What are the worst mistakes hiring managers make?

Often, rather than letting the HR and Recruiting functions provide input on what past hiring practices have yielded (both in retention and also bad hires) the department may make the same mistake over and over. If you are a customer service based industry hiring qualified CS professionals is what you are looking for - more than individuals who did the same job you are hiring for. If you are providing your own internal training - why hire another company's poorly trained or attendance problem employees? Look instead for Customer Service expertise in other industries. Then train then on how you want it done in your organization. Saves money on unemployment when you have to terminate for non-performance, attendance, etc. and it saves time in not having to break bad habits.

Utilizing automated resume application systems. These systems depend on a predetermined sequence of information and many times miss the ideal candidate. A part also includes using lower lever HR personnel to do screening of resumes.

I would add a saying from my childhood. Haste makes waste. When you need to hire someone right now, you are most subject to that saying. A local company opened a new location here and hired almost 5000 people last fall. To date they have replaced almost 60% of those new hires. The cost of training those that were replaced can never be recovered. While the costs are greater to due what is required, the result is better employees and the long term savings exceed the original costs. Remember you are hiring people to represent your business, to serve your clients and attract new customers so it is important to secure the best available. In today's job market the best of the best are willing to accept a smaller salary and reduced benefits but if you don't find them, everyone loses.

I tend to agree with Melanie and Cheryl- many times hiring managers have great knowledge of the organization and also many years of service invested, however they tend to look for people like themselves and/or what the organization was looking for 10 or even 15 years ago. On the other hand picture letting HR and Recruiting do all the hiring for a specialized department, for example, Social Welfare. They may not know the specific qualifiers to see that candidates not only have the great work history, but will also fit in with the organization culture and specific population being served. In my opinion both HR Recruiter and the dept. lead or director team-leading the interview series is best. Also the organization must place and enforce importance on consistent, best practice hiring for all departments in their policies and procedures.

I've seen a lot of hiring managers who have been trained how to conduct a competency based interview, sit in an interview and end up telling stories more than asking questions!

The problem of course, with this is that when the hiring manager gets to the point of making a hiring decision, they're unable to articulate why they want or don't want a particular candidate. Decisions based on 'gut feel' dont provide your HR team with the information they need to help prepare effective onboarding programs and longer term professional development plans for the candidate/employee.

In my opinion that the reliance on the preferred part in the candidate's resume and ignore the other negative parts is an unforgivable sin.
For example: can not hire Sales Manager just because he is skilled sales management, and ignore the improper personal attitude, which may be not in line with the entire business enviroment, becuase that can lead to a reduction in the productivity of all partner departments.

Definitely great responses. I really like the posts from Cheryl, Nadine, Melanie and Candice. Just to add my 2 cents on these 4 subjects.

Planning - You need to know where you are going to get there. Definitely plan the interview with the ideal candidate in mind. Everything should be centered around what you need in the position. This would include conducting "Due Diligence" on the applicant and resume. Be prepared.

Listen more - You learn more from listening and asking open ended questions. You may find the right person that just does not interview as well as the wrong person who interviews well. This could save a lot of time, energy and money.

Industry specific searches - While some positions and knowledge are, by nature very industry specific. Many are not, but we accept the belief that we must have someone with industry specific experience and miss out on great talent. Hiring cross industry, when possible can bring new insights, best practices, lessons learned, etc... into your organization if done appropriately.

Clear process and purpose - This ties into everything else. Planning for future needs as your organization changes and grows. Hire based on skill and fit for the position. Hire for diversity in viewpoints. This will build a stronger team. Building a team of similar people will only emphasize weaknesses and inhibit opportunities to learn and grow. Communication, consistency in procedure, measurement of results and adapting to a changing environment and needs will drive success.

There is one thing I would like to add to the list that I did not see mentioned.

Thinking that you will get the right person 100% of the time. You can plan, execute and follow through with the perfect plan. However, at the end of the day interviewing and hiring is a gamble. Everything you do is to increase the odds of success but does, in no way guarantee it.

We have all hired the person we though would be the perfect person only to have them fail miserably. On the other hand, you have probably hired someone who you thought was marginal and they turned out to be the best employee you have ever had. It is part Art and part Science.

