Is There a Flaw in Your Hiring Process?
Copyright 2004

If your business has hired several people who disappointed you by failing to live up to your expectations, you may have doubts about your hiring process. You are not alone. Many executives wonder the same thing. There is probably nothing wrong with your process other than it is incomplete.

Most businesses are very conscientious when considering who they hire. They check the references, experience, education, and other qualifications of their job candidates. They may also conduct drug tests and background checks followed by a round of interviews involving several executives that may bring a hiring decision. Even though this thorough and conscientious effort has been put into the selection process, too many people are hired who turn out to be hiring mistakes.

Noted business guru Peter Drucker says, "Chances are good that up to sixty-six percent of your company's hiring decisions will prove to be mistakes in the first 12 months." Given this statistic, it would be easy to surrender to the mystery and unpredictability of people. Don't do it!

One often overlooked factor is how job candidates fit your corporate culture and match the position for which they have been selected. It is likely that you have almost always picked people who have all of the qualifications for success - somewhere - but maybe not in the job you seek to fill.

An extensive study conducted years ago concluded that fit with a job is more important that any other factor in predicting an employee's success. Yet, job match is seldom included in a business's hiring system. Companies hire good, talented people, but put them in jobs they do not fit. Think of it this way. Imagine a corporation inviting Tiger Woods to their annual golf tournament and asking him to conduct a seminar on diving at the country club's swimming pool. Though this is a ridiculous example, it is no more nonsensical than what some businesses have done with people they've hired.

Job match can be determined with assessment instruments that measure factors such as thinking style, motivational interests, and job related behavioral traits. These instruments are valuable in establishing benchmarks for positions. The benchmarks are used to determine the job match of job candidates. It is not a perfect system, but it can significantly diminish the sixty-six percent failure rate that Dr. Drucker estimates.

In conclusion, your hiring process is probably terrific, but it may be missing the job match factor. If you are not consistently getting the results you expect from your new hires, you may want to start using job match in your system.