Losing a Top Candidate – Perception is The Only Reality. Lessons learned from 20 years on the front lines of the talent wars.

You rarely lose a top candidate at the end of the hiring process. It’s usually in steps taken along the way. In this case the client made a series of seemingly small mistakes that resulted in the candidate declining to go forward. It started simply by the hiring manager keeping the candidate waiting 30 minutes, then, he compounded the problem by not being prepared for the interview. “He didn’t seem to remember much about my background”, the candidate later confided in me. Despite the rocky start, the candidate returned for a series of additional interviews with other members of the management team. All went well, but the last interview was to be with a senior manager who was on a sales trip in Europe. No problem, we would arrange a phone interview. Week one resulted in no interview being arranged. It wasn’t until week two that the senior executive could “make room on his calendar” to call the candidate. The executive was 30 minutes late making the call and it lasted only 30 minutes. (Eight or nine time zones difference and he couldn’t find 30 minutes on his calendar for two weeks?) Finally, the client told me that all of the executives were very excited about the candidate and they wanted to move forward with an offer. I was told to inform the candidate that an offer would be sent to him “in a week or so”, as soon as the hiring manager could get all of the required approvals. At this point the candidate declined to continue. “To me, a hiring process is a reflection of how a company operates and makes decisions. I didn’t like what I saw.” The candidate took a job with a much larger company which had moved faster and more efficiently than this client.

Lesson learned: The best window any candidate has into the culture of an organization is the way it goes about the hiring process. If your process isn’t tight, professional, organized and strategic, top quartile candidates will go elsewhere, and they may tell their friends about their experience. One bad hiring process can equal two problems, the loss of a top candidate and a bad public relations moment.

Check your culture by downloading our Cultural Assessment. CLICK HERE to download a free assessment.

Is your hiring process effective at attracting top talent? Our 8-Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring process. CLICK HERE to download a free scorecard.

Mike is the founder of Hagerthy & Co, an executive search, training and consulting firm. For information on how to arrange for their complimentary Hiring Process Assessment go to: www.hagnco.com/page13.html#HiringProcess.

Hope and Luck Are Not A Hiring Process

Hiring is one of those processes in many companies that is often ignored, until it is needed.  My partner Barry Deutsch and I have spoken to hundreds of CEOs and key executives in the last three years, and there is a theme that most of these CEOs and key executives agree upon, which is, they don’t really have an effective, repeatable hiring process with highly competent people throughout the hiring process.

Just about every process in a company, from how customer invoices are processed, to how the phone is answered are repeatable, with competent people and a certain level of standards required. If something goes wrong in the process, for example, a customer invoice is lost resulting in the product not shipping or the order never being billed, qualified people research to identify what went wrong and if necessary either train the people or change the process.

This rarely happens when the hiring process fails. Too often companies just accept the failed hire as part of the process and move on. Why?

Over the last year I have asked over 500 CEOs and key executives the following question, “How many of you have audited, not sat in or co-interviewed, but audited if the people doing the interviewing are competent interviewers?” To no surprise the answer is that around 12% have done this. All the rest admit they have no clue if the people they are relying on to make a successful hire are even competent.

Is there any other process in your company in which you don’t know if the people doing the job are competent? I seriously doubt it.

We have put together an 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard that you can download for free to evaluate your hiring process (CLICK HERE to download).  This assessment will at least highlight the areas of strengths and weaknesses in your company. You can then begin to work on bringing your hiring process standards up to the same standards as other processes in your organization.

At a minimum an effective hiring process must have at least these 5 steps.

