InnerActive Consulting – Insights

With So Many Candiates Available, Still Making Hiring Mistakes?

First of all, you’re not alone! However, the question remains: Why are we unable to make great hiring decisions? The answer is simple: BIAS. Attracting candidates is easy today. Screening out all of the unqualified to discover a superior performer is the real challenge. This challenge also means we must look at the job objectively and eliminate any biases that keep us from selecting the best candidate.

We all see the world from our own viewpoint. This viewpoint is influenced by how we value experience, knowledge, economics, aesthetics, altruism, power and tradition. When we are confronted by a person who sees the world differently, our views could be called biases. Neither right or wrong, nor good or bad, biases are simply a reflection of our personal viewpoint. Oftentimes, this personal viewpoint is unknowingly injected into the hiring process even when it is not relevant to a specific position or to the organization itself. When this happens, it creates a barrier, preventing us from selecting truly superior performers.

Today we have laws that keep us from acting on our biases as they relate to gender, age and nationality, but there are still biases that get in the way. Many people are also unknowingly biased on experience, education and intelligence, and this keeps them from selecting superior performers. In addition, people bring much more to the job, including their passion, beliefs, personal skills and behaviors. Perhaps one of the most important personal skills is that of personal accountability, and most companies do not have an awareness of its importance, nor do they have a way to measure it.

Determining the ideal candidate for a position can prove to be not only the most frustrating part of the hiring process, but also the most difficult. Each person involved in the hiring process will have his or her own idea of what skill set, experience and education is required for the position. Job descriptions begin to assist recruiters, internal and external, in narrowing down the resume requirements. Meanwhile, the personal skills, behavioral style, attitude and motivations of the ideal candidate tend to be undefined and left up to the interviewer. This type of hiring process becomes subjective, rather than objective, and leaves all involved parties frustrated and with less than desirable results.

Typical hiring processes allow for little preparation time on the front end, with more time allotted for interviewing. This often results in a partially or even completely wrong hire, which, in turn, contributes to significant managerial time loss. By turning the process around, you will save time and energy, and improve your hiring decisions, therefore improving your bottom-line.

After years in the staffing industry and making internal hires, our Strategic Business Partner created the Ideal Candidate Form. This form, along with the patented job benchmarking process, has allowed us to achieve a 92% retention rate on the people placed using this process. Eliminating bias is the key to successful hiring. The only way to achieve this is through an objective process that looks at all aspects of the ideal candidate.

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Posted by J Block on July 21, 2009 at 10:43 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: BIAS, hiring systems and processes, Ideal Candidate Form, selection process
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How to Hire High Performers

The universal question appears to be “How Do I Find High Performers for My Company?” And it seems to get more focus and debate everyday.

First let’s deal with a myth that Hiring High Performers is impossible. The reason is, there are so few – by some estimates less than 1% of the population. Well, while I don’t want to debate the issue of just how many high performers are there in your market. The real issue is “Can you Top Grade Your Staff?” Can you find the best fit for a position at this moment in time. Continue reading ‘How to Hire High Performers’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on April 14, 2009 at 5:43 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: Hiring High Performers, Mismatching Jobs and People, selection process
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What is a Personal Strength?

In the landmark book by Buckingham entitled “First Break All the Rules” statements were made about how the best managers utilized the natural strengths of their direct reports. There were two additional points contained in the book and verified through experience. People are hard wired with certain traits that are impossible to change in the long term. And, you must know what the natural strengths of each individual on a team.

Personal Strengths are the things that an individual does with passion and shows up everyday wanting to use them in everyday life. They are the traits that make each individual unique and like others at the same time. Now if that seems a little confusing, image how difficult it is for managers with no people managing skills. The interesting thing about this scenario is that some of these traits are “hardwired” in the person’s brain and is a preferred method of operating. Other traits are learned and will be more subjective or changeable with training or knowledge.

Managers need to understand all the possible combination of hardwired traits so they can assign tasks and projects based upon the natural abilities or traits of each individual. Too often, a person is asked to do daily tasks that are the opposite of their natural strengths which leads to major issues in the long run.

First, the manager may have expectations that a task should be done a certain way based upon “certain hard wired traits.” When the job is not done using the preferred methods, then the direct report is considered to be at fault and gets a low job performance review.

Second, the individual that is mismatched regarding their natural strengths and a task or job will become frustrated and usually loses their personal motivation. Then their confidence goes down and they become more demotivated. The reason for this downward cycle is the lack of accomplishment or high performance possibilities. The individual wants to perform well and therefore feel good about themselves – yet the job mismatch with their personal strengths creates more issues.

Finally, human nature being present in all situations, the individual begins to look around for a new job or assignment. The higher the self-confidence the more they will actively engage in seeking new situations or employment. The lower self-confident individuals will hang in until the manager gets so frustrated that the manager takes action dehiring the individual.

Learn what your natural strengths are using assessments. InnerActive Consulting Group offers a complete personal assessment that uncovers your natural strengths and weaknesses. You can be debriefed on the best practices for your strengths – learning how to manage others, select qualified high performers for open positions and how to motivate each individual within your team for high performance. Contact us at 901-757-4434 for more information or a demonstration of how this process will work for you.

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Posted by Voss Graham on December 3, 2008 at 5:26 am under Using Assessments.
Tags: Leadership, Personal strengths, selection process, Using Assessments
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Using Assessments in the Hiring and Selection Process

Many people ask me why they should use assessments – primarily in their hiring process. Many believe that the only tool necessary is the behavioral question model and hiring will be great. My response to these people is that the behavioral question model is an excellent tool and I encourage its use in the selection process.

However, just as assessments are not the only tool you should or can use in the selection process, behavioral questions are not the only tool to use either. Why? Because one tool will only give you one part of the result – not necessarily the right result.

Okay, let me explain why only using the behavioral questioning model is a possible mistake. There are three primary reasons for caution if only using behavioral questions. Continue reading ‘Using Assessments in the Hiring and Selection Process’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 9, 2008 at 8:28 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention, Using Assessments.
Tags: assessment process, assessments, behavioral questions, hiring, hiring people, selection process
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Posts tagged ‘selection process’

With So Many Candiates Available, Still Making Hiring Mistakes?

How to Hire High Performers

What is a Personal Strength?

Using Assessments in the Hiring and Selection Process

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