Vocational postgrad courses always sound very worthy. But what’s in it for me?

You may recall that last week my HR manager gave me a rather unexpected compliment, suggesting that the rest of the company might have a lot to learn from my interviewing prowess. I thought at the time that this was surprisingly nice of her, given that our normal conversations about interviewing involve her telling me about all the laws I’ve just broken. So it was interesting that one week later, she pulled me into a meeting room, and asked solemnly whether the business (i.e. me) would be willing to support her through a CIPD postgrad course. Would it be cynical of me to wonder if these two incidents were somehow linked?

Aside from the perceived slight to my ego – which, as you know, is a delicate flower – the request left me facing rather a dilemma. For those of you that aren’t familiar with such matters (including me, until Tuesday – after all, that’s what I pay her for), the CIPD is the trade body for HR types and has this thing called a Professional Development Scheme. What she wants to do is some kind of part-time Masters, ideally at the LSE, that covers the four aspects of this. Apparently it’s pretty much a must-have if you want to become a senior corporate HR person – which, for reasons I’ve never quite been able to decipher, some people actually do.

Now generally speaking, I’m a big fan of vocational training and learning in the workplace. As I said last week, I think it can have lots of benefits, both for teacher and pupils. Everyone here has a training budget, and if they come to me and say they’ve found a particular course that they think will make them better at their day job, I’m all for it. It’s always helpful to have a few extra skills in-house, even if you don’t actually need them just at the moment. I also approve of it as an employee benefit because a) staff like it and b) it’s cheap.

But here’s the thing. What benefit will the business actually get from her doing this course? I’m prepared to accept that it’s a good way of preparing junior HR staff for the more strategic responsibilities of senior HR management. And this process might encourage her to be slightly less bonkers, which is good. But I’m just not convinced I need this level of HR expertise in the company. Plus it involves something like 1,200 hours of study, and unless she stops sleeping (which doesn’t bear thinking about), it’s bound to be a significant distraction from her day job. I can’t help feeling I’m just training her up so she can go and get a job in a big corporate.

I know what the answer ought to be: send her away to put together a business case, and if it stacks up, then support it. However, it feels more complicated than that because of who she is. Symbolically, turning down the HR Manager’s training request sends out rather a bad message – particularly since she’s very well networked around the company and will undoubtedly a) see it as an enormous slight and b) moan about it unprofessionally to all and sundry if she gets knocked back. Equally, I suppose it’s also true that with luck, the time will come when I do need an HR Manager whose role is more strategic than operational.

In short, I’m stuck. Answers on a postcard, or I’m flipping a coin.

Planning some interview coaching is a great way to work out how to interview...

First thing Monday morning, I had an email from my slightly unhinged HR Manager: 'Can we talk about interviewing?' it said.

Naturally, I assumed she wanted to tell me off about something. As I may have mentioned, she's a bit of a stickler when it comes to rules and procedures and stuff, so it's almost impossible to do anything formal without her getting upset about something. Put it this way, I tend to get plenty of emails from her along the lines of: 'just wanted to flag this' or 'just wanted to clarify our position on that' or 'just as an FYI' or some other such mealy-mouthed nonsense - all of which basically translate to: 'are you absolutely insane, you heartless law-breaking harridan?' (I don't always - or even often - take much notice, but I guess it's a useful check and balance)

Since it was only a few days after my interview with my first potential COO, I immediately started racking my brains to try and work out my latest HR faux pas. Obviously the pregnancy thing was the prime suspect, but although it was clearly the elephant in the room as far as I was concerned, I don't think I asked any leading questions. Then again, I suspect her idea of 'leading' is probably rather different to mine.

However, it turns out I was doing her a disservice. What she actually wanted was to suggest that I spend some time teaching other people in the business about how to interview. So instead of getting a kicking about my myriad failings, I actually got an unexpected ego boost instead (and it shouldn't be underestimated how much business owners need that every so often). Just goes to show that you shouldn't waste time worrying about things that may never happen.

So this week I've run the first of a series of interviewing workshops with some of the junior members of my team. It's not actually directly relevant for all of their jobs, but I think the skills involved are useful whatever role you're in (and if they're not now, they certainly will be at some point).

But it's also had a major benefit for me, reinforcing something I've always thought: teaching stuff to other people really helps you understand it better. When I was preparing the workshop, I had to sit down and think about all the things I try to do in an interview, and why, and how. To a large extent it’s just stuff I do instinctively - but then there are various other bits and pieces that I've picked up from people over time and factored in to my own approach. So as a result of doing this - if only because it's forced me to spend some time thinking hard about it - I now feel like I have a much better understanding of what makes a good interview.

One of my best friends is a teacher, and I've always thought that I can't imagine a worse job. It's funny: the thought of speaking to a room full of adults doesn't faze me at all; yet standing up in front of a class of leery teenagers would be my idea of hell. However, doing this gave me some insight into why she enjoys it so much.

Then again, I suppose my lot listen to me because I pay their wages. If teachers could fire pupils who played up in class, schools would be much more harmonious places.