1. Job descriptions based on defining success in the role instead of a laundry list of candidate attributes, experiences and skills. Good job descriptions quantify expected results and the time frame to achieve them for managers, and benchmark standards for all non-managerial positions.We call these Success Factors, and the accumulation of all the Success Factors, a Success Factor Snapshot instead of a job description.  (You can download examples of Success Factor Snapshots by CLICKING HERE).
2. A sourcing process that attracts passive candidates, not just those candidates actively looking for a position. Passive candidates make up the vast majority of the candidate pool and the way most companies promote, advertise and network, they rarely attract these candidates. In fact, the way most companies advertise actually turns passive candidates seeking a compelling opportunity off. (You can download our chapter on sourcing top talent from our award winning book for free by CLICKING HERE).
3. In-depth probing interviews with competent people. We already discussed the need to determine if those interviewing are competent. Most interviewers don’t probe deeply and most “tell” the person about the job instead of asking “how” they would do the job. Interviewers can obtain 80% of the information to determine if a candidate can do the job with just 5 core questions.
4. Candidate assessment after the interview. Most companies simple ask those that have been involved in the interviewing process, “What did  you think of the candidate?” or “How did the interview go?’ The person usually replies, “Oh, I liked them. They will fit in well.” or maybe just the famous thumbs up or thumbs down. Not exactly an in-depth assessment to determine if there are any further issues that need to be vetted. (You can obtain our 8 Point Candidate Assessment Matrix by CLICKING HERE).
5. Additional validation needs to done. There needs to be some follow-up steps to validate that what the candidate said they did during the interview is what they really did. Some examples are skills testing, homework assignment, make a presentation, bring in an example of past work or performance reviews, or even conducting behavioral or work style assessments by an outside professional.

These are the minimum 5 steps required by every effective hiring process. If you don’t have at least these 5 being done with competent people, then you might consider re-evaluating your hiring process.

Download a FREE 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard to evaluate your hiring process. CLICK HERE to download.

Our award winning book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. A CEO’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent, describes in-depth how to implement the 5 steps listed above. CLICK HERE to review the book and how to get yours.

Finally, consider joining our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group. It has numerous discussions and articles to help you attract, hire and retain top talent. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions. If you found this article helpful, please pass it along to someone in your network to help them too.

Brad Remillard

When an “A” Candidate Isn’t an “A” Employee

Has this ever happened? You screened hundreds of resumes, conducted extensive interviews, and found what you believed from the resume and interviews, the candidate that is perfect for the job. Exactly what you are looking for, maybe even better. You have high expectations for this new hire.

Then they come on board and fall flat on their face. Within 3 – 6 months you are saying to  yourself, “You’re NOT the person I hired” (a great title for a book).

You step back and start asking  yourself, “What went wrong? How could this have happened?”

Here is what went wrong – just because a person was a great CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR, doesn’t mean they are the right CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR.  This is the main premise of our Success Factor Methodology hiring process.

Hiring managers too often assume that because a person excelled at their last company, they did all these great things, they told you they could do your job, that this means the person will excel in your company. We believe this is where the concept, “past performance is a good indicator of future performance,” falls short. First off, it is only an indicator, nothing more. An indicator is not the right criteria for a good hire. Secondly, it also depends on how qualified the person interpreting the indicator is at interpreting the indicator. It has been our experience that most hiring managers are not competently trained in hiring or interviewing to do this. The few that are generally do hiring so rarely that they need a refresher course before starting the hiring process again.

There is a better way.

The Success Factor Methodology overcomes the biggest hiring mistakes that cause the problem.

Start by properly defining the job. This is the number one biggest hiring mistake companies make. They don’t properly define the job, so the whole hiring process is in jeopardy from the beginning. Since the job isn’t properly defined, then exactly what is the hiring manager screening and interviewing on or for? Generally background, experiences and skills.

This makes sense because that is exactly what most job descriptions are, simply a list of candidate attributes. Not a job description,  but rather a candidate description. This leads directly back to the problem. Hiring managers assume that  if they have this background they are an “A” candidate, and they may well be an “A” candidate. However, since the job isn’t properly defined, the real question “Will they be an “A” employee?” isn’t known.  This is the only thing you care about.

To properly define the actual job, start by defining outcomes. Ask yourself, “A year from now what will this person have done/accomplished in order to be considered a great hire?” or “What defines success in this role?” This is how we came up with the name, Success Factor Methodology. We simply started asking our search clients the questions, “What are the factors you will use to define success in this role?”  Once we had 4 or 5 of these we combined them into a Success Factor Snapshot. Now the Success Factor Snapshot becomes the job description. After all, this really is the actual job.

