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.

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.

Phone Interviews Make Sense

Want to hire better people?  Do more telephone interviews.

Want to speed up your hiring process?  Do more telephone interviews. 

Want to broaden your candidate pool and give more consideration to “out of the box” thinking?  Do more telephone interviews. 

Done correctly, telephone interviews are faster and easier to schedule than face to face meetings.  You can talk to more people in a day, and you are far more likely to consider outlier candidates because you know that if it is going badly, you can get out of it in just a few minutes.  Seth Godin makes this case (sort of) in a recent post.  I do not agree with his approach for most hiring situations, but he does raise some good points.

Here’s the key.  Schedule the telephone interviews back to back, giving yourself just enough time to make a go forward/ no go decision.  Before you start taking calls, block out some time for face to face interviews.  That way, if you are intrigued by someone on the telephone, you can book them immediately for an in person interview.   They will know you are taking their time seriously, and you will force yourself to become efficient with your time on the phone.

Talking About Work vs. Doing Work in the Interview

Talking about work is not the same as doing work.   An interview often showcases one set of skills (talking about work) but cannot take the place of observing someone’s work.   If you want to really know how someone works, give them some work to do during the interview sequence.   Are you shocked?  Don’t be.  We recommend this at every level of hire from Director to Administrative Assistant.  We explain why we are doing it and I cannot remember the last time anyone took offense. (Remember, the candidates want to see what the work looks like just as much as you want to see their work).

Think about the actual work you expect of the new hire, look for an example of something recent, relevant and somewhat complex.  Something that might take 30 minutes, or even an hour or so.  Something that tests a critical skill.  Something it would be easy to do badly.  Then ask them to do it.   Perhaps they do it at home and come present it to you, perhaps you leave them alone to do it in the conference room and then come back in 30 minutes.  

To be fair and objective about it, you must give exactly the same test to each applicant, at the same phase of the interview sequence (after first interview for example), and with the same set of instructions.  For some jobs you may want your instructions to be broad and even vague, for other jobs you may want to be very specific – it depends what you are looking for.   It’s not that hard to come up with real life work scenarios, but the range of results you get will probably surprise you.   That is, of course, why you are doing it.  People will make mistakes and judgment calls you cannot even conceive of.   Which is probably good to know,  before you put them on your payroll.

Rest assured, watching people do actual work will make a big difference in who you hire.   Because as I said, talking about work is one skill.  Doing work is quite another.

Reconcilable Differences

Hiring managers.  Picture this scenario.  After months of looking, you finally found the perfect candidate for your open job.  You’ve interviewed them, really like them, and think they are head and shoulders above everyone else you interviewed.   Their technical skills are exactly what you need, they understand what it takes to get the job done in your environment, and they asked smart questions.  You could easily work with them.  You are ready to make an offer, but first the candidate needs to interview with your boss, Frank. 

So they go meet Frank.  He’s pretty busy, so they only get 45 minutes and Frank takes a couple of calls during that time.  It takes you 2 days just to get Frank on the phone, by which time he’s forgotten the candidates’ name.  When you ask what he thinks, he tells you that your perfect candidate is “just so-so.”  Nothing specific, he was just “unimpressed.”

Has this ever happened to you?  Were you ever able to understand exactly why you and Frank formed different opinions?  Were you ever able to reconcile your differences?  In many cases the answer is no.  A vague “I’m unimpressed” from the boss is enough to derail most interview sequences – after all, do you really want to risk hiring someone your boss does not like? What if Frank is right and it does not work out?  Then you get ALL the blame.

In most hiring situations, people will legitimately form different opinions about a candidate.  Each of us brings our own unique perspective to interviews, and we are all influenced by our past experiences.  But  when you have not decided on your hiring criteria in advance, you will almost always disagree with the opinions of other people.  The key is deciding – in advance – what you will look for, and then using that framework to reconcile what you learned from your interviews.

At the start of our searches we gather together every stakeholder – every single person who has a “veto vote” over the hiring decision.  You may think that’s impossible, but it’s not.  We insist on it – and you can too.  In the conversation, we listen to everyone’s “wish list” and then we reconcile what exactly we’re looking for, and on what criteria we plan to evaluate each candidate.  What are the “must have” strikeout criteria, and what are the “nice to have’s.”  What are the key drivers of results in the job?  We resolve the differences, so all the interviewers are looking for the same thing.    Then we put it in writing, so when different people meet the candidates, they still have a common framework to make a decision, and everyone is focused on the key factors that drive results.  For example, you may legitimately disagree on how you rank the candidate’s subject matter knowledge, diplomacy or attention to detail, but with this approach, at least you are talking about job-relevant specifics.   You want to avoid debating vague impressions (usually about the job seeker’s self-confidence) or their presentation skills – like being “fast-on-their-feet” or how snazzy they looked in that interview suit.

Job seekers can tell when your management team is aligned and all looking for the same things.  It’s very comforting, it shows you work well together and you took the time to think about the job – so it makes your job appear less risky to the job seeker.

Conversely, when job seekers sense disagreement between interviewers, their alarms go off.  Any internal disagreement in your management team creates risk and uncertainty for the job seeker – and reduces your chance of getting them to consider your offer.

