Why so many losers get hired -- and promoted
(MoneyWatch) There's nothing more frustrating than watching a loser get hired or promoted when there are far better candidates around, not least of all, us. Sadly, that sort of thing happens all the time. And the cost in terms of time, training and organizational effectiveness is higher than most managers realize.
While every manager hires the occasional weak employee, some definitely make a habit of it. On the flip-side, I bet plenty of us have been on the other end of that equation, although it's safe to say that none of us would like to admit it. Still, it is a sobering thought.
In any case, we'd all like to believe that staffing a company unit or group and finding the right job is more of a science than an art. In reality, it's neither. It's actually a complex and subjective process with a lot of variables. It's so error prone, and for so many reasons, that in some ways it's remarkable that the right person ever gets hired at all.
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It's a lot like dating, when you think about it. And how often do we get that right? So when it comes to job matchmaking, why are our hit rates so poor? And aside from whining and complaining and beating our heads against the wall, what can we do to improve the situation?
Assuming we're all smart people with our hearts more or less in the right place, understanding the primary reasons why we so often hire the wrong people -- or are the wrong people ourselves -- should go a long way to helping us avoid that fate. Here are my top seven, in no particular order.
We reach for the stars. It's human nature. Poet Robert Browning said, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp," and you know what? He was right. You set your sights too high and go for it. Sometimes it works and you pull off a minor miracle. The rest of the time, you get to lower the bar and do it again -- and again, until you get it right. That's a heavy price to pay, no matter which side of the equation you're on.
Garbage in, garbage out. Hiring managers and recruiters are forever throwing generic or poorly thought-out job specifications together. Why? They don't know what they're doing, don't see it as a priority or any number of reasons. In any case, the result's the same: garbage in, garbage out. Then they wonder why none of their hires work out.
Hiring managers don't know how to interview. Most managers don't have a clue how to interview candidates and choose the right one. They either ask generic softball questions or ridiculously arcane ones that don't do any good. When you combine that with candidates not knowing what they're really cut out for or shooting for the moon, it really is surprising the right person ever gets hired at all.
Everyone's desperate. And everyone's in a rush. "We need someone in here yesterday." "Find someone now before we lose the requisition." And of course people are desperate for work. I can't fault people for needing a job, but I assume every manager has heard the expression, "There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always plenty of time to do it over." Do it right the first time.
Our priorities are screwed up. Most managers simply don't give the hiring and recruiting process the priority it deserves because that's not their primary function. They see it as a burden, a pain in the neck. As a result of that and their all-too-common desperation to get somebody onboard ASAP, they go through the motions and make concessions they shouldn't.
The "Peter principle." News flash: There are an awful lot of incompetent and dysfunctional managers out there. And in accordance with the Peter principle, they tend to hire equally incompetent and dysfunctional employees. After all, fools are easy to fool. And the higher up they are, the more pronounced the ripple effect down through the organization.
Bad recruiting. There are stellar recruiters, terrible recruiters and everything in between. As with all things involving people, the fat part of the bell curve is made up entirely of imperfect human beings. They make mistakes. Some make lots of them. The solution: Vet your recruiters more carefully than you would anyone else for the simple reason that, if you don't, it'll have a ripple effect and you can end up with an entire organization of losers.
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Companies hire people to solve problems (both positive and negative). Your ability to uncover your target employers problems and position yourself as the solution is what will get you hired even when there are no job postings.
Here are a few potential problem areas. Completing projects on time and on budget, improve product quality, improve service, increase sales, reduce costs, enhance online marketing, etc.
Once you isolate a problem area, where you have experience, identify the hiring manager and focus your marketing campaign on delivering answers and recommendations to that person.
Done well will lead to an interview!
Bob Prosen
CEO
The Prosen Center
for Business Advancement
30+ Years Fortune 500 Executive
We've seen this happen in the past 25+ years and it still happen. One measure we used is incorporate a "trial period of 3 months" clause in which employment can be terminated if the candidate proves unfit for job. It helped but we still lost a lot of screening time and recruitment steps thus far.
Unemployment among citizens runs ~20% while existing foriegn workers are ~30% which is very odd. The governments therefore atrficially jack up the cost of foreign labor to encourage local hiring. But local workforce lack many job required skills, seriousness & drive to work diligently.
The problem gets compounded when you have to deal with recruitment from other countries that requires obtaining work visas (expensive, time consuming, and legally demanding). The cost of replacing staff/employees then goes through the roof and we are talking about lower skills jobs only.
Thank you for an insightful article.
"We reach for the stars." Yes, managers often presume that they must hire other employers' star employees in order to hire successful employees. They are wrong of course and hiring other employers' stars is a sure fire away to hire many under performers.
"Garbage in, garbage out." The problem is not job descriptions and it isn't the interview either, the problem is what hiring managers don't do; they don't identify nor measure the specific talents demanded by each job.
"Hiring managers don't know how to interview." Even managers who have a clue how to interview candidates cannot choose the best employee. Interviews are not very effective at identifying future successful employees.
"Everyone's desperate." You are correct that managers often don't have the time to do it right but that is not their fault. They were hired by competent executives, we would hope, so the manager does what he does best, i.e., the work of the people he supervises. Too many, and I do mean too many, hiring managers bet their careers on the incorrect assumption that past performance in another job reporting to a different boss at another employer predicts job success in any job for any manager at any employer.
"Our priorities are screwed up." You are correct that "... managers simply don't give the hiring and recruiting process the priority it deserves because that's not their primary function," but hiring people who do the work successfully for a long time is their job. So in fact, hiring is their primary function whether they like it or know it. Without the labor of employees there would be no need for managers.
The problem resides with HR since they are the ones who need to provide hiring managers with the tools, training and knowledge to hire successfully.
"The "Peter principle." I agree completely but who is responsible when an incompetent manager is hired? It is not the incompetent manager since he did not hire himself. The responsible party is HR since they are the ones who need to provide hiring managers with the tools, training and knowledge to hire successfully.
"Bad recruiting." As far as I know recruiters do not decide who is hired, that is the responsibility of hiring managers. When hiring managers make bad hiring decisions they often shift the blame to the recruiters, which is unfair and inaccurate.
Before members of the HR community get too angry at my comments the ultimate responsibility resides with CEOs who tolerate hiring managers who make bad hiring decisions. I know that HR reports to the VP of HR who reports to the CEO so we must start be educating the CEOs about how to hire successful employees. It is not hard to do and I teach my clients how to do it during a short telephone call. My time is free but not the method. Cost is not an issue since the method saves 3 to 10 times or more the cost of the method. The method requires about an hour of the applicant's time and about several minutes or more to the hiring managers time.