Hiring Debacles: Interviewing Dr. Jekyll and Hiring Mr. Hyde

Many hiring mistakes are made because "fishy things" in a person's resume are not scrutinized. A leader's job is to keep her/his organization out of trouble.?

You’ve probably made a hiring mistake at some point in your career (and if you haven’t made one yet, you eventually will). Why does this happen? You don’t know how to read the “inner” candidate.?I've talked about aspects of this dynamic before and explained why it's critical to clean up a mess when you make one.?This post is more about avoiding the mess in the first place.

How does the interview with this candidate go? They show up all bright and shiny. Gold watch.?Diamond ring. They ain't missin' not a single thing. And cuff links. Stick pin. Cuz ev'ry boss is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man (please tell me you guys remember ZZ Top).

They nail the interviews. Everyone is charmed by their wiles. They’re brilliant. Engaging. Intelligent. Driven.

Fast forward six months. It’s a debacle. They’ve blown the gigantic project you gave them. They’ve alienated everyone in the office. Your boss is threatening to fire you if you don’t fire them first. You bow to the pressure and can the person who seemed so promising not so long ago. As you do you wave goodbye to all the money you invested in recruiting, hiring, relocating, bonusing, and eventually severing this person. What a waste.

So why does it happen and how do you avoid such a nasty situation?

READ THEIR RESUME. NO. REALLY READ THEIR RESUME

Sometimes we give the resume short shrift. We look for those few shiny objects that indicate this candidate might be a winner. Maybe they saved their company a bunch of money. Or they grew sales dramatically. Cool! Bring them in ASAP, right?

I’d argue you need to look for the fishy things in the resume. And I'm talking about things well beyond the stupid stuff you'll traditionally see in bad resumes.

Look for gaps in employment. Keep an eye out for an absence of a clear description of the candidates’ role in the organization’s success (“company sales grew 15% while I was there.” – Yeah, but how much of that 15% did THE CANDIDATE contribute?). Sometimes the fishy thing is a well-overqualified candidate seeking a role well below what you’d expect their level to be. For example, in their last job they managed a budget of $100MM and 75 people but they’re applying for a job with $500k of budget and one direct report. Hmmm.

I’m not saying that fishy is bad. Many times there are clear, logical, rational explanations for things (the gap in employment was to care for a terminally ill parent. They’re taking the smaller role because they want to move closer to home and they’re not the primary earner. Etc. etc. etc.). All I’m saying is you HAVE to ask these tough questions. Sometimes there aren’t good answers and those fishy things will eventually lead to smelly situations.

SOMETHING IS “OFF” IN THE INTERVIEW

You know when you have the conversation with someone and something doesn’t click? Maybe it’s lack of eye contact. Or maybe they interrupt one or two times too many. Or you simply get that general uneasiness in your gut when you speak to this person. These feelings are your body’s equivalent of a flashing warning light on your car’s dashboard. Your body is saying “if you keep driving down this road something is going to blow up.”

I won’t go into the psychology and science of your gut actually being another “brain” beyond saying such instincts are there to protect you.

So what should you do in these situations? Have your colleagues interview the candidate too. Ask them pointedly if they had the same warning lights go off for them in their interview. If you find a consistent pattern of several people having a slight nagging in their gut, you really need to question the hiring decision and whether you make an offer or not.

THE NEGOTIATIONS GET HINKY

So they made it through the resume screen and the interviews with no warning lights going off and you've made them an offer.?Then it gets weird.?They get preoccupied with the money.?Or they start playing your offer off of another one.?Or they get paranoid about getting tons of guarantees in writing.?Or they bring in an attorney to review their employment agreement (Yes, I've seen that.?No, they didn't get the job.).

Take these behaviors as indicators of how they'll behave in other business interactions.?Can you imagine them behaving this way with one of your suppliers??Or even worse, with one of your customers??Do they get overly focused on a single metric (base salary) without being able to see the broader picture (having a job)??Does their confrontational style rub you the wrong way?

Guess what??They're not going to change.?If these behaviors during negotiations bother you, they'll be grating on you and destroying relationships in your organization within three months.?So what to do??Yank the offer if things get stupid.?Just because you made it doesn't mean you can't revoke it (especially if they're not accepting the terms of your offer to begin with).

START THINKING ABOUT THIS NOW BEFORE YOU RAMP UP HIRING

Again, I hope the economy is starting its recovery and I hope you're thinking about taking on new people when things settle down and growth begins again.?I put this post out there as a cautionary reminder to follow solid and disciplined recruiting and hiring practices otherwise you'll end up with a bad situation on your hands in the not too distant future.?A leader's job is to keep her/his organization out of trouble.?That starts with bringing in the right people and keeping out the wrong ones.

What other indicators do you folks look for when hiring??What trips your warning lights and alarms?

Mike is the managing director of?thoughtLEADERS, LLC?– a leadership development training firm. Follow thoughtLEADERS?on LinkedIn?HERE?to get our latest articles and special offers on our eLearning courses.?

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