Traditional job advertising attracts the bottom third of the candidate pool by using traditional techniques of job advertising. Learn how to improve your job advertisements so that you can begin to attract top talent for every role in your organization. Discover the power of a Compelling Marketing Statement to bring outstanding candidates to your doorstep the next time you have an opening. Replace your outdated and ineffective job descriptions masquerading as classified job advertising. In this radio program, Brad and Barry walk you through the key elements of replacing your traditional job ads with a Compelling Marketing Statement.
To listen to or download this recording from our audio library CLICK HERE. Then scroll down to the recording.
If you are in HR or executive search, how many times have you heard a hiring manager say when referring to a hire that is under performing and about to be let go, “I don’t know why they aren’t performing, I told them during the interview exactly what that job is. I can’t figure it out.”
Most of you just thought to yourself, “Too many. More times than I can count.” or “Just about every time we had to let a person go before their probation period was over.”
Why? What went wrong? It should be obvious from the hiring manager’s comment, “I told them exactly what the job is.” The key word is “told.” My guess is that the candidate probably even replied, “No problem, I’ve done that before and can do it for you.” Well, with that level of assurance from the candidate, who wouldn’t hire them? After all, if the candidate couldn’t do it they would tell you, “Sorry, I haven’t a clue how to do any of those things, but I’m a fast learner.” and you still would have hired them. Right?
The reply to the hiring manager should be, “Stop telling the candidate all about the position and having them respond, ‘Yes, I can do that.’ instead start asking, ‘How would you do this?’” If they say they can do it, shouldn’t they be able to tell you how? If they can’t tell you how they would do it, then how do they know they can do it? Seems to me if someone tells me they can do something, they should be able to at least explain a little bit about how they will do it.
In our training workshop,Advanced Interviewing – Eliminating Embellishment and Exaggeration, this is one of the biggest issues hiring managers do that creates all the problems. They assume that because they told the candidate the job and the candidate responded affirmatively, all is fine. WRONG.
Train your hiring managers to stop telling and to start asking “how” questions. For example:
1) How have you reduced turnover in your last company?
2) How have you improved customer service?
3) How would you improve customer service in our organization?
4) How would you use your experience in sales to improve our sales process?
5) This position requires managing and improving our accounts payable department, have you done this before? When the candidate replies, “Yes” follow-up with, “How have you done this? and “How you would do it here?”
6) Can you give me an example of how you did X?
How questions engage the candidate, start a dialog, opens the interview up, and allows for the candidate to tell you rather than you telling the candidate.
Get your hiring managers or anyone in your company that interviews to start asking “How” questions and interviewing accuracy will increase dramatically overnight.
Need help sourcing top talent? Download for FREE the chapter from our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, on sourcing top talent. CLICK HERE to download this Free chapter.
Join our Linkedin group, Hiring and Retaining Top Talent, it is one of the most active groups on Linkedin on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
The wrong hiring decision can cost your company well over two to three times the individual’s salary according to Barry Deutsch, IMPACT Hiring Solutions. This figure may be a conservative estimate because of factors like training, evaluation, termination, re-initiating the hiring process, and lost opportunity costs. There is also an emotional factor involved in a bad hire situation. Not only can it cause stress and anxiety for both management and employees, but it also takes away focus from your company’s primary goals. Essentially, a bad hire can have a negative impact on your company’s bottom line and that won’t benefit you or your workforce.
These circumstances can be minimized during the initial hiring process by using several techniques including effective recruitment programs, skilled interviewing, and in-depth work style and personality assessment tests. A personality assessment is a highly effective tool and an efficient use of company resources at this crucial point of the decision making process.
In-depth Work Style & Personality Assessment Testing – A Standard in Recruiting
As with any business decision, having the right information is critical. Work style and personality assessment testing can provide insight into potential hires, as well as your current workforce, in several ways:
Identify potential red flags: A personality assessment can discover issues that are sometimes overlooked during the interviewing process and can quantify an intuition or feeling the interviewer may have about a particular candidate. It can be used to identify potential red flags concerning behavioral issues, help to understand how to manage individuals for greater work performance and compare interpersonal dynamics of teams, departments and candidates.
Learn how to optimize employee work performance: A personality assessment can provide extensive information on an individual’s ability to work with their job responsibilities, team dynamics and company culture. Additionally, the assessment can show effective strategies to gain optimal performance from that individual within their particular work environment. It can also be employed to quickly identify the most effective management style for a new employee or predict how team members are likely to interact.
Ensure you have the right people in the right positions: Additionally, personality assessments can be utilized in rehires, or situations which call for employees to re-apply for their current jobs, as in the case of a corporate merger or restructuring. A personality assessment test can also ensure that your company continues to have the right people in the right positions and distributes assets & talents effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions
A frequent question from companies and organizations concerns the legal guidelines in administering assessments to potential employees. Industry regulations can vary, and the best option is to consult with your company’s trade association or legal department. As a general rule, if your company uses an assessment, any test or set of hiring questions must be administered to all of the final candidates in order to assure that discrimination is not present. Additional information can be found online at the EEOC Web site, in the Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees section: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/guidance-inquiries.html#2.
