Don’t Require a College Degree When You Don’t Need One

In a tough job market like this one, most employers want to raise their expectations about who to hire.  That’s smart.  This is a great time to raise your standards. 

But one of the worst ways to raise your standards is by demanding a college degree for jobs that simply do not require a degree.   That actually does the opposite, it actually lowers the caliber of candidate you can hire. 

The unemployment rate among college grads is far lower than the unemployment rate among people without a degree.  The difference is astonishing.   Check out this interactive graph by the New York Times – “The Jobless Rate for People Like You“.   Our national unemployment rate varies from 3.7% to 48.5%  depending on your race, age, and level of education.   (Bear in mind, that’s the national rate, the DC Metropolitan Area enjoys much lower numbers).  

I should probably note that I do not think that employed candidates are better than unemployed candidates (I’ve addressed that myth before).  

And no,  I’m not debating the value of a college degree, I’ve already discussed that as well).

My point is this:  when you require a college degree, you jump from a candidate pool with relatively high unemployment (high school grads) to a candidate pool with half their rate of unemployment.  Therefore you are competing with many other employers for a candidate pool that simply enjoys more career opportunities.  By insisting on a degree, you simply have more competition, and therefore fewer good people to choose from.

I should note that extensive research shows that years of education do not accurately predict performance on the job … any job. 

So when you require a degree for jobs, you have used a criteria that does not predict success on the job (years of education)  in order to (arbitrarily) narrow the pool of candidates you are considering, and in doing that, you have eliminated some of your best potential candidates.  

So, while demanding a degree may make screening resumes easier, but it will probably make your hiring decision worse.

What You Need to Know About Hiring

Hiring people in any economy is a roll of the dice.  Hiring people right now is even less certain of success.  But there are strategies you can use to improve your odds.  We’ve researched hundreds of articles and compiled the best research and thinking into our November 2009 newsletter.  Check it out.

Here’s Why I Don’t Call You …

If you are not yet a client of Staffing Advisors, do you ever wonder why I don’t call you?  You obviously read this blog, maybe you read our newsletters, maybe you heard me speak somewhere or we met at a networking event, or maybe you just know someone who knows me. 

I could find your contact information (DUH, I’m a headhunter) and it’s likely that you would take my call if I called you, and yet I don’t.  It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you …  far from it.  

So why don’t I call you when it appears that everyone else in the search business calls you regularly?  And further, how exactly do we remain busy, without cold calling, while so many other staffing firms are struggling?  

Because the world changed.  People want communication, conversation and engagement on their terms, not cold calls.   So we’re here on your terms, and as you can see, we put all our energy into researching and sharing how to solve your staffing problems … not pestering you for work.

What’s probably not obvious is just how many people call us.  Friends, casual acquaintances, people who have never spoken to us, people who have no budget to engage our services this year, people who might never be in a position to engage us for a search … all kinds of people call.  All the time.

This blog has been a great way for me to start a conversation with you, without interrupting your day.  You can continue that conversation by posting a comment on this blog, connecting with me on Twitter, sending me an email, but really, most people just call me.  So what do people call me about?  Well last week it looked like this: 

• “We have someone retiring and need some help to rethink the position.” 
• “I need to prove a point to my executive team, can you send me some articles or research on … ?”
• “We’re too busy to even come up with a job description, but need help in our … department, can you help?” 
• “I’m trying to find good candidates for an open position and have no idea where to find them, any suggestions?” 
• “Can you look at this job ad and suggest where to post it?”
• “We have someone who is just not working out and we need to replace them, what should we do?”
• “We simply must develop a pipeline of candidates for this role, these hiring delays are costing us a fortune, and our managers are afraid to fire anyone because they are so hard to replace.”

Sometimes people engage us to solve the problem, sometimes we just have a nice conversation and share a few ideas.  No matter.  

People feel comfortable calling me because the cash register does not have to ring every time someone calls. The financial stuff always works out in the long run.  I’m an inquisitive guy and love hearing what’s going on in your world.   It’s all a fine education for me, so you are never wasting my time by calling, and I never expect anything in return.  (That’s how things work in social media, it’s a “pay it forward” mentality, full of small acts of kindness).

