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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Discover the secrets of one of the world's leading talent acquisition experts In the newly revised Fourth Edition of Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams, influential recruiting and hiring expert Lou Adler delivers a practical guide to consistently identifying and hiring the best people and scaling that process throughout your company. This book will help you address your hiring and recruitment issues, not just by making you more efficient, but also by reforming your entire process to align with how top talent actually look for new jobs, compare offers, and select opportunities. You'll discover: * Discover what it takes to ensure more Win-Win Hiring outcomes by hiring for the anniversary date rather than the start date * How to use a "High Tech, High Touch" approach to raise the talent bar * Expand the talent pool to include more outstanding, high potential and diverse talent by defining work as a series of key performance objectives Perfect for hiring managers, recruiters, and HR and business leaders, Hire with Your Head is a must-read resource for anyone seeking to improve their ability to find, attract, and retain the top talent the world has to offer.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
NOTE
Introduction: Performance-based Hiring, Four Editions Later
A SHORT HISTORY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HIRING TOP TALENT
BEING MORE EFFICIENT DOING THE WRONG THINGS IS NOT PROGRESS
CREATING A WIN-WIN HIRING CULTURE
THE BIG THREE HIRING CHALLENGES
CLARIFYING JOB EXPECTATIONS UP FRONT IS THE KEY TO HIRING OUTSTANDING PEOPLE
WHY PERFORMANCE-BASED HIRING IS THE RIGHT BUSINESS PROCESS FOR HIRING
NOTE
Chapter 1: Define Your Talent Strategy Before You Design Your Hiring Process
STOP MAKING TACTICAL EXCUSES FOR A STRATEGIC PROBLEM
WIN-WIN HIRING: HIRING FOR THE ANNIVERSARY DATE, NOT THE START DATE
NEGOTIATE WITH THE END IN MIND
MORE HIGH TOUCH AND LESS HIGH TECH: CONVERT STRANGERS INTO ACQUAINTANCES
NOTES
Chapter 2: Step-by-Step Through the Performance-based Hiring Process
WIN-WIN HIRING: HIRE FOR THE ANNIVERSARY DATE, NOT THE START DATE
HIRING A GREAT PERSON STARTS WITH A GREAT JOB
SUMMARY
NOTES
Chapter 3: The Best Candidates Are Often Not the Best Hires
THE WORST CANDIDATES ARE OFTEN THE BEST HIRES
SOME GREAT CANDIDATES BECOME GREAT HIRES, BUT MANY MORE DON'T
WOULD YOU RATHER HIRE A GREAT CANDIDATE, OR SOMEONE WHO DELIVERS GREAT RESULTS?
SUMMARY: AVOID THE 90-DAY WONDERS
Chapter 4: Developing a Bias-Free Hiring Process
CONDUCT A PRE-HIRE PERFORMANCE REVIEW
USE ORGANIZED PANEL INTERVIEWS
SCRIPT THE INTERVIEW AND GIVE CANDIDATES THE QUESTIONS
WAIT 30 MINUTES BEFORE MAKING ANY YES OR NO DECISION
TREAT CANDIDATES AS CONSULTANTS
MEASURE FIRST IMPRESSIONS LAST
SUMMARY
NOTE
Chapter 5: Using the BEST Test to Reduce Unconscious Bias
TWO HUGE FLAWS IN PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS THAT ARE OFTEN IGNORED
PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS ARE VALUABLE WHEN USED LATER IN THE HIRING PROCESS
TAKE THE BEST TEST BEFORE INTERVIEWING ANYONE
SUMMARY: USE THE BEST TEST TO CONFIRM RATHER THAN PREDICT
NOTE
Chapter 6: The Hiring Formula for Success
WIN-WIN HIRING BEGINS WITH THE END IN MIND
THE BIG FOUR FIT FACTORS DRIVE MOTIVATION TO EXCEL
THE FIT FACTORS AND THEIR IMPACT ON JOB PERFORMANCE
SUMMARY
NOTES
Chapter 7: Understanding the Real Job Starts with a Performance Profile
DEFINE THE WORK BEFORE DEFINING THE PERSON DOING THE WORK
HIRE FOR PERFORMANCE TO ATTRACT OUTSTANDING TALENT
THE LEGAL VALIDATION FOR USING PERFORMANCE-BASED HIRING
DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES TO DEVELOP PERFORMANCE-BASED JOB DESCRIPTIONS
CONVINCING HIRING MANAGERS TO USE PERFORMANCE PROFILES
SUMMARY
NOTES
Chapter 8: Conducting the Exploratory Phone Screen
THE EXPLORATORY PHONE SCREEN DRIVES HIRING SUCCESS
USE THE PHONE SCREEN TO FIND AND RECRUIT SEMIFINALISTS
SUMMARY: USE THE PHONE SCREEN TO CONTROL YOUR ENTIRE HIRING PROCESS
Chapter 9: Conducting the Performance-based Interview
CHECKLIST: THE PERFORMANCE-BASED HIRING INTERVIEWING PROCESS
THE EIGHT-STEP PERFORMANCE-BASED INTERVIEW GUIDE
WELL-ORGANIZED PANEL INTERVIEWS INCREASE ASSESSMENT ACCURACY
KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PERFORMANCE-BASED INTERVIEW PROCESS
Chapter 10: Making the Assessment Using the Quality of Hire Talent Scorecard
KEYS FOR CONDUCTING AN EVIDENCE-BASED CANDIDATE ASSESSMENT
STEP-BY-STEP COMPLETING THE QUALITY OF HIRE TALENT SCORECARD
ESSENTIAL CORE COMPETENCES
ADDRESSING THE BALANCING ACT BETWEEN RECRUITABILITY AND COMPETENCY
ORGANIZING THE INTERVIEW TO MAXIMIZE ASSESSMENT ACCURACY
SUMMARY
NOTES
Chapter 11: Comparing Performance-based Hiring and Behavioral Event Interviewing
LACK OF JOB ANALYSIS IS THE BIG GAP IN BEI
BEHAVIORAL FACT-FINDING IS THE KEY TO AN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT
SUMMARY: PERFORMANCE-BASED INTERVIEWING IS BEI ON STEROIDS
NOTES
Chapter 12: Sourcing Outstanding Talent: Blending High Touch with High Tech
SEMIFINALIST CRITERIA FOR PREQUALIFYING CANDIDATES
UNDERSTANDING THE SOURCING AND RECRUITING FUNNEL
MAKE IT PERSONAL: LET'S GO FOR A CAREER RIDE
SOURCING CHECKLIST
IMPLEMENTING A SCARCITY OF TALENT SOURCING PROGRAM
THINK SMALL-BATCH, HIGH-TOUCH: SOURCE SEMIFINALISTS
DEVELOP AN “IDEAL CANDIDATE PERSONA”
DIRECT SOURCING AND NETWORKING
INDIRECT SOURCING AND NETWORKING
SUMMARY: NETWORKING RULES!
