Hone Competency-Based Selection and Interviewing SkillsTrain hiring managers to use structured interviews to reduce the incidence of bad hires.Bad hires are common and costly. More than half of new hires fail within the first 18 months. More than two thirds of hiring managers make hiring decisions they come to regret. The average cost of a bad hire can equal 30% of the individual’s first-year potential earnings.* What are these costs? Bad hires lead to:Expense of recruiting and training another worker: 37%Negative impact on employee morale: 36%***Talent acquisition specialists are accountable for quality of hire. They know: Structured interviews work: They know that a well-structured interview process can improve the quality of hire, and help organizations identify creative candidates. Hiring managers need training. Nearly 45% of recruiters say their hiring managers are not strong interviewers. That number climbs to 65% in large organizations.**82% of hiring managers reported that they missed clues during the interview process that indicated they were headed for trouble. Managers were either focused on other issues, pressed for time, or lacked confidence in their interviewing skills to heed the warning signs.*Lost worker productivity: 41%Lost time due to recruiting and training another worker: 40%There are no shortcuts to a quality hire. The results of unstructured interviewing have been found to be only slightly higher than random selection at predicting future success in the job (CIPD 2010).Structured competency-based interviews are more valid than unstructured interviews, can improve decision making, and are simple and inexpensive to implement. They are still the most reliable way to find top talent.Execution matters.Interviews are still the most common pre-hire assessment tool that hiring teams use, but a poor execution is sure to produce poor results.Stop asking candidates about the color of their personality.Carefully define the kind of candidate you want, ask questions that matter, and know what counts as a good answer.Finding top talent for critical positions is challenging, and poor interviewing practices are having an impact on business. Firms run the risk of missing top talent, incurring bad hire costs, and not making defensible hiring decisions.

Think about it: More than one in two hires don’t work out, and bad hires have a significant impact on the bottom line. A process with a 5-10% error rate would be re-engineered; one with a 20% error rate would be shut down. Yet hiring, one of the most fundamental HR processes, has an error rate of more than 50%.Google was once known as a company that pushed the boundaries of conventional interviewing. Intent on hiring only the best, it used unconventional questions like, “why is a manhole cover round?” and “how many Ping-Pong balls does it take to fill an airplane?” to uncover creative candidates. Many organizations followed Google’s lead.Example of unconventional questions:1. What kind of tree are you?2. Why are manholes round?3. How would you move Mount Fujiyama if I only gave you a spoon?4. What’s the color of your personality?5. How many ping pong balls does it take to fill an airplane?Unconventional interviewing questions are fun at parties, but they don’t generate evidence you can use.Industry leaders are returning to behavioral interview questions tied to key competencies. Use the job description to determine the competencies candidates need, and focus on finding related skills. Competencies are technical tools. Hiring managers are more likely to support the process if they understand that competency-based selection creates a shared language for conversations with their talent acquisition specialists.Competencies can help hiring managers express: Why they didn’t like a candidate you put forward. Why they liked a new hire after 90 days. What behaviors single out top candidates. What the position offers in terms of career development.The interview guide is critical. It allows:• Consistent candidate experience. • Consistency across multiple interviewers. • Information tracking for all candidates.Use McLean & Company’s Interviewing Tool to build an interview guide step-by-step:• Use the job description to identify relevant competencies.• Select behavioral questions that generate evidence for each competency.• Meet with the hiring team to calibrate what a good answer looks like.Most organizations are not good at making hiring decisions.Train managers to make better hiring decisions, and managers will reduce the time and money needed to recruit, interview, onboard, and train new hires to replace the bad ones.

http://hr.mcleanco.com/research/ss/hone-competency-based-selection-and-interviewing-skills