Blind Man's Bluff
Wendall Williams
Can you name one thing that is as misunderstood as the benefits of hiring highly skilled people? I am not talking about finding and screening people. I am referring to understanding thoroughly what the job requires and putting applicants through hoops to see if they are qualified.
Learn From the Professionals
Take a professional sports team. There is a very good reason why talent scouts only recruit players based on observation and competition: it screens out marginal players. There is also a very good reason why teams are quick to fire poor coaches. They mess up athletes supplied by the scouts.
There is a very good reason why some teams win more games than others: they hire players with skills, provide good coaching, deliver the right training, and management does everything it can not to screw it up! No coach can take credit for building a winning team without a staff of talented scouts sending him or her the "best of the best." Contrast that with business practices.
Managers (i.e., coaches) are promoted based on their ability to perform as individual contributors, not coach others. Once promoted, they tend to move into a "circle of protection" where management is considered more of a "reward" than a responsibility. Estimates of managerial incompetence are between 55% and 90%. Problem #1.
Business talent scouts (the recruiters) position themselves as HR experts and professionals, but rely on interviews to screen and "disqualify" applicants. They seldom accurately evaluate applicant skills (e.g., give them tryouts). Responsibility for hiring is either diffused through team interviews or passed on to a hiring manager who uses the same low-tech approach. Problem #2.
How To Be Best of the Best?
The DOL published a list of recommended best hiring practices in 1978 in response to Tile VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, its various amendments, and executive orders. These practices outline how to establish thorough competency lists, use trustworthy tools, and evaluate the most qualified applicants, with minimum impact on protected groups (i.e., how to maximize diversity without minimizing performance).
However, the Uniform Guidelines On Employment Selection Procedures is the least-read professional practices document in the world. In fact, the vast majority of HR staff and recruiters are either totally unaware of it, flagrantly ignore its provisions, or pass it off as "too much work" (a strangely dismissive attitude for a professional to take). Problem #3.
Professional teams know what each player is worth because they keep performance statistics on every team member. They are not quick to fire someone in whom they made a heavy investment. They work with that player, watch the numbers, and take action only after training and coaching fails.
Organizations, on the other hand, measure employee performance based on "games won" or "games lost." Some organizations make a practice of cutting the bottom 10% each year, as if that makes up for poor recruiting practices. Basically, organizations often have no idea what a good or poor player is worth — only games won or lost. Problem #4.
This kind of shabby, unprofessional behavior is more than a commentary on the sad state of the profession. It is a commentary on why HR and recruiting does not have (and will never get) any respect from senior management.
In fact, a recent SHRM survey confirmed that senior management had about as much respect for HR as cats have for people. It sagely suggested that HR "get better." That's like telling a cancer patient to get better without a major medical intervention. Odds are neither will survive very long. So what does it take to get better?
1.Get management to realize and calculate the cost of performance.
2.Raise questions about why any manager "who knows 'em when he sees 'em" continues to have 20/80 employee productivity.
3.Develop ways to calculate the cost of employee performance.
4.Stop arguing for a place at the management table and start earning it.
5.Become an expert in (or hire someone to teach you) job analysis, validation, and applicant evaluation methods.
6.Stop defending gut decisions with single instances of success. Everybody gets lucky occasionally. Instead, look for at least 50 examples where "gut" was 90% correct (good luck).
7.Realize that, although everyone thinks he or she is a people expert (as in, "I am a person. Therefore, I must be a people-expert!"), experience tells an entirely different story.
8.Abandon the silly idea that HR can develop its own competency list. This field is deeper that it looks and "learn as you earn" works poorly, if ever. People who insist on doing it themselves can plan to lose face (again) within three years. Once again, HR says "sayonara" to management respect.
9.Stop trivializing employee performance problems. Poor performance costs from 20% to 50% of base payroll every year. That means a 500-person organization with a $40,000 average salary wastes about $6,000,000 each year! This is often the difference between Chapter 11 and the front page of CEO Magazine. Why not do more with less or more with the same?
10.Argue how HR benefits drop right to the bottom line in terms of turnover, productivity, payroll, mistakes, and quality. Just because it is not measured, that does not mean it is not there. We all know it is, but few do anything about it.
11.Professional recruiters and internal recruiting departments should wake up and smell the coffee. If they have trouble recruiting and staffing their own positions, what kind of benefit can they offer to a client? What makes them think clients want to buy a service that does little or nothing for their own business?
Most importantly, learn to think like a professional. Be willing to spend a buck to make a hundred. A company that puts in a legitimate hiring (and internal placement) system recaptures its total investment by saving one or two hiring mistakes. Who can name one other investment that provides the same ROI?