Once this is done, then go out and find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver this success.

When you find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver the 4 or 5 Success Factors, you have found both an “A” candidate and an “A” employee.

You can download some examples of Success Factor Snapshots for free to help you by CLICKING HERE.

Our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, with over 10,000 copies in circulation, describes how you can implement the Success Factor Methodology. CLICK HERE for more details.

Join our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. It is free to join just CLICK HERE.

Cost Per Hire Versus Value Per Hire Which Is Most Important

The cost of a bad hire rarely impacts an organization, however, the value of a great hire can often transform an organization.

As executive recruiters, we hear about the “cost per hire” regularly. It seems like every time HR calls, this topic comes up. However, I would suggest that a far better discussion for HR to have is on the “value per hire.” Having this discussion not with recruiters, but with the CEO is a far more meaningful and beneficial discussion. It not only helps justify that HR contributes revenue and value to the organization, but it also brings HR in as a strategic partner.

This also goes for the CFO of the organization, who should work with HR to help determine a way to calculate the value of a hire.

A few years back I was sitting in the office of the VP HR when the CFO came by and stuck his head in to say hi. During the conversation he commented, “You know, over the last x years we have paid you over $300,000 for your services.” I think he was expecting me to be apologetic. I replied, “That is all? I completely agree with you that I have been grossly underpaid.” I don’t think this was the answer he was looking for. I continued, “Considering that you are now a millionaire, and the rest of the executive team I have placed here are also millionaires, and that the company went from $50 million in revenue to $250 million in revenue with a valuation close to $1 billion, I believe the fees I have been paid are justified by the value these people contributed to the company. Wouldn’t you agree?”

This isn’t about me. It is to demonstrate that even CFO’s don’t step back and recognize that for some expenses there is often a lot of value created for the company. If you de-humanize this concept, an employee is just another asset. Many often say the most “valuable asset” in the company. So, if employees are assets then shouldn’t the CFO be capable of calculating an ROI just like any other asset?.

Would this concept benefit HR as they justify the costs to acquire these assets? Isn’t it fair to look at both sides of the equation?

Employees are often described as “human capital” so some sort of return on capital doesn’t seem unrealistic. I’m not suggesting that the calculation is an easy one. I’m sure whoever first figured out how to calculate ROI had to tweak the formula more than once before getting it right, but just because it is difficult to calculate doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Defining success in the role before you hire a person is a good start. Our Success Factor Methodology recommends developing a job description that defines what great success is in this role. Basically, by the end of the first year what would this person have to have accomplished so that the hiring manager would consider this person not just a good hire, but a great hire. In our book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, we refer to these as,  “Success Factors” (for some free examples of Success Factors for different positions  CLICK HERE). I believe this is the starting point in determining the value an employee brings to the company. Top talent in your company will hit these. The average will hit these some of the time and below average will rarely hit the success factors. Obviously, for different levels within the company the value added will change.

At least now the company is starting to look at the value a hire brings to the company and can start to assess the ROI.

To learn more about the Success Factor Methodology to help you attract, hire and retain top talent, check out our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired.

You can also begin implementing the Success Factory Methodology with our comprehensive hiring system. CLICK HERE to review.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and feedback.

Brad Remillard

Choosing Recruiters: Mistake #2 – We Need an Expert

Some executives believe that the only way a recruiter can be successful is to have many years of recruiting in a particular functional category (finance, marketing, human resources, manufacturing), or in a specific industry (construction, bio-technology, education, non-profit, electronics, distribution).

Using the criteria of a functional or industry expertise is a classic mistake in choosing recruiters.

The best recruiters are not industry or functional experts. Their expertise is as world-class recruiters. They know how to play detective to find the very best talent, they understand human motivation and the key elements of why candidates are open to new opportunities, and they are master interviewers capable of extracting information from candidates – information they wouldn’t share with their closest friends or spouses.

