday, November 19, 2013

  ​You can conduct a thorough interview with only four core questions. No more dreaming up talking points on the spot. No more planning or writing lists to remember everything you want to cover. The idea here is to take an applicant through their entire work history asking the same four basic questions about each job.

• Hourly, frontline employees are expendable

  Tuesday, November 05, 2013

  Unless your unique selling proposition is exceptional customer service — like Nordstrom, Zappos, Ritz-Carlton and The Container Store — there's no reason to sweat it when you lose frontline employees. Most likely, they were not that good anyway.

• Do you know these employee recruiting fundamentals?

  Wednesday, October 23, 2013

  The tools, technologies and techniques we use to attract potential employees keep evolving, but a great recruiting program is still all about basic "blocking and tackling."

• Have you ever had hire’s remorse?

  Tuesday, October 08, 2013

  Employees are the most impressionable during their first weeks on the job — and even more so during their first few days. This is because people in unfamiliar territory are more alert for clues that will help them navigate the new terrain. Every bit of information gathered during this time will either reinforce your new hire's decision to take the job or lead to "new hire’s remorse."