I worked in recruiting for more than 40 years. I don’t think it took me more than two weeks for me to figure out that when job hunters go on interviews, they are on good behavior. However, it took me a while to figure out that my institutional clients were on good behavior, too.
I realize that when one day it came to me that I never had heard one of my clients say to someone that they were interviewing, “I’ve got a problem. My predecessor got fired and so did hers. It doesn’t take a genius for me to figure out that my butt’s on the line and I need to hire someone to help me save it.”
Instead, they all put on his happy smile button face and talk about a terrific opportunity with a great team of people. “I mentioned were like family around here?”
Yeah, like the families in all those holiday movies there at one another’s throats trying to kill one another. It’s why so often job hunters and employers become dissatisfied with one another quickly. After all, each has lied or hidden by omission certain basic truths about the job and the opportunity as well as what it’s like to work there.
I know in my own experience in recruiting, I joined two firms and despite best efforts to find out about what was like to work there, I was unsuccessful in doing that and live to pay a price with each.
I was reminded of this by an article that landed in my inbox called, “Hiring for Fit with Data, Not Your Gut,” which tells the reader how important it is to develop a quantitative approach to hiring for fit.
“Using a personality assessment during the application process can help hiring teams better understand the lens through which an individual sees the world, their likely reactions to new experiences, and their approaches to environments like the one the company offers. This kind of data can then be linked to the behavior-specific requirements for top performance in the role. The degree of alignment between the candidate’s data and the behavioral requirements can be used to formulate a fit score, which can tell you how likely a candidate is to succeed in the role. Armed with fit scores, recruiters can prioritize the best potential fits without the bias.
To create fit scores for applicants, hiring managers must first identify the traits of an ideal candidate. Just like they would formulate a checklist of skills an applicant needs to have for the job, hiring managers must also craft a personality profile that predicts performance in a given position. This may sound difficult, but you can determine critical fit factors by simply looking at your current employees. Find out what personality dimensions differentiate top performers from the rest in a given role; those are the personality dimensions you need to look for in candidates as well.”
This all makes perfect sense until you talk about actually how to do it. Let’s look at what they’re asking someone to do.
Identify the traits of the ideal candidate.
Craft the personality profile that predicts performance in a given position.
Use a scientifically based personality assessment as part of the screening process.
Regularly recalibrate these characteristics as organizations change.
Evaluate for both explicit and implicit culture.
Other things go into this but let me point something out to you. It’s hard enough to get them to update the job description when a new position becomes available. As many laugh with me when I pointed out that most job descriptions are at best 80% accurate because no one ever takes the time to update them a new position becomes available because no one has or makes time to do it.
All they do is call over to their HR business partner and say something to the effect of, “do you have the job description be used to hire Sheila? She just gave notice I need to get someone on board quickly to replace her. Can you get in and out to our vendor resources and other places and see you get onto my calendar for Tuesday or Wednesday?”
Even the notion of identifying personality traits requires the use of this thing called language that can mean different things to different people. For example, when you say that you want to hire a “team player,” often, managers mean that they want to hire someone who will take direction and not give them a hard time. Others might interpret it as to be cooperative but will speak up when there was an issue that requires attention yet not make waves. Some may interpret as being someone who will coach and mentor others and not expect compensation for doing so.
In a simple example like that, we’ve come up with three different descriptions for a fairly simple but ambiguous term. Besides, it is almost like needing to create a data dictionary of definitions to ascertain what each manager means. It all sounds good on paper (or is presented by data analysts) but your hiring manager still has to deliver on the work that they have and will offer pushback because they don’t see an immediate return on their time.
Having listened to many hiring managers over many years complain and criticize unless you create an easy win during a test case where the manager does not take a lot of time and someone else is doing all the work, the notion of implementing this enterprisewide is unlikely.
Also, it is important to recognize the adverse impact of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) plus the potential for adverse impact upon members of diverse groups. I know that isn’t the intention but it is certainly a possible outcome. How do you tell a hiring manager whose history is hiring a team of white men and who delivers great work that, perhaps, they might be more inclusive? How do you tell a person who is not a white man who tends to hire people from their country of origin and who delivers great work that they might consider bringing on people different than they are? And perhaps, because job applicants carry their bias, too, they may not want to join a team as the pioneer of diversity.
Finally, as should be obvious, people change. The character of a group changes as they face adversity and overcome it . . . Or not. How do you recalibrate on-the-fly?
Hiring for fit seems like an admirable thing to do. It rolls off people’s tongues as obvious. We know that hiring from your gut excludes people and is been an abject failure. After all, statistics show that almost half of hiring managers have buyers remorse within 18 months of bringing someone on board. That’s the current status. What sort of measurable change do you think can be implemented that would change those numbers?
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2020
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 1900 episodes, and is 
a member of The Forbes Coaches Council.
If you have a quick question for me, you can get it answered with a 3–to 5-minute video. Want to do it live?
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? Please click here to see my schedule to book a free discovery call or schedule time for coaching.
