Failed Stars: Improving Recruitment Processes in Organizations to Avoid Failures

Almost everyone has heard this story:

With great fanfare, a company, organization, or academic institution recruits “a star.”?Within a short period it’s clear to almost everyone that the marriage is a failure.

The question of why star recruitments fail has been poorly studied, but is of great interest not only to leaders of companies hoping to fill positions—but also to the stars themselves.?When a star recruit succeeds, everyone wins.?Company and individual reputations are enhanced and revenues grow.?When he or she fails, there is a threat to the company’s continued ability to attract talent and painful embarrassment for the recruit.

During my academic career, I studied the reasons why recruitments fail in healthcare through structured interviews with leaders at a variety of organizations that had experienced “failed recruitments.” While the study focused on healthcare, the lessons I learned can extend to all fields.? Better understanding the reasons for failure can inform the design of improved recruitment processes.

Failures in Recruitment: Explanations

While recruitments fail for different and highly specific reasons, several key themes emerged in my interviews. ?These themes are presented as explanations for failure.?

Mismatched Expectations.?Leaders are often hired with a set of unclear or informally stated company and individual expectations on issues ranging from compensation to administrative responsibilities; written agreements or contracts fail to describe expectations that are material to either the recruit or the company. When the recruit or company has unfulfilled expectations, no adjudication processes has been defined to address them and recruits or companies sever relations.

Incomplete Diligence.?Companies inadequately review applicants before hiring them.?Interviews have limited value because finalists for leadership positions are typically skilled interviewers by virtue of the qualifications that led to their consideration. Recruiting organizations overly rely on platitude-laden recommendations and fail to pursue more informal means of assessing recruits such as calling the recruit’s former colleagues to candidly assess the recruit’s suitability.?Subsequent discussions with the recruit’s previous employer reveals that many of the problems that led to the individual’s failure in his new position—serious personality problems, inexperience with financial management, or poor administrative skills—were well known by colleagues at the companies from which they came, but that they were never asked about them.

Context-Dependent Success.?Companies vary dramatically in culture and structure.?Titles mean different things at different places.?Companies and individuals often fail to recognize when the individual’s success is a function of his ability, skill, and credibility in the setting of a particular company and its distinct culture.?Some leaders derive their strength from their tenure at an organization and the respect accorded to them; others from their relationships within the company.?Leadership styles and managerial approaches do not always translate across environments.?

Companies and recruits themselves fail to honestly assess whether the personal qualities that make the recruit successful in their home environment will translate into success in another environment; they fail to ask whether the environment from which the individual comes are similar to the one to which he is being recruited.

Overweighing CVs, Underestimating Fit.?Search committees are swayed by a candidate’s credentials and fail to carefully analyze whether the achievements expressed in a curriculum vita—leadership positions, accomplishments, awards—correspond to the skills necessary for a position.?An individual may be an outstanding leader from a reputable company and be credited with meaningful achievements, but lack the skills or experience necessary to assume the broader leadership position for which they are considered.

Hiring on Loyalty.?Leaders of companies sometimes hire individuals for positions on the basis of their loyalty to the leader that is based on previous experience working together.?In the best case scenario, the individual’s loyalty is accompanied by competence; in the worst case scenario, loyalty to the leader is the recruit’s only virtue.?In these latter cases, recruits sustain their positions as long as they are supported by the leader.?When that leader departs or shifts support to others, the true liabilities of the recruit are exposed. ?

“The Minister Effect.”?Sociologists have observed that churches that have popular, long-standing ministers have difficulty sustainably replacing them because of the congregation’s inflated expectations of successor ministers. ?One interviewee observes a similar phenomenon in medicine where leaders often hold positions for extended periods—only to be followed by leaders who fall short in spite of their best efforts.?