There are a lot of things hiring managers make. For example: Looking purely at job years (years in field) instead of job experiences and whether they would work harder than anyone else, hiring based off of who they can pay the lowest, not making sure the person is an actual fit with the company and the department, not letting the manager who they are going to work with meet them and hiring based off of grade point average. There are tons of things, but those are the ones that stick out in my mind.

The worst mistake is thinking that they should have access to the personal and private data on websites, myspace and twitter; and also thinking that that information is verifiable, accurate, or objective data to make an objective hiring decision..

great podcast on this topic .. Hey Recruiters, what I do online is my business and not yours! http://www.hirecentrix.com/hey-recruiters-what-i-do-online-is-my-business-and...

Focus on Hiring not based upon what You think You Want for the position, instead focus on what is NEEDED to get the job done

Thanks to everybody for the feedback on this. I plan to collate your responses under a number of key headings and add my own list of common mistakes. I'll be posting it as a Briefing Document here on Focus and will acknowledge your contributions. If anyone doesn't want a mention, please let me know within the next week.

Cormac
Research has validated that hiring managers make a decision about who to hire in the first 3-5 minutes of an interview. In that short period of time managers cannot possibly know if the individual is competent to do the job or is the right fit. Managers generally hire 'like kind' or mirror images. They hire people who they can immediately relate to. While this may feel good, it may not get you the right person to do the job you need done or the right person to fit with your team.
The solution: Behavioral Interviewing techniques. Training managers on how to ask questions that help them determine if the individual brings the skills and chemistry will increase the potential for success.

Turnover is costly to morale. It is also costs 150%-200% to replace ech person who leaves according to SHRM and other research organizations. Investing in behavioral interviewing training can save an organization a huge amount of money. We'd be happy to give anyone advise on how to improve their ROI on hiring - BMiller@ArtemisManagement.com

Barb

Before leaping into things like behavioural interviewing (which have been demonstrated to be no more effective than "gut feeling" - see New Scientist for details), companies would be much better off pursuing an effective investigation into their own problems in hiring and addressing specific issues caused by the techniques they employ.

Turnover is costly to morale, but new unscientific techniques are costly to the bank balance, better to address real problems than invent them.

Hi Nik,

I'd be interested in seeing a link to that New Scientist article or a date of publication. My own view is that Behavioural Interviewing does not replace "Gut Feel" but serves a critical role in "Educating" it. I have seen the difference between Educated Gut Feel and Raw Gut Feel in operation, so I would be interested in seeing the New Scientist take on it.

Many thanks

Cormac

One of the worst mistakes that can be made when hiring a new employee, and the one that compounds the problem, is not having a clear understanding of what skills and competencies are needed to be successful in the job in the future. Most companies select employees based on the skills that are needed today, vs the skills that will be needed in the future. This creates a situation where the employee is unable to contribute to long tern success because their skills were outdated the day after they started. This creates the need to have to go through the selection and hiring process again and again. With an eye to the future, hiring employees with skills for the future will ensure you have a long tenured workforce, not one that changes every year.

Brian, You failed to mention the reasoning for that mistake. Many employer's fail to hire the over qualified applicant because they fear that as soon as there is a higher paying position available elsewhere, they will leave. While this does happen, it is not as frequent as one might imagine. When an employee feels they are in an environment where advancement and growth are available, where the atmosphere is comfortable and where employees are a respected part of the company, they are not so likely to leave when something else becomes available. The current job market is filled with a gold mine of talent that seems to be overlooked. Instead of seeking the exact match for a position, seek a match for 2 to 3 levels above what is currently needed. I have talked with a number of MBA's that have been turned away by BA holding HR personnel. My personal feeling is many of those doing the screening will avoid recommending or hiring applicants who are more than qualified to replace them. My experience has taught me that to succeed you must hire the best available without consideration of the applicants over qualification, age or gender.

