Are you familiar with the saying ‘people are your business’? Do you believe it to be true? We certainly do. And we believe that one of the most difficult, yet most important elements of any business is the recruitment process. And as Einstein is saying, what got you here, won’t take you there. The message is simple … killer hiring mistakes can have a significant impact on the future of business.
What got you here, won’t take you there.
Einstein
During the hiring process, you really must take into consideration many candidate behaviors, attitudes, and strengths. Even the person who is talented sometimes doesn’t have the right personality and team chemistry to add to your team. You must avoid killer hiring mistakes.
Check out our thoughts on team leverage.
Bringing in exactly the right people is paramount to any business and teamwork is one of essential ingredients for most businesses.
Related post: Who Will Be Your Next Employee?
Tuning in during the interview process to gauge how well a person would fit in the office every day, where they’d inevitably interact with their colleagues and be part of the agency ecosystem, matters quite a bit.
If you want to build an efficient team, it starts with having the best people. Creating a talent advantage begins with smart hiring. That said, it never ceases to amaze me at the number of businesses who put little energy and time into mining for talent.
Smart leaders do more than just hire smart people – they have an intelligent hiring process and focus on the qualities they want.
Put simply; people matter. The problem is that very few people possess the talent to identify talent. Identifying and recruiting talent requires much more than screening a resume and having a set of standard interviewing questions to guide you. There are issues of values, vision, culture, context, etc. that need to be creatively and intuitively addressed in the hiring process.
In today’s post we’ll recommend considering the most glaring killer mistakes we use in hiring workshops with our clients:
Recruitment process … looking for the perfect candidate
The desire to find an ideal candidate will often lead to looking for more qualifications that a job may require. Hiring overqualified people usually ends up in an unhappy employee because they are not sufficiently challenged. An employee gets splendid at a job through experience. So trust this process, which will permit you to hire a seven on your rating scale and to grow them to a 10.
Succumbing to the affinity effect
Familiar with the affinity effect? This result means we tend to hire people like ourselves. When we make decisions with our gut like we often do, we are subconsciously evaluating in comparison to ourselves. This is not what you want to do. Try to find people who think differently than you in a way that complements your thinking.
Recruitment process mistakes … too cost driven
Don’t lose a highly qualified candidate because they want more than you’re offering. While salary is rarely the most significant factor in a candidate’s decision process, it is still significant. But be aware of any potential internal issues in comparative wages and, if they are present, deal with them before you decide.
Hiring mistakes employers make … no job success profile
Don’t just focus on the tasks required performing a job. Also, consider the skills and behaviors necessary to be successful in that position. Before writing a job description, draw up the list of competencies required for success. Can you picture someone who was on the job who did an average job as well as someone who was a star? That will help you in defining a profile of these success competencies.
Killer hiring mistakes … wrong interview focus
Do you know the biggest mistake in the hiring interview process? It is the fact we spend way too much time on topics that don’t help us in deciding whether a candidate has the requisite skills. Remember the best predictor of future success is past behavior.
Related post: 13 Daring, Yet Most Effective Interview Questions
With this in mind, spend your interview time with very specific, very behavioral questions. For example, ask the candidate to tell you about a time when they had too much on their plate or to describe an experience when they had to deal with an angry customer.
Takeaways
You can hire the best talent in the world, but remember that ‘best’ is a subjective evaluation primarily measured within the context of a snapshot in time. Obsolescence can take root in anyone if growth and development do not focus points. Development needs to occur at every echelon of the workforce … the top, middle, and bottom performance tiers.
Hiring is a blend of art and science. The reality is that those organizations that identify, recruit, deploy, develop and retain the best talent will be the companies who thrive in the marketplace.
Avoid these hiring killer mistakes. Never be done with your recruitment and building your team, life is a continuous learning experience for you and the team. Team building and talent development takes work and a consistent process, but you will be pleasantly surprised the impact it will make on your business and service.
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
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Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.