Hire Top Talent

One of the most common frustrations we hear about the hiring process is: I thought I hired the right person - they said all the right things and I liked them - but they were NOT the person I thought I hired. How does this happen to most hiring managers?

When you're trying to hire the best, whether it's a senior executive or plant custodian, you've got to put your best foot forward in showing the candidate what a wonderful company you are - how you respect employees, engage employees, and create a happy workforce. The interview serves as a great window for candidates to see what you are really like as a company. Why do so many companies blow this opportunity?

Be more like a professional recruiter searching for top talent with a magnifying glass, looking under rocks, being a detective, and leveraging the one degree of separation that social media provides, especially LinkedIn.

Why don't more companies use the social networking connections of their employees, vendors, sub-contractors, clients, and suppliers to bring outstanding candidates to the table?

The number ONE mistake in hiring is not effectively defining what person must do in the job to be successful. The traditional job description has NOTHING to do with defining success - rather it usually defines the rock-bottom minimum that you'll tolerate to allow someone to keep their job. If this doesn't sound dysfunctional, I'm not sure what might qualify.

Many hiring managers and executives have never been adequately trained in how to interview. We assume because you carry the title manager or executive you should know how to hire. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the greatest areas of impact you can have on your organization is to make sure all managers are capable of effective interviewing.

Our last of the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes is Desperation Hiring which occurs at about the 4-6 week point when you've only got rejects, deadbeats, and toxic folks in your candidate pipeline. You realize you're probably not going to see any better candidates and you begin to rationalize, dummy-down, sub-optimize hiring a lesser quality person. I have never seen this work out well.

Are you still accepting anyone who lands on your doorstep from posting generic job descriptions on generic job boards? This is a very small percentage of the viable candidate pool. STOP finishing for candidates in shallow waters.

Most CEOs and executives have told me over the last 20 years that they think candidates lie, embellish, and exaggerate 100 percent of the time in interviews. Not probing, digging, validating, vetting, verifying every claim, accomplishment, and achievement is pathetic.

No wonder 50% of time the complaint about a bad hire is "I thought they could do X when I interviewed them - I'm surprised they cannot do it". Shame on hiring managers for not Peeling the Onion.

As I travel around the country conducting 1-2 workshops a week with CEOs and Senior Executives on our program You're NOT the Person I Hired, the one issue that keeps surfacing over and over is the frustration around finding great candidates for open positions.