Cormac:
This could be a long and tedious answer. As others pointed out most managers hire reactively not proactively. They need a body- now. They don't fully think through the totality of the position beyond the standard KSA's for cultural fit, ability to work with the team, etc.
Most managers rely on "gut" in their interviewing which has been demonstrated to be highly unreliable. Other big issue is the "halo" effect- a single characteristic positive or negative effects the entire view of the candidate.
Many times they also assume the "new" hire should be just like the person they replaced or just like them (the manager).
I have an article on my website called Hire Hard- Manage Easy you might enjoy....
Cheers

@ Nik
Actually Nik, behavioral interviewing when done properly has a 55% success rate, that's not my opinion, that's based on data that's been collated over the years. When you add a battery of testing to a well designed behavioral interview format, you increase that percentage significantly.

Regarding the original question, here is my response. Recruitment and selection are one part of several integral HR systems. The reason that most hiring managers fail is due to a lack of competence and poorly designed HR systems. Very few organizations have taken the time to understand the many important moving components of selection.
*Culture-can you articulate your culture to the candidate and how will you determine if they are a possible fit
*Interview process- which competencies are critical and how have you incorporated them into the behavioral interviewing process
*Team or Panel interviewing-who is interviewing the candidate, do they follow your process and then how is the feedback from each interviewer used in the decision making process
*Testing-What scientifically validated tests do or should you use
*What values are critical to the organization and how do you incorporate those when assessing candidates

Most HR departments don't realize that if you get this right, and few do, it's just the first step in the process. If your on-boarding orientation process isn't working properly, you could lose the candidate. If your performance management process doesn't work properly, you could lose the candidate. If there are no learning opportunities that allow individuals to build their competence or grow personally or professionally, you will lose the candidate.

When we look at recruitment and selection, it's really only the first step in a very integrated process. Just like Jerry Sienfeld commented to the car rental company when he an Elaine went to pick up their car. You know how to make the reservation, but you don't know how to hold on to the car.

Chief mistake is failing to do the pre-notice prep work necessary to develop an unambiguous job profile of the open position. Without a clear idea of the detailed work activities to be performed, which will be performed most often at what proficiency level and which are most critical, then the recruiter will have no concrete behavioral anchors or objective metrics for screning applicants. Conversely, a muddled signal to the talent pool about the precise nature of the job will invite a flood of irrelevant applicants - likely to the degree that appropriately qualified persons are apt to be lost in the cattle call.

Chief mistake is failing to do the pre-notice prep work necessary to develop an unambiguous job profile of the open position. Without a clear idea of the detailed work activities to be performed, which will be performed most often at what proficiency level and which are most critical, then the recruiter will have no concrete behavioral anchors or objective metrics for screning applicants. Conversely, a muddled signal to the talent pool about the precise nature of the job will invite a flood of irrelevant applicants - likely to the degree that appropriately qualified persons are apt to be lost in the cattle call.

One of the key things that make our hiring practices successful is providing each applicant a copy of the written job description when they submit an application. We keep our j.d.'s up to date and accurate, so we don't get those who are simply looking for any job. Most of our applicants are via electronic means, so providing electronic copies is easy. We provide our benefits information online so they can also look that over. There have been a lot of comments about "culture" here. One key part of the hiring process (to me, anyway) is finding out why the previous employee left. That may sound obvious, but may not be. I don't want the next person leaving for a reason I could have planned for or corrected for if at all possible. (Think bad supervisors, for example.) As for "gut feeling", I give that a lot of credence. As long as there's experience behind it. And I also always include people the prospective employee would be working with in the process because they can come up with questions management or HR would never have thought of. Those doing the hiring need to know the people in the department. You can teach techincals to people. You can't teach them how to get along well and communicate well with other people if they don't have similar social and communication skills with those already in place. By the time they hit the job market, it's usually too late for such a change.

The worst mistake managers make is to hire the best job applicants rather than the best future employees. If we want to hire better employees, we need to evaluate the job finalists to learn which of them has the best chance for job success. Some people call this hiring for talent and others call it job matching but in any case it allows managers to avoid making selection mistakes.

Hiring on ability rather than attitude. Ability can be taught, attitude generally cannot.