But just don’t expect me to call you.  I already know you are overworked, understaffed, doing more with less … you’re swamped.  I have no intention of being that rude guy who interrupts you.  So call me when you have a question, okay?  

Oh, and every time some other search firm cold calls you?  Please just consider that a gentle reminder to call me with your question, because I’m right here, researching your answer, not on the phone - interrupting other people.

Interviews Are the 3rd (Really 9th) Best Way to Select People

Skilled researchers pored through 85 years of scientific literature to identify which employee selection methods were the best predictors of job performance.    85 years of research, distilled down into one set of findings. 

So of the 19 methods studied, which ones were the best?

• Structured interviews came in 3rd. 
• The far more common unstructured interviews came in a dismal 9th – see:  “So You Think You Can Interview?”
• Reference checks came in 13th. 
• Years of job experience came in 14th. 
• Years of education came in 16th.

So … correct me if I’m wrong here, but that list covers just about all the methods most employers use when making a hiring decision. 

OK, so this research goes a long way toward explaining why there are so many hiring mistakes, but I bet it leaves you wondering just what those researchers found to be the best predictors of job performance…  

The best predictors of job performance were being smart, (General Mental Ability – such as IQ) and doing well on work sample tests (see: ”Talking About Work vs. Doing Work In the Interview.”)    Actually employers who used a combination of two good methods improved their hiring accuracy even further.

So, in 85 years of research, one finding is crystal clear: 

Most traditional methods of selecting employees are terrible at predicting job performance.  

But the fun really begins when you evaluate the entire recruiting and hiring cycle in light of these findings:

• You reduce your chances of making a good hiring decision when you emphasize (the nearly irrelevant) years of experience in your job description, and employment advertising.  That (arbitrarily) limits who you will even consider in your pool of candidates.  
• Then, when you dip into that already limited pool of candidates to select people for an interview, you further reduce your chances of making a good hiring decision when you rely on the resumes alone in selecting who to interview.   Just what, exactly, can you learn from a resume beyond education and years of work experience?  Less than you think, yet surveys show that years of experience is one of the most common factors executives use in evaluating candidates.
• So, before you have even had your first interview, before you have spoken one word to your potential future employee - your entire recruiting and hiring sequence conspired against you by using two of the least reliable indicators of actual job performance to select who you will speak with.  And then of course, most managers compound the error by “winging it” with an unstructured interview.   Hey, if that’s the combination of hiring methods you are using, maybe you should save the trouble and just rely on handwriting analysis instead (it was ranked 18th). 

So what exactly can you do to improve the accuracy of your hiring decisions?  Well, I don’t know what you can do in your company culture, but I can share the approach we have taken on hundreds of searches for dozens of clients.  No, we don’t use IQ tests and no we’re not perfect, but 90% of our placements are thriving on the job after 18 months.   (When you get a lot of repeat business and offer a really long performance guarantee you tend to track these things very carefully).

Our Results-Based Hiring Process^®  does not emphasize education or job experience during the outreach, recruiting and selection process.  We purposefully cast a wide net with telephone interviews to avoid any hint of resume bias - we intentionally want to talk with ”out of the box” candidates.   After we winnow the candidate pool based on the behaviors and competencies that will actually drive business results, we then provide hiring managers with several useful kinds of structure.  We develop targeted behavioral interview questions and detailed candidate evaluation forms for each position.  We help our clients manage who should be involved in the interview sequence, and suggest how it should best be structured, and we encourage our clients to integrate rigorous work sample tests into the interview process. 

And yes, we still check references -  because even if reference checking is only 13th on that list, it still has some correlation to job performance, and I just flat refuse to use handwriting analysis.

Job Descriptions No Longer Describe Jobs

The most accurate part of many job descriptions is “other duties as assigned.”  The rest of it is just a dull list of responsibilities and qualifications lacking all context.  I read them all the time and can rarely understand what the job is really all about.