NOTES
Chapter 13: Start the Recruiting Process with a Career Discussion, Not a Sales Pitch
CONDUCT CAREER DISCOVERY ON YOUR FIRST CALL
RECRUITING IS GETTING THE CANDIDATE TO SELL YOU, NOT YOU SELLING THE CANDIDATE
SUMMARY
NOTE
Chapter 14: Recruiting and Closing Top Performers
THE BASICS OF RECRUITING AND CLOSING
DON'T MAKE AN OFFER UNTIL YOU'RE 100% SURE IT WILL BE ACCEPTED
TESTING OFFERS
SUMMARY
Chapter 15: Leveraging HR Technology to Implement Performance-based Hiring
USING THE TRICKLE-UP APPROACH TO VALIDATE THE IMPACT
USE SEEKOUT TO BUILD A TALENT PIPELINE OF OUTSTANDING DIVERSE TALENT
HIRETUAL.COM OFFERS A UNIQUE AI APPROACH FOR SOURCING THE HARD TO FIND
EIGHTFOLD TAKES A COMPREHENSIVE AI-APPROACH FOR MATCHING PEOPLE WITH OPPORTUNITIES BASED ON POTENTIAL
PHENOM CONVERTS WORKFORCE PLANNING INTO A STRATEGY ASSET
AI FOR SCREENING HAS A POWERFUL TOOL WITH PYMETRICS.AI
CREATING AN INTERNAL MOBILITY PLATFORM USING SMARTRECRUITERS
USING GREENHOUSE TO MAXIMIZE QUALITY OF HIRE
CONDUCT A REFERENCE CHECK BEFORE MAKING AN OFFER USING CHECKSTER
USE ONBOARDING TO START DELIVERING ON THE PROMISE
FEEDBACK PROCESS CONTROL WITH OUTMATCH.COM
CREATE A WIN-WIN HIRING CULTURE
NOTES
Chapter 16: Use Performance-based Hiring to Create a Win-Win Hiring Culture
DELIVER ON THE WIN-WIN HIRING PROMISE
BUILDING A WIN-WIN HIRING CULTURE STARTS WITH THE RIGHT TALENT STRATEGY
MEASURE AND MANAGE QUALITY OF HIRE
USE HIGH TOUCH TO CREATE AN OUTSTANDING CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
TAKE THE RISK AND BIAS OUT OF THE “YES” DECISION
HIRING STRONG PEOPLE IS THE FIRST STEP IN MANAGING A GREAT TEAM
NOTES
Appendix 1: Performance-based Hiring and Legal Compliance
NOTE
Appendix 2: Forms
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Figure I.1 Hiring circa 1998.
Figure I.2 The “Big Three” Hiring Needs.
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Surplus versus Scarcity of Talent Strategy.
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 The Performance-based Hiring Business Process.
Figure 2.2 Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
Figure 2.3 The Hiring Formula for Success.
Figure 2.4 Have Candidates Rank These Factors in Order of Importance.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 The Best Candidates Rarely Become the Best Hires.
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Conduct a Pre-hire Performance Review.
Figure 4.2 Ways to Reduce Interviewer Bias.
Figure 4.3 Collect Evidence Before Making Decisions.
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Use Your BEST Style to Increase Interviewing Accuracy.
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Hiring Formula for Success.
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 Hire for Performance to Attract the Best.
Figure 7.2 Define the Job Before Defining the Person.
Figure 7.3 Hiring Formula for Success.
Figure 7.4 The Process of Success and the Timeline.
Figure 7.5 Convert Having to Doing.
Figure 7.6 Hire Based on Where Your Company Is Going.
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 Performance-based Prequalification Interview.
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Quality of Hire Talent Scorecard.
Figure 9.2 Conducting the Performance-based Interview.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Quality of Hire Talent Scorecard.
Figure 10.2 Assessing Managerial Fit.
Figure 10.3 Organize the Interview by Objectives and Factors.
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 Track Trend of Behaviors and Performance.
Figure 11.2 Team-Based Fact-Finding.
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 The Sourcing and Recruiting Funnel.
Figure 12.2 Fish Where the Big Fish Hang Out.
Figure 12.3 Career Zone Analysis.
Note
: The percentages shown on the infogr...
Figure 12.4
Figure 12.5 The Power of Connections.
Figure 12.6 How People Get Jobs.
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1 Getting Your Recruiter's Driving License for the Big Red Tour Bu...
Figure 13.2 The First Rule of Recruiting.
Figure 13.3 Factors in a Career Move.
Chapter 16
Figure 16.1 Hiring circa 1998.