Two mistakes hiring managers fall into when recruiting:
1- Often, I have seen managers recruit candidates soley based on the fact that the candidate has similar background, education or exprience of that manager himself. This "recuitment of clones" has a negative impact on the business down the road as you will be sending a message to everyone on who is "acceptable" in the company.
2- "Initial reaction trap", is when the recruiting manager whitin really first couple of minutes makes up his mind that the candidate is hireable and spends the rest of the interview trying to justify the hiring.
In my exprience I have come across both examples repeatedly and and as professionls we need to be aware of this and solve it.

Mohammed, great comment but then I think you hit two major hiring mistakes. Being aware of it is the hard part, solving it is the easy part.

Supervisors often presume that poor job performance indicates a poor attitude and that good job performance indicates a good attitude, therefore, hire for attitude. Why not just hire for performance and skip the guesswork about attitude? The funny thing about attitude is that it is proportional to job success. Job success creates a good attitude and job failure creates a poor attitude. The cure for employees with poor attitudes is to hire employees who are competent and who have a talent for their jobs. Hint, talent is easier to assess than competency but you can't find it on resumes nor in interview notes.

I have consulted to many "hiring managers," especially in the financial and Insurance industries, as well as helping many academic institutions and hospitals select the "right" individual. Here is one point I tell all to remember, whether it is a project manager, financial advisor, teacher, football player, coach, engineer...hire "Emotional Intelligence" an attribute that clearly impacts performance.

Make sure, as a minimun, high self awareness, able to manage emotions, and interpersonal effectivness is "demonstrated"in the interview. In other words, do not believe references--it is easy to get a good one.
Instead, use the interview to collect "emotional behavior"-what the person does it often very different than what he or she says. For example, one hiring manager in advertising told me. "In this business, it is essential to be able to take criticism productively, so I want to find out if the applicant gets defensive when criticized. Naturally, if I ask the applicant, he or she is "always open to criticism. So what I do is I don't ask. I just start criticizing their portfolio. Those who get defensive are out; those who say, "tell me more, how could it be better," stay.
If you need help "hiring EI," contact me and I will help you, but the point to remember is that if you hire the wrong person, at least if he or she has high EI, it minmizes the problem.

Lots of great answers here, but one I do not see is regarding after the hire is made in the onboarding process. So many times good people never really understand all that they need to know about their own workplace (what their company actually does, history of the organization, how departments interrelate to one another, how their role affects the rest of the firm, etc), and without this understanding it becomes very easy for employees to focus on the small picture (the tasks in front of them). I do believe a hiring manager is only as effective (or ineffective) as the leadership of their organization. A fantastic hiring manager who is handcuffed by short-sighted or misaligned C-suite occupants will find it's not only hiring that suffers.

This is becoming a fun topic. There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to making the right hire as we are fundamentally dealing with something unpredictable - human interaction. I do have a few rules that I apply when coaching interviewers and screening potential candidates:

1) Do not oversell the job - be honest about what you like about the company and find interesting about the job, but also be honest about why people have failed or struggled in that role.

2) Make sure the candidate talks - if you are talking more than 30% of the interview, something is wrong. The candidate should talk and you should listen. If you understand and can relate to the candidate then chances are good.

3) Plan for mistakes - you will make wrong hires - no matter how hard you try not to. Be prepared for it to happen, have backups and be willing to see the signs coming and address it early.

4) Experiment - try different styles of interviewing and try different things. A different interview style may help you identify better talent for your industry and who can work with you better. High EI may be great for the marketing company down the block, but you may need high EQ more than anything else. Find an interview style that identifies what you need.

5) Trust your gut - no matter what, trust your gut. If you are uncomfortable, if the person doesn't seem 100% right, if something is out - chances are it really is. Dig around till you can find what is causing it, or just let go. Your gut will mean more than you think.

There isn't a perfect hiring solution. You will make mistakes, learn from them, plan for them and make your company a better place to be.

The easy solution is to hire for talent. Predicting human interaction is not difficult it just requires managers to assess for job related talent. Trust your gut until you can verify it and if you cannot verify your gut feeling then ignore it since it might be a bias or just gas. The best applicants make the best employees about 20% of the time.

