Hiring and Retaining Top Talent Blog

Careerbuilder.com recently listed the 14 top interviewing questions.
When I read the first few, I thought this was about ridicules questions too ask. Then I realized careerbuilder.com was serious.
Sorry, but we can’t disagree more. Some of the 14 are good and get to the ability of the candidate to actually do the job. But most are the standard […]

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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 Instead, they relied on outdated or insufficient job specs, focused around […]

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56% of hires fail! So just flip a coin and increase your odds.
The failure rate our client experienced with the VP of Sales position was painful for them, but it is not unusual.
When companies hire a six-figure executive, they expect them to “hit the ground running” and produce results quickly. But according to our surveys […]

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When do you start the process of hiring a new person?
Most companies start the hiring process when they need someone. They wait until the best person quits or if it is a new position they wait until they need this person. Since it can take between 2 and 4 months to hire someone, what is the […]

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And all the skills that go with that title.
One day we are just hard working individual contributors and all of a sudden the next day we are hiring managers. One day we know little about managing others and the next we are expected to be competent hiring managers. It is as if with that title comes […]

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Is this what your hiring decisions occassionally feel like? How many times in the past have you crossed you fingers praying that the candidate would make it through the 90 day probationary period?

Why do hiring executives and managers frequently find themselves at this stage of the hiring process? We explore the top ten reasons why hiring mistakes occur in the executive summary on our website. You can read about the summary, download a copy of it under our free resources, or get a copy of the audio program if you prefer to listen to the various errors and mistakes that are commonly made in the hiring process.

I'll offer three key reasons in this  post why this syndrome occurs:

First, most companies do a terrible job in accurately defining their expectations for the position. Most of the time the job description is used as a substitute for the hard work of defining real outcomes and deliverables.

Second, most companies fall victim to high school sports recruiting as their primary strategy. There is a tendency to take whoever shows up at your doorstep as the entire candidate pool. It's important to remember that running ads only attracts a very small percentage of the potential candidate pool and there is usually a very poor overall quality to the caliber of candidate that responds to an ad. See our article on Why Do Most Companies Treat Recruiting Like a High School Sport?

Third, many times the combination of desperation hiring and first impressions leads executives and managers to the wrong conclustions about people. We fall in love during the interview and ignore all negative information. Layered on top of that is a desperate need to get any body into the chair since some body is better than no body goes the conventional wisdom.

Take these three major mistakes and errors and you've got a recipe in which hope becomes the dominant strategy for making a good hire. HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY. Making great hires takes a well-thought out process, discipline, and the focused effort.

Is the success of hiring great people at your company primarily function of hope?

Barry Deutsch

Copyright 2008 Impact Hiring Solutions. All Rights Reserved.

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What business is your company in?
I spoke today to 300 executives for a company that services cars. Basically they do oil changes, brakes, tires, things of that nature. They have over 160 locations and by all industry metrics are the best in the industry. They are totally focused on customer experience. They are […]

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Finally an article that is starting to understand the right way to hire.
An article in BusinessWeek.com from the Harvard Business Review is starting to address the issue we have been promoting for over 10 years. One that we even wrote a book about. Our Success Factor Methodology hiring system mirrors what […]

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Hiring sales people seems to be one of the most difficult positions companies seem to face. They are used to selling, they always have the answer, some are so smooth and the best are so friendly. So how do you separate the the best sales person from the ones that are embellishing and just good actors.
You […]

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Hiring is the only process in your company where you accept a 56% failure rate!
When companies hire a six-figure executive, they expect them to “hit the ground running” and produce results quickly. But according to our surveys of more than 20,000 hiring executives over the past fifteen years and a review of published literature […]

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