- The CEO of the cookie dough empire Candy Loren’s provides a persona take a look at to all potential hires. Loren Fort says she’s on the lookout for optimistic, passionate individuals with the vitality to work on the sweets startup set to rake in $120 million this 12 months. Company stiffs who can’t sustain with the craziness received’t make the lower.
Myers-Briggs has discovered that many entrepreneurs have extraverted, intuitive traits—ENFPs like Quentin Tarantino, and ENTPs like Thomas Edison. In relation to astrology, the largest U.S. CEOs are most probably to have the Taurus signal, like Mark Zuckerberg.
Sure qualities may be linked to success, so one chief govt is utilizing a persona take a look at to seek out her star employees and weed out the dangerous candidates. Loren Fort, CEO of frozen cookie dough empire Candy Loren’s, runs her enterprise with the vitality of a start-up—and desires her employees to thrive off that craziness. Fort arms out the CliftonStrengths evaluation to each candidate she interviews to kind out the dangerous eggs.
One purple flag that she’s all the time on the lookout for? Company stiffs: “People that have too much corporate training and no experience with startups or fast-growing smaller brands,” Fort explains to Fortune.
“I just don’t know if they’re actually going to like this world. It’s totally different.”
The millennial CEO says she seems to snag expertise who’ve each company and start-up expertise so that they’re ready for the depth of working a fast-paced small enterprise—which rolled in $97 million in product sales final 12 months, and has a projected $120 million run fee this 12 months. Candy Loren’s has expanded to 35,000 retail areas, taking on the frozen aisles of Goal, Entire Meals, Publix, Kroger, and Walmart.
The inexperienced flags she seems for in expertise, after earlier hiring woes
Fort says she hasn’t all the time had a stable workforce behind her; to start with it was tough for her to completely perceive what the tradition at Candy Loren’s would appear like, and who can be the most effective individuals to work there. However now, she has a eager eye to identify these applicant inexperienced and red-flags.
“It’s hard to hire the right team. That’s the hardest part of this: to really understand what your culture is and attract the best people,” Fort says. “Not everyone wants to work this hard. It’s definitely not easy—this is not a coasting job.”
“We’re really mindful now when we’re building out teams,” she says, including that when a candidate completes the take a look at, she’s : Are they analytical? Are they actually strategic? Or maybe, they’re empathetic?
Fort is on the lookout for workers with a couple of core traits: they want a optimistic perspective, ardour, and teamwork abilities.
“We have less than 30 people on our team, and we run a profitable business,” she continues. “So we really need smart, passionate people on the team—you can’t kind of hide. It took us a while to get there.”
There’s one other profitable attribute Fort seems for in her subsequent Candy Loren’s rent, that may’t be parsed out by way of a persona take a look at: they need to have related expertise, even when they aren’t within the shopper packaged items (CPG) area. One of many a number of issues she received’t tolerate? Job-seekers with massive egos.
“Rounding out each team, we’re going in eyes wide open,” Fort says. “They shouldn’t have an ego—we want everyone to be driven for their own personal fulfillment.”
The persona take a look at given out to each applicant
Persona and expertise assessments like Hogan Assessments and the Myers-Briggs Sort Indicator have lengthy been an employer technique in culling a expertise pool. Right here’s a peek contained in the take a look at job-seekers need to move to work at Candy Loren’s.
The CliftonStrengths evaluation is a 30-minute take a look at made by American analytics firm Gallup which analyzes distinctive abilities, considering patterns, emotions, and behaviors. Questions are framed on a sliding scale: it asks job-seekers to fee their relatability to 2 statements, every on opposing ends of the question.
For instance, the assertion “I want everyone to like me” is on one finish, whereas one other saying “I want people to adore me” is on the opposite. Take a look at-takers select if one declaration “strongly describes” them, or float to a “neutral” choice within the center if neither assertion resonates.
The take a look at then categorizes the outcomes into 34 themes throughout 4 domains: strategic considering, relationship constructing, influencing, and executing. Take a look at-takers may be described as proficient in sure methods—perhaps they’re a “learner” in terms of strategic considering, or are a stellar “developer” in relationship constructing.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
