When hiring new employees and engaging with new suppliers newsagents should check their history

One thing to look for when hiring new employees is how long they have stayed in previous roles. If you like continuity in your business, look for people who stay with a business longer, especially if you are hiring for a full time role.

It’s important to take time to look at employment history, even when someone is with the one company for years. If they are changing roles every year or 18 months, maybe their eyes are always on their next role and not their current role. Healthy suspicion is important.

In corporate businesses developing intellectual property this is especially important. A candidate who has moved from role to role in two years or less will not get an interview with me.  I’m a loyal employer and look for loyal employees.  Resume builders – people who chase early success and then jump to another role to build their resume – are of less value to a business than more stead employees who may not be chest-beating stars but who do deliver stability and commercial benefit over the long-term.

It is hard to spot the resume builder. They are usually charming and can attract you to wanting them on your team with ease. Too often you don’t see them for what they are until it’s too late, until they have crashed and burned or have started to move to their next opportunity outside their current role – a role they have often not fulfilled.

This discussion about resume builder, selfish and opportunistic employees, can also apply to some people who work for suppliers we encounter or supplier businesses themselves in the newsagency channel – suppliers who come in and say they will save the day or who will give us new purpose. Often these people and businesses enter the channel in a blaze of publicity, talking up their past, attracting followers through charisma and show. Too often, they depart without delivering on their promises.

Newsagents need to be as wary of new suppliers as they are of prospective employees. We need to do thorough due diligence and engage with healthy skepticism. While we will want a smart, articulate and inspiring prospective employee or supplier to be good, great!, for our business, we need to impose a reality check and take time to see if they are likely to deliver on their words.

Now more than ever newsagents need employees and suppliers who can help us embrace change but who have the commitment, stamina and understanding to walk with us for the marathon.  That’s what we are in – a marathon, not a sprint.