Recruitment is Hard
All the employers I work with are worried about recruitment. It is hard to find people at all, and harder still to find people who will be a good fit with your organization.
We don’t know what we don’t know
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Talking to Strangers highlights a number of ways that we all make assumptions and impressions that may not be accurate. These underlying beliefs impact relationships at work and in the community and contribute to some social inequities. His conclusion: It is very difficult to understand other people.
Job interviews may not be useful
- Even highly trained CIA agents can’t tell when someone is lying. Both Cuba and East Germany successfully managed spies high up in the CIA for years. It is unlikely that a hiring manager will be able to tell if an applicant is lying.
- Personal interviews may actually lead to poorer decisions. We learn essentially nothing from “looking the person in the eye” or a “firm handshake.” Personal charm and charisma can cloud judgement and implicit bias may lead to prejudice.
Sendil Mullainathan and a team from Harvard ran a study comparing pre-trial release decisions made by NYC judges who spoke with the defendants versus an algorithm that knew only the defendant’s age and previous record. The algorithm was 25% more accurate predicting criminal behavior than the judges, and the judges released almost half of the defendants that the algorithm flagged as the 1% most likely to commit another crime. - Humans are social animals. We are hard-wired to rely on each other. Our evolution has led us to "default to truth." We assume other people are telling the truth until overwhelming evidence to the contrary cannot be dismissed.
Please note the word "overwhelming." There are many examples of people described in the book who were uncomfortable, suspicious or skeptical but took no action, often for many years, until the evidence became overwhelming. - Emotional transparency is a fallacy. We may interpret the facial expressions of others, but we are usually wrong. This is particularly true if the job applicant is from a different culture from our own.
What can we do to overcome job interview shortcomings?
- Incorporate people with different roles and backgrounds on employee selection teams. Typically, an interview will be conducted by a manager, sometimes with a representative from Human Resources. Try broadening your team to include a second manager from a related department with whom the new employee will need to interact, or who manages an upstream or downstream function (a production manager joining the interview for a salesperson).
- Spend more time and effort on pre-interview screening (when you have not met the applicants). Use a recruitment screening service or develop your own on-line skills tests and scenario questions.
- Do group interviews so that no one person’s opinion determines the selected candidate. Create interview teams that reflect the diversity of your applicant pool. People with different life experiences will pick up different cues.
There are no guarantees. Hiring is one of the most time-consuming, stressful and difficult parts of being a manager. Take some solace in the knowledge that you are not alone.
Contact SWB Consulting Services to help your company build the recruitment process that works best for your business.