@Bob
The idea of trusting your gut, just doesn't cut the mustard Bob, it's proven not to be an effective decision making approach. Hiring for Talent is only one part of the equation and it's not even the most important. From my research and work in this area, I've come to realize that Culture Fit, trumps talent each and every time. I'm not suggesting that Talent is important, just that it's not as important as Culture Fit, and there is plenty of empirical data to support that statement.
The one consistent mistake that I've seen with all hiring managers, is a lack of an effective process combined with poor decision making.

Hiring managers need to understand:

1) they are the face of the company, representatives of the organization
2) they must interview / hire with strict adherence to laws, regulations, org. policies
3) must be fair, avoid liability for the company, and judge all interviewees consistently
4) can/should ask for guidance from the HR department; or from external sources
5) should use a company standard, job description as a baseline from which to make hiring decisions
6) understand hiring is based on long-term company strategic goals - never hire someone to get the process over with quickly and done; this is a fellow human being's career and livelihood at stake (as well as reputation)
7) they must live with the decision they make for hiring
8) understand or ask employees what 'went wrong' or was a 'negative' when they were hired to ensure the issues are not repeated

I've been in the HR business for 20+ years, and the most incredibly dumb things managers do is 'forget the start date' for an employee, not being prepared to welcome them into the company (relying on admin clerical folks to show the new hire around), not giving new hires enough information about their own jobs, tasks, and responsibilities, or relying totally on HR to do the initial orientation and welcome to the company.

The dreaded 'probation' period should be a judgement on the Supervising Manager - NOT the new hire. The manager has 30, 60, or 90 days to ensure the new hire is up to speed, trained effectively, and has all the information they need the first day and week to pick up immediately for 65-75% of the tasks for which they were hired.

There should be policies written by management and human resources (cooperative effort) that X should be accomplished by Y deadline as a task or responsibility of the hiring manager and human resources (or whomever has additional responsibility - such as an OSHA manager for training, etc.). There should be new-hire packages loaded with information that is up-to-date or at minimum a short introduction to the employee portal and company website where they can easily look information up at a moment's notice.

This is probably more answer than you asked for, but I'm on a roll today!

Respectfully,

Dawn Boyer, Small Business Human Resources, Career Consultant, and LinkedIn Coach
D. Boyer Consulting, Va. Beach, VA 23464
Dawn.Boyer@me.com - I accept all LinkedIn invites (LION)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/DawnBoyer
Follow me on Twitter: @Dawn_Boyer

A lot of good things had been posted.
Best mistakes or things you must not forget in a hiring process:
1.- Matching candidate competences making SAR questions (Situation - Action - Result) with job requirements.
2.- Matching candidate values with company values.
3.- Matching candidate expectations with the future of the company (strategic plan) and management style.
Is a mix between candidate competences/expectations, company values and management style. All must match up in the short-long term from the beginning.

John, I apologize for not being clear. Let me rephrase my thoughts on gut feelings. We all have gut feelings and our gut feelings are related to our own education, experience, biases, personalities, and even ignorance. Therefore, our gut feelings may say more about us than the job applicant. Sometimes our gut feelings are correct but before we act on them we must verify that our gut feelings are more than just a gut feeling. If we cannot verify our gut feelings, we need to ignore them since to do otherwise is unfair to the applicants, the employer and ourselves. In other words, gut feelings alone should never be relied upon in the selection process.

Speaking from a Call Center perspective:

1. Stop asking for Resumes up-front, and instead start conducting ‘Voice Auditions’ with your Job Candidates. Regardless of what’s written in someone’s Resume – you need to ensure that a Candidate has the right ‘Telephone Personality’ for your Contact Center jobs. It’s very important that you hire Agents with a pleasant, clear speaking voice (power, pitch, pace and pause). Your customers want to speak with Agents who communicate professionally –who are easily understood - and who don’t sound like a ‘script reader’. It’s only after a Job Candidate passes their ‘Voice Audition’ that you should invite the Job Candidate to submit a Resume.

2. Administer Skills Testing to your Job Candidates. You need to ensure that a Candidate can demonstrate a minimum acceptable level of proficiency in specific areas such as: Names, Spelling, Comprehension, Typing Speed & Accuracy, Grammar, Audio Transcription, and Data Entry Skills. Please keep in mind that while it is a Best Practice Step to screen Candidates using Typing Tests, Audio Transcription Tests, Windows Literacy Tests, etc. – a Skills Test Pass Rate only increases the likelihood of predicting the long-term effectiveness of a Job Candidate for a Call Center Agent position to 53% - and that’s just a bit better than flipping a coin!