Conclusion
A personality assessment is only one component needed for a successful recruitment and hiring program. It can provide valuable information for critical personnel decisions. Combined with an effective recruitment program and skilled interview techniques, it can benefit your company as a whole, in addition to your individual employees. Armed with accurate and quantifiable data from an in-depth personality assessment, the interview process becomes much more reliable. Ultimately, this only adds to your organization’s bottom line, allowing more effective management of your existing workforce and limiting the potential for wrong hiring decisions. For more information, please visit our Web site at, www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.
Ellen and Dana Borowka
Join our Linkedin Hiring and Retaining Top Talent Group for more articles and discussions. CLICK HERE to join.
Download a FREE chapter on Sourcing Top Talent from our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” over 10,000 sold. CLICK HERE to get your free chapter.
Author Bio:
Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years experience in the area of business consulting and helping organizations both nationally and internationally in raising the hiring bar through using in-depth work style assessments. Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive & employee coaching. To order the book, “Cracking the Personality Code” please go to www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com.
One of the most frequent questions we get on hiring is, “What do I ask sales people to get past the BS?”
For many, hiring sales people is difficult. The fact is most sales people think they can sell anything, when in fact the sales processes are so different, many don’t actually sell as much as take orders.
Here are two screening questions I use to at least eliminate sales people that embellish and claim to be hard charging.
1) “Give me an example of where you demonstrated high initiative?” Seems to me like a simple question, yet most sales people can’t answer it because most sales people don’t take high initiative. So often I get one of two answers. One is that they tell me about a sale they made where they had to call on the customer 5 or 6 times to get the deal. WOW. Doesn’t every salesperson have to do this? Isn’t that just part of the job? I don’t consider this high initiative and if they do I’m not impressed. The second common answer is that they go back three or four jobs for the example. So what have you done for me lately? They don’t consistently demonstrate high initiative.
2) Every sales person has on their resume a bullet that reads in one way or another, “Increased sales by X%.” Usually some figure between 30 and 60 percent. The obvious question to me is, “What two numbers did you divide to get that percentage?” I find 1 in 10 can answer this question. Not because they made it up (although I don’t rule that out), but because they take the position the company grew by X% and I’m in sales, so I did it.
For me, these are phone screening questions I like to ask. It does eliminate a lot of candidates, that in the past, I might have presented to one of my clients and for hiring managers desperate to hire a sales person. It is tough to eliminate candidates, but I have found the ones that can answer these two question have been successful.
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.
When the pool of talent is narrowed down to the final two candidates, it’s time for the interview team to come up with homework assignments. An important predictor of how a candidate will adapt to your organization’s environment is to see an example of his or her thought processes, analytical skills, and problem-solving, up close and personal.
Effective homework assignments are projects of reasonable size and scope that involve one of the most critical accomplishments the candidate will have to perform once on board. The candidate should be given all the support he or she needs to adequately answer the question or complete the assignment. The candidate should then return to the interview panel and present results and conclusions, and lead a question and answer discussion based on the homework. No matter what functional area, homework should entail questioning, analysis, research, and a panel discussion with some form of presentation.
While homework assignments are “out there” in the hiring world, some candidates may object to doing what they perceive as unpaid work.
Most Top 5% Talent, because of their self-motivated nature, will be intrigued and embrace the challenge. But if they’ve had previous encounters with unscrupulous employers who actually do assign homework and go on to use candidate ideas (even though they did not hire the candidate) you’ll need to reassure them that you aren’t asking them to come up with the “right answer.” Instead, you are looking for a concrete example of their approach to problems, their analytical and presentation skills, and their ability to synthesize information.
The scope of homework should be appropriate; that is, you shouldn’t ask candidates to dedicate forty hours on nights and weekends to solving your most pressing problem as “homework.” Make it clear at the outset that the homework is not going to be as deep as the actual job, and that you aren’t looking so much for their answer as for deep insight into their thought and action processes.
Every key position you plan on hiring should require a homework assignment. Some examples include, a sales presentation for all sales people, for financial positions consider giving them last year’s and this year’s budget and ask for their input, marketing positions ask for them to review your marketing programs or PR agreements, IT positions depending on the level can include coding examples all the way up to the capital spending on IT projects. The goal is to put them in the job before they come on board.
For more information on hiring, our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” describes a hiring process that has proven to significantly raise hiring accuracy. CLICK HERE to review the book.
If your hiring process isn’t as effective as you want it, our Success Factor Methodology hiring system is also available so you can implement a structured and systematic approach to hiring. CLICK HERE to review the system.
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.
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:
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.
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
is conducting our Weekly Radio Show Today for Hiring Managers "Why is it important to measure self-motivation?" LaTalkRadio.com at 11 am PST05:23:48 PM March 15, 2010from LinkedIn
Radio Show Today is for Hiring Managers "Why is it important to measure self-motivation?" LaTalkRadio.com at 11 am pst05:22:21 PM March 15, 2010from HootSuite
Never blast your #resume out to recruiters. It is a complete waste of money. Few if any recruiters read them. It is just plain SPAM.09:33:08 PM March 14, 2010from HootSuite
