Five Big Hiring Mistakes Most Companies Make

and How to Avoid Them

 

Recently our partners conducted a survey among hundreds of hiring managers in large and small companies across the country*.  The question was “What percentage of new executive hires fail to meet expectations in the first year, and why?”  The response was a staggering 56%.  Why?  Five of the top ten reasons are listed below.

 

·    Trying to catch a tuna in a trout pond.  Most companies have become very proficient at finding candidates who need a job.  They only ‘fish’ in shallow waters where the aggressive candidates are found. They don’t have a systematic and company-wide process to ensure they are attracting passive candidates, not just aggressive ones. No matter what your screening process, if you start with a bottom quartile candidate, you’ll only hire the ‘best of the worst’.

·     Looks can kill.  Most hiring teams rely too heavily on first impressions when making the final hiring decision.  The candidates who ‘look the part’ often get the easier questions and aren’t probed for detailed answers.  Just because a candidate appears to come right out of ‘central casting’ doesn’t mean they can deliver the results you need.  The hiring process in any company needs to be rigorous and systematic in order to keep a first impression from driving the interview.  Otherwise, the best actor gets the job, not the best worker.

·    Making the first hoop too small.  Hiring teams placed too much emphasis on specific education, technical skills and industry experience that screened out qualified candidates early in the process.  If just having a lot of experience was a good predictor of future success, there would be a lot more golfers breaking par. Hiring is not about checking the ‘requirement boxes’; it’s about defining expectations and finding executives who can deliver.  

·    Rock-skipping interviewing.  Most interviewers skim across the candidate’s background never getting any depth before moving on to the next question.  Over 90% of the respondents indicated that their hiring teams did not deeply probe or verify a candidate’s claims.  Why? Most interview training is tribal; people ask the same questions as the last person who interviewed them.  Few companies train their people in how to interview.

·    No-one-put-the-destination-in-the-navigation-system.  This was the #1 hiring mistake.  93% of the respondents said their job descriptions focused on experience and skills, not on company expectations!  Quite simply, executives did not meet expectations because specific goals, objectives and timetables were not defined and discussed in the hiring process. The job description drives the whole hiring process and traditional job descriptions don’t describe the job, they describe the person.  They are input driven, not output driven.

 

Hagerthy & Co. utilizes a success-driven search methodology that is designed to avoid the top hiring mistakes most companies make and bring you the top quartile candidates who will deliver the results you want.

For more information on our search methodology, our workshops and our executive briefings visit our web site at www.hagnco.com.

 

From the book “You’re Not the Person I Hired! A CEO’s Survival Guide to Hiring Top Talent” by Janet Boydell, Barry Deutsch and Brad Remillard

 

 

Interim Executive Search

 

Six Things to Know Before Hiring an Interim Executive

 

Mike was a co-founder of one of the earliest and largest Interim Management Companies in the country.  He has completed over 200 interim executive searches and is one of the country’s most experienced executive recruiters in this field.  Below are some tips to keep in mind when hiring interim executives:

 

1.  No one ever has a “general problem”.  A “generalist” is rarely the right fit for an interim assignment because companies don’t have “general problems.”  Be wary of providers who have a “bench” of executives ready to jump into your company.  They may require a steep learning curve to accomplish what you need.  Industry experience does not always translate into the specific problem solving experience you need for your company.  Hiring an interim executive or project manager is not the same as hiring a temporary A/P clerk.  

2.   It’s not the size of the “inventory”; it’s the caliber of the recruiting process.  Interim executive search is just that, a search. An interim executive search firm should have a clearly defined process designed to find the interim candidates who will deliver results you need. A large database is meaningless without a defined recruiting process. Look for a process that will ensure you see candidates who have solved similar problems to the ones you face, not just have right key words in their resumes from a database search. Beware the company who promise candidates in days.  You will end spending more time interviewing candidates who can’t deliver what you need done.

3.  Be Prepared to over-hire:  Most interim assignments are a result of a problem or an opportunity for a company that they don’t have the internal resources to handle.  An interim executive or project manager will need to be able to quickly get their hands around the situation and start making decisions.  A more senior executive is usually able to get up to speed faster.

4. Career consultants rarely are good interim executives.  Interim management assignments require that executives make decisions and execute on those decisions.  Most career consultants have spent their careers advising, but have not been held responsible for results.  Line executives make better interim executives because they are “doers”, not advisors.

5.  Don’t pay consulting rates for an interim line manager.  You should be prepared to pay a premium for an interim executive, but it should still be closer to what the position would pay if it were a full time job, not an hourly consulting rate.  Consultant rates are based on shorter increments of time and on only being billable an average of 50% or less.  An interim executive will most likely be in a position full time for several months and an hourly rate could get cost prohibitive.  Additionally, there is a good chance you may eventually hire the interim executive for the position.  You don’t want to start off with the executive being paid way above the salary range and have to negotiate a substantial cut in salary.