Any perceived relevance of the job description rarely survives contact with actual work – they are outdated the moment they are written. Rarely do they define the work to be accomplished, and they almost never define the goals to be achieved.  They are, quite simply, a relic of the industrial age.  In the Brand for Talent blog, Libby Sartain asks what’s next if the job description is no longer relevant?  She says:

“The changes of the past decade point to a different environment in which business must search for people. Instead of measuring talent needs by the number of jobs, the forward-thinking business thinks in terms of work—the incremental activities that it must successfully complete for the business to meet its obligations. The measurement of effort as work instead of jobs enables business to focus on output rather than on the input of people in specific roles.”

Hmmmm, measuring the outputs (results), instead of the inputs (activity) – that sounds like a Results-Only-Work Environment (ROWE) to me.  Are we finally moving from industrial age, activity-based time and motion studies and into the future of work –  managing for results?  I sure hope so.

We take this results-based approach in our consulting work with small to midsize enterprises.  At the start of each search engagement we ask the hiring manager what success looks like a year from today.  What will need to be accomplished in the next 12 months for the new hire to be considered a success?  What talents and abilities must someone have to drive those results?  What values fit well within the company culture?   We write it all up in a document we call a Hiring Blueprint.  But really, we could call it a “Results Description” – it’s what a job description could be (if it actually wanted to be relevant).  So how do we know our documents are actually relevant?  Because people refer to them frequently in performance management conversations.

In fact, one of the great joys in our consulting work is following up on the placements we’ve made.  During the first year, we check in with the hiring manager about every 3 months, asking not just ”How is Frank working out?” but ”What have you achieved together?”   We call and ask the candidate not just “How do you like the job?” but ”How does the job differ from your expectations going in to it?”   We judge our own performance by the accuracy of the performance expectations we set and the corresponding results that were achieved. 

Yes, we have an enviable track record of success on our placements, but this is not a “set it and forget it” approach – Results Descriptions change year to year.   Jobs change, unforeseen challenges emerge.  Growing businesses outgrow people, technology and market forces change the nature of the work, and eventually people outgrow jobs.  Work is not static, and job descriptions should not be static either.

If you agree with the following statements, it’s no wonder that very few firms hire effectively:

• The typical job description is useless in defining performance expectations.
• The typical resume is useless in predicting the job performance of the candidate.  

If the Job Description is no longer viable, let’s at least consider replacing it with the Results Description.  As to the resume, I have no idea what to replace it with… 

 (By the way, if you want to see a sample of our Results Descriptions, just take a look at our current searches).

How to Give a Really Bad First Impression of Your Company

You know the drill.  You post a job ad and 300 people apply.  You know, at best,  there are five qualified people in that stack of resumes, so what’s the fastest way to find them?   Some employers ask job seekers to jump through a hoop before committing any time to them.   The hoop  might involve a pre-employment test, performing a work-related task like writing something, or even asking something really time consuming like developing a business plan in order to apply for a job. 

Except here is the problem.

It’s rude.  

And it drives away many of the most talented people you really want to talk to. 

By asking for something before you have committed anything you convey that your time is worth more than theirs … that they are just one of thousands and you are too busy to talk to them.   Except top performers don’t see themselves as mindless drones, as one of thousands.  And remember, there were, at most, only five of them in that big stack of resumes -  but in your haste to save time, you just gave those five the same bad experience you gave everyone else. 

Think about how you feel when a company treats you that way.   I went to Home Depot this weekend, only because my local hardware store was already closed.  I detest going to any retailer who is not staffed and managed appropriately to deliver actual customer service.  Heck, even the self-checkout process was poorly designed.  Sure, they got my money, but it was frustrating and dehumanizing … just like the first impression you are making on everyone who answered your ad.  

Don’t misunderstand me.  It is smart to ask for extra information, it’s even a great idea to test people, but please mind your manners and do those things only AFTER you have first spoken with them.   After you have spoken with someone, you are welcome to ask for something else.  To save time, I think a phone interview makes a lot of sense.