Most functional or industry focused recruiters work the same old tired lists of candidates, move the same people from one company to the next and back again, and lack an in-depth understanding of how to nurture, excite, motivate, and create passion in candidates around new opportunities. Rarely do they actually “recruit”. They have no process for identifying new candidates other than a little light networking, running advertisements, and searching their “database” of candidates.

Two decades ago (B.I. – Before Internet – who can even remember this???), the only way to be successful as a recruiter was to specialize since the data you possessed in a 3×5 card system was your inventory or earning potential. Your success as a recruiter was a function of the strength of your network. Today, within 24-48 hours, any good recruiter can identify 80-90% of the key targets on an executive search using the Internet (Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, ZoomInfo, Jigsaw, industry lists and publications, and many times – simply visiting the competitor websites). There is NO longer any need to maintain a unique database of candidates in a particular functional discipline or industry specialization.

Recruiters who still hang onto the tribal methods of recruiting from 20 years ago will claim “I know all the key players in the industry”, “I am well connected”, “I have an extensive database”, “I once held the blank title for the same job you want to hire” or “I worked for years in the blank industry”. None of these claims translate into being a great recruiter. You might have once been a great CFO or Marketing Executive, but that doesn’t mean you’re a good recruiter. Just because you have a phone and a rolodex does not mean you can recruit top talent. The recruiters who claim they have the industry contacts and databases will typically throw a bunch of resumes at you while keeping their fingers crossed that you fall in love with one of them – consequently owing a recruiting fee.

This is not recruiting – it doesn’t even remotely resemble executive search. Instead, it’s nothing more than brokerage – flinging resumes by email with the hope that something will stick. The best recruiters understand which ponds to fish in and how deeply to fish in each pond. The best recruiters EARN their fees by uncovering the very best talent – not candidates who are convenient from their database.  Brokerage (or a referral fee for flinging a resume) shouldn’t be worth more than 5-10% of the candidates first year compensation. Real search fees in the 30% range can only be justified if the recruiter does the following:

Identification of target candidates

A major campaign to convince those candidates to interview and leave their current jobs

Helping you to screen, interview, validate, and vet candidates instead of box-checking job descriptions and then “flinging resumes” (more on why most recruiters don’t see their job as helping you to interview and evaluate candidates in a future posting).

Let me share a personal example: My specialty as an executive recruiter is recruiting – and Brad and I are two of the top recruiters in the United States – how many recruiters can claim they are great recruiters as opposed to “I understand what it’s like to be a CFO or I understand the industrial fastener market”.

If you are a company executive, which would you rather have:

A recruiter who claims to understand the functional role and industry and suggests they have a great database,

OR

A recruiter who has a proven track record of ferreting out the best talent, motivating that talent to get excited about your opportunity, and helping you to validate they can deliver the results you desire.

You obviously want the recruiter who can deliver the results you desire – why then do most companies use the wrong criteria to pick recruiters.

Brad and I talk have spoken a number of times in our weekly radio show about choosing recruiters. You can download our radio shows in our FREE audio archive. We are also preparing a recruiter best practice scorecard which you can use to benchmark recruiters before choosing a firm to help you fill a critical role.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Discussion Group on Hiring and Retaining Top Talent for a more in-depth discussion on choosing recruiters.

Why Passive Candidates Require Special Handling. A True Story.

I asked a candidate after an interview, “How did the meeting go with the CEO?”

The candidate sarcastically replied, “Remind me again, why would I want to leave my current position and go to work there?”

Not exactly the sort of answer I was searching for.

He was what we refer to as a, “passive candidate.”  Meaning, he wasn’t actively on the job market. He wasn’t in any hurry to make a job change. He was open to exploring opportunities and seriously evaluating them, but would only make a change if all aspects of the position were beneficial to him and his career. He had to have good chemistry with the CEO, understand the company’s vision, and his role in helping achieve the vision. Basically, he wasn’t going to just make a move.

In the same way, the stars have to align for the company to want him. They also had to align for him to want them. A new concept for many companies to really comprehend at a deep level.

Yes, the hiring process is a two way street.

