August 2020 - Inject

I’ve seen business owners approach hiring like someone approaching a buffet. It can be tempting to grab what you can in a hurry before anyone else gets there.

Whilst it’s important to move quickly when you’ve found great talent, it’s also worth slowing down to think strategically about what the most important characteristics in a successful hire look like for your team.

Don’t fall into the trap of hiring someone quickly, to plug a hole and sacrifice talent. That’s like grabbing the bread rolls then missing out on the pork roast at the end of the table because you were hungry and didn’t want to wait.

Deep down, you already know that longer-term, hiring the wrong person costs time, money and resources you can’t afford to waste.

You might be thinking about which soft or technical skills will be successful in your role, which is a great start. Inject looks past characteristics like industry experience and detailed product knowledge, to the behaviours. We work on the premise that past behaviour is the most accurate predictor of future behaviour.

Don’t fall into the experience trap in recruitment

You hired someone with industry experience, glowing references and they said all the right things in the interview. Bulletproof, right?

Just months after their first day, other employees are complaining about the new recruitment – they’re making decisions without consulting others, causing friction with staff and not following company procedures.

How could this have happened when everything indicated they’d be a great hire?

Whilst it can be easy to believe that years of experience in your field will result in successful hiring results, you may have missed others, just as, if not more significant, indicators they weren’t the best fit for your business.

Questions you need to ask yourself in your next hiring process

There is no one right answer, however, depending on the particular role – senior, entry-level, graduate, sales, manager… to break it down, below are some questions to ask yourself through each stage of the recruitment process when hiring your next employee:

1. Resume

Seeing through the resume and being critical about the person who wrote it helps create a broader picture of why them and why this role.

If you asked them to include a cover letter, have they done so? Has this person addressed you or the company and specifically mentioned what appealed to them about the role?
Is the application free from spelling typos and errors? This can be a challenge to spot if you’re receiving resumes from an agency, as they can often be formatted.
If they don’t have industry experience, does their work history make sense for them to transfer into this role? E.g. similar tasks, similar job description, transferable skills. Does their career path make sense?
Have they job hopped around? Have they gone into management then moved back down, or moved into sales and then back to admin?

2. Interview

Being objective in your interview style allows the candidate to give you a more transparent view of their abilities, unclouded by their industry experience or how they spoke on the phone.

Are you giving candidates the best chance of demonstrating their abilities or are you asking them to give answers you want to hear? Asking open-ended questions rather than leading questions allows the interviewee to answer unbiasedly.

E.g. “Tell me about a time when you had to complete multiple tasks at once.” Rather than “So, do you use a to-do list and schedule your calendar to ensure you keep track of your time?” The answer is more likely going to be accurate and honest, rather than ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Are you using behavioural interviewing techniques? A quick Google search shows that there are multiple articles citing strong validity between behavioural interviewing and predicting job performance.

Did the candidate ask specific questions about the role and company, appearing genuinely interested and motivated?

3. Psychometric Testing

Are you utilising evidence-based assessment methods like psychometric testing?

There are many different tests that assess a candidates’ natural strengths and behaviours, giving you a clearer picture of whether or not they’ll be a good fit for the role.

4. Reference Checks

Reference checks aren’t the most valid form of assessment, but we can use them to confirm what we’ve observed from the rest of the hiring process.

Is the referee a direct manager or a colleague?
Did they pause or stumble at any questions you asked? Did you probe enough on areas you were unsure about?
Is the referee recent or from 10 years ago? Have they provided their personal email and phone numbers or their work contact details?
Have you cross-checked this reference on social media or their company website to confirm they are who they say they are?

5. The In-Between

What we mean by this is the time in between formal interviews and assessments. When the mask is off and the candidate is relaxed. You can find out a lot from when people believe they aren’t being assessed or measured.

Has the candidate been fast with their response, flexible with their availability and clear with their communication over email and phone?
Do they seem genuinely interested in the role? Do they have a positive attitude?
Have you given them the opportunity to provide feedback about how they’re feeling about the role?
Have they reacted negatively toward participating in certain assessments or parts of the process?

Transform your business with the right hire

If you are currently hiring, it’s worth slowing down and asking some of these questions. At Inject, we work with small-medium business owners and understand that hiring a poor performer can destroy entire teams’ productivity and morale.

We also know and have seen firsthand how a high performer can transform a business.