OK, so if  my “mind your manners” rant was not compelling enough for you … Steve Boese wrote a great post on your real first impression with job seekers.  No, it’s not your offices – it’s your web presence and what people say about you.  It’s what happens long before they apply to your ad.   Google is your first impression, followed by your website, corporate job site, and then what other people who interviewed with you reported about their experience.  (InsideJob on Facebook for example). 

If your hiring process feels like shopping at Home Depot, these experiences will surely make their way into the online conversation about your company.  Then your first impression on Google will be working against you, and your recruiting problems will grow ever larger. 

Oh, and forget about those 5 good people, they all dropped out long before you got around to interviewing.

You Got All That From Reading the Resume? Really?

A few months ago I was talking to a CEO about one of his senior managers.  This manager believes he can read a lot into a resume, so he summarily rejects quite a few resumes when he is hiring.  The CEO decided to test this manager’s selection skills by forwarding his own resume using a different name.  The CEO was, of course, rejected as unworthy of an interview. 

Later, I read an article in Forbes and the lead-in to the story immediately grabbed me:

“The current job market reminds me of a story about a church committee assigned to hire a new pastor. Numerous well-qualified candidates applied, but none seemed to meet the committee’s requirements. Frustrated with this perfectionism, one of the committee’s members submitted an anonymous résumé with the accomplishments of a certain priest who had lived and preached in Galilee 2,000 years before. The committee reviewed the résumé and rejected it. Even Jesus Christ wasn’t good enough.”

Let me be clear.  I am not advocating for lowering your hiring standards.  Heaven forbid – after all, I am the guy who wrote “In Recruiting, ‘WOW’ is the New Normal” just a few months ago.  Managers should be raising their hiring standards now.

 No, I’m just saying that too many managers spend too much time trying to interpret nuance from a resume, when they should be paying more attention to how they define the job specifications and thinking harder about how they actually interview real people.   Trust me on this one, you learn far less from a resume than you think you do.

Why the Right People Are Still Hard to Find

Have you tried to fill a position lately?  Were you disappointed by how few good people applied?  Many people are surprised that good candidates are not lining up around the block to apply. 

In a recent article in Human Resource Executive Online, Wharton Professor Peter Cappelli offers some insights into why it’s still difficult to find qualified workers for many positions.  He says:

“There is no shortage of people with the appropriate education credentials for any jobs I’ve seen. The skills that are in short supply are work-based skills, the kind that are only learned on the job: Experience with these vendors, knowledge of these work practices, an understanding of this industry.

A generation ago, these jobs would have always been filled from within, typically as the result of formal development programs. Now employers want to hire these people on the open market, in other words, from their competitors.

But when everyone wants to do this — poof! — such candidates are hard to find.”

I’ve mentioned before that we don’t have one big national economy, but rather 366 metropolitan economies – and the DC metro area is pretty healthy.   In fact hiring in the DC area remains stubbornly difficult for many firms,  particularly now,  when HR staff is spread thin and budgets for recruiting are so limited.

There are solutions to your hiring challenges, but it won’t be easy, and what you did to recruit people five years ago is less and less likely to work today.

Executive Search Hiring Mistakes

Hiring is expensive.  Mis-hires are even more expensive, as we recently discussed in the staggering cost of an executive mis-hire.   We all know hiring mistakes happen occasionally, but just exactly how often is acceptable?

In a recent interview with Financial Times, Kevin Kelly, the CEO of global executive search powerhouse Heidrick & Struggles, revealed the results of an internal study of  20,000 executive searches performed by his firm:

“We’ve found that 40 per cent of executives hired at the senior level are pushed out, fail or quit within 18 months”

Astonishing.   He’s describing a 40% failure rate by one of the most trusted and reputable brands in the executive search business.  (If that statistic is true, I’m glad they didn’t build my house or service the brakes on my car).

