“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned”. – RICHARD P. FEYNMEN
When hiring, it remains important to gauge academic qualifications, related work experience, personality fit, right virtues and potential. These are often cited as things to look for in an applicant when filling up a vacancy or a new role.
Talent acquisition is a very challenging facet of HR work. Hiring the right talent is difficult much more retain because of the immense competition in the market. Most challenging is how to offer the right compensation and appropriate benefits based on market data, culture fit and now, the work options such as availability of digital work or work from home set up.
A recruitment person’s role is to do the initial assessment. Paper review, initial interview & background checking (if necessary) so that the hiring manager/supervisor can have an idea about the shortlisted applicant. The final decision is still with the hiring manager.
After the pandemic, with many companies picking up where they left off, opportunities from here and abroad, the talent landscape has dwindled, making it quite difficult to get the right talent for the right role. Because of this, job offers have become sort of bidding wars.
The ability to fill in a vacant position at the least minimal time has been gauged as an HR KPI. This is one rare case that speed does not translate to successful hire. It take time to spot the right hire.
There are ways increase the chances of hiring the right talent for the right role are learned through the years.
As a decision maker, when doing hiring, one tends to immediately identify with candidates that remind us of our younger self. There is a tendency to spot & be awed by the cunning similarities in the way you had answered interview questions, goals and circumstances. Just because one had achieved a certain degree of success with such traits, one might prematurely conclude that this type of applicant will most likely succeed because just like you, you had the same vibe and outlook. Given the different eras each belong to & the different work tools available, this is not necessarily accurate. What worked then might not work now. Better not to hire your clone.
At the same time, though mindset alignment between a candidate & hiring manager is important, when hiring on that sole basis of that perceived trait of an applicant, can also negatively impact future work. In the guise of making things less complicated, an aligned mindset may deprive one of other valid points of view or perspective because the tendency to choose the status quo in the name of a stable engagement against the complications & pains of building consensus makes it more appealing. That is not a good way to ensure that one made a good decision.
Weak are those that surround themselves with people who will not dare challenge, question or have a contrary point of view. People who are just out to please you, merely loyal or longtime friends, can deprive of the creativity in solving problems, looking at out of the box solutions or considering good suggestions.
Synergy does not necessarily mean constant agreement neither does teamwork always require 100% alignment at the onset. It welcomes a 360 point of view. It welcome positive discourse. Success is short term if you are not open to uncomfortable situations & honest feedback because you will be always blindsided and completely unaware of things to come.
For a person who wants instant results, talent will be chosen above virtue. This is because the perception is work become easier and more efficient with a talented person. But the wrong set of virtues have always been the source of failures. A candidate whose virtues fit or compliment will always make the team shine brighter while a mere talent with the wrong virtues will burden the team and its members.
The personality requirements of a role do matter. An individual contributor may not be so critical but an employee’s personality that will fill the void in the team’s own personality works for all. If one needs a person who will be constantly engaging people you need a good communicator. If you are looking for somebody who will lead a team, check on the people & technical skills plus problem solving acumen. The type of personality that will glue the team is always a welcome relief.
Sometimes, for key positions, it is also helpful to seek the opinion of other departments or teams that candidate will have to interact and support in a cross functional team (CFT). Adding a layer of a panel interview and seek their impression of the candidate helps. The candidate’s ability to effectively work with other teams can be gauged effectively by no less than the CFT.
In some instances, during interviews or interactions with candidates, one can immediately ascertain if the applicant is better than you, be it academically, experience & exposure wise and culture fit. This may be odd, but this is the grandest time not to feel threatened by your potential replacement. The prospect of mentoring & developing the next generation of leaders must excite a good leader because there somebody else aside from you that can be relied on by the organization. Consequently, this allows you more time to be strategic leader because you are now freed from tactical work.
Sadly, such instances of good candidates dismissed as an “eager beaver or too young” or “an over confident pup or somebody who lacks relevant experience” and “too expensive or overqualified”.
There were times that bad decisions could’ve been made because the tendency to be biased towards a referral from a colleague gives a certain level of assurance of competency or worst a relative to assure loyalty, may still happening in the workplace.
Many good candidates may have been passed on because of this wrong thinking.
This is the reason why, in many instances, the best hire unwittingly slipped right through our fingers and the chance to work on great things with great people is a missed opportunity. ….truly these are TOTGA candidates….The Ones That Got Away.
GOOD MORNING HARDWORKING PEOPLE! For comments & suggestions, you may email author [email protected] & follow in Facebook Herrie Raymond Rivera.