The best person for the job is frequently not the one hired. The best presenter more frequently gets hired and it takes between 6 to 18 months to discover costly hiring mistakes.
Experience shows that people with good interview presentation skills are more frequently hired over people who have strong past performance but not as great presentation skills. This results in a bad hire.
Not hiring the best performer because they may not be the best interviewee results in a poor hire, evidence suggests this is a common mistake than first commonly thought.
By overvaluing interview presentation skills over past performance we sometimes hire people who are strong interviewees but may not be the strongest performers. This causes a worse problem: Not hiring the best performer because they are not a great interviewee or may not look or sound quite right but creates recruitment problems down the track.
Getting past the veneer of presentation skills and digging into a candidate’s past performance can minimise this problem with the following 3 steps.
- Job Description – Define the Work before Defining the Person
Separate the requirements of the job from the requirements of the person. Most job descriptions are a standard list of generic job duties, activities and qualifications. . Other than the common generic responsibilities the requirements define what the person hired needs to have in terms of skills, education and experience not the best type of person to do the job.
Job expectations are the driver of performance, and it is essential to define what is involved in getting the job done first before defining the person who will ultimately be the best person for the role.
2. Employee Requirements – Define the Qualities of the Person for the Role
Standardise the interviewing selection process. There are two types of people where emotions play a big role in who gets hired. Techies who overvalue the depth of technical skills. People people who overvalue the depth of relationships and communications. There is frequently a mismatch of job and person that frequently influences the outcome of many hires as most managers over value first impressions, assertiveness, communication skills and personality.
Many interviewing managers will quickly eliminate candidates ‘who just don’t fit in’, using broad criteria such as being quiet and less interested. Defining employee requirements is an important part of the selection criteria that is not to be overlooked.
3. Getting hired for the job is not the same as doing the job.
Creative objectivity in the recruitment process. A way to minimise bias is to prepare a standard targeted selection interview questionnaire for candidates whether they are good interviewees or not. This brings objectivity into the assessment process to evaluate if the person is seriously considered for the role. This helps separate objectivity of interviewers from those who overly rely on intuition or emotions. Hiring the person for the job is not the same as the person performing the job.
Poor Predictors of Performance and Fit
First impressions, level of direct experience, personality and skill sets are not good indicators of future performance. .Rather the assessment should be slowed down and based on the candidate’s track record of competency, past performance and ability to learn new skills.
Many assessment questions have been shown to be ineffective in the recruitment process. Managers ask irrelevant questions and assess people on meaningless facts that become subjective. For example a general manager who relates strong organisational and planning skills with an organised, tidy office, or a candidate who cancels at the last minute due to a family crisis is considered as lacking work ethics.
By streamlining the interviewing process this will eliminate potential bias. Asking the same questions to different candidates will bring about a better outcome.
The Recruitment Process should not be Transactional
Hiring people who are the most skilled is totally different than hiring the strongest people possible to deliver on the role. . The former is largely a box-checking exercise, the latter involves investing more time with the right candidates focusing on their past performance, upside potential and intrinsic motivation to actually be able to perform the job. People hired using this in- depth interviewing process increase the improvement in quality of hire, increase in job satisfaction and reduce unnecessary turnover.
Many great people don’t get hired because they don’t fit some misguided stereotype of success. It is not that these people are not capable but rather that traditional approaches to hiring are stereotypical and flawed.
The interview should be used to gather evidence required to make the hiring decision, rather than using the interview to make the hiring decision.
Executive Talent Consulting Group www.executivetalent.com.au Executive Health Talent Search and Selection