Mr. Kelly concluded from this research that more follow-up was called for.  The article noted that Heidrick ”now offers companies everything from initial training and early feedback for their new recruits to regular assessments of current executives and succession planning and staff development programs.”

I applaud Mr. Kelly’s candor - he had no obligation to share this internal information.  I presume he did so as part of his ongoing effort to spur much needed change and innovation within the executive search industry. 

Hey, I did not see the details of his research, so perhaps his conclusion is correct.  But a 40% failure rate?   I’m not sure what that says to you, but to me, it screams “perhaps we have a problem in our process.”   Surely some of those mis-hires could be avoided by using a better hiring process.  As quality guru W. Edwards Deming famously observed  ”If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

So, if you want to outperform those elite search professionals and keep your executive hire failure rate below 40%, here are a few aspects of your hiring process you might want to improve: 

• The most common hiring mistakes small companies make
• How to talk candidly about the job during the interview
• How to write better jobs ads
• What to look for in resumes
• Who should interview candidates  
• How to best assess skills
• How to determine cultural fit 
• How to check references
• How to determine a fair salary
• How to make the job offer

Who Should Interview New Hires?

It’s always good to get the input from several people when making a hiring decision, right?  Except some opinions are more valuable than others.  I recently spoke to a CEO who had to call and apologize to a candidate after one of their less experienced interviewers took things in the wrong direction.  That kind of embarrassment you can live without.

As search professionals we always ask who will be involved in the interview sequence.  From experience, I can tell you that very few organizations think hard about who to include in the interview sequence until it’s already underway.  OK, well, that’s one way to do it.  Here’s another… 

When you are the hiring manager, figure out who else to include in the interview sequence by separating your additional interviewers into two categories:

Veto Voters:  There are “veto vote” people who can derail any hire.  These are critical people who must work with your new employee on a regular basis.  Veto voters could include peer level colleagues, or sometimes even a Board member.  When someone with veto power says no, that person does not get hired.  Their opinion really matters in the hiring decision.  Ideally, they understand the job, understand the competencies required to succeed in the job, and have a proven track record of making good hiring decisions.  (If they are missing any of those 3 factors, they may have input in the hiring decision, but I would not recommend a 1 on 1 interview or give them veto power). 

Courtesy Interviewers:   These people occasionally have something important to contribute, but should not significantly affect the hiring decision.  These interviewers will probably be working closely with the new hires, but either have no detailed knowledge of the job, or are not seasoned interviewers with a proven hiring track record.  While they may wish to exert influence on the hiring decision, I find they often add more noise than light to the hiring process.  The more obnoxious people in this category will loudly share their (poorly formed) opinion about the hiring decision, and can often derail a productive conversation about candidate’s actual ability to do the job. In the final evaluation, “I did not like his handshake” should not be considered equally with “He has an excellent track record managing projects like this.”  

The key to managing courtesy interviewers is to learn from their input, but to not become too distracted by their opinion.  Their opinion should not be given equal weight to a veto-voter, unless they have objective facts to share.   Yes, you probably need to “keep them happy” but you can control their effect simply by how you structure the interview sequence.  By scheduling these less skilled interviewers into a panel interview, you can still involve them, but you are also respecting the candidate’s time, and diminishing any adverse impact they may have on both the hiring decision and the candidate’s perception of your company.  To develop the interview skills of a courtesy interviewer, be sure to have them methodically record their interview feedback, put it in a drawer, and take it out and look at it 6 months or a year later.

What Good References Tell You

Reference checks.  Do you swear by them, think they are a joke, or just get them over with quickly as an administrative formality?   

Clients often ask us what we learn from checking references.  Common refrains are:  ”Isn’t it a waste of time?  Don’t references just all say nice things?”  or “Don’t most companies have a neutral reference policy just so they won’t get sued?”

I swear by them.  I love checking references.   My very clever employment attorney, Rick Vernon even crafted a wonderful reference release document (and five years ago he graciously agreed to allow me to share it with you).  Yeah, when someone raves about their reference release form, you know they are a fan of checking references.

