Hire Top Talent

A lack of a good rigorous hiring process results in outcomes that are comparable to rolling dice in Las Vegas - crapshoot hiring. Are you willing to bet your company on average and mediocre processes around talent?

The number ONE frustration I've heard over 2 decades is around the idea of what are we measuring in people - how do we know we're hiring a winner vs. falling victim to "You're NOT the Person I Hired".

What are the most common frustrations in hiring we've heard from over 25000 CEOs and Senior Executives in the last two decades? Do any of these match up with your frustrations?

Do you make it a rule to Google everyone you are considering interviewing? Are you in shock over some of the things you see candidates post as their profile pictures in places like Twitter and LinkedIn?

Counterintuitive article on whether looking at "cultural fit" is overrated. Do you think it's important and should have the same focus as measuring success traits, comparable performance, and other abilities? OR would you give it a minor effort? My experience has been that it's equally important as the performance side. Unfortunately, most companies screw up the measurement of "fit".

Most interviews have a very low correlation to success since the vast majority of hiring managers focusing on measuring how good of an actress/actor is sitting across from them. Usually the interview is based on rapport, chemistry, and likability. Layered onto that inaccurate assessment is that fact that you're not even seeing their true personality.

After 30 years of executive search, I am still amazed by the low to non-existent correlation between interviewing, as it is traditionally conducted by most hiring managers, and on-the-job performance. Are you measuring how well a candidate performs in the interview, or how good of an employee will they be in that job in your company?

Why do we play this mental headgame of "Let's Give it Another 30 Days?" We know it's not going to work out - but we keep deluding ourselves that it's going to get better.

This article triggered my thinking again of why introverts have so much trouble "winning" a job interview. I wrote an article a number of years ago titled "Why Introverts Are Doomed to Fail in the Interview".

Most hiring managers have a preconceived notion that the best candidates exhibit traits of extroversion in the interview - outgoing, warm, talkative, able to answer silly questions on the spot, or get deeply introspective and personal very quickly.

My experience with over 30 years of executive search and hiring coaching/consulting is that introversion or extroversion is not indicative of performance and success. I think many executives make wrong biased assumptions about introverts. So, now the question is how do introverts overcome this natural bias of most hiring managers - particularly in an interview format.

One of the greatest frustrations in hiring is having candidates lie convincingly, or exaggerating-embellishing what they've done. Most CEOs and Executives believe that at least 100 percent of candidates fake it in the interview. How do you overcome this tendency to misrepresent and get to the TRUTH?

A large part of hiring failure can be attributed to asking the traditional, standard, stupid, inane, canned interview questions. If you want to determine if someone can achieve your desired goals, outcomes, deliverables, expectations, KPIs, and metrics - then you need a set of interview questions designed to extract that information to predict future performance and fit.

Traditional job descriptions masquerading as advertisements repulse, reject, 

The vast majority of CEOs and senior executives have told me over the last 20 years that they think 100 percent of candidates they interview tend to lie, embellish, and exaggerate. The big question is HOW DO YOU GET TO THE TRUTH?

Many studies of hiring show that the dominant reason for hiring decisions are things like rapport, chemistry, and like-ability. None of these has any correlation to success on the job. In fact, measuring candidates with first impressions of these traits usually results in hiring errors and mistakes.

Most executives and hiring managers have admitted to me in our workshops over the last 20 years that their personal track record on hiring people who HIT or EXCEED expectations is somewhere in the 25-33 percent range. 50 percent is what most of the studies have shown in formal surveys and research. Where does that leave us in the current state of hiring accuracy and success?

Interesting article by Liz Ryan basically indicating that whether you get hired or not is completely random, subjective, and biased on a hiring manager's personality or experience.

She's not far off from the truth. Most hiring managers have never been formally trained in how to hire. Most do a random-terrible job of hiring. Most studies show that hiring is not much better than rolling dice down the felt in Las Vegas = primarily because most of the people who are doing it don't have a clue what they are doing.

It's not "art" as Liz Ryan indicates. It does tend more toward science - yet most people who are doing it don't know the science so they'll guessing or playing at hiring.