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Five Big Mistakes Hiring Managers Make and How to Avoid Them

Guest post by: Stephen Blakesley

Article Overview: The role of "Hiring Manager" is a key position. It is the gateway to the organization's future. If you are good at the selection and hiring process you will likely have a bright future. If you are not you likely will not. Read about Five Big Mistakes Hiring Managers Make And How You Can Avoid Them.

Five Big Mistakes Hiring Managers Make and How to Avoid Them

One would think that the role of ‘Hiring Manager” within an organization would be a coveted role. Possibly it is, for those who are attracted to stress, but often it is shunned and endured. Acting as Hiring Manager is a high risk / high stress position within any organization. The predominate reason behind all the stress and risk is fear. Fear of making a mistake.

Hiring the wrong person for the job or hiring the right person for the wrong job. Often the fear is justified because the task of hiring is often looked upon as a secondary responsibility, and as a result, little or no attention is given to developing competency and expertise in the area. Here are five mistakes that Hiring Managers make that often lead to costly hiring mistakes and how you can avoid them.

1. Faulty Job Descriptions

2. Failure to Understand Competencies Driving Performance

3. Failure to Communicate Expectations

4. Failure to Assess the Candidate Psychometrically

5. Faulty Interview Procedures



Faulty Job Descriptions: Most job descriptions I see are laden with prerequisites like the “3-5 years experience” or “good work ethics.” They are lengthy and seldom read. I find hiring managers putting job descriptions on electronic job boards that have to be trimmed back because they exceed the word limit imposed by the job board (usually around a 1000 words). Many hiring managers actually believe that applicants read their ads, when all the applicant really does is scan for possible matches to their wants and needs and ignore the rest.

The best Job Descriptions are the ones that get read. If they don’t get read, nothing else counts. We believe job descriptions should seldom exceed 250 words. Two-hundred and fifty words make a one-page document. There is something magical about a one-page document. Advertisers will tell you that a one-page solicitation letter is more likely to get read than one with multiple pages. The same is true with job descriptions. Keep it short!

The most effective job descriptions are the ones that focus on outcomes and results. Many job descriptions that I see are vague wide ranging like the “operations manager will have excellent management skills.” A job description focused on outcomes and results would say “the operations manager will achieve a gross profit of 40 percent annually.” A description focused on outcomes and results will always be specific and will always be measurable. The benefit is two fold; the person in the job knows what the expectations are and the manager’s supervisor has an accountability tool and a coaching tool to help measure performance. I call this type of job description a Performance Based Job Description. It is a powerful tool in selection and productivity.

Failure to Understand Competencies Driving Performance : Job Fit is all about clearly defining the job and then understanding what attributes would need to be present for a person to be a superior performer in a job. You can not do the later without first clearly defining the job. Once you have defined the job and the outcomes expected you can begin to consider the attributes necessary to achieve the outcomes desired from the job.

A formal process of defining the candidate profile is called the Ideal Candidate Profile. It is a document that clearly describes what a candidate needs to have and how a candidate needs to be to be a superior performer in the job.

I have found the most effective means of communicating the picture is to provide a Desired and Essential grouping of competencies. The competencies can be divided into the to have type i.e. Education, Experience, and Special Skills and the to be type i.e. Emotional Intelligence, Values/Motivators and Behavior.

Now the picture of the Ideal Candidate becomes someone who fits between the Desired and Essential attributes of Education, Experience, Special Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Values/Motivators and Behavior. With clarity provided from the Performance Based Job Description and the Ideal Candidate Profile you have the foundation to better hiring. No job should be filled without the creation of these two powerful selection tools.



Failure to Communicate Expectations: I find most hiring managers don’t concern themselves with expectations until they have filled the position. It is almost like they are saying “fill the position and worry about performance later” as if they could inject the new hire with talent after they are given the job. How can you hire someone to do a job and count on them to do it unless the expectations of the job are clear? The answer is you can’t. The old adage that says “if you don’t know where you are going you are not very likely to get there” is painfully true when it comes to hiring.

