Who's afraid of Shaddow Domain?

Julie Oliver, behind the counter at Shaddow Domain

Julie Oliver recognizes some people are never going to visit her store, Shaddow Domain, 175 S. Eastern Avenue.

Anyone who is freaked out by pentagrams, Wiccan accoutrements and books about the occult (and there are a few) are by and large not her target audience.

Nevertheless, she's not a devil worshiper, just a small retailer and good neighbor who's been in business for 12 year. She would like to encourage anyone with an open mind to stop by for a visit.

"We're not scary," she said. "The hardest thing is to get people in the front door. It's just a fun place."

With Halloween approaching, you might expect a surge in business, but it's not that big a bump. "It's a big time for people to come in who don't normally come in," she said.

Before starting the store, Oliver worked for 20 years at Chesbro Music, on the second floor, where all the sheet music is kept. Working at Shaddow Domain has given her more face time with the public, which she likes.

Nobody has ever given her flak, and obviously there's a market for the shirts, incense, candles, dolls and novelties that Shaddow Domain sells. The store's Facebook page has 1,986 likes.

"People are looking for so much different stuff," Oliver said. She has no aspirations to grow the business to get any bigger than it is.

"If it got huge, it would lose something special," she said.

Nearest Hobby Lobby store remains in Logan, Utah

We're still kind of buzzing from the response the Hobby Lobby story got last week (6,114 page views in two days) and are waiting like everyone else with bated breath for the official announcement. In the meantime, the nearest Hobby Lobby store remains in Logan, Utah. If it's a deal to you, it might be a nice weekend for a drive. Tell them BizMojo Idaho sent you.

Guns and Gear eyes early November opening

Work has been going on at Guns and Gear, on Crane Drive, since April.

With a new business, Guns and Gear, due to open in two months, Shane Murphy thinks he knows his niche fairly well.

Sportsman's Warehouse and the soon-to-be open Cabela's can have the hunters. Guns and Gear is aimed at "couch commandos," the firearms aficionados who can't get enough of gadgets.

"A $3,500 heat sensor comes out and they've got to have it," Murphy said. "It's very interesting to see the level of interest in that high tactical stuff."

Located on Crane Drive, south of Pancheri, Murphy said they are eyeing a soft opening the first week of November and a grand opening Nov. 14. The project got underway in April, and has been smooth sailing since then, he said.

When finished, there will be roughly 15,000 square feet, about one-third of it devoted to retail. On the range, there will be 15 lanes, 8 of them high tactical.

Murphy said they anticipate hiring around 14 people, including an in-house gunsmith who will be licensed to do warranty repairs on major brands. "We want to be able to fix it or modify it on the spot, not send it off for a week or ten days," he said.

For information, call 521-4564. To check them out on Facebook, click here.

Olive Garden debates wisdom of unlimited breadsticks

In three years of blogging eastern Idaho business I have never seen a reaction like the one to Wednesday's post about Hobby Lobby. In two days, BizMojo Idaho got more visitors and pageviews than the entire month of August. It was all due to the way the story got passed around on Facebook.

It's only natural to want to prolong the excitement, so here's a story about Olive Garden, another brand that seems to provoke a passion in these parts. I'm not expecting a Yellowstone Caldera eruption of hits, but I can dream, can't I?

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/12/olive_garden_investors_are_not_pleased_with_the_chains_breadstick_situation/

Personality-based interviewing works for both sides

Have you ever watched ESPN's features on athletes? If you haven’t, you are missing out. If you have, you may have a good idea of what a job interview with me would be like. Of course that is without the television cameras, film crews, and an inspirational story or background that I will be asking questions about.

ESPN’s method for encouraging and gathering information from their subjects hands down should be a model for how an employer should do an interview. This isn’t a concept that is really hard to grasp, so I am going to encourage a little bit of thought on this one.

Job seekers, I want you to imagine a job interview in which you can expect to be interviewed as an individual -- meaning getting to know you as a person -- about your professional experience.

Employers, I want you to think about how you can do that by looking beyond the typical “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” questions.

Before we completely demolish the concept of nice, structured, streamlined interview questions that solely focus on nitpicking a resume, sprinkled with a behavioral question or two, it’s important to remember that interview questions should be a custom fit for each company, and really each job.

However, doesn’t a job go beyond why a person is interested and how a candidate responded to a similar job-related situation previously? Of course it does! And that is why the concept of personality-based interview questions and approaches are becoming crucial to the interview process.

Personality-based questions are designed to find out more about the candidate on a personal level. Candidates are posed with a question that in theory should allow the interviewer to introspectively assess personal attributes, characteristics and goals, to name a few. This is important for a number of reasons (not including finding new work buddies) but foundationally allows an employer to determine if the candidate is the right personality fit. In turn, personality fit is crucial to a candidate being successful in his or her job and being able to assimilate into company culture.

Additionally, these questions can at times be a conversation “ice-breaker” – which leads to the candidate feeling more comfortable in responding to future questions by the interviewer. In turn, this allows in the interview to become more or less of a dialogue between interviewer and interviewee, allowing the interviewee to feel more at ease with the process (and to be more open with responses opposed to carefully “scripting” responses geared towards the perceived “right” answer.)

The great news is that these questions aren’t hard to create. One personality based question I ask in interviews is, “If you could have any job in the world, without any boundaries, what would it be?” I have heard everything from health inspector to sitting on the beach with a margarita – after winning the lottery of course. Both responses were exactly what I was looking for and gave me insight into each candidate.

Overall, employers need to get creative in finding the right people for the job, not a person. Personality-based interviews allow companies to go beyond the resume to get a well-rounded view of a candidate.
Monica Bitrick is the CEO of Bitrick Consulting Group, a human resources company in Idaho Falls.