Hiring and Retaining Top Talent Blog

In our experience, hiring mistakes are not caused by willful ignorance or negligence. Most often, new executive failure has several interrelated causes.

Inadequate preparation. Rarely had the hiring companies outlined a detailed, measurable definition of “success” that could be used to source, evaluate, and select candidates. Instead, they relied on outdated or insufficient job specs, focused around desired attributes, educational attainment, and so on.

Lack of information. After our work with the surveyed companies, nearly all dramatically improved hiring practices and (most importantly) the performance of new hires. We conclude, therefore, that at least one cause of their earlier hiring failures was not endemic organizational dysfunction, but a lack of information and training about how to hire more effectively at the executive level.

“Human nature.” Interpersonal situations like interviews, conducted in a vacuum, are often guided primarily by gut feelings. Hiring team members who have not been trained to minimize these distractions are easily influenced by preconscious perceptions and nonverbal cues. When provided with a tool set designed to counterbalance these biases, interview team performance is far more likely to overcome distractions and focus on more critical success-based matters.

With the most common hiring mistakes and their causes in mind, we have developed and refined the Success Factor Methodology^TM. This structured approach to executive hiring helps our client companies avoid repeating predictable, avoidable hiring pitfalls that plague many high-level hires.

We believe every organization-large or small, for-profit or nonprofit, public or private-is capable of using this methodology to significantly improve its hiring success at the executive and managerial level.

But it isn’t easy without a proven systemic process.

What are some of the hiring mistakes you have seen? Have you learned from any hiring mistakes to share with others? We welcome and want your comments.

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