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Lesson Info

Job Description Student Exercise

Who has a job that they would like to create a job description for? Lashanda? Come on up. And then let's grab the flip chart. Gonna adjust my jeans. Thank you Sheila. Alright so, Lashanda tell us again who you are, what you do, and then tell us about the position you're gonna be hiring for. Yes. I'm Lashanda Green, I am a marketing and business development specialist and strategist, and for this one it's really just helping ... I'm a very multi-passionate entrepreneur, so I want someone to come in and help project manage Alright. So I can be the visionary in all the different ideas that I have. Yes. Love it. Project Manager. Luckily for you, that is actually a job title that people identify with. Yes. There are lots and lots of project managers out there, and I think lots of people who have the kind of personality that they know they'd love to be a project manager as well. Okay. So let's talk about the information about your company. How are you gonna describe your company so that this...

project manager knows what they're getting themselves in to? Very much the same way I describe what I do. It's very much a marketing and business development consultancy because in this role they kind of have to have that visionary trait as well as the integrator because there's gonna be really be much to do in those marketing and business development tasks for the different sub businesses within my whole portfolio. Okay. I would also say that too, so many ventures, maybe I'm making this up, many ventures in our portfolio. Yes. Very, very sexy. Okay, cool. How does this position fit into the company? In terms of like their role? Yes. It helps to make sure that the whole portfolio of business is on a path to be scalable and sustainable through just really keeping the company on track in terms of is cash flow where it's supposed to be or subcontractors doing what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to be doing it? So just making sure that efficiency and effectiveness is top of mind at all times. Okay. Like that. Focuses on efficiency, and what was the other thing you said? Effectiveness. Effectiveness. Like I would really look for them to be like the facilitator of functionality within the business. Alright. I'm gonna also include profitability Yes. Here because actually what you're starting to describe is what Gino Wickman describes in the book Rocket Fuel as an integrator, and profitability is one of those pieces is that really what we're looking at in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is, at the end of the day, profitability. Right. Right? Okay. Responsibilities. What do you imagine this person being responsible for? Scheduling at the higher level, so not necessarily like the small calender things, but making sure that when projects overlap with each other, they're not messing each other up. Making sure that things are going in a domino effect, so one thing ... So basically if there was a marketing thing, they have to have that brain to be able to look and say, "We can do this for this project and this project, simultaneously." Yeah, what would we call that? Managing ... How about like managing capacity? Yes. What else? Looking at metrics, knowing how to deliver them to not only where it makes the most sense to see where changes need to be made, but getting them to the right people as well. Okay. What else? I put scheduling, managing the projects, communicating with contractors so I wouldn't have to be the person to do it all the time. Excellent. Anything else? What is their relationship to you? In terms of like how they work with me, or? Mm-hmm. They have to be comfortable with like ... I mean I was talking to Uhi about this yesterday about the difference between being a boss and leader is like they have to have leadership capabilities. They can't look at me as just, "Oh, you're the leader, you call the shots." They need to be comfortable with doing that. I don't know if that's more responsibilities or still the skills and the attitudes. Yeah, we're definitely starting to get more into skills and attitudes. We can always come back to responsibilities, so so they're a kind of person that likes to own (Lashanda) Right. their responsibility. (audience member) Yesterday you said entrepreneurial. (Lashanda) Yes. Very entrepreneurial. Let's write intrapreneurial. Yeah. I got the exact term that I was using. I think so many ... because I see a lot of job descriptions for people and this industry and it's like you can't be entrepreneurial, and then I feel like it attracts people who are like, "What do I need to do, what do I do," and then I feel like that's .. I don't want another job. I am hiring because I don't want to do more stuff. So they're a self-starter. (Lashanda) Yes. They're creative. I want someone who's like, knows that when they come to work with me that they can still create all of the reward without having to take all the risk. So, they're an entrepreneur in that sense, but they don't have to take on all of the risk. Okay. So, I mean let's go back to that more entrepreneurial just to know that like, I want you to create within the business as if it were your own, and you're gonna get rewarded for it as a result. Yeah. Let's shy away from talking about how we're gonna reward people as per Ms. Petrice Perkins, making sure that we don't guarantee people things. And when I say reward, I don't mean pay but I mean of like you're actually like, I know we've all had those jobs where we're there and it's like, "I can't make a difference." I mean reward, I guess reward for me is not always money, it's like I can look and say I'm proud of this because I didn't have to wait for her to tell me that I could create something. Yeah. Takes pride in the success of the business as a whole. Right? Mm-hmm. What else? Oh and let me say anther way to think about this, I was asked during the interview process for this position that we were hiring for, man there were some brilliant interviews, and one woman asked, forgive me that I forget which one it was, but she said, "What is the difference between a