6.  It’s Not a Marriage, it’s a tryout.  One mistake companies make is to put too much emphasis on an interim candidate’s “fit” in the organization.  That should be a low priority.  You are hiring this person to solve your problems over a short period of time.  Whether they are a fit for your organization can be determined over the course of the assignment.

 

Five Big Mistakes Most Companies Make

When Choosing Recruiters

 

Over the past three years our partners conducted a survey among 425 CEO’s and Senior Executives to examine the top mistakes and false assumptions made when choosing a recruiter to fill critical positions. The following are the five big mistakes most companies make when deciding which executive recruiter to engage:

·    Mistake #1: Assuming there’s a GARRP (Generally Accepted Rigorous Recruiting Process) Participants in the survey assumed that all retained executive recruiters have a rigorous recruiting process designed to deliver expected results.  This was the #1 mistake made in working with recruiters.  Industry statistics show that less than 65% of all executive searches are completed by the search firm.  The Success Factor Methodology employed by Hagerthy & Co. is a process that overcomes the #1 mistake when it is used both by the recruiter and by the hiring company.

·     Mistake #2:  Using “Functional or Industry Expert” as the Primary Criteria for Choosing a Recruiter.  Survey participants found that a narrowly-focused recruiter often just produced aggressive candidates the recruiter knew were looking for a job.  They believed the recruiter just called their “Rolodex and ‘recycled’ candidates from prior searches rather than make the effort to source deeply in the market.  Developing a Compelling Marketing Statement about the position and using it to convince top talent to raise their hand to learn more about the opportunity is what the best recruiters do and why they can recruit top talent in any industry.

·    Mistake #3: Assuming all Recruiters Help a Client Define a Great Job.  Participants in the survey contracted with a recruiting firm assuming they would help in effectively defining the position.  Most felt that at best they got a re-write of their original spec with several pages of added “boiler-plate” thrown in.  When both the recruiter and the executive use our Success Factor Snapshot tool to guide the search project, accuracy and success “soars” like an eagle on a consistent basis.

·   Mistake #4: Assuming All Recruiters Do a Good Job of Assessing Candidates.  The participants were “underwhelmed” by their executive recruiter’s ability to conduct an effective interview.  Most were stunned to find that their recruiter didn’t have a clue as to how to deeply evaluate a candidate.  Most recruiters conducted “meet-and-greet” sessions that measured “likeability” and if they would interview well with the client.  They didn’t measure whether the candidate could actually do the job!  Hagerthy & Co. uses our 5 Core Question Interview Process to overcome this fundamental mistake.

·   Mistake #5:  Assuming All Recruiters Fish in the Deep End of the Pond.  Our survey participants were consistently frustrated by the average and mediocre candidates brought forward on search assignments.  They concluded that most recruiters “fish in the shallow end of the pond” by running ads, making a few referral calls and looking in their database of aggressive candidates.  The results were that clients were seeing only “the best of the worst”.  Our Success Factor Methodology uses an approach that gets directly at candidate motivation to drive top talent to raise their hand to want to learn more about the opportunity.

 

Hagerthy & Co. utilizes a success-driven search methodology that is designed to bring you the top quartile candidates who will deliver the results you want.

 

For more information on our search methodology, our workshops and our executive briefings, please contact us at our offices.  Click here to contact us.

 

 

 

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Hiring Process Assessment

“Our financial statements are about 50% accurate”…

“About half our products work fine”…

You would never expect to hear statements like that about a company’s business systems.  We just don’t tolerate a 50/50 hit rate.  But when it comes to hiring, surveys consistently show that about 50% of new hires fail to meet expectations in the first year.  Why?   Hiring is a process like any other process.  If it’s done inconsistently, you get random results; like flipping a coin.  Do you really want to trust the future of your company to a process that is as accurate as flipping a coin?

We are your hiring partner

We partner with you to build the team that will take your company to its full potential.  We produce top quartile candidates for your senior positions and we work with you to develop an internal hiring process that will consistently bring you excellent people throughout your organization.  

Hiring Process Assessment

Hagerthy & Co will do a complimentary assessment of your company’s current hiring system. We look at the five major processes and assess them for consistency and effectiveness.  This is a complimentary assessment and it gives us a base line from which to work with you.  We assess:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We complete the assessment in a few hours and then will present our findings to your hiring team in a one hour executive summary format.  Team members are given an 8x11 laminated card that outlines the hiring system and a CD to use for review when they are getting ready to start the hiring process.  We give you the cornerstones of our hiring system and highlight the specific areas where your team can do a better job of attracting and maintaining top quartile talent.  

 

For more information contact Mike Hagerthy (310) 265-4406 or mike@hagnco.com

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