Getting the right talent is critical to business performance. Finding and onboarding that talent takes a lot of time and effort.

Given the amount of effort put into hiring, why are so many leaders unhappy with the results?

If candidates aren’t delivering on expectations formed in the interview process then the process is not predictive of performance.

Many interviews unintentionally replace the question ‘is this person a top performer in this role’ with the easier question ‘is this person a great interviewer’ and don’t realise the substitution.

Interviews are an artificial setting. Candidates are prepared and polished. They do not behave in the same way as when they’re working which is why interview performance on its own is not very predictive.

The most predictive behaviour occurs in real life scenarios that are similar in some meaningful way to the role being filled. So how do you ensure you’re making hiring decisions based on that predictive information?

You can take a big step forward by introducing a standard of evidence.

For any conclusions to be incorporated into the decision making process, you require evidence to back up to that conclusion.

My standard is that ‘conclusions must be supported by real world events with enough detail that someone else is able to support or challenge the conclusion.’

If that standard isn’t met, either decide to collect more evidence or disregard the conclusion.

This focuses the interviewer on understanding the context the candidate operated in and how they performed in a situation with similarities to the role. It’s impossible for a candidate to rehearse a discussion that dives into context and decision making at this level.

It requires more robust note taking and interview focus. The effort is marginal compared to the overall investment in hiring and the cost of bad hires.

Example

Criteria: Able to influence senior leaders with differing goals to improve company wide outcomes

Doesn’t meet evidence standard

Tanya receives 5/5 for this criteria. In her current role she is responsible for liaising between the product and customer service teams. She navigated acrimonious relationships and was able to achieve high impact despite this. She was articulate and persuasive in our interview.

Meets evidence standard

  • Tanya’s current role was created because the product team was notorious for not communicating updates/features
  • At the beginning of Tanya’s tenure internal surveys showed a 3.2/10 rating from customer service in response to the statement ‘I am given the tools to be successful in my role’. Now it’s 6.6/10
  • Tanya had no formal authority over the product team
  • The leader of the product team and the CEO were close.  The product team gets their way
  • She convinced the resistant leader of the product team to allow her to observe key meetings
  • From these meetings she was able to distil relevant information about releases and communicate them to the leader of the CS team
  • In the words of the CS team leader ‘we can finally plan and not have to constantly react to surprises’
  • Tanya outlined a detailed example of the product team implementing a new VOIP product without consultation, in order to save cost. It would be disruptive to CS and remove valued features. She was able to bring this to the attention of the CS lead early and mediate a solution with the product team that mitigated impact on customer service through other CRM integrations. She was able to convince the product team lead to buy in by outlining how disruption in CS would translate into extra work and challenges for the product team
  • The current 6.6/10 survey rating is a major improvement but not high. Tanya believes the remaining ‘gap’ is mostly due to feature requests not being listened to. Based on the context above, this is plausible
  • Tanya had a support staff member with five years experience who appeared to be a high performer. She may not be as effective without that support

I rate Tanya 5/5 on this criteria. She doesn’t need hard power to achieve her aims. She dealt with acrimonious people and was able to navigate these challenges and improve outcomes. This situation is significantly more challenging than our role.

Tanya did leverage a junior team member to do much of the detailed work, allowing her to spend more time in meetings and influencing team leads. I do not have evidence to support her ability to execute without similar support.

I recommend product and CS team leads reference checks to validate this evidence.

Armed with the information above, those involved in the hiring decision can debate the conclusion and compare it to other evidence collected in the process to form a predictive view of a candidate’s capability.

By mandating evidence collection you will:

  • See the standard of interviewing rise over time
  • See interviews become more focused on what truly matters
  • Conduct more informative reference checks
  • Most importantly, hire candidates based on real world evidence that is predictive of performance

Tried this and have feedback? Questions? Get in touch at grant@butterflyaffect.net