Summary:

In today’s world of new organizational forms such as joint ventures and strategic alliances and with the growing presence of teams, free agents and networking, finding the right person to fill a job has become more complex. Nowadays, the CEOs of two companies of the exact same industry may need entirely different skills and personal styles. Even though interviews, reference checks, and sometimes even personality tests infuse some logic and predictability into the hiring process, 30-50% of all executive level appointments end in firing or resignation. The point is explained with the help of a case where Franco Bernabe, who had earlier successfully transformed world’s largest telecom company ENI, was hired to run Telecom Italia. The management considered Bernabe’s skills so appropriate and even the stock price rose by 5% on his appointment. Only six months down the lane, Bernabe’s efforts could not distract a takeover bid by Olivetti and he stepped down. Another case used explains a similar case where the board appointed a veteran to run a more-than-a-start-up joint venture. Less than a year, the decision ended in disaster and a series of events including resignations, frustrations of employees made sure the company went close to bankruptcy. When companies move a slow pace, mistakes could be absorbed. But, today, global competition, capital markets and news media make a senior executive’s performance a high-profile affair.

There are ten deadly traps in hiring:

1. The reactive approach: After firing or resignation of an old employee, companies look for a similar person to fill in the shoes. The problem with such reactive approach is that it focuses its search on the familiar personality and effective competencies of the predecessor rather than the job’s requirement.

2. Unrealistic specifications: The long and detailed job descriptions are usually compiled without considering the critical priorities of the new manager, thereby, making less people match the description.

3. Evaluating people at absolute terms: Praise and criticism are doled out in absolute terms. In interviews managers are asked some absolute questions to which opinions are rendered in a vacuum which evaluate people in absolute terms.

4. Accepting people at face value: Candidates are taken at face value and they are only seen putting the best effort to gain the job and their failures and negatives never get highlighted in an interview.

5. Believing references: References care far more about their relationship with the candidate than helping the interviewer who they have never met.

6. The ‘Just like me’ bias: More than biases such as race, gender, nationality and halo effect, an interviewer is biased in rating a person who he feels is similar to him.

7. Delegation gaffes: Most recruiters delegate jobs like creating job description and also sometimes, the first round of interviews. This can lead to losing a promising candidate.

8. Unstructured interview: Most interviews are loose talks that are more like a friendly chat. A highly qualified candidate who does not excel at chitchat could get rejected.

9. Ignoring emotional intelligence: Most companies look for hard data like education, IQ, job history and rarely look at the soft data like emotional intelligence. It has been researched that unsuccessful managers had their largest deficiencies in emotional intelligence. Companies also need to choose emotional and social competencies.

10. Political pressures: People are likely to hire their friends, people who superiors recommend so that they get an ally at work. They are sometimes tempted to hire weak people to save their chances of getting ahead in the organization. Politics in hiring acts like a quicksand and makes recruiters to make mistakes.

Executives must not fall into these pitfalls and need to follow a systematic process of problem definition and need to do some homework. A series of carefully planned steps can put the key to ‘hiring right’ within reach. In the problem definition phase, the team should do the following things –

Define requirements that will be driven by the company’s strategy Collect competency requirements from the current employees Specify minimum qualifications required for the job Describe competency requirements clearly in behavioral terms Consider emotional intelligence in the job description Achieve consensus with all those involved in the hiring decision

An example of successful hiring has been illustrated with a case where the CEO of a bleeding European conglomerate replaced every business unit head with unexpected individuals with the sole purpose of filling the jobs with right competencies. The conglomerate has recently created enormous share value in the last decade.

Next phase involves generating and evaluating candidates and finally recruiting the right person. Recruiters have to use ‘high leverage sourcing’ in order to look for strong candidates. It means not looking for candidates but looking for people who know strong candidates. Also, adopting a boundary less mindset will work which will help prevent traps like ‘Just like me’ and reactive approach. After generating a list of candidates, the evaluation phase begins. Trying to

assess candidates at the same time as selling a job can be a mistake as it diffuses the energy needed to fully and dispassionately evaluate candidates. Instead, search teams must focus on conducting structured interviews as they are highly intuitive. In the best case, such interviews need to be conducted by more than one person in the organization as it provides powerful checks and balances within the system. Companies need to increase the number of independent interviews if looking for a long-term employee. Checking references is also an important part of the systematic process. It can be done by contacting the references and judging them. The reference conversation needs to be as rigorous as the interview itself. During the interview, the most important part of selling a job is to understand the main motives and the primary fears of the candidate. At the same time, it is critical not to promise something the company can’t deliver. Finally, nothing convinces more than conviction. The best hires are always are the result of an outstanding level of persistence.

Hiring well requires a systematic approach. It also requires something stronger than discipline. Executives must never veer from the list of competencies and they need to invest time and effort to define the problem and do the homework. But mostly, a systematic approach falls apart due to eleventh hour hurdles, but it can be taken for granted that they will mostly result in firing or resignation.

Critical analysis of the article:

The article talks about the increasing importance of hiring process in today’s world of globalization. The scenario is similar to that of the real world where attrition rate of employees have become huge threats to organizations like Infosys, Tata Consultancy services. Retaining the right talent and also selecting the right person for the job has turned out to be the most challenging job of a HR.

The article rightly explains the various traps that can lead to faulty recruiting. All the points elaborated are true to current scenario. How many times have we seen the role of politics in hiring? How many times have interviews failed to gauge the candidate? How many times have recruiters suffered from various biases and ended up selecting the wrong candidates? The article scores well in identifying each of the mistakes that are committed during recruitment. Full points for the intensity with which each point has been discussed.

The article fails to clearly clarify as to how to improve recruitment process. Many organizations which are hiring thousands of people each year are not able to follow a systematic approach in selecting candidates. In today’s scenario, it is very difficult to decide upon the skill set as a lot of jobs and the work environment and highly dynamic in nature. Every time the company reconsiders a strategy or ventures into a new product or shifts a manager to another division; it cannot exactly scrutinize the manager according to the skills. However structured the

interviews are, the success of the hiring process will remain highly elusive. Other than that most hiring fail because the companies are not able to keep the employees satisfied. Companies mostly make false promise during recruitment leading to high expectations which they are not able to live up to.

Observations about the article:

It is a fact that most hiring process is filled with biases and often is influenced by politics. It also degraded by a vague set of competencies for the process which filters out the qualified candidates. In today’s world, managers are looking for higher salaries and higher job satisfaction. They are also ready to move to a different job because some of them just like a change in their career. The article clearly explains the faults in recruiting and makes a sincere effort towards remedies that could reduce ineffective recruitment of candidates.