Ever had this experience? You have an opening at your company, so you start looking for potential candidates. Maybe you hire a headhunter to assist, or you advertise on LinkedIn. Or perhaps, you recall someone you met recently that you think would be perfect for the position.
You “interview” candidates and choose the one who you think would be best at the job.
After they start employment, you start to notice a few cracks in the armor. They are not catching on or performing as quickly as you expected. But you brush it off, attributing it to time: they just need more time.
Soon, a year has gone by, and you realize this person is NOT a match for the position, not a cultural fit for the company, or you find yourself making excuses for the person’s performance. This is especially difficult for sales and management positions.
Now, what to do? How do you part ways with someone who has worked for you for a year, and you haven’t had the guts to tell them they are not performing? These scenarios never end well. And they can be gut wrenching for owners and leaders.
What if there was a way to know who you are REALLY hiring, before you offer them a position?
Early in my career, I faced this same situation. Time and time again. I would interview people who either had experience in my industry (which I mistakenly thought was necessary), or who interviewed well. Or even worse, I was desperate to fill a position and hired the first person I interviewed as I figured they were “good enough” and there were no better candidates available.
And then, more than 20 years ago, at my CEO group’s monthly meeting, we had a speaker who talked about behavioral assessments. He had each of us complete an assessment before he spoke and we were all astounded at how accurate the information was about us after completing a few dozen multiple choice questions.
So, I started using this assessment tool at my company, and it eventually became a critical part of the hiring process. The printed results from the assessment, generate a lengthy report, which can include customized interview questions for the candidate.
****But, even though I knew better, there were several times in my career as sales manager or CEO that I disregarded the profile of the candidate and hired or promoted the person anyway. I figured that my gut level feeling about the candidate being a fit for the job, was more realistic than the scientific-based report results. I hired a person for sales that had a lot of industry experience, a lot of contacts and had been a customer. But they didn’t have a sales personality profile, were miserable and quit after 3 months.
Another example was when I promoted a person to a leadership position, but they did not have a leadership profile. We had so many problems with the way the person managed performance expectations of their team members that I had to move that person out of management.
So, you might be asking yourself – how do you find an assessment tool that works for you and how do you implement this in your company?
My first recommendation is to complete an assessment on yourself. I provide this assessment tool to all my coaching and consulting clients. Then, as we debrief their assessment, they can decide if this tool will be helpful in the recruiting process. After completing an assessment, one of my clients immediately told me they want to have everyone on their leadership team complete one. That CEO recognized that some of the challenges within the organization was that people weren’t suited to the demands of the position.
In recruiting, this is a brief overview of a best practice:
After an initial candidate interview by HR and if the candidate is being moved to the next stage, each candidate completes a behavior assessment and you can compare their profile to the “job profile” you’ve created.
If you are wondering what a job profile is, think of this: If you are hiring someone in sales (to drive business), you want a person with drive, sociability and a sense of urgency. If you are hiring someone in accounting, you want someone who pays close attention to details, follows the rules and works well under deadlines.
Those are opposite profiles. But it is sometimes difficult to tell what someone’s natural and most comfortable behaviors are, because during an interview, most candidates will do their best to answer your questions and give examples that help them get a job. It’s hard to know how they will perform in the position you are looking to fill. That’s why this assessment tool is so valuable.
So you can create the “ideal position profile” using the assessment tool, and then compare candidates to it.
There are dozens of behavioral assessments available, I am certified to administer the DISC profile. Others whose names you may have heard include Myers-Briggs, APQ, McQuaig, and Enneagram. There are dozens more. You can easily do an internet search to find one that suits your situation and needs.
If you have an interest in completing a DISC assessment on yourself, you can contact me here.
An interesting statistic: each time you make a bad hire, it costs you 1-2 times the annual salary of the person because of the time wasted. And if you are looking to hire someone in sales/business development do you really have that kind of money and time to waste? Why not improve your odds of hiring a winner by using a proven assessment tool?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to know how a candidate will really perform and act BEFORE you offer them a job and introduce them to all your employees and customers?
I think so!
Onward and Upward,
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