Hiring Frustration #8: You’re NOT the Person I Hired

That blog title pretty much sums up the state of hiring for the vast majority of companies. If that’s not dysfunctional for hiring, I’m sure what would be. You can learn more about this classic frustration and the 7 others on our website under the section on Hiring Frustrations.

How can good companies, sophisticated managers and executives, decent HR processes still fail to make consistent successful hires of top talent at every level in their organization?

A few years ago when we were asking our clients what should we title the book we were writing – one of the most common frustrations we heard was “We think we did a good job in the interview process, but the person failed shortly after hiring (30-60-90 days).”

By failure we are not talking about the outright firing of a candidate – but rather a candidate who fails to achieve your desired results.

One of the most popular questions we ask in our CEO/Senior Executive Workshops on Hiring, Trade Conferences, Management Team Meetings (Brad and I conduct over 100 of these training programs for hiring managers each year), of all the people you’ve hired, what percentage have lived up to or exceeded your expectations. Most CEOs and Senior Executives would be overjoyed if there success rate was close to 50%. Most admit their hiring success is far below that level.

Why do we hear about this common frustration so often. To understand the root of what causes the frustration, you’ve got to delve a little deeper into the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes. These common Hiring Errors and Mistakes lead to a tremendous level of frustration among many hiring executives and managers. Before we wrote our book “You’re Not the Person I Hired, we commissioned a study of the Top Ten Mistakes in Hiring. You download the research project from our website in the FREE Resources Section for Hiring Managers.

Brad and I have also tackled some of the most common frustrations in our Internet Radio Talk Show. You can download these episodes through our FREE Audio Library.

Barry

Hiring Frustration #7: 1st Impression Victim

Is your company plagued by hiring decisions that focus on hiring people who are better actors in the interview than employees who perform their job effectively?

Do your hiring managers have a tendency to fall in love with candidates when they look like you, talk like you, and have a similar background to you?

When you meet someone in the interview that you immediately like, do you find yourself quickly starting to sell the job?

How long does it take to make a first impression in an interview? Our research indicates that it can take anywhere from 1 second to 10 seconds for most hiring managers. Once that first impression gets set, basically the rest of the interview is used to reinforce the hiring manager’s initial first impression.

In over 15 years of training hiring executives and managers to make better hiring decisions and raise hiring accuracy, we’ve heard this frustration of falling victim to first impression in the interview as one of the top hiring manager frustrations (even when they know better and acknowledge they are doing it).

Studies show that over 80% of most hiring decisions are based on rapport, personal chemistry, and likability. Notice that over 80% of the hiring decision had nothing to do with competency, skills, accomplishments, and future potential. This problem of falling victim to first impressions in the interview is one of the 8 major hiring manager frustrations that we’ve identified.

Is it any wonder why more than 50% of hiring at the managerial/executive level fail? The tendency to fall victim to a first impression is also one of the most glaring hiring mistakes that is reflected through superficial interview questions, not probing deeply enough, and making snap judgments. How is it possible to evaluate a candidate in seconds?

If you desire to make better hiring decisions, you’ve got to have a process designed to force objectivity, rational thinking, and validation/verification of the information candidate’s provide. Our Success Factor Methodology overcomes the frustration of falling victim to a first impression by using a structured approach to interviewing that not only puts everyone on the same page, but also validates, verifies, and vets all the candidate information so that you can get to the truth in every interview.

STOP falling victim to hiring candidates who do a better job of interviewing and presenting themselves than actually doing the job. START using a hiring process that “Puts the Candidate in the Job BEFORE You Hire Them.”

Barry

Hiring Frustration #4: No Hiring Process

In most companies, there is no systematic and methodical approach to hiring. The approach falls somewhere between an environment akin to the wild west and random and arbitrary events based on the personal experience of each hiring executive or manager.

We’ve identified the frustration of not having a rigorous hiring process to be one of the top 8 frustrations hiring executives and managers encounter in their companies. Our research over the past two decades also indicates that it doesn’t matter whether your company has 60 employees or 60,000 employees, the frustration of not having a systematic hiring process is painful.

In most companies, the hiring process is predicated on how each individual executive or manager decides to apply it. Who knows what goes on behind the door as the hiring executive or manager starts their interview? A lack of a structured and systematic hiring process is one of the key reasons hiring fails over 50% of the time.

Once a company adopts a systematic and rigorous hiring process, comparable to our Success Factor Methodology, hiring accuracy soars and the hiring managers are now able to consistently hire and retain great candidates at every level in the company.

