You’re thinking ‘OK, Catchy title, but what do you really mean?’ Well that’s exactly what’s intended, fire the hiring manager. I’m not talking about firing the person, but, rather, I’m suggesting we fire the role. It’s not a good role, and one that far too often, results in a poor staffing decision.
Why do companies involve the manager in the hiring process? The answer is that we tend to believe that the hiring manager is closest to understanding what skills, abilities, competencies, experience and education are needed to be successful in the job. But, of course, that’s not true much of the time.
Think of the someone like the former head of Citigroup who came up through the legal office. He did spend time as a COO so he probably has a good idea of what it takes to be the COO, he also had been CEO of divisions within the larger organization so he knows what a CEO needs (putting aside the fact that as CEO of the whole corporation he managed to put the bank into a bankrupt condition).
What does he really know about marketing, or what it takes to be a great CIO or a great CFO. He probably knows quite a bit, but not nearly as much as all those people who report directly to the CFO or the CMO or the CIO. In fact, while this lawyer was deemed as a good candidate to run the company as a whole, he would not have been put in the position as CIO or CMO or CFO. The people who report to those roles understand that job and, collectively, are likely to be in a better position to define what those skills, abilities, competencies, experience and educational requirement should be. Why do we rely so heavily on the hiring manager? Is it just tradition?
Of course, being able to do something and actually doing it, are two different things. It is sobering to realize, as Michael Zwell points out in his book Creating a Culture of Competence, that “It is not unusual for the job to be defined as hiring managers interview candidates...as they (the hiring manages) expand their knowledge and understanding through the interview process.”
1 In other words the criteria for a job changes as more candidates are interviewed.
But lets say, for argument’s sake, that the manager is in the best position to define those skills, abilities, competencies, experience and educational requirements for the job. And lets even give that manager credit for laying these requirements out precisely. Now the question is this: Is the manager trained and skilled at finding people who actually have the required characteristics? The answer here is clearly “NO.” Research has shown that on average, interviewers reach final decisions about applicants after only 4 minutes.
2 This is hardly time to determine if the candidate is qualified on that basis.
<p>Research shows that what is really going on is that the hiring manager is hiring the person he or she likes the most.
3 More coming....
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1 Zwell, M., Creating a Culture of Competence, John Wiley and Sons, Inc, New York, 2000, p.231
2 Judge, T,. Higgins, C., Cable, D., THE EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEW: A REVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCH AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH, Human Resource Management Review, Volume 10, Number 4, 2000, page 384
3 Burnett, B., The Peak Interview: New Insights into Winning the Interview and Getting the Job, CreateSpace, 2010 p. 37
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