Sometimes you need to start interviewing people to work out who you want. Though girls are tricky…

I interviewed my first potential COO this week. To be honest I was slightly bounced into it by that recruitment agent I met a while back, given that I haven't totally decided what the profile should be yet. Then again, I figured seeing someone would actually help on that score - I quite often use a recruitment process to work out exactly what I want. (I imagine this isn't exactly best practice, and I suspect my HR woman would probably have a coronary if she knew. But what the heck).

So there I was, on Tuesday, interviewing this girl. I have to admit, she started at a fairly major disadvantage being from a recruitment agency. I do try to ignore it; to tell myself that the important thing is getting the right person for the job, whatever it takes. But it's quite hard not to think about the fact that hiring this person would cost me some exorbitant five-figure sum, to be paid in full within thirty days of her joining. Just what my cashflow doesn't need at the moment. The result is that I can't look at her without seeing pound signs flicker across her forehead. It's a bit like looking at a chocolate bar in a vending machine.

Anyway, she was actually very nice, this girl. We had lots in common - we're from the same neck of the woods, we went to university around the same time and did quite similar courses, and we took the same sort of graduate job. She's currently working at a start-up that's apparently about to get dumped by its venture backers, so everyone's bailing out as fast as they can. So if nothing else, this allowed me to pat myself on the back for not taking that VC cash a couple of years ago (at the time I couldn't move for VCs offering me money, along with grandiose promises of high-profile non-execs and wholly unnecessary perks - they seem to have gone quiet lately, believe it or not).

But I had a couple of other concerns, as well as the cash thing. We got on like a house of fire, but I worried afterwards whether that meant we might be a bit too similar. If I'm going to hire into the senior management team, it would be useful to get someone who can offer something a bit different. A girl would actually be good, just to balance out the raging balls of testosterone that are Ace and Mammon. But not one that’s just like me, perhaps.

Secondly, the big difference between me and this girl was that although we're about the same age, she's been married for three years (she brought this up, I hasten to add, I didn't ask – I’ve learned my lesson from last time). And inevitably, that makes me worry about babies. I know you’re not supposed to admit to this sort of thing these days, but hey, there's got to be some advantage to having an anonymous blog. Let's be honest: maternity leave is a serious pain in the proverbial for a business this size (and even more so for smaller businesses, of course). I can’t afford to hire a senior person on a big salary and then have her disappear for an indefinite period, forcing me to do this whole process again and find someone else to do the job on a short term basis. It’ll just mean more work for me, which is precisely the opposite of what this appointment is supposed to achieve.

So for all three reasons, I think she’s probably a No. Though as you can imagine, I’ll be largely focusing on the second reason when I give my feedback.

Is the point of a COO just to do all the jobs I hate? Or should I be thinking bigger?

You may remember that back in January, I decided I was going to stick to work resolutions this year, since I've always broken my personal ones by March. Well, given that it's now March, and I still haven't done anything about my plan to hire a COO to free up a bit more of my time, it turns out I'm no better at work resolutions either. Maybe next year I won’t bother.

Actually, that's not completely true - I have been putting a few feelers out. I know people use that phrase when what they really mean is 'I've basically done nothing whatsoever except possibly mention it to one another person'. But I have, honestly. As well as my conversations with recruiters, I've also been catching up with a few of my entrepreneur chums who have hired for this sort of role before - both to get their views on whether it's a good idea, and also to find out what kind of person I should hire.

What was interesting was that they all seem to have a different view on what this person's role should be. One said it was all about the money - the key was to hire someone who would take a slightly obsessive approach to keeping costs down, and make sure that everyone else in the company did the same. But I didn’t buy that, largely because I think we're decent at that stuff already. Rather than hiring a COO, I could just tell my book-keeper to shout and scream at people more often.

The next guy took the view that the COO's job is to deflect as much flak from you as possible – so you should give them all the jobs you hate. Let’s call this the Mr Muscle approach, if only because it’s significantly less rude than his own admittedly memorable description – ‘the s**t storm shelter’. Now obviously this approach has a lot to be said for it, as far as I'm concerned. But I can see a couple of problems. First, will you persuade anyone good to come and do such a rubbish job (even if you avoid his job title)? And second, what’s the point of hiring someone senior and then only using them to fight fires?

So they weren’t much use. But one guy I spoke to did say something that struck a chord. 'SD', he said, 'You've got to think about this in terms of bench strength' (listen, I hate cheesy American terminology as much as the next girl, but bear with me). ‘Your COO should be someone that, at some point, will be a credible successor when you want to exit. That’s the best thing for your business, and the best thing for you. So don’t hire someone that’s a specialist in one area. They need to be a good generalist. And they need to look and sound like a leader.’

To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it like that; I’d been thinking largely in terms of making my life easier and more productive in the short term. But I suppose he’s right that if and when the time comes for me to sell up, that will be a lot easier if there are some good people around me to take up the reins. And until then, you want someone who will make your leadership team stronger, and, ideally, help develop some of the other people in the business. So a bean-counter or a fire-fighter just won’t cut the mustard. Back to the drawing board with that job description.