Successful hiring is difficult, but not impossible. As a Human Resource (HR) Manager always try to hire without firing. And, without falling into traps of hiring workers.
- Reactive approach. Most job openings are the result of a firing or resignation. Companies typically seek someone with the same good qualities of the previous jobholder but without the obvious defects. The problem with the reactive approach is that it focuses the search on the familiar personality and effective competencies of the predecessor rather than on the job’s requirements going forward. The search team needs to identify the position’s critical incidents, or commonly occurring situations that the new employee will confront and must be able to master to be considered a strong performer.
- Unrealistic specifications. The result of unrealistic specifications is that the universe of candidates becomes very small. It may still leave out the best candidates who might have the essential mix of competencies needed for success, even if they do not meet some of the specifications. It is critical never to promise something the company cannot deliver.
- Evaluating people in absolute terms. The answers to absolute questions are opinions rendered in a vacuum and should be understood as such. The problem is that they are taken as fact.
- Accepting people at face value. It is said that people are increasingly cynical and skeptical. The fact is many job candidates are not thinking about long-term fit with a company. They are thinking about escaping a bad situation, or making more money, or hitching up with what appears to be a better organization.
- Believing references. References provided by the candidate are of extremely limited value.
- Stereotyping. The ‘just-like-me’ bias. There is the halo effect – letting one positive characteristic outshine all others. Each person should conduct his screening session without prior influence and should write up his impressions. Remember that the candidates themselves are on their best behavior during interviews, making such competencies hard to judge firsthand.
- Delegation gaffes. Executives allow first-round interviews to be conducted by staffers who are either ill-prepared for the evaluation or who do not have the right motivation.
- Unstructured interviews. Structured interviews are the most reliable of all popular techniques for predicting performance. Structured means that the interviewer has a list of well-prepared questions designed to reveal the candidate’s competencies. Such interviews, which often include difficult or uncomfortable questions, must be carefully planned and executed. Structured interviews should be conducted by more than one person in the organization
- Ignoring Emotional Intelligence (EI). Most companies look primarily, and even exclusively, at a candidate´s hard data including education, IQ, job history, and the like. They rarely look at the soft data such as the candidate’s emotional intelligence, personal characteristics, morality, etc. Five components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Every job requires different emotional competencies.
- Political pressures. Requirements for workers should be driven by the company’s strategy, and that’s where the search team should begin. Not personal preferences. Executives often focus only externally and do not give enough consideration to promising internal candidates because they are afraid of losing their position in the organizational hierarchy.
Hiring well requires a systematic approach. Given the pressures of time and convention, it is easy to fall into any number of traps of hiring workers.