If you coordinate the job description with the job ad and reinforce the expectations at the beginning of the opening interview you have done everyone, candidate and organization, a big favor. I recommend that the performance expected be communicated and communicated and communicated. I recommend that hiring mangers ask for acknowledgement from a potential hire right up front in the opening interview. Here is how.

You have just met the candidate interviewing for the job you posted on Monster. The candidate has been vetted by a resume screen, assessment and a telephone interview and they are to meet the organization for the first time in an Opening Interview. This is how you open the interview:

“Hi Mary, my name is Steve and I am your contact today. Before we get into a question and answer time I want to refresh you memory about the expectations of the job. Here is the job description we sent to you earlier. Would you take a moment to read it? (she reads it) You say, “Tell me did you see anything there you don’t think you could do provided you had the right tools?” She says “no I didn’t.” “Great,” you say, “that is what I thought.” “Would just initial and date it? It will become part of your permanent interview file.” Then you proceed with the planned interview.

What has just happened? You have done several powerful things; Sent the message that your organization knows what it expects and respects the applicant to share that up front; Told the applicant how there performance will be judged and what is acceptable performance as well as superior performance and finally provided a coaching and accountability tool you can use to help the person be the best they can be in the future.

Failure to Assess the Candidate Psychometrically: How do you see what you can’t see? With an assessment that measures the soft skills essential to superior performance but not readily apparent by observation in an interview.

Understanding what I call the “Three Great Rivers of Performance” and identifying their presence or absence in a candidate is a powerful selection tool. Those Rivers that feed into the lake of performance are what a person values, how a person behaves and what talents they have naturally.

There are only two ways we can determine the competency level one has in the three rivers; one is by observing performance and the other is by discovery through an accurate psychometric assessment. Most often we do not have the opportunity to observe a candidate in actual performance until after the hire and then it is too late if there are serious deficiencies.

There are many effective instruments that are sometimes better than observation so choose one and become expert in its use. A psychometric assessment system can be as much as one-third of the hiring process.



Faulty Interview Procedures: For some strange reason most hiring managers, if asked what part of their job they disliked the most, would say interviewing. That seems strange since people are an organization’s most important assets and interviewing is a major piece of the selection process. Still, there is an immense dislike of the interview by hiring managers. I believe I understand the reason and it is this: I am not trained and well prepared to do this job (interviewing). It is very important for me to make the right selection. It is part of my job but if I make the wrong decision, I get all the blame and may lose my job. All of that creates a stressful picture. If you do a good job at interviewing it is just your job and if you do a bad job it can cost you your job.

The biggest mistake hiring managers make in the interview process is tending to hire people like themselves and the greatest challenge hiring manager’s face is remaining objective throughout the interview process. The Performance Based Job Description and Ideal Candidate Profile can help but more is needed.

Most importantly, interview training for middle managers is a must. The hiring manager needs to know that the know more about the interview process than the candidate.

Preparing for the interview requires the interviewer to know what questions they are going to ask, ask them and most importantly listen to the answer and score the answers so that at the end each candidate is scored on their answers to the questions. A structure to the interview, such as, having an introductory script, predetermined questions that require more than yes or no answers are a powerful piece allowing the interviewer to focus on the answer by the candidate.

Behavioral style interview questions are all about asking questions that require more than one word answers. An example might be: “Tell me about a time when you had to admit that you made a mistake. What did you do? What was the outcome? What did you learn?” Becoming skillful in the use of what I call a hiring manager’s best friends; What? When? Where? Why? Who? And How? is a measure of competency in a manager. Each of these fiends helps to achieve the goal of listening eighty percent of the time and talking only twenty in an interview.

These behavioral style questions are not chosen at random but rather are a part of a planned discovery process, a process to discover if the candidate has and is using the talent required by the job. Clearly the interview is a third of the hiring process.

Become a "world class" Hiring Manager. Focus on and develop competence in these five areas to improve your organization and put yourself on a "Fast Track."

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Article Tags: behavior, emotional intelligence, himing manager, hiring, interviewing, motivatiors



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