Needless to say, I wanted to understand what happened. As the candidate explained it, “I have now been out to the company three times and spent approximately 4 to 5 hours interviewing. I first met for an hour and  a half with HR going over my background. I then met with the person leaving the position. Once again we spent roughly an hour plus going over my background. Both gave me an overview of the position and about 10 minutes to ask questions. Then comes the CEO. Both previous interviewers spent time explaining how the company was reinventing itself and how this role was critical to helping in that process. I expected when I met with the CEO that we would discuss some of those issues, his plan for the reinventing, how my background would add value, and that I would finally have time to ask some of my questions.”

Sounded right and reasonable so far. As he continued to explain the problem, “After taking the morning off work for the 9 AM interview, I waited in the lobby for 25 minutes for the CEO. I was ready to leave when the assistant came to get me. The CEO explained he has to leave for a plane by 10:30, so I’m thinking why are doing this? There isn’t enough time to discuss any of the issues in any depth. Instead of discussing any of the issues, he proceeded to go through my background now for the third time. Don’t these people communicate? By the time he finished it was about 10:20 and he asked if I had any questions. I indicated that I did, but there wasn’t enough time to discuss them, and would it be possible to schedule another meeting, which we did.”

My conversation ended with the candidate asking me to cancel the meeting they scheduled, as he wasn’t really that interested, so why waste the time.  Is it any wonder?

The company was surprised the candidate wasn’t interested. Even after I relayed the above story to them. This had never happened before.

• A candidate turning them down?
• A candidate canceling a meeting with the CEO?
• A candidate that doesn’t want our job?
• A candidate that doesn’t understand waiting 25 minutes in the lobby for an interview?
• A candidate that isn’t desperate for our position?

They didn’t respect the candidate, his time, his position, and didn’t take any time to build rapport. They didn’t give him any time to address what was on his mind.

Why would a passive candidate be interested?

So I recommended the following changes:

1. All candidates must be met in the lobby at the designated time, the same way a customer would be met.
2. Spend some time marketing the position.
3. Learn about the candidate’s motivations and interests.
4. The candidates meet the CEO on the first interview. This demonstrates the importance of the position to the candidate and starts the rapport building process which is critical to passive candidates.
5. It is an interview, not an interrogation. Make it a discussion.
6. Every candidate is given ample time to ask questions and interact. The interviewer will learn more from the candidate’s questions than from the answers they give.
7. More time to explain the position, the importance this role will play, the impact on the organization and time to build rapport with the candidate.

These simple changes would have made all the difference with the candidate. Instead, they lost a great candidate for not treating the person as an executive and a person.

Every interview is a PR event. It is doubtful this candidate will have much good to say about the company should he encounter another candidate considering employment at the company.

Which is a shame as it really is a good company with good people.

Our “Cost Of A Bad Hire” calculator is available to help you get a handle on your total cost of hiring. Download for free worksheet. http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/index.php/cost-of-hire

Culture is one of the biggest reasons a good hire goes bad. Find out what your culture is, and how people in your organization define it.  Click here to downloand your Culture Assessment.

What’s the most stupid interview question?

Amy Andrews at The Secrets of the Job Hunt Blog, posted an article titled “The Dreaded “Tell Me About Yourself”. Right after posting, my partner Brad Remillard posted an article on our Job Search and Career Management Blog titled “Tell Me About Yourself. Why Is This Question Asked In An Interview“.

As I mentioned in my comments on her blog posting, I consider this to be one of the most stupid interview questions of all time. Why bother to ask it? What does it really tell you?

After 25 years in executive search, having sat in thousands of interviews with my clients, this is one of the most common interview questions – if not THE most common interview question. The first time my clients ask this question in an interview is the last time they’ll ever ask it.

Once we’ve trained them in the 5 Core Question Interview structure, they know if they do the “Tell me About Yourself” – I’ll literally take them into the hallway and slap them around.

This “Tell Me About Yourself” is a throw-away question.

It’s asked by hiring managers who have not been trained in effective interviewing techniques.