Figure 16.2 Win-Win Hiring circa 2021 and Beyond.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction: Performance-based Hiring, Four Editions Later
Begin Reading
Appendix 1: Performance-based Hiring and Legal Compliance
Appendix 2: Forms
Index
End User License Agreement
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FOURTH EDITION
HIREwith your HEAD
USING PERFORMANCE-BASED HIRING TO BUILD OUTSTANDING DIVERSE TEAMS
LOU ADLER
Copyright © 2022 by Lou Adler. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Adler, Lou, author.
Title: Hire with your head : using performance-based hiring to build outstanding diverse teams / Lou Adler.
Description: Fourth edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, [2022] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021033440 (print) | LCCN 2021033441 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119808886 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119808930 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781119808916 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Employee selection. | Employees—Recruiting. | Employment interviewing.
Classification: LCC HF5549.5.S38 A35 2022 (print) | LCC HF5549.5.S38 (ebook) | DDC 658.3/112—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033440
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033441
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © DesignAB/Shutterstock
Foreword
As part of my research on individual performance as described in The End of Average,1 I argued that modern science has conclusively shown that there simply isn't an average person. Instead of relying on this outdated myth, the principles of individuality offer a better way to understand how people perform at school, at work, and in life. The three principles of individuality are as follows:
The jaggedness principle:
All characteristics we care about are multidimensional and those dimensions do not correlate with each other like we think they do, which means that we cannot reduce human performance to a single score.
The context principle:
Human behavior cannot be understood independently from the immediate context in which that behavior occurs.
The pathways principle:
For any outcome that matters, there are always multiple paths to achieving that outcome.
In trying to better understand how companies hire people given this definition of human performance, it became clear in most situations that there was too much of a one-dimensional approach to the entire process. As a result it was unlikely companies would be able to hire stronger and more diverse talent using traditional processes. In fact, I was concerned that little has changed over the years, with companies still depending on outdated competency models and relying too much on skills and experiences to screen and assess candidates. This approach eliminated highly qualified people who had a different mix of skills and experiences and totally ignored the context of the job.
My research in this area led me to Lou Adler and his Performance-based Hiring system. At the time I was trying to discover if there was any work being done that emphasized differences rather than similarities or emphasized the uniqueness in people based on the three principles of individual performance.
Performance-based Hiring does this by recognizing that individual performance is as much about ability to do the work as it is about the context underlying the work. Context in this case is considered the environment in which the work occurs, the culture of the organization, its level of sophistication, the pace and intensity of the situation, and above all, the people involved, especially the hiring manager. All of these factors will impact individual performance. For example, we've all seen situations where highly capable people underperform due to these contextual factors. And just as often, but less visibly, we've seen people who have what appear to be unremarkable backgrounds excel given these same factors.
Adler has somehow put all of this together and succinctly captured it in his hiring formula for success. Simply stated: the ability to do the work in relationship to fit is what drives motivation to excel. And without the right fit, motivation, engagement, satisfaction, and performance will suffer.
According to Adler, ability consists of both the hard skills (i.e., technical, creative, and problem-solving) and the soft skills (i.e., organizational, interpersonal, leadership, and managerial) required to properly handle the job. This is where Adler's Performance-based Hiring process begins to expand the talent pool and ends the notion completely that people are average. By defining work as a series of performance objectives rather than as a list of skills and competencies, everyone who can do this work is considered a potential candidate. People are then assessed on their past performance doing comparable work in similar situations. Given this approach, Adler embeds the three principles of individuality directly into the hiring process. This is why I find Performance-based Hiring so fascinating.
While fit is essential, just as important is to recognize that there is no such thing as an average person – and that if you want to really understand a person you have to understand them as an individual (and from our scientific perspective that means understanding those three principles of individuality). This insight has transformed every field it has touched, from medicine and nutrition to sports and education, but the one place where we continue to rely on average-based thinking is in the place that arguably matters the most: how we hire people. Given how profoundly important work is to most people – it can be the source of fulfillment or of frustration – we simply cannot afford to continue with the Frederick Taylor–inspired approach to one-size-fits-all hiring. It doesn't work, and it hurts both companies and individuals. That's what got me so excited about Performance-based Hiring – it accurately captures the principles of individuality and uses them to create a hiring formula that actually works.
This new edition of Hire with Your Head offers new insight into the hiring process, especially the increased focus on Win-Win Hiring – hiring for the anniversary date rather than the start date. This requires a long-term decision-making approach for both the hiring manager and the candidate, especially on the fit factors. While challenging, it's the best way companies can ensure an End of Average mindset and create a culture where every person can excel based on their innate ability and individuality.
TODD ROSE
Todd Rose is the cofounder and president of Populace, a think tank committed to a positive-sum world where all people have the opportunity to live fulfilling lives in a thriving society. Prior to Populace, Dr. Rose was a professor at Harvard University where he served as the faculty director of the Mind, Brain, and Education program, as well as led the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality. Todd is the author of two best-selling books, The End of Average and Dark Horse, as well as the forthcoming Collective Illusions (February 2022). He lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.
NOTE
1
Rose, Todd.
The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness
. Harper One, 2016.
Introduction: Performance-based Hiring, Four Editions Later
As I was finishing this book, I asked Don Spear, CEO of OpenSesame – a hugely popular curated online course marketplace – why he decided to implement Performance-based Hiring in his company. His answer surprised me. He said, “It gives us a framework for ensuring that we're attracting high-quality candidates who meet our performance hiring standards while also reducing bias from our hiring teams. We believe diversifying our workforces makes our company better by bringing a variety of perspectives and voices to serve our customers.”
He went on to say that their company wanted to aggressively increase the diversity of the workforce and that the Performance-based Hiring interview guides and talent scorecard rubric were some of the tools used to achieve the goal. Using these tools, managers are now confidently able to assess ability, fit, and potential, ensuring that those hired meet the company's standards of excellence. Just as important was to send a clear message to those hired under this program that they met the company's rigorous selection standards and threshold of excellence. He said hiring outstanding people is essential in order for the company to meet its aggressive growth goals.