We don’t leave your hiring to chance because we focus on the attitude, aptitude and behaviour of candidates, so you know exactly what you’re getting. We work with you to ensure your business has the right people, in the right roles, at the right time.

If you think our approach could work for you, please contact us.

You may also be interested in our eBook – Building a High Performing Team on Purpose, for more insights. Chapter 5 is on talent management which you can read here.

Our lives are engulfed with social proof

Not long ago, we went for a stroll as a family to some nearby shops and I wanted to see if there was a better croissant on offer. I looked up a French Bakery that had an average of 4.3 stars on Google. Fantastic, yes?

No. These croissants were plain, dry, and overall unimpressive. So how did it get a 4.3-star rating? There were many things wrong with the decision-making here:

First of all, who are these people giving these ratings and why do I place any value on what they think?
What were the criteria they were using to give this rating? Was it the same as mine?
Were they buying a croissant? Or did they buy the sausage roll?

We love social proof. How much do we rely on it these days? Let’s look at some of our regular activities in this present era:

Need to find a new place to eat? Look at UberEats, Google and Zomato ratings
Looking to buy a new drill for odd jobs around the house? Check out product reviews.
Want to make a purchasing decision on Amazon? Go straight to the reviews.
Vivino for wine
The list continues…

What’s wrong with this? Well, not much really when we want a fast and approximate answer to something that has low impact. The value of getting quick guidance is high and the relative impact of this guidance being wrong is low.

This doesn’t mean that a 4.3-star bakery can’t also be fantastic. The issue is that we come to expect social proof as being the truth. But it’s generally ok, as the impact though of buying a pastry for a few dollars that weren’t to your liking is very low. We move on and then have new content for our blogs, so it’s not all bad.

Too many managers rely on social proof for significant decisions

So how does this analogy relate to management accountability and hiring decisions? Well, I’m glad you asked…

Reference checks.

Have you or your one of your managers ever been really excited because you heard a glowing reference check for a prospective employee to join your business? If your answer is “yes”, well that’s ok – there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

Answer this question: have you or any of your managers ever referred to how the reference checks were really strong, yet wondered how you ended up with a bad hire anyway?

We’re now getting closer to the problem.

What took place was that you heard from a manager in some other company, who you don’t know, who doesn’t care about you and mentioned that the person you’re looking to hire was great. They don’t know much about your company or the position you have on offer. What are their standards as a manager? We all know there are plenty of managers who are not good at assessing performance or accept mediocrity at best.

So when a hiring manager relies heavily on reference or backgrounds checks and their gut feel as their main way to assess a candidate, what does this say about them? Don’t get me wrong, you should definitely still conduct reference checks and they can provide value. It’s just that they should be conducted at the right point in the recruiting process, not the sole contributor to a hiring decision.

Managers who lack accountability use social proof as an excuse for poor decisions

Besides the lack of knowledge of different methods of assessment, if a manager continues to mention reference checks when a new hire doesn’t work out, they are also lacking accountability. The impact of eating a poor croissant is low. I can make a decision based on social proof and whether or not I like the look of the place. But the impact of a poor hiring decision can be astronomical. Yet very often we use a similar method for making such a major decision.

“The references were good!”

“How are we supposed to know…?”

“You can’t pick it, sometimes it just doesn’t work out…”

“Everyone makes a bad hire at some point..”

Do you know one of the biggest telltale signs of a lack of accountability? It’s not admitting that you have a problem in the first place.

Accountable managers want to learn how to get it right

Taking accountability means ensuring success, or at least taking the right type of action to get there. Shift your mental model away from hiring as being mostly luck or gut feel and accept that there is a successful process you can learn. This is hard to do. But this is what accountability looks like.

Whether you are buying a croissant, making a croissant or hiring for your team. If it’s important to you, you will find a way to consistently deliver the right outcome. If it’s not, you simply rely on gut feel and social proof. Challenge your management team to do it differently. Don’t accept the perplexed look when a bad hire with good references doesn’t work out. Demand a different approach. Lead the team in a new direction and let those who refuse to change start contacting their old references to prepare for their next victim.

Other Resources You Might Find Helpful

I wrote an 8-part ebook recently for business leaders who believe their people are part of their growth and competitive advantage. It’s called How to Build a High Performing Team On Purpose.

If you’re interested to learn more about Inject’s interview and recruitment process and how we can help your business, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or contact us here.