3. Administer a Personality/Job-Fit Assessment to your Job Candidates. Personality/Job-Fit Assessments are best at forecasting the future success of a Job Candidate for a Call Center Agent position. Candidates for Call Center Agent job need to have a unique constellation of Traits - and specific amounts of those Traits - in order to successfully complete the Job Requirements. A Call Center Agent’s long-term success depends much more upon Temperament/Personality/Job-Fit Factors than on Product Knowledge, Past Experience or Skill Set. Personality/Job-Fit Assessments allow you to select new Call Center Agents who will fit your employment needs better - and stay on the job longer - leading to a Call Center Agent Workgroup that has more experience and is more productive.

Top performing Contact Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through superior hiring tactics. We help employers gain better insight & more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of Candidates would perform up to, or beyond their established standards. You can find out about a Free Trial of SPAS Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software at http://www.telesoftsystems.ca/64201.html

Kudos to Nanci Lamborn, I believe you and I are on the same track.

Yes we all want to do an outstanding job in the actual hiring process, in other words making the best hiring choice from the cadre of applicants.
It's often said and I have for 25 years subscribed to the notion"During the interview in almost all cases we see the applicant in their best form. Best appearance, alertness, ect, then its usually down hill after that" some truth to that!

I have coached organizations which have been corporate and non-profit to have a solid "gameplan" in the Onboarding area by establishing specific accountabilities: I'm leary of having lots of policy then we become like building big government..however, must do the following: (1) In the accountability area must have a Supervisory Orientation Checklist in place, which requires several actions by the hiring supervisor to include outreach to the new employee before the actual first day of work...This is done by the hiring /managing authority..and is followed by a list of things to be accomplished in the first week of work, i.e. introducation to co-workers, work office or station, ect...(2) Always coordinate with the HR group on when the official New Employee Orientation program will be presented, always ask for written feedback/evaluations on critique sheet, always confidential.(3) Always incorporate the benefits manager in the program to cover programs then arrange 1-1 appointments with benefit section, and finally pre-arrange a brief hello with as many senior executives as possible. Yes its making a commitment, so are we making a major financial outlay for our new Human Capital. In summary the Supervisory Orientation Program implemented effectively can be the most critical piece in the ONBOARDING PROCESS". Can share this process..its defined and accountability to ensure compliance starts at the very top.

In the hospitality industries, it's really tough finding reliable and prefectly good employees. This is due to the fact that hospitality service have no benchmark or it's done respectively. What is right at this moment, can be otherwise the next. Most of the time, as long as the credential is sound assumption is that he/she is suitable. The rest is up to the training and coaching by respective countries. Therefore , mistakes is high on the list.

@Peggy

I've never found it tough to find reliable and perfectly good employees and have been doing this for over 30 years. By the way, it's tough finding reliable and good companies, it cuts both ways.

The key is to ensure that your interview assessment can determine if the employee has a passion for service , the right attitude and that the position is the right career fit. You can't train employees to be hospitable, even though I see so many people try, it's a waste of time and energy. If the individual isn't friendly or hospitable to begin with, all the training in the world can't change who they are.

Hi Trevor - great question. I posted my response on the Career Edge Organization blog: www.careeredge.ca/CEOblog

Hi. I feel quite strongly about this and recently posted an article on my blog about this http://spencerhuntconsulting.wordpress.com if you want to read about hiring practices and the mistakes managers can make when hiring. I think one of the main things hiring managers do is quite simply hire what they think they need. This sounds like the right approach but it isnt. Managers need to assess the tasks and related competencies, plus consider the culture and values of the organisation then amalgamate these into a thorough and specific interview structure. It is only by measuring competencies, fit with value and culture and so on that we can get the right fit for the role. I agree with many comments above, particularly Vince 'haste makes waste'. it is very easy to 'like' someone at interview but find they dont fit the spec/organisation/job/culture etc. Planning is key!!!