No employer considers their hiring process to be a casual affair. But sometimes their actions...
Over the last 15 years, whilst taking job orders from all kinds of companies, I’ve found myself posing this question to Business Owners, Directors and Hiring Managers, on an almost daily basis…
“Tell me, what it is that you are looking for?”
Whist the answer always varies, it can almost always be broken down into 3 sections which, usually takes around 20 mins for them to divulge.
- Firstly – The Specifics or the hard facts usually last about 3-4 mins. Things such as: job title, preferred location, salary, responsibility and scope.
- Secondly – The CV or essential/desirable criteria usually lasts about 15 mins. Things such as: education, qualifications, product knowledge, market knowledge, skills, training, experience and credentials.
- And finally – The person or personality which, usually ends with 10 seconds and sounds a lot like this: "We’d like a self-starter who’s highly motivated and, a team player with lots of drive".
I take note of this information and pose another 2-part question.
“Of the last 10 people you’ve hired, how many reached their first anniversary and, of those who left, why did they leave?”
Typical answers are: “3 out of 10 leave within their first year”, “they were just not right for our business”, “they were lying to us about going to meetings”, “they left for the competition”, “they were upsetting customers”, etc etc…
98% of the time their answers to this question are based around The person and personality.
I then ask my final 2 questions.
“If 3 out of 10 people leave, this is a 30% failure rate, would you accept a 30% failure rate in any other area of your business?”
And, “you’ve just told me the main reason people do not work out in your business is down to personality. However, when I just asked 'what is it that you are looking for?' you spent only 10 seconds talking about this, why?”.
Then there's an awkward silence, or a moment of realisation where the hiring team take stock of the situation.
What we then do is have an open discussion around behaviours, personality, attitude, aptitude and so on. We then introduce behavioural profiling technology into the mix, which allows for the hiring team to articulate very clearly what will make for a successful long-term hire at their firm.
Once this has been done, we can then create a balanced job description, that's far more specific, meaningful and relevant than it was an hour ago!
Now the balance has shifted. They are recruiting heavily on personality as well as on hard facts and CV. History shows us that, in any line of business, prevention is always cheaper than the cure, and that’s exactly what we are doing here, preventing the problem from outset.
As a result of this approach, 96% of the candidates we place are still in situ after 12 months and 93% after 24% months.
And for this reason alone, here at GrassGreener Group, we offer a free replacement policy of up to 24 months…