While the Performance-based Hiring tools described in this book will allow managers and companies to build outstanding diverse teams, it's up to the leaders of these companies to fully commit to doing it. This, it turns out, is often the more difficult step to take.
A SHORT HISTORY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HIRING TOP TALENT
In the introduction to the first edition of Hire with Your Head in 1997, I described a situation where I first learned about the importance of investing extra time into hiring outstanding talent. In this case it was in 1972 in my first management job as the manager of capital budgeting for a large industrial products manufacturing company. I was only 26 and had just received my MBA a year earlier. My boss, who just convinced me to relocate from Southern California to the Detroit area, called me late one morning demanding I drop everything and meet him at the University of Michigan to interview MBA students. Many more than were expected signed up to be interviewed. While I protested, given weeks of 12- to 14-hour days ahead and a critical report to the executive team the next morning, he was unrelenting. I can still hear his words from 50 years ago: “Nothing is more important than hiring outstanding people. Nothing.” Then he hung up. After sitting in with Chuck for the first 30-minute interview I then interviewed another six students on my own, with Chuck interviewing about 15 over the whole day. We then took seven who we thought had the most potential out to dinner that night in Ann Arbor. From this group we made five offers and hired four outstanding people.
We got back to the office that night around 10 p.m. and by 4 a.m. we completed the detailed review of the group's financial performance. At the 9 a.m. meeting the next day the president of the group asked why the report was handwritten. Chuck told him what we were doing and why. He understood and said to us and to every other senior manager in attendance that there is nothing more important than hiring great people. Nothing.
While the big takeaway from that 24 hours was the importance of hiring great talent, there were some equally important tactics learned as well. The biggest one was once you've figure out if the person was clearly top notch, you need to provide a vision of where the job could lead if the person is successful. Our division was going through a huge turnaround moving from an old-time manufacturing company to one using advanced financial planning and management tools to drive growth, profitability, and performance. As part of this we needed a number of MBAs with manufacturing backgrounds to handle some major projects, and those taking the challenge would be rewarded for their successes. Creating the career ladder and proving that climbing it was a real possibility turned out to be more important than the size of the starting date compensation package. We were competing with some hot companies at the time – Ford, IBM, and P&G – and even though our jobs didn't have a lot of consumer appeal, we hired all but one person who also had other offers from these companies.
BEING MORE EFFICIENT DOING THE WRONG THINGS IS NOT PROGRESS
Around 1998 there was talk that the war for talent would be won with the advent of job boards, the creation of in-house corporate recruiting departments, new screening and assessment technology, and the use of applicant tracking systems (ATS). Based on these trends, companies were promised that hiring the best talent would be less costly, more efficient, and seamless. At that time I publicly contended this was pure fiction and that little would change in terms of improving quality of hire, increasing job satisfaction, and reducing turnover.
The cartoon in Figure I.1 was drawn to demonstrate this belief. My overriding contention was that doing the wrong things more efficiently was not progress. In fact, the same problems highlighted in the cartoon still exist today despite the billions of dollars spent on job postings, new technology, more sophisticated testing, and the use of artificial intelligence. LinkedIn was one of the few exceptions to this, and while it has had diminishing returns since everyone is now using it, it still is a powerful recruiting tool when used creatively and in the proper hands. These techniques will be revealed throughout this book.
Gallup's recent employee engagement survey summarizes the dismal results of this overriding focus on process efficiency rather than improving quality of hire.1 While their quarterly results show a very modest increase in employee engagement over the past 20 years, these same surveys still indicate that approximately 55% of the workforce is partially or totally disengaged with their work. This situation has changed little since the birth of the Internet and job boards. Job postings are just as boring, and these jobs are just as hard to find now as they were decades ago. And with them it's just as unlikely today that companies are going to be able to attract the strongest and most in-demand talent by offering them what on the surface appears to be an ill-defined lateral transfer and then forcing them to suffer the demeaning and burdensome application and assessment process.
Figure I.1 Hiring circa 1998.
While there are many variables involved when it comes to hiring, lack of clarity around job expectations and the attempt to speed up the decision-making process reward the wrong behaviors. The impersonal nature of the process makes it too transactional with the size of the start date compensation package valued more highly than the career opportunity the role represents. Given this, job hopping becomes the acceptable norm with the need to avoid mistakes being more important than hiring the best person available. Band-Aid solutions are then used to solve a strategic problem: a broken hiring process designed to weed out the weak rather than one designed to attract the best.
Without a fully integrated and end-to-end system, improving overall hiring results is not possible. These types of loose business processes leave too much to chance, letting bias, hiring manager desperation, and the competency of those involved in the sourcing and selection decision dictate the quality of the people hired and their ultimate performance. That's why little progress has been made in the past 25 years. This is both a strategic and a process design problem. The overriding objective of this book is to demonstrate that it can be solved by using Performance-based Hiring.
CREATING A WIN-WIN HIRING CULTURE
More important than the process itself is the need for a company to embrace the idea that hiring success shouldn't be measured on the start date; instead it should be measured on the first-year anniversary date. This is called Win-Win Hiring. Demonstrating how this can be achieved on a consistent basis is the overriding purpose of this book.
A positive Win-Win Hiring outcome after one year means the new employee is still fully satisfied with the role and his or her career progression, and the hiring manager still fully supports and endorses the person. In these situations both are glad an offer was made and accepted one year after working together. Achieving this important hiring outcome changes how the hiring process is designed, managed, and implemented, including how both the hiring manager and the candidate make their decisions to move forward in the process and make and accept offers. Getting all of these critical steps properly aligned starts with the right talent acquisition strategy.
This boils down to the overarching idea that you can't use a surplus of talent strategy designed to weed out the weak when there isn't a surplus of talent. In those situations where there is a scarcity of talent, you need to use a high touch and highly personalized process designed to attract the best. This is possible by spending more time with fewer people, as long as they're the right people.
