Oops, someone's quit again!

Oh no, I have a vacancy on my team!

Business is almost always driven by the people turning the cogs. Consequently, the choice a hiring manager makes when selecting a new team member can either cause a team to thrive or crash and burn. So how can a hiring manager mitigate the risks associated with recruitment? It boils down to three simple points: trust your gut, hire the character not the resume; and be systematic about it.

A resume is barely the half of it

A resume or CV serves as a way to screen profiles for years of experience, industry fit, and other broadly relevant criteria. But despite the abundance of CV-building resources available to professionals today, it is extremely rare for a one pager to truly speak to the competence, capability, and character of any one individual. In truth, it is not required to. The role of a resume or CV is simply to be placed neatly into the yes, no, or maybe piles before the hiring manager decides to interview. A resume will never tell you if someone is qualified or if they will fit into your team. However, it is your responsibility to read the resume in detail to screen for the right candidates. Have they worked in a similar environment to yours? Does their existing role offer complementary skills to what you need on your team? Do they have the basic skills and certifications required?

The interview sandwich

So you have decided to interview. Like any important meeting, it is critical to have a game plan before starting. Believe it or not, lack of interview prep is one of the key reasons for losing the “right” talent or choosing the “wrong” one. Decide who do you want to hire, not what set of skills you want to hire.

Think of an interview like a sandwich – the greeting and goodbye will create an enjoyable experience if warm and toasty, and an unpleasant one if dry and crusty.??And as with sandwich fillings, most people tend to enjoy or even demand a filling with multiple textures. Make sure that your fillings (questions) are topically varied— competence, technical, personal, etc— while delivering a cohesive thought process which is easy for you and the candidate to follow.

But even the best sandwiches fail without depth of flavor; it is important to ensure your questions are followed with adequate probing so you can be sure you’ve really gotten to know this person. In an interview, you need to be very clear with yourself about what you’re trying to understand. Notice their body language. Can you feel their passion? Do they seem to embody the values of your team? Take notes and make sure you’re serving the same sandwich to all candidates so you can assess fairly.?

If in doubt, take the interview structure below and improvise on it. Personally, I find that this structure works for every level for one simple reason- it shows the candidate that I am hiring a person, not Microsoft Excel.

Bread:

2 minutes - Introduction - Introduce yourself and your position. Tell the candidate about the role you're hiring for, the team, the company you work for. This is critical. These two minutes will set the tone for the entire interview so smile, be genuine, and be present. This is corporate speed dating.

Sauce:

8 minutes - Warm up - Segue into the interview by thanking them again for their time, and ask them to tell you about why they believe they fit this role. Ask them to describe their life, their passions, what work means to them. Get personal. These 8 minutes bring the whole interview together from the beginning.

Main fillings:

5 minutes - Question 1 - Prepare this question in advance. It can be from their CV or from a point of view that is crucial to the role. Prepare for TWO follow ups based on the answer

5 minutes - Question 2 - Prepare this question in advance. It can be from their CV or from a point of view that is crucial to the role. Prepare for TWO follow ups based on the answer

Repeat for as many questions as you need but make sure you are asking more "tell me your thoughts about ABC..." and "how do you go about XYZ" or "what was it like to work on 123". If you ask a simple question, you will get a shallow answer. Remember that a great sandwich has about 3-4 things inside so don't overdo it.

Bread:

5 minutes - Open the floor for the candidate to ask questions. Thank and close. Again, leave them with a positive experience. Manage their expectations, tell them when you will get in touch again and the next steps.

Are you "The One"?

They’ve interviewed well and you believe you can extend an offer. Great. That is, if you trust your gut and have solid hiring experience. But if you’re still not sure, you may decide to test the candidate with a task. If you’re inclined toward a task based assessment, be prepared to manage your expectations.

It is commonly known that people often switch jobs to “promote themselves” and that competence levels and grade standards can vary massively between rival companies in the same field. This is important to always keep in mind because we are not at build-a-bear (the human edition); we are choosing from a pre-existing set of bears which we can then customize?to an extent?with the right investment.

So even with task assessments, look for character and interpersonal skills rather than technical ones as technical skills can be acquired much more easily than characters can be changed. If you do settle on a task, ensure your sandwich theme follows through and you use the task to verify the elements that both impressed and concerned you in the interview. Does this person really understand me? Do they communicate effectively? Does what they do tie back to what they claimed in the interview?

You’re hired (for now)…

Congratulations, you’ve hired your newest team member! About a month later, you realize that you may not have made the right decision. More often than not, there will be a solution to your issue. People have gotten really good at interviewing; and the reality is that most people will overrepresent themselves in an interview and equip themselves with potential traits they don’t really have in order to get the job. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. You just need to remember that the fact that your new joiner is not getting on is not because you “missed it” during the interview, it’s absolutely not your fault and the great news is that it’s most likely salvageable.? So let's examine the issues with culture fit & underperformance.

The first step is to acknowledge that culture fit is like any other part of the job, and it can be improved with effective and consistent feedback from you as a manager as well as the person’s peers. However it also needs a clear and direct improvement plan where both the employee and their surrounding ecosystem of interactions agreeing to concede in such a way that allows for a compromise and reabsorption of the new employee into the team culture.?

Is struggling with tasks that different? Well. Yes and no. Hiring managers often forget that the most critical element in your employee’s success is how well you onboard them. An employee without a clear onboarding will almost always fail. So how do you onboard this employee in the right way? Well, first of all, ensure that you spend quality one on one time with them showing them the ropes. In this time, you must explain to them what they are expected to do and their short term goals. Another critical on boarding stage is team bonding. How are you ensuring that your newest employee is getting along with their new team and other stakeholders??

Assume you’ve had the perfect onboarding and the employee is a great cultural fit but they are really struggling with tasks. Again, remember that this was not a “mistake” that you made while hiring and just find solutions. How can you help this employee get better? Enroll them in trainings, put them in rotations, challenge them to self learning.

However, make sure that you are not allowing performance bias to cloud your judgement because improvement will take time. You have to be very clear on your own expectations and manage them if they are unrealistic. Managing an underperformer is one of the most challenging things a manager will go through, not because of the underdelivery but because of how difficult it will be to manage the internal dialogue. The more you believe your employee is stupid or incapable or that you regret hiring them, the more likely that will be the reality you attract. Everyone is capable. So be very clear on where they are weak, give them the chance to work on themselves, and be there to support without judgement. Your disappointment must be removed from the equation because really, it’s not about your feelings. It’s just business.?

Done all these things and it’s still not working out? Well, that’s why there’s a probation period. Probation is there for both of you to decide if you’re right for each other and sometimes, you’re not! It happens and that’s okay.

TL;DR...

Hiring the right person is almost an obsessive need for most hiring managers. Understandably so, given that business continuity and talent scarcity are very real in today’s business world. Just remember, your experience is likely going to guide you in the right direction. And if you classify your resumes correctly, prepare for the interview, be present, and get to know the person well; you are likely to land the talent you need. But remember that as a hiring manager, you absolutely must manage your expectations because no talent is a plug and play solution that will replace the experience of their predecessor. You must be prepared to arm your new joiners with the tools to succeed and get where you want them to be as quickly as possible. Be fair and trust that the system is created to support you both.