Search Committee Dynamics.?Members of search processes at company often have suspicions regarding a candidate’s suitability that are not voiced.?Power dynamics in search committee meetings are structured to promote consensus rather than encourage dissent—i.e. some committees may be charged to fill a post quickly or to rubber stamp a pre-selected candidate.?Similarly, recruits have doubts about a position, but because the position represents a promotion or because they are eager to leave their current position, they ignore them.??In addition, search committees or companies may have a rigid bias towards selecting an external or internal candidate, rather than assessing who is the best person for a job.?While there are often valid reasons to focus a search on an internal or external candidate, focusing on one or the other can often obscure the best candidate or candidates. ?

You’ve Got the Job…Now What??New recruits to companies often fail to adequately assess the environment which they are entering.?They are unaware of the most pressing issues and do not prioritize their agendas; accordingly, they either act too quickly or not quickly enough in responding to issues they face in their new positions. They often do not understand the concerns facing the organization which they have been asked to lead; the company’s issues have not been properly represented to them in their recruitment. ?

Individuals who are selected for leadership positions are often chosen over others working in that part of the organization.?While internal rivals are sometimes among the most talented members of an organization, they may also sabotage the new recruit, rather than supporting him/her.?New recruits who receive less than full support of the teams with whom they work are often unknowingly involved in damaging political battles just as they entering a position; these battles can prove fatal to that individual’s term.

Misevaluating Recruit Commitment.?Recruits accept positions only to voluntarily leave for positions that are personally more desirable to them after a short-time. Companies fail to establish the level of commitment the individual is making to the company and fail to structure the terms of their recruitment to favor longevity. ?

Improving the Recruitment Process: Suggestions for Companies and Recruits

While the question of “why recruitments fail” is interesting by itself, it helps us to consider how to prevent future failures in decision-making by companies and recruits. Many of the reasons for failure point to specific process changes that can be used to improve recruitment.

Managing Information Asymmetry. Recruits request that their interest in a new position remain confidential as a condition for being considered. While these requests should be honored, companies must be careful not to overly indulge recruits and, when possible, should pursue means of assessing the candidate’s suitability without compromising them.?Recruits should do the same in assessing the company and opportunity.

Encourage Expressions of Doubt.?Search committees must encourage members to express doubts – and work to create safe environments in which they can be fully explored; search committee composition and meeting structure should encourage expression of dissenting views, not artificially stimulate agreement.?Methods of encouraging such expression include providing formal time in search committee meetings for discussing doubts – and impressing upon the search committee members the importance of doing so.?Recruiting mistakes are typically more costly to companies than an extra few hours in committee meetings.

Assessing Fit.?Companies should focus search criteria on productivity and achievement, but not to the exclusion of a careful consideration of cultural fit.?Search committees should not try to “fit candidates to positions,” but instead implement checks to make sure the candidate selected for a position have objectively expressed the attitudes and talents necessary for success.?Providing search committee members with a granular list of attributes might support this aim.?Once a candidate is a selected for a position, there should explicit discussions about mutual expectations that, once agreed upon, should be codified in an employment agreement. ?

Self-Reflection.?If anything was universally expressed by interviewees in my study, it was the notion that recruits must exercise similar care in assessing the position and company milieu which they are entering.?Recruits must resist the impulse to view a promotion, improved company affiliation, or salary raise as an imperative to take a position.?They must assess whether they truly want the responsibilities associated with their new position and whether the position allows them to exercise their personal strengths.?They must be honest about what environmental factors make them successful and check this against the new company’s environment. ?

Establishing Legitimacy.?Performance in the first several months in a new position seems to be critical.?The recruit establishes his/her legitimacy in an organization and sets priorities for his/her term of leadership.?New hires to positions of leadership must balance between using this time to assess the landscape in which he/she works and taking decisive action.

Failure as a Preventable Event

To avoid these failures, many companies reflexively promote insiders to key leadership positions.?While safer than external recruitment, this approach often robs an organization of the opportunity to introduce new talent and perspective. Companies and recruits should instead strive to understand their recruitment processes and work to avoid preventable causes of failure.?

With sound recruiting processes in place, companies can successfully employ a human resources strategy to grow the strength and prominence of its programs.?Individual recruits can avoid making costly mistakes that are damaging to one’s career and personal reputation.