person who's good at this job, and a person who excels at this job?" I just thought that was such a great question. And so when you're describing someone here, you're describing the characteristics of someone who really excels at this job. Is there anything else you want to include here? They have to be assertive. Assertive? I love it. That really speaks to attitude. (Lashanda) Yeah. Assertive confident? (Lashanda) Yeah, again with that, feel like I can be indecisive sometimes and I don't want them to be like, "Whatever you think is best." I want a person who's not ... A yes person who's not afraid to challenge me. Yeah. I would say that. I love it. Okay. How do you imagine the structure of this position being? Is this a part-time job, full-time job, contract position? At least a part-time. I think with contract it would be so much confidentiality with all the different business ideas. This is not a contract job. So. I almost feel like it still has to be like full-time because even if I have other part-time people, if the project manager is part-time, then that means I'm gonna have to project manage the part-time with the other part-timers. Yep. So I think it has to be full-time. Alright. It's a full-time job. Is it salaried or hourly? I'm thinking, same reasons, it'd have to be salary just because they're gonna need that person at different times. It's easier to go salary. You know why? Because it's predictable. It's the same thing, every month. You pay the- You know? It doesn't matter how much they work, I mean it matters how much they work, (laughter) but you don't have to worry about- (laughter) I meant more like, "Don't worry, I'm not gonna overwork you." But you don't have to worry, like if you take them on a business trip, you don't have to worry that they're working 12 hours every day because you pay them for that, and some weeks they don't have to do that. Right? So I think salaried, for as scary as it might feel because you're like locking yourself into that, you're also locking yourself into that. You know what you need to provide for that person week in and week out. Okay, is there a set schedule, or is it flexible? Probably flexible. Because of the contractor, since you really can't control the contractor's time, they would have to learn how- and that's probably another skill they'd have to have. They'd have to have good time management skills. Love that. Nice. Time, I would hope someone who applies for a project manager job has good time management, but it doesn't hurt to say it. (laughter) Do you have any compensation in mind for this person? I don't. I don't know what that number would be. I feel like it has to be- It'd be a higher number because it's a lot of responsibility. Yeah, project managers tend to make pretty good money. That would depend a lot also on where you're hiring them from, what someone might expect. So that can be a good reason to hire someone from not where you live, or it can also be a really great opportunity to hire someone where you live, depending on cost of living and all that. One of the conversations that was happening at Co Commercial and Bridget Lions was kind of spearheading it was really focusing on what constitutes a living wage in the area in which you're hiring so that you're sure you are providing in the way that you want to provide. We've been talking about becoming job creators, we also don't want to be the kind of person that creates a job that forces people into a lifestyle that is untenable. (Lashanda) Right. Right? And then how do you imagine people applying for this position? That was one of the questions I wanted to ask, about how much is too much to do during an application process without paying someone for the time that they're putting into that application process? Yes. That was actually one of the questions I wanted to ask Petrice too, so maybe we need to follow up with Petrice on that one. I know that there are people who do pay as part of the application process if it's ... you have a particular project that you want them to do, and so for this kind of job, you could pay them for a project as a contractor, and I would only do that for maybe your top two candidates. Or maybe you select one candidate and then you say, "Before I extend the full-time job to you, I want you to manage just this one project." That absolutely can be a contract then, you pay them a flat fee for that job, and then they prove themselves out and then you offer them the full-time, salary flexible position. (Lashanda) Yeah. Cool? I think for ... So I guess for the application process, I don't ... maybe it's watching too much reality TV, I don't know, (laughter) but my ideal thing would be, I probably watch too much reality TV, like I want, I know I want a couple of levels to the application process, like I would love it if one of the assignments was for them to interview me. Mm-hmm. Because I feel like there's more I can learn from their questions than I can from their carefully crafted answers. Sure. So based on what they ask me, I can be like, "Mm, no." I feel like it would give me a sense of like what their priorities were and then I guess the other part of the application like you said was doing one of those trial experiences to see how they work with other contractors I already work with, because I don't want to lose my contractors because I think the project manager is the perfect person, where they're like, "Who is this person that I'm taking orders from now?" Yeah. Yeah, I think that's great. I feel like there's nothing wrong with you saying, "First interview is me interviewing you, second interview is you interviewing me," or however you wanna work that. Nothing wrong with that at all. Alright? And we'll talk about that more in the next session. Thank you. Alright? Thanks Lashanta. Alright. Well, speaking of the next session, we are gonna get into that application process, we're gonna get into the interviewing process and I'm gonna have Shannon come up and join me and have more again of a just group discussion about what needs to go on in an interview, and if we're real lucky, we may even get two of you doing a mock interview in that session. So be thinking about that.