So what do we learn from checking references?  Well, for starters we learn:

1. How willing the candidate is to complete and return the release form.
2. What kind of people are willing to be listed as references.
3. How willing the references are to get back with us quickly.
4. Whether the references were contacted in advance to expect our call.
5. How willing the references were to share their time. 

So simply asking for references tells you quite a bit.  But going further, what do good references actually say when you talk to them?  We advocate asking the references about job competencies, just like you did when you interviewed the candidate (“Tell me about a time when …”).    But beyond their answers to your questions, what else should you be listening for?

Often references go beyond a candidate’s job competencies and tell us the candidate is:

• Personally engaged in their work, invested in getting results, but “does not take thing personally” when setbacks occur
• Curious to learn more about their work
• Willing to share information
• Happy to go above and beyond what is expected, perhaps working too hard.  Sometimes not knowing when to stop improving something
• Easy to work with, accommodating, upbeat
• Professional in demeanor
• Likes to be challenged
• Willing to take the ball and run with it
• Good at asking the right questions, tracking down resources, and solving problems
• Great at communicating, easy to manage

By and large, great people have great references.  At the end of a good reference call, you should feel more energized and excited about hiring the candidate.  If you don’t, it should be a red flag for you. 

So, if you are not getting a signed reference release, or if you are getting a release and not calling the references personally, or if you are calling the references personally but not hearing glowing feedback like this … well, then you might want to adjust your hiring process.

Your Recruiting Problems Are Getting Bigger

A recent survey of students showed some astonishing results: 79% of students said social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter were the key to engaging them in the idea of working for you.  But they don’t just want you to push out your jobs on social media, they actually want to engage with you.   42% said social media was the ideal platform for you to communicate your employer brand.  You know, two way communications.  Like people do.

OK, so that’s the upside of using social media in your recruiting efforts.  Big deal.  It’s a recession, they should be happy to get an interview with you.  (Until the recession is over and these very same people now have that ideal 3-5 years of experience you are always looking for…but hey, that’s a problem for later right?)

The immediate downside that affects you right now is that almost half of students use social media sites to verify if you are being authentic:

• They want to know if the reality of working there is the same as what you portray in your job advertising and social media outreach. 
• They listen very carefully to the interview experiences of others.  That’s right.  How you treat people during the interview is now becoming an important part of your employment brand. 

That’s why I say your recruiting problems are getting bigger.  Are you sure your recruiting process is really up to that kind of public scrutiny?

How to Solve Your Recruiting Problems Long-Term (but it won’t be easy)

You pay to post jobs on a job board, but then you don’t like the candidate pool.  You pay more to search the resume databases of the job boards, but you still don’t find anyone you actually want to hire.  Search firms incessantly cold-call you,  offering to fill your jobs for a fee of 30% of annual salary, but you can’t afford that, and besides, you really wonder if they aren’t just sending you the same people you saw on the job boards.  So how do you break out of the vicious cycle?   How do you solve your recruiting problems long term and break fee of the cycle of job board disappointment?

You turn to Seth Godin.  His post on the reality of new media is so simple it’s revolutionary.  Admittedly, his post discusses marketing and never mentions recruiting, but when you read it you’ll see exactly what I mean:

• In marketing, we used to “rent” an audience from old media companies (TV networks).  In recruiting, the old media giants are not TV networks, but job boards like Monster.     And of course, when you “rent” an audience, you don’t have to treat it very well (just like a rental car).  Who cares what happens to the portion of the audience you were not interested in?  No sense even sending them a rejection letter, right?  You’ll never talk to them again…
• But in new media, you don’t have to rely on someone else’s disgruntled, beat up, poorly maintained rental audience.  You go direct.  You build your very own private communications channel and invite the good people there.  It’s yours, so you invest in them, lavish attention on them with a Facebook fan page,  Twitter account and maybe even a job seeker blog.  You show them what it’s like to work for you with videos.   (Check out  The Sodexo job seeker blog, RSM McGladrey on Youtube, and Comscore on Twitter) .
• As you invest and your audience grows, you eventually bypass the job boards entirely because you have attracted an audience of candidates on your own.  You started your own conversation.  You built your own community, and because you treated them right, they are eager to hear from you. 
• It’s cheap, but it’s not fast and it’s not easy.  It’s an investment, but the benefits are yours and yours alone.  And when you invest in building and maintaining a platform – your own media channel – you will have a powerful, sustainable competitive advantage over the “renters” who have to share someone else’s audience.  Your community of people wouldn’t dream of looking there for a job – they have you.   