With this strategic supply versus demand starting point, it's important to recognize that there are three major hiring challenges most companies face. These are described below and shown in Figure I.2. Given this segmentation it's important to note that the same hiring strategy and associated processes can't be used to solve all three challenges, especially when the overriding goal is to achieve more consistent Win-Win Hiring outcomes. While high tech can be part of the solution, it can't be the primary solution, especially in those situations when the demand for talent far exceeds the supply. In these cases more customization and high-touch involvement will be required from the recruiters and the hiring managers involved.
Figure I.2 The “Big Three” Hiring Needs.
THE BIG THREE HIRING CHALLENGES
Hiring at Scale.
The focus here is filling high-volume roles with strong people while minimizing mistakes. This is largely a high-tech process, but it can be improved by making jobs easier to find and more compelling. As you'll discover in
Chapter 12
on sourcing, eliminating the “Apply Now” button is a good first step.
Hiring to Raise the Talent Bar.
Improving quality of hire needs to be the goal when filling critical professional staff and mid-management positions. This requires a process targeting outstanding and diverse people who all have significant upside potential and who would likely see the role as a career move worthy of consideration. Most of these people will be passive and/or hard to find. While technology and advanced sourcing tactics are needed to identify them, just as important are excellent recruiters who can reach out and engage with them in a consultative manner and hiring managers who are willing to engage with these potential prospects very early in the process.
Strategic Leadership Hires.
Absolutely the best people must be hired to fill critical technical and executive level roles that have a direct bearing on the company's future success. This requires a high-touch process emphasizing networking and the need to invest the time necessary to convert any strangers into acquaintances long before an offer is made.
Regardless of the mix of high touch and high tech used, better results can always be achieved when a Win-Win Hiring outcome is the overriding objective used to decide whom to hire and why. This entire process will unfold and become apparent as you read this book and apply the concepts described.
CLARIFYING JOB EXPECTATIONS UP FRONT IS THE KEY TO HIRING OUTSTANDING PEOPLE
A more recent story will help set the stage for implementing this current version of Performance-based Hiring. It ties the idea of what's required to ensure a positive Win-Win Hiring outcome with some old and new ideas on how to find, interview, and recruit the strongest people.
One of our clients called just before the manuscript for this book was being finalized and asked for some advice on preparing a performance profile for their new VP of Data Analytics. The company was already an adherent of the Performance-based Hiring process, but since this was a new position, they wanted our help to define the performance objectives for the role. To get started I asked the COO to describe what the person would need to accomplish during the first year that everyone would consider an outstanding achievement. It went something like this:
Architect and implement a mobile-ready data information system that provides everyone in the company the real-time information needed to effectively manage their jobs, projects, and departments to meet their budget and performance objectives.
We then developed the calendarized subtasks required to achieve this major objective, starting with evaluating the current situation, developing each user's needs, understanding the technology platforms and the technical challenges, putting the detailed plans together, obtaining the resources, and then building and deploying a functioning system.
Since the person leading this hiring effort was familiar with the Performance-based Interview, he only needed a short reminder that when interviewing candidates he had to be sure to ask the person to describe his or her accomplishments most comparable to these performance objectives. Then as part of the subsequent fact-finding have the candidate describe step by step how the project was started, planned, and completed. Making the assessment involves comparing the candidate's major accomplishments and the process used to achieve them to the performance objectives of the open role.
Defining work as a series of key performance objectives is the foundation of the Performance-based Hiring process. This list of performance objectives is called a performance-based job description or performance profile. The idea underlying this is that as long as the person has done comparable work in similar situations, the person will have all of the skills, experiences, and competencies necessary to successfully handle the job. With this starting point, it's possible to broaden the talent pool to include more diverse, high-potential, and nontraditional candidates who have a different mix of skills and experiences. Just as important, in order to achieve a Win-Win Hiring outcome and get these people hired, they need to see the role as the best career move among competing alternatives rather than an ill-defined lateral transfer with the biggest compensation package.
By moving the definition of hiring success to the first-year anniversary date from the start date, everything changes about how candidates are found and interviewed, how they're recruited, how offers are negotiated, and how the person is managed and developed post-hire. This includes delivering on the promise after they're hired. In many ways this entire concept is comparable to embedding a modern post-hire performance management and personal development program into the pre-hire process. It all starts by defining the job as six to eight performance objectives rather than the common list of skills, required experiences, generic competencies, and “must have” personality traits.
WHY PERFORMANCE-BASED HIRING IS THE RIGHT BUSINESS PROCESS FOR HIRING
Before I became a recruiter, I had 10 years of industry experience as a control systems engineer, a corporate financial analyst, a capital budgeting and planning manager, a director of logistics, and a VP/GM of a manufacturing company with 300 employees. These positions were in a variety of industries including aerospace, consumer electronics, and automotive with three different Fortune 500 companies.
This was a great background for being a recruiter since I fully understood the jobs I was filling, but the primary reason I quit a good position with lots of upside opportunity and became a recruiter was to find a different job. The problem was that my boss – the group president – and I didn't get along very well. I wanted as little direction as possible, and he wanted everything done his way. This was a very demotivating experience for me the three to four times a month he showed up. As a result of this I realized that the additional need for ensuring a good managerial fit – meaning that the hiring manager's and new hire's working styles meshed reasonably well – was just as important as technical competency, project and team management skills, and motivation to excel in order to achieve a positive Win-Win Hiring outcome.
