Biggest Flaw in Recruitment

You spend years choosing a life partner, investing countless hours in testing their weak points and thoroughly analyzing their behavior. In contrast, to hire a team member, 3 hours are usually all you get. It may seem strange to make this comparison, but when you consider the daily time spent with each of these two, you realize that, on many days, your loved one sees you for only half of that time.

Does it make any sense to have such a big difference in how we choose the people around us in our personal versus professional lives?

Of course, personal and professional relationships serve different purposes, but there’s still a huge discrepancy in how much time we invest in making these decisions.

This is why we end up with teams that work together from one company to another, and why valuable employees tend to form tribes that complement their skills.

The solutions used to address this problem seem incomplete:

• One such solution is the trial period, where a few months are spent working together before deciding if the match is right. Awful golden standard! It only works well for both parties if everything goes smoothly. Otherwise, the company wastes money and time, only to end up back at square one, while the employee is left with shattered dreams, needing to restart their job search. In some cases, they may have even left a good job for a supposedly better opportunity that doesn’t materialize.
• Another possibility is a lengthy hiring process. While startups usually can’t afford this, it’s more common among big players. However, it significantly increases costs and takes ages to complete, so for companies trying to stay nimble, it’s not a great solution. Even if resources weren’t an issue, the chances of success don’t increase much, making this a better but still far from perfect solution.
• Employee referrals can sometimes work, but we often assume that if someone is great at their job—like a programmer—they can also assess a potential new hire from all perspectives. This is an unrealistic expectation that adds bias and can lead to unnecessary tensions if problems arise.

How would you feel being asked to spend 20 hours in a recruitment process?        

Andrei Ghiorghiu