One recent study showed that job seekers spend an average of 5 hours a week on social media sites each week.   Another study showed that internet users overall have tripled the percentage of time they spend on social network and blogging sites just since last year.  Clearly the time for action is right now.

So here’s the real question.  The tools exist, the audience is ready.  Do you want to solve your recruiting problems and gain the first mover advantage now by building your own channel?  Or do you want to keep renting and be shackled to that familiar recruiting problem for just a little while longer?

Are Job Boards Dead, or Are Your Job Ads Just Deadly Dull?

Look around and you’ll see quite a bit of debate about the ”death of job boards.”  Many question the hefty prices they charge, saying that  free is the wave of the future for job boards.  Some question whether they attract great candidates - here, here, here and here for example.   I’ve certainly been bitterly disappointed by the performance of some job boards in Washington, feeling my money was completely wasted. 

Similarly, candidates often feel like their time is wasted reading job boards.

But the great job board debate often overlooks one big thing - the ads themselves. Rarely do I see recruiters ask a different question.  “What would make our recruitment advertising more effective?”  

Recruitment Advertising Executive Jeff Perry just did that in his post on ERE.  Here are two key points:

• Five times more people read the headline than read the ad – meaning, your lead-in matters.  Jeff says you have about 10 seconds to capture your reader’s attention (but I think he overstates that by about 9 seconds)
• Think about what the tone of your ad conveys about your company – serious, committed, playful, creative -what?  (Just a guess here, but right now, it probably conveys that you are pretty dull because you are probably using the soul crushing language of the job description).

Job boards are not dead (not yet anyway).  While many are simply awful, we have a few that we find are consistently cost effective.  I know for a fact that you can judiciously use job boards to your advantage for very cost effective recruiting.  You just can’t be dull.

For more on what you can do, see my previous post bad ads attract bad candidates, and the companion post: good job advertising gives you leverage. 

What has your experience been?  Have you given up on the job boards entirely or are they still working for you?  Inquiring minds want to know.

The Staggering Cost of an Executive Mis-Hire

You see it all the time.  A new executive joins an organization, and within a few months there is an exodus of people beneath them.  “They are just bringing in their own team” we all say.  “They have their own style and are just holding people accountable” we all say. 

The people who quit (instead of working for the new manager) say “I just did not like the new direction of things” or “We did not work well together.”   Add it all up and the cost of a hiring a new executive can go far beyond their salary – even when they are successful.  

Of course, when a new executive fails, it can be catastrophically expensive (some estimates are in the millions) , customers can be lost, and whole business units must sometimes be rebuilt after a toxic manager finally leaves.  Some suggest that the psychological costs of a bad hire far outweigh the measurable financial costs.  One study showed that almost all leaders have “dark-side characteristics” that place their organizations at risk.

With so much at stake, why is executive hiring often left to “gut instinct” and why does so little attention get paid to making a cultural fit?   In my twenty years of work in executive search, I think the problem results mostly from jump starting the search before taking the time to really think about the position and write down what you are looking for.  Most executive searches are doomed from the start because the executive team did not take the time to reconcile their differences, define their expectations, and write down what attributes they really wanted in a new hire. 

If betting hundreds of thousands of dollars on a hiring project without a solid plan sounds reckless to you, I would have to agree.  So, to reduce your chances of making an executive mis-hire, you might want to read:

• If hiring looks so easy, why is it so difficult?
• How Resume Bias Causes Staffing Problems
• How Panel Interviews Can Improve Your Hiring
• So You Think You Can Interview?