Articles
Finding Candidates
- 10 Reasons to Hire Vets
- Hire Older Workers
- Improving Candidate Quality
- Sourcing 101
- Sourcing Candidates Well
- Tips for Building Employment-Related Websites
- U.S. Employ of People with Disabilities: Free Workshops
- Virtual College Recruiting
Interviewing Basics
- 10 Commandments of Recruiting
- 5 Keys to Successful Hiring
- 7 Tips for Successful Phone Interviews
- Behavioral Interviewing Basics
- Contrary Evidence Questions
- Interview Questions: Do's and Don'ts
- Interviewing Opening and Closing Remarks
- Interviews: Common Weaknesses
- Mistakes Amateur Interviewers Make
- Phone Screen Interview Mistakes
- Probing Techniques Explained
- Screening Interviewing: Top 10 Red Flags
- Strengthen the Validity of Your Interviews
- Telephone Interviews: Basics
- Ten Bad Listening Habits of Interviewers
- Types of Interviews
- Typical Probes and Follow up Questions
- What Do Interviewers Need to Know to be Effective?
Interviewing Best Practices
- 7 Keys to Effective Selection Interviews
- A Closer Look at Behavior-Based Interviewing
- Advantages / Disadvantages of Interviewing
- Applying Core Competencies to Selection Interviews
- Are You Really a Behavior-Based Interviewer?
- Assessing Speaking and Listening Skills
- Best Practices in Interviewing Candidates
- Deadly Interview Mistakes
- Death by Interview
- Ensure Hiring Success in Every Situation
- Executive Assessment Should Be Mandatory
- Generational Interviewing
- Hiring Interview + Strategic Applicant Management
- Hold Evening and Off-Time Interviews
- How to Interview a Top Performer
- Improve your Interviewing Techniques
- Interview Questions to Assess Soft Skills
- Interviewing for Ethics
- Interviewing Millennials
- Interviewing: Business or Psychology
- Metrics Interview
- Peeling Back the Onion
- The Positives of Panel Interviews
- Time for Candidate Advocacy?
- Tips for Conducting Successful Interviews
- Two Critical Interviewing Questions
Laws & Documentation
- Applicant Reference Release
- At Will Employment Release
- Avoid Negligent Hiring Mistakes
- Employee Referral Program Metrics
- Fair Labor Standards Act Information
- Four Interview Questions Never to Ask
- Giving Employee References
- Hiring Compliance Guidelines
- Hiring for Small Business
- Interviewing People with Disabilities
- Job Denial Letter
- Legal Issues in Interviewing
- Minimize Employment Risks: Document
- SAMPLE Employment Policy
- SAMPLE Letter: Educational Records Check
- SAMPLE Letter: Reference Check
- Ten Safe Hiring Tools
- What is Negligent Hiring
Line Manager / Recruiting Partnership
- Defending Candidates to Hiring Managers
- Interlocking Core Competency Interviews
- Internal Application Process
- Making Internships Work for You
- Making the Case for Behavioral Interviewing
- Non-Traditional Merit Pay Alternatives
- OFCCP Definition of an Internet Applicant
- Why Managers Shouldn't Do Most Hiring
- Workforce Planning: Strategic Staffing Strategy
Post-Interview
Pre-Planning & Retention
- Bonus or Incentive?
- Brand-Building on a Budget
- Build a First-Rate Hiring Process
- Closing the Deal
- Compensation Plans: An Overview
- Conducting an Exit Interview
- Good Hiring Starts with a Good Job Profile
- Improve the Quality of the Employment Function
- Interview Process Problems
- Interview the Job Before the Candidates
- Job Description Template-Link Pay to Performance
- Linking Pay to Company Performance
- Selecting and Using Salary Surveys
- Succession Planning
- Succession Planning: Identifying Top Performers
- Using a Pre-Interviewing Questionnaire
- Winning the War for Talent
- Worker Shortage by 2010: Preparation
Reading the Candidate
- Beware of Those Who Boast
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Decision, Decisions: Choosing the Better Applicant
- Detecting Deceit in Interviews
- Little White Lies on Resumes
- Suspend Judgment Until the Interview is Over
Recruiting Basics
- College Recruiting Basics
- College Recruiting Essentials
- Cut Down on Interview No Shows
- Discouraging Low Quality Applicants
- Don't Hold Too Many Interviews
- Job Descriptions: Why are they Important?
- New Strategies for Screening Job Candidates
- Preventing Resume Overload with Questionnaires
- Resume Review Basics
- Test Validation Explained
- The Value of Person-Organization Fit
- Three Companies Cut Turnover with Tests
Recruiting Best Practices
- 25 Telltale Signs of the Wrong Candidate
- 5 Overlooked Ways to Hire Winners
- Asking the Right Recruitment Questions
- Attracting Your Competitor's Employees
- BPR.......for Recruiters!
- Candidate Engagement
- Cloud Recruiting
- Evaluate Your Capture Strategy
- Hiring Best Practices
- How Do You Attract and Retain the Best People?
- How to Attract Applicants to Undesirable Jobs
- How to Attract, Develop and Retain Best People
- How to Find and Keep Valued Employees
- Ignorance and the Human Condition
- Onboarding Success Secrets
- Secrets to Non-Profit Hiring
- Selecting Top Management Talent
- Semi-Active Candidates are Best Bets
- Six Core Selling Principles
- Skills Based Recruiting: When, not How
- Smart Choices: How to Hire the Best
- Strategy for Hiring the Best This Year
- The Uses and Misuses of Personality Tests
- Top 10 Employee Selection Mistakes & Solutions
- Treat Candidates with the Carbon Rule