The Best Candidates Are Rarely the Best Hires

Many companies have problems in expanding their diversity hiring programs. None use the diversity wheel, developed by the Diversity Leadership Council at Johns Hopkins University. It covers the full breadth of difference. Most people end up hiring people like themselves. Moreover, most hiring processes are designed to ensure this occurs.

Some of this happens during the filtering phase and the balance during the interview.

You must change at the process level; otherwise systemic and personal bias will continue to rule every hiring decision you make. Companies spend too much energy on trying to find “ideal” candidates. However, there is no correlation between great candidates and high performers.

I shared an earlier insight, How to Eliminate Bias from Your Selection Process. It is a companion article to this post.

Bridging the Gap

Focus on finding, assessing and recruiting people who will ultimately become high performers bridges the gap. Here’s how:

• Together we assess the full talent stack — you check the skills and knowledge, we assess the alignment of the candidates’ behavioural traits with high performers in the roles, and together we evaluate the accomplishment and wisdom
• Post jobs stating the outcomes required for the individual to be a success in 12 months
• We determine leadership traits, to give you an indication if the candidate is a further leader
• Evidence-based decisions — Interviews are designed to assess competency, motivation and fit with the actual performance objectives of the job eliminates most errors due to bias and emotion. Use people analytics and our best-fit staffing
• By considering the full talent stack, you are open to more diverse and high potential talent who have a different mix of skills and experience without compromising quality.

Harvard Law Suit

Students for Fair Admissions first brought the lawsuit against Harvard in 2014. It points to the University’s long-controversial consideration of legacy status in admissions processes. The admission rate of legacy applicants is over five times that of non-legacy students, according to one court filing.

Over 33 percent of legacy applicants—Harvard hopefuls with at least one parent who graduated from the College or Radcliffe—gained admission to the Classes of 2014 through 2019, according to documents filed in June 2018 in an admissions lawsuit against the University.

Talent Management Is Essential to Success

Time spent on hiring is time well spent.” – Robert Half

I have written about talent management as a set of integrated organizational workforce processes. We designed these processes to attract, develop, motivate and keep productive, engaged employees, and removing those who do not fit.

Strategic talent analytics is your key to building a high-performance workforce— essential in today’s world. Everyone needs to take responsibility for the success of the organization, not only his or her jobs or areas. Our people analytics along with our governance analytics makes sure that it happens.

Comparable problems to the Harvard lawsuit exist when it comes to hiring. Here’s an indication that your hiring processes produce replicas of people who were previously appointed:

• Do you automatically reject individuals who do not match your job description? Many high potential candidates will not be an exact match to a job description that sets out the same academic and experience background as everyone you have already engaged. Diverse candidates tend to have a different mix of skills, experiences and educational backgrounds.
• Do you require your new hires “to fit an existing culture”? Such a requirement is anti-diversity. However, the more significant problem is that the cultural fit is a subjective assessment that is left up to each hiring manager to decide.
• Are any assessments based on the first impression? This is a primary driver of cultural bias. It often determines the types of questions asked and who gets hired. People who do not meet the standard cultural fit stereotype are assumed less competent and asked harder questions to prove their incompetence. Nine percent of decisions are made within one minute.
• Do you use knockout questions? These questions are designed to weed out the weak. However, they filter out diverse candidates who can do the work but have a different skill set.

Excellent Candidate vs Superb Hires

Here’s a quick exercise. Consider one of your high performers. List the 10-12 factors that make you consider this person as a top performer. Now, look at the posting used to recruit the person and note the 10-12 essential elements in the posting. Compare the items representing an excellent candidate to those defining a high performer you see there is little correlation between the two.

Here’s an example

The differences boil down to:

• Great Candidates — what they have
• High Performers — what they do

Our analytics show that employees who meet or exceed expectations have these five core behavioural competencies:

• Maintains Accountability
• Strives for Excellence
• Manages Stress
• Demonstrates Character
• Connects with Customer

These competencies along with being likable are essential to employee career success.

Our leadership ladder sets out the behavioural competencies required at each level of leadership. I encourage you to have a robust succession planning process. It lets employees know where they stand. It facilitates creating effective employee development plans. Great candidates will come to you if they believe you will develop them into leaders.

Traits Correlate with Performance

People are not your most important asset. The right people are.” – Jim Collin

The best people have a different mix of skills. Their traits are the best indication of what they are going to do with those skills. Some of the best hires I have made did not make a perfect first impression. They were the people who never let me down.

We can predict the likelihood of a candidate meeting or exceeding expectations with 85% reliability. This has been certified by the American Psychological Association.

Proof in the real world — an Insurance company found that 93% of sales advisors pinpointed by SuccessFinder as high performers met or exceeded performance expectations one year later. The company avoided over $150K in training and onboarding costs due to better hires with higher retention rates.

Define the Job Before Defining the Person for the Job

Think about what you need to be accomplished in the next 12 months. Define the four to six outcomes, that if achieved would give the person in the role a top rating — full bonus. Use that wording in your job post.

Candidates who are competent and motivated to do the work will have the necessary mix of skills, experiences and competencies. This is rarely in the same mix as on the original job description. More important, it removes the lid on quality of hire and broadens the diversity pool.

While shifting to using our assessment and a performance outcomes approach is the essential first steps in your process redesign effort.

Eliminating Interviewer Bias

The second step is removing interviewer bias. Here are a few ideas that have been extremely effective:

The First Question

You need to manage the bias that initial impressions create. When setting up your meeting advise the candidate that the first question they will be asked is “What single project or task would you consider the most significant accomplishment in your career so far?”

Spend the next 15 to 20 minutes discussing the details. The details underlying the accomplishment are what is most important. Compare what the candidate has accomplished in comparison to what you need to have the person perform in the new role. Forget crafty questions during the interview, or box checking their skills and experiences: spend time learning to get the answer to just this one question. Getting the answer to this one question is all it takes.

Make It A Group Decision

You need to have a collaborative hiring process.” – Steve Jobs

Few industries invest as much into each “hire” as professional sports. I have shared some lessons from pro sports that business can learn. In business, the success rate is under 50% to even get someone who meets expectations. High performers are rare commodities. A company finds fewer than 10% top performers.

Inclusive decision-making produces better results than decisions by individuals. Teams make better decisions than individuals 66 percent of the time. Moreover, the most diverse groups made better decisions 87 percent of the time.

A best practice is to have independent assessments from panel members. Their assessment focuses on understanding the person’s significant accomplishments as they relate to the objectives of the open job.

Evidence-Based Decision

If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire and amateur.” – Red Adair

Substitute evidence for emotion. A formal debriefing process with interviewers verbally sharing specific evidence is essential. Not only is bias exposed this way, but comments based on “feelings” are discarded. Including our behavioural assessment information provides the necessary objective evidence.

An Equal Relationship

Many hiring managers think they are that are “buying talent” and the candidate is selling talent.” This embedded bias ensures a biased outcome in your process. By recognizing both parties as buyers, interviewers treat prospects respectfully, objectively and professionally.

You may have heard the punchline to some recruiting humour — The Devil looked at her and smiled. “Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you\'re staff.” You want to ensure your new potential high performer gets an accurate picture of your organization. It is as important as you getting good evidence about them.

Many companies talk about the importance of hiring great talent. Expanding their diversity hiring efforts is a significant goal. However, little progress has been made.

Short-term initiatives and being more efficient doing the wrong things masks required activities for growth. The eliminate skills- and experience-laden job descriptions. Shift to an evidence-based performance qualified selection process using advanced talent analytics. You will hire more high performers.