It’s a tribal hiring question passed down through the generations of “I learned it from the old guy who learned it from the dead guy”.

Many hiring managers fail to explain to me why they’re even asking the question. The usual response is either “That’s what I thought I’m supposed to ask” or “That’s how I learned to start an interview (based on what I was asked 22 years ago when I got interviewed for the first time).

For a better set of questions that can yield accurate interview results well into the 80%-90% range, examine our 5 Core Question Interview . These questions have been deeply researched by Brad and I over 25 years and well over 100,000 candidate interviews. The first 3 of the set are the primary behavioral elements for top talent, and the last two are specific to the job. The questions can be asked at every level in an organization – from the part-time warehouse clerk to the Senior Vice President of Marketing.

As an additional resource, Brad and I have posted our radio shows talking about interviewing and the proper questions to predict future success. You can find these in our FREE Resources.

Stay tuned for the my next blog posting on a better way to open the interview instead of asking a canned, inane, and useless, unfocused question.

Barry

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Discussion Group for Hiring Managers on How to Hire and Retain Top Talent.

STOP Letting Job Descriptions Miss The Target

The Number ONE reason hiring fails for most companies is that success in the position is not defined!

In our research project, we documented that NOT defining Success was one of the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes made by hiring managers. Not only is it in the top ten, NOT Defining Success is most likely the number ONE culprit behind hiring mistakes and errors.

As we’ve pointed out in previous blog postings, using a traditional job description to both attract and measure candidates against in the interview process is worthless. Job descriptions define a person, not a job. Job descriptions categorize what people should have when they show up for work the first day, NOT what they should do with their skills, degrees, knowledge, experience, and behaviors.

A much better approach is to define the success you desire in a role. This can be done for any role in your organization, from the customer service rep position to the senior vice president of marketing. It is the core of our entire hiring process, the Success Factor Methodology. We’ve verified, validated, and field-tested the use of defining success to attract, assess, and retain top talent.

Over the last decade, thousands of companies around the world have defined success for positions in their companies. Through this simple exercise, they’ve increased hiring accuracy, improved execution of major projects, raised the reliability of obtaining important results, and strengthened the ability to retain top performers.

In our Success Factor Methodology, we call the end product of a definition of future success for a position – the Success Factor Snapshot. The process of building a Success Factor Snapshot is through S.O.A.R.ing. The SOAR process has 4 key components. You don’t have to be great at defining any of them – you just need to work through each one step-by-step. The 4 components of the SOAR job definition process include:

1. Situation – what’s not working or what is the missed opportunities?

2. Obstacles – what are the obstacles standing in the way of achieving the results

3. Action Steps – what are the quantifiable/time-based outcomes

4. Results – what specific results will tell us the situation/opportunity was achieved?

There is extensive information on our website of how to SOAR for a position, including the step-by-step process, products to teach all your hiring managers how to do it, services to help implement across your organization, and an extraordinary wealth of FREE Resources.

Brad and I have posted all our Internet Radio Show Programs in a FREE radio archive. We frequently talk about defining success and creating Success Factor Snapshots through the SOARing process. We’ve also posted real-life examples of Success Factor Snapshots.

If you use the SOAR process to develop Success Factor Snapshots and then use those in place of traditional job descriptions, you’ll immediately start attracting better quality candidates, you’ll make better assessments and evaluations of candidates in the interview process, and you’ll be able to keep your top performers engaged and excited about their jobs.

STOP using outdated tools, like the traditional job description, to define work. Use a tool that permits you to hit the target every time on hiring top talent.

Barry

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Discussion Group for Hiring Managers and Executives on how to hire and retain top talent.

How can you change your luck in hiring?

In 25 years as Retained Executive Recruiters, Brad and I have had the pleasure of conducting more than 2000 workshops for hiring managers, executives, and CEOs on how to hire more effectively.

In every workshop we ask the question: Looking back over the past 5-10 years, what’s your success in hiring? What percentage of candidates whom you’ve hired have lived up to or exceeded your expectations and what percentage fell short of your expectations?

