Stupid Hiring Mistakes: You Lie to Potential Hires
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
WOW! Employers lie to people they interview. I thought it was just recruiters. Actually, I know employers lie.
I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I worked in search for more than 40 years, filled more than 1200 full time positions plus consulting assignments. Now I coach people. I help organizations be more effective with hiring people, with job search,, managers manage better, people in the workplace do a better job.
Now, I’ve done a series about stupid hiring mistakes and this one is the most appalling one to me. And it happens much more often than people want to admit. And I’ll prove it to you. And this is the mistake of managers lying to job hunters. Now, let me just share from my experiences in search. I did it for more than 40 years. I prepared organizations for interviews. I talked to candidates before and after interviews, and no one, No One ever said to me, “You know, we’ve got a terrible role here. You know, I’ve got a team of losers and the person who sat in this seat before. . . Well, I want to hire someone because frankly, the person who sat in that seat before left after three months and the one before that, left after six, and you know, I can’t bring on people fast enough because they will hate the work and they hate the environment.
No one ever says that. They will put on these happy smile button faces and no one takes blame for themselves,, for their own faults, and why people leave or exaggerated what the work was. They just have the happy smile button face on. And they talk about “a terrific opportunity” with “a great team of people.” Did I mention we’re like family (or family in the holiday movies, where they’re all at one another’s throats. That’s the kind of family that many firms have there).
So, I just want to remind you, what would do a lot better is if you said to someone that you interviewed, “you know, I’ll tell you, we’ve got a tough project (or a group that has a lot of demands placed upon it). It’s not uncommon that people are working a lot of OT, and eventually, they burn out. I try and do my best to keep people in place. But, you know, people get worn out and they wind up leaving. Sometimes that’s in 18 months, sometimes it’s in nine months, but people wind up leaving. And, you know, it’s a tough situation.” No one ever does that.
And you know what? You’d get less turnover if you did that, because in exaggerating what’s going on there, you’re causing people to be disappointed and they find out fast, don’t they?
The statistics on manager dissatisfaction with hires, or shall we say “buyer’s remorse,” is within 18 months, you folks regret the hire that you made at least 50% of the time. I’ve seen numbers as high as 70 but the lowest one I’ve seen is 50.
Why do you want to set up those conditions for yourself? Wouldn’t it be better if you just scared people off who are going to be disappointed? And just kept the ones that are who are going to be willing to do that? I think so. And, yes, you don’t have to do the cost of retraining. You don’t have to waste people’s time with multiple interviews. You can just bring people on and not worry about. To me that’s a lot smarter.
I’m Jeff Altman. Hope you found this helpful. Visit TheBigGameHunter.us where I’ve got a lot more there that you could watch, listen to or read, that’ll help you with staffing, it will help you with job search, managing, being better in the workforce. Hope you find this helpful.
If you’re interested in one on one coaching with me, you can schedule time at the website, TheBigGameHunter.us if you want to subscribe to my channel on YouTube, notice that small icon in the lower right? Click on that and you’ll get notifications whenever I release another video.
Have a great day and take care
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
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