We’ve conducted extensive research into hiring frustrations, mistakes, and errors over the past two decades. You can read about our research into hiring frustrations on our website, download a copy of our formal research project of the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes and Errors made by Hiring Executives and Managers.

Once you understand the classic hiring frustrations, mistakes, and errors, you can learn about our five simple steps called the Success Factor Methodology to overcome every problem in hiring and start becoming a great manager by finding, selecting, and hiring top talent.

The Success Factor Methodology is the only hiring system that has been extensively researched, implemented in thousands of companies worldwide, and validated over a long period of time across a wide range of hiring. And we’ve designed it so that you can simply, inexpensively, and quickly implement it in your company.

Barry

Top Strategy in a Down Economy: Upgrade Your Talent

One of my favorite authors, speakers, and bloggers, Mitch Gooze (and an award-winning International Vistage Speaker) recently posted a recommendation on his blog VALUE ACCELERATION (you should be subscribing to Mitch’s Blog in addition to our Hire and Retain Top Talent Blog) about taking advantage of the down economy to upgrade your talent.

Vistage International is the premier International CEO and Senior Executive Organization for learning and personal growth. Barry Deutsch, his partner Brad Remillard, and Mitch Gooze are a few of top Executive Speakers.

The title of the Blog posting was “11 Secrets to Marketing in a Down Economy”.

Mitch indicated that this was number 6 in his 11 point list of strategic marketing in a down economy. He made a statement which I am now going to add to my list of favorite quotes: “Great processes with outstanding people make an unbeatable combination.”

If you would like to learn how to put a process in place guaranteed to raise hiring accuracy from random results to an 80-90% level of hiring people who can deliver your desired outcomes, explore the key steps of our Success Factor Methodology.

We’ve assembled a variety of tools, products, audio, video, and templates to turn what is in most companies a series of random and arbitrary events around hiring into a systematic and rigorous process for hiring top talent.

Barry

You Gotta Have L.I.B. To Find Talent

If you want to attract top talent you have to understand what motivates top talent. There are three things that all top talent is looking for:

1. Top talent always want to be learning. They thrive on expanding their knowledge. Growth is not just moving up in a company. Growth has to be personal. They have to be challenged, given opportunities to learn, take on new projects outside their normal function, be stretched and be learning something new.
2. Top talent needs to make an impact. Maintenance roles are not for top talent. Companies have to ensure that top talent have the opportunity to really impact the company. They want to improve earnings, open new offices, introduce new products, grow a business to new heights or take on a project that will change the company.
3. Top talent want to become something bigger than what they are. Maslow came up with this in the 50’s. He called it self-actualization. Top talent strive to be something more. They want to be all they can be. Personal growth is critical and if their personal growth flattens out they immediately start seeking a position that will continue their growth.

What this means is if you want to attract top talent you have to motivate them. Posting a boring job description doesn’t address any of these issues. Instead, consider posting a Compelling Marketing Statement. You need to think like a Madison Ave. advertising company that knows to display the benefits to the reader. Here are three things you can do to motivate top talent in your ad:

1. Include the vision of your company. The goals, objectives, and where the company is going. Top talent want to be apart of a growing, energetic company that has a vision.
2. Don’t list duties and responsibilities. Instead discuss how they will contribute to the vision, how this role will help reach those goals. This is what excites top talent and differentiates you from the 1000 jobs listed on the board.
3. Challenge them with specific objectives they will accomplish. This is the learning and growing that all top talent want to achieve.

Top talent will then read your ad and think to themselves “That’s what I’ve been looking for. That is what is missing in my current position and company.”

Remember top talent could care less about what you want. They are interested in “what’s in it for me.” Post an ad that demonstrates that and top talent will start responding to your ads.

Our website offers a library of  FREE resources, including an audio library on hiring topics, examples of Compelling Marketing Statements, a chapter from our best selling book on Advanced Sourcing Techniques, and many others.

If you liked this posting so will others. Please click a link below and share it.

Also, leave us a comment. We encourage feedback and read every comment.

Hiring Frustration #2: Not Enough Candidates

Most of the methods companies use to attract candidates bring those who are floating near the surface aggressively looking for a new job.

Traditional methods of sourcing bring average and mediocre candiates to your doorstep. The traditional methods also repel top talent.

If you desire to start attracting top talent you’ve got to fish deeply in the proper ponds.

