To our clients, colleagues, and friends:

Let’s face it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all spent hours reviewing resumes, conducting telephone screens, and interviewing candidates, evaluating, discussing, and agonizing over our decision, until we are sure we have found the right person. We hire that person. And six months later, we discover that the individual is not just wrong for the position; he is supremely and hopelessly wrong for the position. We have fallen into that most embarrassing and costly of traps. We have made THE BAD HIRE.

What happened?

The # 1 Reason
There are many reasons for THE BAD HIRE. Sometimes the interviewers are not prepared and do not ask the right questions. Sometimes the candidate does a particularly good job of embellishing his/her accomplishments. Sometimes financial constraints force us to settle for less than we truly wanted. However, in my experience one reason stands out above all others: the hiring organization does not have a clear understanding of the qualifications and attributes the candidate must have to be successful in the position. Period. It’s as simple as that.

Case Study
Several years ago I started working with a client who was having problems hiring successfully at certain positions, especially in the management ranks. The client had become increasingly frustrated by a string of bad hires. Customers were upset and my client’s reputation was suffering. And, of course, the process was consuming huge amounts of time and money.

It became clear after my initial meetings with management that there was a lack of clarity about what qualifications and attributes the successful candidate needed to have. Each interviewer had his/her own idea. What was needed, it seemed to me, was a more common or consistent understanding. Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? But how exactly does one most effectively develop such a common view? What is the best way to reach agreement on such a subjective matter?

The Answer Lies Within
Seriously, the answer does lie within. Let me describe the process we followed with our client. At first, they were not sure how to begin. They saw the process of defining the key qualifications/attributes as purely a human resources exercise, and they looked to me to come up with the answer. They believed my work with other companies could provide a list of “leadership skills” that were needed for success. Unfortunately, I was not an expert in their industry. I had no insight into the attributes someone needed to be successful at their company, except in a very general sense. And I let them know that very candidly. After they recovered from the shock of me telling them that I didn’t have the foggiest idea what their managers needed to be successful, I suggested an alternative approach.

I told them that what I could do was to facilitate a process by which they came to a better understanding of the needed qualifications and attributes, given the specific requirements of their workplace. How? Very simply. By looking at actual employees in the organization who were already performing at a high level. The first step was for them to identify the individuals within their organization who everyone agreed were performing successfully in the key positions. I recommended that I interview these employees to determine the exact qualifications they had and the specific attributes they demonstrated that had resulted in their success. All the information needed for the solution was already in the organization. My role was to facilitate the process of bringing that information out. And that is exactly what we did.

We interviewed the selected individuals, consolidated the information, and developed a “competency profile” for each relevant position. These competency profiles focused on the key attributes that distinguished superior from average performance for a given position. Once the competency profiles were in place, we developed interviewing training based on the competency profiles. Managers practiced looking for the required competencies as they reviewed resumes and interviewed candidates. This resulted in a management team that understood what it was looking for when it interviewed a candidate, and also knew how to find out during the interview process if the candidate had the required background and profile. A simple, but effective approach.

The client has used this process for several years now, resulting in a substantially higher success rate in its hiring. Sure, mistakes continue to be made from time to time. But now they have a system in place to keep those mistakes to an absolute minimum.

The Lighter Side of Interviewing
OK, so we’ve addressed the serious side of interviewing. Not let’s take a look at the lighter side. Candidates (and interviewers) can say some strange things during the interview process. Here’s a sampling.

--On a warehouse job application: Question: Emergency contact and phone #: Answer: 911

--A large state agency once received an application with the following information: Q: Sex: A: Once at Mexia Lake

And finally, some interesting questions posed by applicants:

--“What is it that you people do at this company?”

--“Why do you want references?”

and my personal favorite…….

--“Would it be a problem if I am angry most of the time?”

Hope your 2002 has gotten off to a great start. Til next time.