A few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Don Paullin the owner and founder of Hiring Firing Experts, Inc., and the author of the book reviewed here Hire Hotdogs, Fire Baloney; Hiring the Best. Don has 20-plus years of experience in the HR and operations field working for large corporations and now consulting to them.

The book is good and practical, and at less than 200 pages it’s a quick read.  The key element to Don’s approach is to craft a meaningful job description.  Hiring the best is a direct result of the analytical process that goes into the creation of a good job description and sticking to that job description in the hiring and assessment process.  Don also provides hundreds of great real world examples of interviewing questions, criteria and hiring tips.

One of the best things about Don’s book is that it’s common sense oriented and immediately applicable to running a business.  Once you understand the purpose and how to create a decent job description, everything else (e.g., interviewing, hiring criteria, selection, rejection, assessment) is logically based on that job description.

Although I may somewhat differ with Don regarding the job description’s necessity, this difference in approach doesn’t mean that I believe that job descriptions are useless or that any of his other tips are unnecessary.  Instead, my two keys to effective workplace relations is to adhere to the “Golden Rule” (i.e., treat employees well), and pay them on time and accurately (don’t mess with employees’ money).  Both approaches aren’t necessarily inconsistent with one another.  My approach may be more suitable to entrepreneurs, or those who like to go by their gut, and don’t want to deal with employment related issues in any sort of analytical way.  Because Don’s approach is so analytical, some may shy away from that level of analysis because of the fear of bureaucracy and red tape that sometimes inherent with HR practices.

Then again, whereas my approach is based solely on my own observations and opinions, and not on empirical or legal research, and Don’s approach is more grounded in legal and empirical research, from a preventive and proactive human resources perspective, Don’s approach makes more sense, and should help to greatly reduce a business’ employment related expenses and increase profits.