Assessing Risk

Last week we talked about identifying a diverse slate of qualified candidates for the open position you have on your team, and now we’ll discuss how to begin the process of evaluating the different options and assessing risk. When you get into the decision-making process, you will hear a lot about risk.

As anyone who has hired before knows, it can be very hard to gauge how a candidate is going to perform in the workplace through the interview process. How do you assess through a resume or an interview the most important questions: Are they a problem-solver? How do they take feedback? Do they fit the culture?

And the reality is that hiring the wrong person is expensive. In fact, it’s far more expensive than missing the right person. A study by Harvard Business School found that a superstar delivers more than $5,300 in cost savings to a company… but avoiding a toxic hire delivers $12,500. 

So it’s no surprise that we’re naturally risk-averse when it comes to hiring. The data support that decision.

Unfortunately, most of us are pretty bad at assessing “risk” when it comes to hiring. We often perceive hiring people like us to be less risky. We perceive hiring people who come recommended from other people like us to be less risky. While each incremental hire of a person who looks like you might feel less risky, when looking at your team all together – what you actually can’t afford is the risk of hiring a team of people who all look and sound the same. 

So start by unpacking the risk. What are people really worried about? Are there ways to support the person you’re hiring that can help mitigate that risk? It’s true that you may have to look for people who have not done the job before if you’re going to hire a set of diverse, qualified candidates. Qualified doesn’t have to mean that they have done the job before. In fact, it often doesn’t. It should mean that they have the skills to do the job well. Identifying those qualities in candidates is a skill in itself – one that you and your team should be practicing regularly.

The truth is that everybody does a job for the first time at least once. No prior experience in a specific job or doing a job for the first time should not be disqualifying. That type of thinking is how people get stuck.

Hiring qualified candidates without as much experience is possible. You still have to assess risk in a clear-eyed way. You may just have to problem-solve a little differently to provide the support necessary to mitigate the risks. 

And that support and investment is critical. Because if you don’t provide it and if you set them up to fail – it’s devastating to them and it makes it hard for everyone else, who follows, who might be different.