The January 2006 edition of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) is de- voted entirely to the decision-making process. It’s a great edition and provides a wealth of information for revamping the hiring decision- making process. Here are just a few key points HBRmakes about the causes of bad decision making:
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➤ Most decisions are made with little evidence. Managers tend to have preconceived biases, beliefs, and perceptions. Facts are then collected to support these preconceived ideas and contrary information is avoided, ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant.
➤ Consensus is good—unless it’s reached too easily. In other words, it’s okay to argue and disagree about a point of view: this way, more information is considered analytically. Subordi- nates should be encouraged to disagree, not be chastised for it.
➤ The only time you should make a gut decision is when you don’t have any. Time, that is. “Gut decisions are made in mo- ments of crisis when there is no time to weigh arguments and calculate the probability of every outcome,” HBR points out.
The previous classic decision-making errors translate into the following common hiring mistakes. How many have you observed in your company?
➤ Too many managers overvalue presentation skills and/or their intuition or gut when judging candidates. Anybody can determine in 30 minutes to an hour whether a person is a complete dud or a superstar. It takes much more time, insight, and skill to fig- ure out the ability of those in between.
➤ Most managers overvalue a narrow range of technical skills or related experiences and then assume global competence or incompetence.This approach ignores critical traits like motivation to do the work, organizational and planning skills, team leadership, and cultural fit.
➤ The up-down voting process precludes a balanced assessment across those job factors that best predict job success.For one thing, a “no”
vote is more highly valued than a “yes,” and little substan- tive information is used to determine either. The real critical issue is that it’s too easy to reach consensus when no one is allowed to present a contrary point of view. As a result, good people are excluded for the wrong reasons.
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➤ Balance across Critical Job Factors Is a Prerequisite to an Accurate Assessment
Accurately assessing candidate competency is the key to better hir- ing decisions. Unfortunately, given everything else going on, there is a natural tendency to short-circuit the hiring process. In the rush to decide, managers often overvalue one piece of data or the input of one influential person. We assume a candidate we initially like with a few good traits can do it all. This is how the partially compe- tent get hired. A somewhat nervous candidate who is apparently missing something may be improperly assessed and excluded. This is how great people often get overlooked.
Do not base the hiring decision on a few narrow traits. It must cover all job-related performance factors. Here’s an example that best demonstrates this point. A number of years ago, I started work- ing with a new client in the food industry leading a search for a di- rector of quality. One of the candidates had a low-key personality, and I was concerned about her ability to lead change. While other- wise qualified, during our interview process she just didn’t seem dominant enough for me. We didn’t have many candidates, so we reluctantly sent her to meet the client.
A phone interview with the CEO and HR vice president over- came my initial concerns. Their first interview was a combined three hours. They got detailed examples of complex quality improve- ments the candidate instituted, team-building efforts, and projects she led when working with government agencies in developing in- dustry standards. Her values and character were explored at subse- quent meetings, as well as technical competency, motivation, and critical-thinking skills. This was a superb well-rounded candidate with tremendous upside potential. She ultimately became a senior vice-president with this company and a recognized industry expert.
This was our first of many searches with this company and this per- son established the ongoing standard of quality for top candidates.
Without the company’s thoroughness in seeking balance across all factors of job performance, it is unlikely this person would have been hired. It’s an important lesson we can all learn from.
In the big scheme of things, hiring a top person does not take that much more time. It’s the rush to decide that causes most of the prob- lems. The evidence-based assessment and formal debriefing process
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described in this chapter should not be considered an impingement on time. It takes much more time to correct a bad hiring decision. In the process, you’ll discover some great people you might previously have inadvertently excluded. Here’s a great example:
Many years ago a vice president of finance at one of the major entertainment companies let a top-notch candidate slip away. The vice president was an intuitive interviewer and liked applicants who were smart, socially confident, and assertive. We sent in a great candidate who had all three traits in spades and more, yet tended to be a little tongue-tied early in the interview. I knew this and sug- gested to the vice president that he wait at least 30 min- utes before making any judgment. Unfortunately, the advice was ignored, and within 15 minutes this very prom- ising young man was eliminated from consideration. This candidate subsequently took a job at one of the competing entertainment companies and within a few years became one of their senior financial executives. Making the story even better is that this overlooked person negotiated the purchase of a major asset with the same vice president of finance who initially overlooked him, for a significant
“stick-it-to-you” premium.
This “decide and collect” approach to assessing competency needs to be eliminated from the hiring decision-making process.
The best way to do this is to “systematize it out.” In previous edi- tions to this book, I spent a great deal of effort presenting the case that interviewers should wait 30 minutes before making a hiring de- cision. This is still important. By consciously putting emotional bi- ases in the parking lot, objectivity is increased. By measuring first impressions at the end of the interview, the interviewer better un- derstands his or her own biases. However, this is not enough to eliminate biases and emotional decision making from the hiring process.
By setting a few rules and procedures, a company can proac- tively systematize these bias-causing errors out of the process.
Here are five key steps involved in implementing this type of evidence-based assessment process:
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1. Evaluate all candidates for every position in comparison to the real job needs.The performance profile sets the standard here.
2. Don’t give any interviewers other than the hiring manager complete yes/no voting rights. Instead, assign each interviewer a subset of factors to evaluate.
3. Assess all candidates using a formal assessment tool across the best pre- dictors of job success using a clear ranking system.In this chapter, we introduce the 10-Factor Candidate Assessment template, which serves this purpose.
4. Conduct a formal debriefing session with all members of the hiring team actively participating. Submitting written notes is not as effec- tive as a conference call or meeting.
5. Generalities, gut feelings, and intuition are unacceptable inputs for ranking a candidate. Facts, dates, details, and specific exam- ples must justify the ranking for each factor.
Using an evidence-based assessment process will go a long way toward eliminating the following common hiring problems:
➤ Bad hires: People who can’t or won’t do the work, don’t fit your culture, or can’t get along with others. This problem is usually caused by overvaluing presentation skills and mak- ing a hasty decision.
➤ Mismatched hires:People who are competent to do the work, but don’t want to do it. This problem is caused by lack of un- derstanding of real job needs and overvaluing the depth of technical competency during the interview.
➤ Incomplete hires: People who can do parts of the work well, but not everything. This problem is caused by interviewers who overvalue a few traits and then assume global competency across all job needs. This is also referred to as “bad intuition.”
➤ Nonhires:The great people we didn’t hire. Sometimes good people get nervous during the interview and give dumb or short answers. Some great people, even top salespeople, don’t make good first impressions. Sometimes great people are unimpressed by an unprofessional interviewing process and shut down.
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