On a consistent basis over those 25 years, most managers, executives, and CEOs would be jumping for joy if they felt they achieved a 50% track record on hiring candidates who met their expectations in the first 12 months on the job.

Is there any other process in your company that will you accept that level of random variability in hiring? How about the payroll checks you write, or the bills you pay for vendors?

I doubt it.

Why then do most hiring managers, executives, and CEOs accept average and mediocre results when it comes to hiring?

There are many reasons that lead to average and mediocre results in hiring and the acceptance of poor hiring practices. We’ll explore many of these in coming blog posts.

The number one reason hiring fails in most companies (whether you have 6 employees or 60,000 employee) is that there is no systematic process for hiring. Okay – maybe you’ve got a checklist, a few steps, and a couple of forms. However, the reality is that most hiring managers and executives do whatever they want to find, select, assess, evaluate, and hire candidates. There is not a systematic rigorous process across the company from manager to manager.

The minute you implement a structured, systematic and rigorous process across every hiring manager in your company, hiring accuracy will explode upward. Over the past 20 years we’ve seen companies that implement our simple 5 step Success Factor Methodology raise hiring accuracy from roughly 50% (standing at the crap tables) random results to successful hiring outcomes in the 80-90% range.

Imagine this for a moment: Every hire your company makes from the day you implement a structured, systematic, and rigorous hiring process – you’ll have an 80%-90% confidence level that person will achieve your desired results and outcomes.

No more crossing your fingers depending on luck and hope as the primary elements of your hiring strategy.

Take our FREE Hiring Assessment to determine if you’ve got a hiring process capable of finding, interviewing, and selecting top performers at every level in your organization.

Barry

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn Discussion Group on Hiring and Retaining Top Talent

Who Embellishes More During An Interview?

Candidates or hiring managers?

If you get 10 or more CEOs and key executives in a room and ask, “What percentage of candidates embellish in the hiring process?” you will hear anything from the conservative 80% to the more skeptical 100%. I don’t know if there have been any studies on this topic, but most would agree the number is over 50%. Whatever the percentage is, it doesn’t matter, when you consider the following.

Hiring managers generally wait until they need a person to begin the hiring process. It can take 2 or 3 months to hire a person. By this time most hiring managers are desperate to hire a person. So then, with a hiring manager desperate to hire someone, some hiring managers start to sell more than interview. The results are often “embellishing” by the hiring manager. OK, “What percentage of hiring managers embellish during the hiring process?” Even if it is 50% what impact does this have on the interview?

Simply put, if in an interview candidates embellish 50% of the time and hiring managers embellish 50% of the time, too often everyone is lying to each other about the position or their ability to do the job. Is it any wonder why most interviews are a waste of time? Is it a surprise that so often when the candidate shows up for work, hiring managers say, “You’re not the person I hired.”

There are a number of things hiring managers can do to reduce embellishment. Two simple things are:

1. Become proactive in your hiring. 80% of the time most hiring managers know in advance a position may need to be filled. Instead of waiting until the need is critical, start the process sooner. When there is a potential need begin the process at least passively. Start developing a queue of candidates, ask others if they know of anyone, review some of the free internet networking sites such as Linkedin, attend networking meetings that potential candidates attend, and when appropriate tap into current employee’s networks. You don’t have to be reactive which causes “desperation” hiring.
2. Prepare a structured interview that probes deeply. This will help to avoid the selling rather than interviewing syndrome. When hiring managers have a structured set of questions specifically designed to test the candidate’s ability to deliver a standard of performance, the probability of candidate embellishment will be much more difficult.

Eliminating embellishment on both sides will dramatically change both the quality of interviews and the results.

We offer a number of free resources to help you and your hiring team eliminate embellishment. Consider joining our Linkedin leadership and best practices group where these issues are extensively discussed. CLICK HERE

Our audio library contains all of our radio show recordings from our Monday morning talk radio program, heard on www.latalkradio.com at 11 AM PDT.

Finally our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired,” with sales over 10,000 copies, outlines a structured hiring process with extensive chapters on advanced interviewing techniques. CLICK HERE