While how to properly assess candidates on all of the factors affecting post-hire performance was imperative, on a big-picture level just as essential was the idea that hiring needed to be a true business process, not an unstructured hodgepodge of tactics and techniques. This is where my background in manufacturing and process control became valuable. It made no sense to me that a hiring manager would ever need to see more than three or four strong people to confidently hire someone. No one in manufacturing would ever continue making bad parts if the first few were out of spec hoping a few good ones would eventually be produced. In this case the production line would be stopped and fixed before starting up again. But this is not the case in hiring. Hiring managers frequently ask their recruiters if they have any more candidates rather than trying to figure out why the first few weren't good enough. Most often, it's the lack of understanding of the performance objectives of the job.
Without this insight about the real job, hiring managers aren't able to conduct an accurate assessment and recruiters aren't able to convince the strongest people that the jobs they're trying to fill represent potential career moves worthy of consideration. Bridging this gap and giving both sides the information needed to achieve Win-Win Hiring outcomes is how Performance-based Hiring came into being. Done properly a hiring manager never needs to see more than three or four strong candidates and will never need to ask, “Do you have any more candidates?” When and if they do, it's time to stop and figure out what's wrong.
When viewed in this light, Performance-based Hiring is comparable to most business processes using measurable objectives, metrics, and process control feedback applied to the unstructured world of hiring, recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and performance management.
While the basic principles of hiring are still relevant, this fourth edition of Hire with Your Head has been updated to take into account the important things that have changed and improved in the past 20 years. As before, it's written for hiring managers and recruiters with a focus on what's required to find great candidates, interview and assess them accurately and objectively, and negotiate offers on fair and equitable terms. Implementing it starts before the job requisition is approved and doesn't end until at least a year after the person is hired.
Performance-based Hiring is different than traditional hiring practices. However, all of the ideas and the associated tactics described in this book have been validated by one of the top labor attorneys in the U.S. (see Appendix 1), by a number of top researchers and public research. Achieving the results, though, does require some significant reengineering of the more traditional hiring processes used by most companies today. As mentioned earlier, these changes are both strategic and tactical, emphasizing more high touch and less high tech. The idea is that by spending more time with fewer prequalified candidates it is possible to improve quality of hire, increase assessment accuracy, reduce turnover, and increase job satisfaction, all while reducing cost-per-hire and time-to-fill. In the process it will allow hiring managers to spend more time making their strongest people better rather than wasting time trying to get those who shouldn't have been hired in the first place to become average performers.
As you read this book, I urge you to consider these words I heard so long ago: “There is nothing more important than hiring outstanding people. Nothing.” They're still true today.
NOTE
1
Harter, Jim. “Historic Drop in Employee Engagement Follows Record Rise.”
Gallup.com
, Gallup, 19 Nov. 2020,
www.gallup.com/workplace/313313/historic-drop-employee-engagement-follows-record-rise.aspx
.
Chapter 1Define Your Talent Strategy Before You Design Your Hiring Process
Stop Making Tactical Excuses for a Strategic Problem
The Importance of Having the Right Talent Strategy
Supply versus Demand Needs to Drive Talent Strategy
Comparing the Scarcity of Talent versus a Surplus of Talent Strategies
Win-Win Hiring: Hiring for the Anniversary Date, Not the Start Date
Develop an Ideal Candidate Persona to Achieve More Win-Win Hiring Outcomes
Remove the HAVING Mindset and Shift to a Performance-Qualified Screening Standard
Negotiate with the End in Mind
More High Touch and Less High Tech: Convert Strangers into Acquaintances
STOP MAKING TACTICAL EXCUSES FOR A STRATEGIC PROBLEM
A Catch-22, based on Joseph Heller's book1 of the same title, refers to a situation where someone is trapped and wants to get out of the situation but can't because of some policy, law, or regulation.
Hiring is like that.
For example, too many HR leaders believe that job descriptions must include laundry lists of skills, experiences, and generic competencies in order to be considered objective in the eyes of the law. Yet I asked one of the top labor attorneys in the U.S. if describing a performance objective like “determine the root cause of the manufacturing yield problem and put a plan together to solve the problem” was as objective as “must have 5+ years of experience and a degree in manufacturing engineering.” He said it was not only more objective from a compliance standpoint but it was far better than the arbitrary list since it opened the talent pool to more diverse and nontraditional candidates who had a different mix of skills and experiences but who could do the work. (His whitepaper is included in Appendix 1.)
Another part of this Catch-22 is the continued use of generic competency models in combination with structured behavioral interviewing to screen and assess candidates. A structured interview is a great technique to remove bias, but just asking candidates to describe their major accomplishments related to the actual requirements of the role would achieve a bigger benefit by not only reducing bias but also understanding if the person can successfully handle the actual job.
I talked to a number of senior scientists at the firms that use these types of statistically validated tools, including psychometric prescreening tests, and they agree that their tools are far less than perfect. Making them even more imperfect is the lack of a job analysis for every job that's using a generic competency model in combination with behavioral interviewing to assess candidates.
Few companies actually do this, yet it's an essential requirement made abundantly clear in Schmidt and Hunter's exhaustive research on which selection methods are most effective.2 Harvard Professor Todd Rose and I discussed this same missing link idea when Todd was writing his book The End of Average. The collective scientific conclusion is that without understanding the job (this is the performance profile in Performance-based Hiring terminology) and the underlying context (these are all of the fit factors in the Hiring Formula for Success), a behavioral interviewing process using generic competencies is fundamentally flawed.
Yet despite the logic, the statistics, and the scientific evidence, HR executives continue to make some Catch-22 excuses for not changing or even using some type of A versus B test to see what approach is most effective.
But there's an even bigger and far more important Catch-22 at play when it comes to hiring. This one has to do with the importance of strategy over tactics. Let me explain this with a story from long ago.
The Importance of Having the Right Talent Strategy
I learned very early in my pre-recruiting career that strategy drives tactics – it's not the other way around. At the time I was a new financial analyst at the headquarters of a Fortune 50 company listening in on a business unit presenting its annual plan to the corporation's executive team. After about 30 minutes the CFO stood up and lambasted the president of a $5 billion group (today's dollars) with seven operating divisions.
