You’ve heard it more than once, company management claiming they are successful because of the great people that are part of their team. You read it in books, hear it in speeches, and find it in company propaganda.
And honestly, it sounds great – it’s humble and gracious, and while it may be true, it’s not telling the entire story.
What you aren’t being told is that great companies don’t always hire the right people either. That means they find themselves in the same dilemma as many other not-so-great companies.
The difference is they probably just don’t make the mistakes as often. It’s a well-kept secret, but great companies do fire those people who they find don’t work out the way they anticipated they would.
You don’t hear about it because it can become a public relations nightmare.
Avoiding Hiring Pitfalls: Keys to Selecting the Right Employees
The success of a company greatly depends on hiring the right employees. However, organizations often encounter challenges in their hiring process, leading to the selection of ill-suited candidates.
By recognizing and addressing these common pitfalls, companies can improve their hiring strategies and increase the likelihood of finding the perfect fit for their team.
1. Overreliance on Intuition: Balancing Gut Feel and Objective Evaluation
While intuition can play a role in decision-making, relying solely on gut feelings can be risky. Companies should aim for a balanced approach, combining intuitive impressions with objective evaluations.
Implementing structured interview techniques, competency-based assessments, and thorough reference checks can provide a more comprehensive understanding of candidates’ qualifications and compatibility.
2. Inadequate Interviewer Training: Developing Effective Interview Skills
Interviewers hold the responsibility of identifying the best candidates, yet many lack the necessary training to conduct effective interviews.
Investing in interviewer training programs equips hiring personnel with the skills to ask insightful questions, assess candidates’ responses, and evaluate their fit with the company culture. Well-trained interviewers contribute to a more reliable and efficient hiring process.
3. Failing to Assess Cultural Fit: Aligning Values and Behaviors
A candidate may possess the required skills and experience but might not align with the organization’s culture.
Neglecting to evaluate cultural fit can result in difficulties integrating the new employee into the team and potentially disrupting the work environment. Companies should consider incorporating behavioral and situational questions that assess a candidate’s values, work style, and compatibility with the existing team.
4. Ignoring Red Flags: Thorough Candidate Background Checks
Background checks are crucial for verifying a candidate’s credentials, employment history, and references.
Neglecting or hastily conducting these checks can lead to regrettable hiring decisions. Companies should diligently follow through with reference checks, confirming the accuracy of information provided by candidates and uncovering any red flags that might indicate potential issues in performance or reliability.
5. Lack of Structured Evaluation: Using Assessment Tools and Scorecards
Establishing a structured evaluation process can significantly enhance the objectivity and consistency of candidate assessment. Implementing assessment tools, such as skills tests, cognitive ability tests, or personality assessments, allows for a more standardized evaluation.
Additionally, utilizing scorecards or evaluation matrices helps compare candidates objectively, considering various criteria and avoiding biases.
Top Mistake Companies Make in Hiring the Wrong Person
Some of the well-known reasons that jobs are not filled with the right person are:
- Relying on intuition as one of the strong decision factors.
- Untrained or not properly trained interviewers.
- Wrong assessment of the candidates’ past experience, motivation, and skills – Failing to value the strong/weak elements of their candidates.
- Failure to detect ‘exaggerations’ in resumes and in what candidates talk about themselves.
But there are some systematic reasons –
1. The Company Does Not Clearly Identify the Company’s Needs
What are the needs?
When a company seeks to fill a position, if they do not clearly define their needs in terms of experience, skills, competency, and character, and they do not properly determine that the candidate meets that criteria, they run the risk of hiring the wrong person.
See: Interview Checklist for Employers
2. Do Not Confirm a Prospective Employee’s Skills Through Testing
It’s easy for a candidate to put on their resume that they have certain skills.
Unless the employer takes the time to confirm those skills through testing, they run the risk of hiring someone who does not actually have those skills.
For example, a secretary says they can type 100 words per minute but when tested can only type 60 words per minute, and thus will be less effective.
Refer to: Job Interview Evaluation Form: Candidates Selection
3. Hiring Out of Desperation
This happens more often than you might think. There are no perfect candidates coming through the interviewing process, and so the interviewer hires out of desperation.
This is a recipe for disaster. It would be better to run another hiring campaign and make some adjustments so that you are more likely to bring on board the type of employee you really need.
4. Lazy Hiring
You might be surprised to learn such a thing exists, but lazy hiring is actually more common than many realize.
Put simply, the manager or interviewer is too lazy to do a proper hiring campaign, and so they hire the first person that is relatively suitable for the job.
In all fairness, the person responsible for lazy hiring should be fired.
More on:
5. Infatuation Hiring
Surveys indicate that infatuation hiring happens far too often, and in these cases, the candidate is hired within 10 minutes of the interview.
The interviewer then spends the balance of the day justifying their decision.
While occasionally this may work out, con artists are pros at playing this game and know how to get themselves hired using techniques that lead to infatuation. This is certainly not likely to work out.
Conclusion:
Hiring the right employees is critical for the success and growth of any organization. By avoiding common hiring pitfalls, such as overreliance on intuition, inadequate interviewer training, neglecting cultural fit assessment, ignoring red flags, and lacking structured evaluations, companies can significantly improve their chances of selecting the best candidates.
Investing time, resources, and careful consideration into the hiring process will yield long-term benefits, ensuring that the right individuals join the team and contribute to the organization’s success.
While occasional hiring mistakes are inevitable, consistent misjudgments require scrutiny of the interviewing team.
By acknowledging and rectifying these common hiring pitfalls, companies can enhance their recruitment strategies, increase the chances of selecting the right employees, and ultimately build stronger and more productive teams.