90% of the game is half mental

In dodgeball, pick the big guy with a strong arm. Beer League softball, focus on even gender ratios, good conversations, and preference of roasted malts. Look at the professional world and that is where things get batty. Any person who has dedicated their careers to talent acquisition can talk about how comically difficult some hiring managers can make this. Whenever a team is assembled there are specific criteria actively or subconsciously in effect that guides the eventual additions.

Looking through the lens of ISO9001, hiring an employee showcases the underpinning of an effective Quality Management System. Context identification and risks should be shown in the records of the job posting. HR and the hiring manager’s preparation for the interview show upper management engagement and key resource availability. As cross-functional people are drawn in, the inputs and outputs expected of the new hire are discussed.

Point is, the hiring process is a process. All processes benefit from having clear objectives, targets to keep control and feedback loops.

I worked with a hiring manager who had obstinate interview acceptance. For every 200 resumes that would hit HR, he would see a handful. For every 25 interviews he physically sat in on, he would offer one a job. When I started in his group we had 6 open positions and I estimate that our supporting HR group chewed through close to 750 resumes for each hire. Based on the level of scrutiny, the results should be measurable and long-term. Yet, his year after year turnover was over 80%. His process was broken.

This hiring manager is a perfect case study of process control. He had the inputs, which were the prescreened resumes. He had a series of repeatable actions that he did as the process. He had an output of the extended offer. Then his process stopped. There were no feedback loops or analysis of success. Everything was mixed into the next and things became "gray". In dodgeball and softball you know right away if you pulled together the right team. Work is similar, just more variables.

Of course, sitting back unbiased with no skin in the game, this is an easy analysis. Most processes are exactly like this one though. “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is not the definition of insanity, it’s the description of a poorly understood process.