It's been almost 50 years now, but I can still hear those words as if they were said yesterday:
Strategy drives tactics – it's not the other way around. And I don't care how good your tactics are, your strategy doesn't make any sense. Your operating plan will not be approved until you have a strategy to grow your business, not just run it more efficiently.
When it comes to hiring stronger talent, the root cause of most problems is typically the wrong strategy or the lack of the right one by default. This experiment will help you appreciate the importance of getting the talent strategy right before you start looking for candidates.
Supply versus Demand Needs to Drive Talent Strategy
The primary business of my company now is to train hiring managers and recruiters how to implement the Performance-based Hiring process described in this book. At the beginning of each of these programs I always ask the attendees to think about their most important hiring requirements to demonstrate the importance of getting the talent strategy figured out first. I then ask if, given these hiring needs, is there a surplus of great candidates to fill these positions or is there a scarcity? Before reading further, how would you answer this question for the critical positions that need to be filled at your company?
Do you have a scarcity of great talent for your critical roles or a surplus?
In normal economic times it's not surprising that 90% of the time the answer is scarcity. This was the same answer when I first asked the question to a group of 15 TEC/Vistage CEOs at my first resource presentation in 1990 and the same answer for the thousand or so workshops since then.
Given a scarcity of talent, this simple strategy change must be the first taken:
You can't use a surplus of talent strategy and process when there isn't a surplus of talent. In this case you need to implement a scarcity of talent program designed to attract the best, not weed out the weak.
The primary intent in a surplus of talent strategy is to cast a broad net, weed out the unqualified, and hope a few good people remain. This is the classic hiring process most companies still use today and why little has changed from a results standpoint over the past 30 years. It's why doing the wrong things more efficiently, even with the addition of AI and the best ATS on the planet, won't improve overall hiring results.
A scarcity of talent strategy is a high-touch process focused on prequalifying outstanding people, engaging in exploratory career conversations, and recruiting the strongest. This is what Performance-based Hiring is designed to achieve. In our training programs we use the graphic in Figure 1.1 to demonstrate the importance of having the talent strategy define the process rather than the process defining the strategy.
To understand how to achieve the strategy of raising the talent bar in a talent-scarce market, it helps to categorize the major steps in the hiring process into one of these four groups:
The Having
: The job description itself, including the skills, experiences, and “must have” competencies
The Getting
: The offer package and what the person receives on the start date, including the title and location
The Doing
: The actual work the person will be doing, not the list of responsibilities
The Becoming
: The learning opportunity and the upside potential of the job
While this categorization is a good simplification of a complex hiring process, the direction of the process is what matters the most in terms of achieving the desired results of attracting and hiring strong people on a consistent basis. This is where the “strategy drives tactics” concept becomes important. Here are the differences when looking at the hiring process from a directional point of view.
Figure 1.1 Surplus versus Scarcity of Talent Strategy.
A Left-to-Right Surplus of Talent Process:
This is a transactional hiring process designed to fill jobs with the best person who applies or responds to an email as efficiently as possible. It's appropriate for high-volume hiring when the supply of talent is greater than the demand. Properly weeding out the unqualified is the key to the effectiveness of this strategy and process.
A Right-to-Left Scarcity of Talent Process:
This is a more complex hiring process designed to identify and attract the strongest talent possible by offering the best career opportunity among competing alternatives. Spending more time with fewer but prequalified people and understanding their ability and career needs is the key to the effectiveness of this strategy and process.
With these definitions as a guidepost, it's obvious that using a left-to-right process designed to weed out the weak as efficiently as possible will be ineffective when the demand for talent exceeds the supply. The reason is that the best people just won't apply or won't be interested in spending time learning about what appears to be on the surface nothing more than a possible lateral transfer.
To get the best people to consider changing jobs or decide to accept yours requires a lot more effort similar to the discovery and solution-based selling process involved in more complex customized sales situations.3 This requires a right-to-left hiring process.
While this might seem logical, it's hard to achieve since every applicant tracking system (ATS) is designed by default to go left to right, somehow assuming there's a surplus of talent.
Paraphrasing the words of the CEO, “This is backwards since the strategy is wrong, so the tactics don't matter no matter how good they are.”
The Catch-22 in this is that HR leaders know the left-to-right process design is conceptually flawed, especially when they realize referrals are found and hired using some version of the right-to-left process. They're just not sure how to rework it, thinking they're trapped by their ATS design, corporate bureaucracy, legal compliance, hiring manager reluctance to change, and the need to focus on efficiency and cost rather than quality of hire.
Rather than getting overwrought by the challenges involved in making the shift, let's first figure out what it would take to reengineer the hiring process given a talent scarcity situation. Then we'll demonstrate that Performance-based Hiring is an effective means to accomplish this including modifying the ATS to make it all work at scale.
Comparing the Scarcity of Talent versus a Surplus of Talent Strategies
No matter how efficient, a surplus of talent strategy won't work when a surplus of talent doesn't exist.
Filtering people on their skills (the HAVE in Figure 1.1) and what a person gets on the start date (title, location, compensation) before even considering them makes no sense since the best and most diverse people have a different mix of skills and experiences. That's why excluding this group from consideration based on factors that don't predict performance is counterproductive. As important, what people GET on Day One are all factors that are negotiable if the job represents a significant career move. This point is explained in more depth in Chapter 3 comparing the skill set of the strongest performers to those who meet the requirements listed in the job description.
Doing this left-to-right process faster and even using AI to boost it to warp speed is akin to a dog chasing its tail faster and faster and wondering why it can never catch it.
By slowing down, thinking more “high touch” versus more “HR Tech,” and spending more time with the right people, these problems go away. Here are the big mind-altering ideas that need to take place to make it happen one hire at a time.
