*Edited for HR.com
Can you really say you, or the other interviewers in your company, can single out the High Performers from the master performers? If you've made your share of hiring mistakes, then it's unrealistic to think you'll suddenly start hiring only the best now. With huge job loss numbers in the news daily, everyone knows finding a job is tough. For each job opening, the quantity of applicants applying is in record numbers. Recently in Miami, 45 job openings drew media attention as applicants began camping out the night before. In Atlanta, thousands of job fair attendees waited in a line that wrapped around the exterior of the Convention Center. The stakes have never been higher for both applicant and company. When it comes to hiring the best, an abundance of applicants does not make it easier. Applicants are becoming more educated and are pulling out all the stops to be the ONE selected even when they're not the best pick. These convincing candidates finally reveal themselves after the hire through sales that don't close, deadlines that pass and customers that walk. In this dangerously fragile economy, one bad hire could spell disaster for a company already on the edge.
High Performers are the problem-solvers, not the excuse-makers. Rather than wallow, they take positive steps. They get results while others fall short. They focus on and creatively figure how to do it even when everything's stacked against them. When the going gets tough they get going and it's not just a cliché! What separates High Performers from the rest is how they respond to obstacles. The economy is not only the biggest obstacle that many companies face, it's becoming the biggest excuse people use for not achieving. Challenging times reveal a person's true attitude - be it good or bad. Unless you know how to accurately expose this vital info before hiring, you may end up with employees who produce excuses rather than the results you need to move your company through these tough times.
For those companies who are hiring, or will be soon, the time to sharpen your employee selection skills is right now before more hiring mishaps can happen. For those of you who know me, you know I'm an advocate for changing oneself in order to one's results. The same goes for companies. To hire better employees (the results), the company's interviewers must change. No change means zero improvement. You know the old adage; "You can't do what you've always done and expect different results." To hire more High Performers, your company's interviewers must improve their hiring skills.
Company executives would be shocked if they found out just how little formal training those involved in selecting the new employees had. A decade of surveying interviewers revealed that more than 80% had zero training. The less than 20% who had received some kind of training typically stated it consisted of one or more of the following: legal do's and don'ts, interviewing basics, or behavior-based interviewing - none of which are useful for identifying and hiring High Performers. The untrained interviewer was common. Those forced to rely on interviewing experience to teach them what they have learned had a greater chance of making bad hiring decisions. A workshop attendee who held a high-level job stated even though he had been interviewing and making hiring decisions for 19 years, he never felt confident in what he was doing. He said he had some good hires but also had his share of mistakes. He added that he had wished he had received training 19 years ago, that it made a difference in who he selected.
Under-trained isn’t much better. Many interviewer training programs are inadequate. They don’t teach how to effectively identify the High Performers. Rather, they focus on hiring based on skill level alone. Sure, the High Performer has great skills. Just look at Tiger Woods. He has great golfing skills. Skills, however, are just “enablers”. They enable a person to do a job but they don’t motivate them to do it. Skill assessment by itself doesn’t predict future job performance. Those of us who have hired a highly skilled candidate only to be disappointed understand that there is more to achieving great results than just a person’s ability to do it. That means, there’s more to hiring High Performers than just assessing skills.
Few companies really know what kind of prior training their interviewers have had. It's as if bad hiring is thought to have no ramifications or hiring well requires no special training - and that couldn't be further from the truth. It would be like an airline not knowing if their pilots had the right training and let them fly their planes anyway. Bad hiring doesn’t have to happen. An average-performing employee should be the worst any interviewer hires. If you think there may be room for improving your company's hiring results, a good place to start is to survey everyone involved in bringing new employees on board. Find out exactly how they learned to hire High Performers...that is, if they did. Below is a simple, downloadable survey form you can use. Have your interviewers (Managers and HR staff) complete and return the form to you within 48 hours. It only takes about 2 minutes to fill out. The results just may shock you. It will tell you whether the interviewers in your organization need training or not. Every interviewer should know how to distinguish those motivated to get the job from those motivated to do the job. With the abundance of applicants out there and the obstacles ahead of us, correctly singling out those who will produce the best results from those best at interviewing is a BFOQ for all interviewers, especially now with the Oscar-winning interviewing performances are on the rise.
Click here to download the free Interviewer Survey Questions.
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The HIRE/HIGHER Attitude is a Newsletter for anyone involved in the employee selection process and everyone interested in understanding outstanding achievement. We tackle two topics; hiring high achievers and becoming one. High achievers, or “High Performers” are people who achieve extraordinary results. We are dedicated to teaching people the dynamics of achievement for the purpose of maximizing both corporate and personal success. From a corporate perspective, to become the best, a company must hire people who find a way to succeed despite what others may deem to be insurmountable obstacles. We share interviewing techniques that will better enable you as the interviewer to distinguish top performers from pretenders. From a personal perspective, it’s simple: the power to achieve is present in all of us, and given a clear perspective through knowledge, success is a natural progression. To SUBSCRIBE - Go To: Newsletter.HireAuthority.com, click "Subscribe" and enter your e-mail address.
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