Carol Quinn’s Story. . .

Check out Carol’s TWO new books that share a powerful philosophy for success: Awakening Outrageous Potential and Outrageous Potential Unleashed - Leadership Edition at www.HAbooks.com.

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Carol Quinn

At age 8, my passion was already visible.  It was my first time in what seemed like a huge shopping mall and I was so fascinated. While my girlfriends were looking at clothes, I sat in the center of the mall watching people walk by. I wanted to know what made everyone so different. This intrigue never went away. It only grew stronger.

Looking back, it’s no surprise I chose a career in recruiting and human resources. After only one year working for an employment agency, I opened up my own. I was in my 20’s. After a few years I became hungry for more and went back to school. My favorite class was one that focused heavily on understanding motivation. I got straight A’s in every class that had anything to do with the study of people. My favorite job was when I was hired by a large company to re-do their entire hiring process. I had free rein. Even though they paid me well, I probably would have done it for free. I was living my passion. By now I had taken all the classes, seminars and workshops I could on how to hire. I always sat in the front, paid close attention and took lots of notes. Applying what I learned didn’t seem to produce the good results the instructor touted however. Sure, I hired some good people but it was those not-so-good ones that continued to baffle me. Why was I getting great results one time but not the next? After all, I was doing the very best I could each and every time I interviewed someone. Call me a perfectionist but I wasn’t OK with being wrong about a candidate I hired.

While most of the women at my apartment complex pool were reading Cosmopolitan, I was reading Herbert Lefcourt’s out of print book titled Locus of Control that took me 6 weeks and $80 to get one copy printed. It was so worth it. With highlighter in hand, I was engrossed while I tanned. As I read, I realized the huge potential this powerful, insightful, researched information would have if applied to the interview process. Through simple, skill-related interview questions, the interviewer could gather candidate information that would distinguish those likely to produce great results from those less likely. As excited as I was, I knew I didn’t have all the pieces quite yet. Something was still missing. I wracked my brain for months and eventually put everything together. Next, I began shooting holes in it to see if it would withstand. It did well. As I used it, it worked better than any thing I had tried prior. When you understand what motivates a person and create an interview process that aligns with basic human nature, it does work. I spent a year tracking and validating my hiring results. Not being the direct supervisor of those I hired, I got valuable unbiased job performance information. I spent the next year struggling with one big problem that was still nagging me…it was too simple. No joke! I thought, for as long as interviewing has been around, if it was simple and effective someone else would have already thought of it. I believed an advancement in hiring had to be complex to be worthwhile. Then, I realized a complicated process doesn’t make anything better.  Part of what made it so great wasn’t just its effectiveness but also it’s ease-of-use.

Next, it needed a name. What truly fit it best was “Motivation-Based Interviewing” or MBI for short. I took a big risk quitting my job and starting Hire Authority but something inside told me it would be harder not to do it. Now, 11 years later in 2009, I’ve written a book on it, it’s been translated into Spanish, there’s more than 40 trainers and it’s been taught in over 10 countries. My second book published is on the High Performer’s attitude and the role it plays in achievement. It’s not about hiring but rather about bringing out the High Performer that’s within all of us. Most recently, the 2 year project of creating an interactive, cutting edge, multi-media MBI web course was completed. It’s been an amazing journey, one that I’m still on. It’s not only an interviewing methodology I believe in and am passionate about, it’s a concept that I’m living proof of that it works!!

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