WIN-WIN HIRING: HIRING FOR THE ANNIVERSARY DATE, NOT THE START DATE
Hiring for the anniversary date, rather than the start date, and addressing how candidates are onboarded and managed post-hire, has a direct influence on how they're sourced, assessed, and recruited pre-hire. A positive Win-Win Hiring outcome means the hiring manager and the new hire both agree it was the right decision after working together for one year. Recognizing the longer term and dual decision-making involved in this type of process forces both parties to spend more time ensuring they're making the right decision. Achieving this is not possible unless the DOING and BECOMING are clearly defined early in the process.
Part of this is a more in-depth assessment process focusing not only on the ability to do the work but also on ensuring all of the fit factors are properly aligned. Just as important is the need to provide the candidate all of the information needed to compare opportunities being considered from a longer-term perspective.
Develop an Ideal Candidate Persona to Achieve More Win-Win Hiring Outcomes
When the goal is to hire stronger people for the long term, rather than to fill jobs as cheaply and as quickly as possible, it seems logical to first figure out how these stronger people actually change jobs, why they stay, and why they continue to perform at peak levels. This analysis is comparable to a traditional marketing problem associated with the development of any new product. It starts by developing an ideal customer profile that defines what the customer wants, how to reach the customer, and what messages work best. When it comes to hiring, the equivalent is called the “ideal candidate persona.” There is a template in Appendix 2 summarizing how to prepare this important marketing document. In Chapter 12 this form will be used as the basis for developing a whole series of sourcing plans and compelling messages with the goal of dramatically increasing top candidate response rates.
As you'll discover, posting boring jobs and hoping a top person applies is not the most effective means to find these top people. In a scarcity of talent situation, the focus needs to be narrowed to semifinalists rather than just people who apply. A semifinalist is someone who is clearly a top performer in the required field and who would also see the role as one worth at least considering. The value of this is that when done properly a hiring manager only needs to interview three or four semifinalists to make one outstanding hire. The challenge in achieving this is first getting both parties open-minded enough to talk to each other. This is why defining the DOING is so important.
In Chapter 7, describing the details of developing a complete performance profile, there are a number of techniques to overcome hiring manager reluctance. This story describes the simplest and most important.
I remember working with a CEO for a Silicon Valley firm who wanted to hire a VP of Marketing who had at least 10 years’ experience in a related field and an MBA and BSEE from a top school. When I asked the CEO what the person needed to do with this, he said, “Lead the development of a detailed product roadmap that incorporated all of the new tech trends.” When I asked him if he'd at least talk to someone who had done this work, even if the person didn't have the exact experience and academic background, he said, “Of course.” Without defining the DOING as a performance objective, getting this agreement would not have been possible.
Describing the BECOMING is no less important. Developing it starts by asking the hiring manager what the long-term opportunity is for someone who successfully achieved the results required. In this same VP of Marketing example, it related to architecting the future direction of a company that would soon be going public. This became a key part of the messaging that convinced some remarkable people to at least begin the conversation who wouldn't have been interested otherwise.
The key to successfully implementing a scarcity of talent program rests on the idea that fewer people need to be seen to make one outstanding hire. But finding these remarkable people and convincing them to at least consider what's being offered requires exceptional recruiters and fully engaged hiring managers. Yet even with this as a foundation piece, how the job is defined is the tipping point for success. Unfortunately, there are a lot of institutional Catch-22 barriers required to make the DOING and BECOMING shift a companywide initiative.
Remove the HAVING Mindset and Shift to a Performance-Qualified Screening Standard
The biggest bottleneck in making the shift to a scarcity of talent process from the traditional hiring process is the skills-laden job description.
Consider the premise that in a scarcity of talent situation there are few top people desperate enough to apply to a job that appears on the surface to be an ill-defined lateral transfer. From a more practical standpoint, it's pretty obvious that few of the people who do apply read these job postings anyway. In fact, published research from the ATS vendors handling over 60 million applications from 2015 to 2020 reveals that only 1% were hired who applied and roughly 4% actually interviewed.4 This means that 96% of the effort involved in managing, reviewing, and contacting those who do apply is a wasted and unnecessary overhead expense. Making it worse, their continued use requires companies to spend extra time and resources to deal with these unqualified people, including the creation of a “Positive Candidate Experience” function to ensure the people you say no to don't feel bad.
I have a related HAVING concern with competency models when it comes to using them for screening and assessment purposes. One big one is that they're pretty much all the same. Just about everyone wants to hire people who are hungry, humble, and smart.5 Others want to hire the same kinds of people but use different terms like results-oriented, have great team skills, think creatively, or are detail-oriented. Just recently I was working with a group of IT hiring managers at a well-known national restaurant chain who were required to screen for cultural fit. While they all said it was important, there was little agreement when I asked them to define their company culture and how they screened for it. In fact, they actually started arguing amongst themselves when trying to define what it actually was.
The problem, as Professor Rose pointed out, without context the use of required skills and generic competencies are ineffective for screening and assessment. Interviewers can define them any way they want, resulting in just as many false positives as false negatives.
As shown in the example earlier, converting generic competencies, “must have” personality traits, or any essential skill is easy. Just ask the hiring manager how it's used on the job and if she/he would talk with someone who achieved something comparable. The bigger point here is that you never need to compromise performance, ability, or potential when the work is defined as a series of performance objectives. This is what “performance qualified” means.
To prove the person is competent, all you have to do is dig deep into the candidate's comparable accomplishments to see if there's a fit. If so, you'll discover the person will have all of the skills, experiences, competencies, and personality traits needed to successfully handle your job.
However, it will likely be a different mix than what's listed on the job description. As important, emphasizing these performance objectives in your job postings and outbound messages will attract a broader and more diverse pool of people who will quickly see the role as a potential career move.
Regardless of the common sense in all of this, the Catch-22 excuse relates to being more comfortable using some tried-and-true method that other companies use. This is a much safer approach than trailblazing.
