Want to Hire Good Candidates? Do Your Homework!
By Dan Bobinski
Anyone making a hiring decision based on whether a candidate can fog a mirror is asking for trouble. With all the screening and hiring tools, research, and resources available for how to make good hiring decisions, making a "bad" hire ought to be a rare event.
"Ought to be." But it still happens way too often.
The following list is by no means complete, but here are a few of the "best practices" being used for making good hiring decisions:
1. Before doing anything else, clearly identify the duties and tasks required for the job.
Not having a clearly defined set of duties and tasks for a position is like sending your teenager to do your weekly shopping without a grocery list. Yes, you'll get food, but it probably won't meet your dietary needs.
Obviously, some jobs require flexibility and/or creativity to the point that a duty and task list would be pretty short. But that's the exception, not the rule.
First list the general areas of responsibility (duties). Then list all the individual activities one must do to in each of those areas (tasks). Hint: Start each one with a specific verb!
Example of a duty for a manager: Instead of "Budgeting," better is "Create annual budgets." Even that small change makes a big difference because the mental picture of what's expected is much clearer in the second version.
2. Create interview questions based on the high priority duties and tasks.
Prioritizing a Duty/Task list is more than just identifying important duties. One should also consider what tasks will take up the lion's share of a person's workweek. It's from this combined list that questions should be created.
The best interview questions are "behavior-based." Ask applicants to tell you about a time when they did something - how it went, what problems they encountered, and how they dealt with those problems. This digs into past behavior - a predictor of future behavior. Asking "how would you handle ___?" is a future-focused, hypothetical question that begs a hypothetical response.
3. Ask these questions of all top applicants - and score their answers.
Each question should get asked of everyone you decide to call (unless the candidate starts bombing and you know you won't hire him/her). Score each answer and add them up for a "total" score on each applicant. Your highest-scoring applicants should be the ones that move on to the next phase.
Side note: Some people like to "weight" the really important questions, but others find that top candidates will make the cut even without the weighting. It's really up to the employer as to which way is preferred.
4. Assess your top scoring applicants
Assessment tools, such as DISC assessments, give you phenomenal insights into how a person will behave in the face of problems, their interactions with others, their adherence to policies, and their workday focus. Just be sure to use a benchmarking assessment to "measure the job" before you start your search.
5. Interview carefully
The maxim "Hire for attitude, train for skill" still holds true. Someone with a picture perfect resume but a terrible attitude will decimate your workforce. Nobody can afford that. Better to hire someone who meets 85 percent of what you're looking for but shows himself to be teachable and a team player.
Example: A friend of mine searching for a sales manager met a "perfectly qualified" person at a trade show. But when she emailed the person a list of questions, the person was insulted about having to answer the questions via email.
It doesn't matter how well-qualified the person was. The applicant's attitude was rotten to the core and would have ruined the work environment.
6. Do background checks!
Here's where the Internet is really your friend. Do a thorough background on your finalists. Type their name in quotes and do a painstakingly comprehensive search. You can also take advantage of the many background search services out there.
Obviously you'll want to check with your legal counsel and the Department of Labor to ensure you're not breaking any laws, but some of these reports let you know right away whether your applicant is telling the truth on certain issues.
For example, if you're interviewing for an accounting position and your top applicant has done jail time for embezzlement, chances are you'd want to know that.
The bottom line is that due diligence is much more effective than a fogged mirror when it comes to identifying the best applicants. Do your homework. It pays off.
