Guest Consultant Brendan Betancourt: Do You Hire Based on the Candidate’s Ability to Smile?
If you are like most people, you probably don’t even notice if a candidate smiles spontaneously. During interviews, most of us are so consumed with the candidate’s skills, and finding out if they can do the job, that we often over look important aspects that in many cases may be more important.
The funny thing is that you can teach people most any skill, but you can’t teach them to smile. And for people in the service industry, smiling is probably the most important skill of all.
While researching a talk, I came across this little story that Tom Peters told in one of his presentations.
I once said to a Starbucks regional manager, “I’m stunned that almost all of your store people, from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia, always sport a smile. What’s your secret?”
She smiled as she answered: “We hire people who smile!”
And to keep them smiling?
“We promote the ones who smile the most.”
Could it be that simple?
