As part of a project with SHRM, I’m identifying the reasons why quality of hire has not improved over the past 20 years, despite all of the new recruiting tools and many technology advances. The purpose is to help small companies compete with their larger rivals for the same people. Following is the essence of what I discovered. As a side note, many of these ideas are described in this Performance-based Hiring video just released on Lynda.com.
As you’ll discover in the video, the ideas are appropriate for any company, recruiter or hiring manager who wants to improve the quality of the people being seen and hired. Here are the basic principles:
1. Focus on the right goal.
The objective of any hiring initiative should be to hire the best people possible. Too many talent and HR leaders violate this guiding principle every day. Instead of maximizing quality of hire, their focus is on reducing cost and being more efficient. This leads to the Staffing Spiral of Doom Catch-22. When maximizing quality of hire is a company’s foundational talent strategy, all of the downstream processes are designed to achieve this goal.
2. Don’t ignore the law of diminishing returns.
When it comes to hiring, this law clearly states that once everyone has the same tools, everyone will get the same results. In the case of hiring it means everyone will be hiring average people for ill-defined average jobs with the only difference being the employer brand, location and compensation package. To evade the law you need to have better jobs, stronger recruiters and fully engaged hiring managers.
3. Fit the job to the person, not the person to the job.
The best people aren’t looking for lateral transfers; they’re looking for career opportunities that offer more growth, more impact, more learning and more satisfaction. I’m now working with Harvard Professor Todd Rose, the author of the new bestseller The End of Average, on this concept.
His research reveals that in order to maximize individual personal performance you need to modify the job to better fit the person. According to Rose, too many companies are still trying to force fit top people into generic jobs based on generic competencies and generic skills.
4. Messaging matters.
Your messaging needs to differentiate your job, company and culture. You achieve this by being compelling, creative and different.
I worked with a small UK marketing company last year that posted a job for an HR and Admin wizard who had mastered the fine art of chewing gum and duct tape. They hired a person who agreed to fly over on his broom. The candidate signed his email “Harry Potter.” The person has already been promoted twice and is now running one of their business units.
5. Time matters.
Slow done. Sell the conversation, not the job. Don’t filter people in or out based on their skills or negotiate the compensation before the person knows about the job and you know about the person. And don’t let your candidates filter out your jobs on these short-term factors either. Too many good people are inadvertently excluded or exclude themselves this way.
It takes hours spread over weeks for a top person to fully understand the career potential of a different job. By spending more time with fewer top people you’ll not only hire stronger people but get great referrals from those who don’t find your jobs perfect for them.
6. The leadership qualities of the hiring manager matters most.
While hiring managers hire people in their own image, recognize the reverse is also true: The best people accept jobs from those who are in their own image. Clarifying job needs up front, conducting an in-depth comprehensive interview and investing the time necessary to recruit the person are parts of how hiring managers can demonstrate their leadership skills.
7. You need to offer the best people a 30% increase.
A great career move requires a job that offers some stretch, more impact, more growth and more satisfaction. If the sum of these is greater than 30% you have the foundation for a solid career move.
This is determined by comparing the person’s current job and rate of growth to what your open job provides. You won’t be able to determine any of this unless you clarify real job needs up front, invest the time to conduct an in-depth interview, stop filtering on things that aren’t related to performance and prepare compelling messages that attract the best.
By doing what everybody else does you’ll get average results. Don’t be surprised or disappointed. Being different is how you get better results. This is how the best people find their jobs and how you need to find the best people. Following these seven principles will help you be different.
Topics: Quality of hire
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