Step 1 is changing the approach of advertising from  the job description advertisement approach to a Compelling Marketing Statement. Once this document is ready, you can then leverage it by making sure the 2 primary groups of top talent become aware of your opportunity through our Success Sourcing Strategies. Download the FREE Samples of Compelling Marketing Statements from our web site.

We’re also offering a FREE Sourcing Review for your company to determine if your current process and system is capable of hiring top talent at every level on a consistent basis. Read more about this unique FREE Sourcing Review.

Barry

Hiring Frustration #1: What Am I Measuring?

Most Job Descriptions are Worthless as a tool for predicting future success!

MINIMUM EXPECTATIONS

Most job descriptions define nothing more than minimum, average, and mediocre standards. If the goal is to hire top talent, then you must be able to define the expectations of top talent. Consider the fact that the vast majority of job descriptions define years of experience needed in the job, minimum educational requirements, skills and knowledge needed, generic and undefined attributes and behaviors. This is not a job description. It has nothing to do with the job. It’s a people description. And the worst news of all is that it defines minimum-average-mediocre expectations not top talent expectations.

RANDOM RESULTS

Not only is this the NUMBER ONE frustration among hiring managers and executives, it is also the NUMBER ONE reason hiring fails. In presenting to over 30,000 hiring executives and managers in the last two decades, most of those workshop participants have told us their track record in hiring is abou 50/50. Sometimes they hire good people and sometimes they don’t.

How can you have any decent level of business success when you’re results are basically random. You might as well be standing at the crap tables in Vegas throwing dice. Is there any other process in your business where you will accept that level of random variability – such as your payroll checks or the bills you send to customers? Probably not! Then why do most managers and executives accept random results from hiring.

There are a number of reasons, but topping the list is the frustration and mistake over not defining success. Most hiring executives and managers would contend that they do not understand how to define results, expectations, outcomes, and deliverables that can be used as a predictive approach to determining the success of a potential candidate. Since most do not have a method for determing/defining success, they fall back on the tribal approach of using a traditional job description – a document that has existed from the early days of human resource management.

A BETTER APPROACH TO DEFINING SUCCESS

A better approach is to define outcomes, deliverables, and expectations that link back to the team, group, department, and company/organizational goals and objectives. NOT defining the outcomes is an abdication of strong management and leadership.

We use an approach in our Success Factor Methodology called S.O.A.R, which provides a structured approach to defining success. After having “field-tested” this approach and methodology for the last two decades, we’ve seen thousands of companies dramatically improve their hiring accuracy and ability to hire candidates who deliver the results desired.

RESOURCES TO HELP YOU GET STARTED IN DEFINING SUCCESS

Our S.O.A.R. template can help guide you through the process of defining success for any role within your company.

There are multiple FREE examples of Success Factor Snapshots using the S.O.A.R. approach in our FREE Resources Library.

In our Internet Radio Programs for Hiring Managers, Tele-Conferences, and Webinars, Brad and are constantly sharing ideas, thoughts, and strategies around using Success-based Job Definitions to improve hiring and retention. Take a look at some of the FREE downloads in our Hiring Manager Audio Library.

DOES YOUR COMPANY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO HIRE TOP TALENT?

Does your company define quantifiable and time-based outcomes, deliverables, and expectations before the first candidate is interviewed, let alone hired?

Common Frustrations in Hiring Top Talent

Over the last 20 plus years, Brad and I have presented our You’re NOT the Person I Hired workshop to over 30,000 managers and executives in well over 1500 presentations. We usually kick off the workshop by asking “What are your greatest frustrations in hiring?“

Interestingly enough, we’ve heard the same frustrations of two decades very time we present this workshop. It doesn’t seem to matter if the company has 60,000 employees globally or 60 in Los Angeles. It doesn’t matter if the company manufactures a product, imports components, provides a service – the frustrations are still the same when it comes to hiring top talent.

We’ve put a list together of these frustrations on our website and the solutions in how to overcome each one. In subsequent blog posts, we’ll examine each one of the most frustrations in more depth.

Here’s the list we’ll review in our future postings:

1. Common Frustration #1 – What am I measuring
2. Common Frustration #2 – Not enough candidates
3. Common Frustration #3 – Exaggeration and Lies
4. Common Frustration #4 – No Hiring Process
5. Common Frustration #5 – Poor Cultural Fit
6. Common Frustration #6 – Useless Evaluation
7. Common Frustration #7 – First Impression Victim
8. Common Frustration #8 – You’re Not the Person

Do you have any frustrations in hiring that are not on this list?

Why is there such a high degree of frustration by hiring managers regarding the hiring process?

Barry