So take the time upfront to agree on what you are looking for – you’ll speed up your search process by several weeks, you’ll look smarter when you interview, and you’ll be more likely to attract the best candidates.  Oh, and you’ll make much better hiring decisions.

Why You Should Not Ask People to Rate Themselves

Today I feel scientifically vindicated.  I have often said that bad candidates over-rate their abilities, while good ones under-rate their abilities.  If you ask two job applicants ”On a scale from 1 to 10, how proficient are you with Excel?” the more skilled person will often rate themselves lower than the less skilled person.   I know this because I used to work in a place that  tested people’s computer skills after they rated themselves. 

There are several explanations for this behavior.  One explanation is that top performers set higher standards for their own performance.   Another explanation is that the more a person knows about Excel, the more they realize just how much they still do NOT know about Excel.

But today, Jason Seiden wrote a post about the Dunning-Kruger effect – where Cornell scientists showed that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” and ”people with true knowledge tend to underestimate their competence.”  Sweet, sweet scientific vindication for one of my long-held opinions. 

Have you ever hired someone incompetent?  Think back to the interview.  Odds are you asked them to assess their own ability to do the job.  They exuded confidence and most humans prefer to listen to and believe someone confident … (Jim Cramer comes to mind). 

But if less competent people are often more confident, and are more likely to over-rate their abilities – then asking people to rate themselves is a virtually foolproof way to hire the wrong person.  Frankly, if you ask people to rate themselves on their abilities, it would surprise me if you ever hire anyone competent to do the job.

So when you are interviewing,  instead of asking people to rate their abilities, ask them specific questions about what they have done, and then apply your own rating scale.  Their opinion of their own abilities is virtually irrelevant.

The Importance of Cultural Fit

It’s often said that people are hired for skills but fired for “fit.”  But what is fit, and how can you determine it before making a hire?    While definitions abound, I think fit is partly about personal values and partly about ”how we like to do things around here.”  

While small variations in fit are usually tolerated, big variations, over time, become irritations to everyone on the team.   Eventually the sum of those irritations begins to gum up the works, draining everyone’s energy and lowering team productivity.  The entire team is relieved and re-energized when the misfit finally leaves.   If you are the misfit – as I have been – it’s torture to be in an organization that is not in keeping with your personal values.

So how do you avoid hiring a mis-fit?    Well, first, you need to take an objective look at your own work environment.  Then, when you are interviewing people, you need to look beyond their credentials and experience, and instead look at how they achieved their results in their last few jobs.  Look at both what they enjoyed and what they struggled with in their past jobs … and see how your environment compares.   

As a guidepost for your thinking -  just to begin to sketch out the contours of cultural fit - I present the following list of components.  I’ve tried to present a spectrum of values, so please don’t take these as an either/or but rather a range of positions on the spectrum.

I’m sure the list is incomplete, so I welcome your thoughts about what else to include:   

Power 

• How much deference is shown to those in power?  Are they ever interrupted in a meeting?  How often does someone disagree with them to their face?  How often to do they solicit input and how carefully do they listen to those who disagree?  When you look at the organization, who is “in favor” and how did they earn that role?   
• Is power and authority delegated to people on the front lines – those in customer facing roles – or is power held by executives higher in the org chart?  Can anyone pull resources and collaborate informally as they need to, or are multi-departmental teams formed and disbanded for specific projects?  Are there firmly established work groups to get things done, or do people always work strictly within their department, firmly within the lines of the org chart?
• Resource allocation.  Resources and promotions are given to people who demonstrate what? (connections and relationships, business results, experience, new revenue or cost savings, etc)

 Personal Work Style 

• How is work performed?  Is it mostly individual achievement or mostly group achievement?  Do people primarily get results on their own or in conjunction with colleagues?  Does the performance management and compensation structure support this?   What types of results are celebrated and recognized (individual or group)?  Is recognition given for results, and if it is, is the recognition public or private?
• Is the path forward clear?  How urgent is the need for change?  Do you expect this person to bring fresh approaches and new ideas, to immediately challenge the status quo?  Or is it more important to take a more measured, gradual approach that emphasizes collaboration, demonstrating respect for others, listening to a diversity of opinions and gently building consensus?   
• How does everyone else feel about change?  Do you want your new hire to be a catalyst for change, or is it more important to fit in with their peers?   Will their peers and subordinates be welcoming of change, desperate for innovation, or is the environment more one of “Things are good.  Don’t rock the boat.  We know what we are doing here, and you are just the new guy.” 
• Are you looking for a formal or informal approach to other people (Do you address the CEO as “Mrs. Smith” or “Jane”?)   Is there a formal dress code, how formal are meetings?  Do you walk down the hall and stand in someone’s door or send an email and schedule a meeting?  Do you follow protocol and send memos or just yell across the room? 

 Decision Making Latitude 

• Is it a structured or unstructured work environment – is there an established path to achieve results (follow the rules, ask the boss, defer it to the committee), or do you use a more creative individualistic approach “we trust you and expect you to make it up as you go along . . . just keep us informed”)  
• Are new ideas welcomed, met with skepticism or ridiculed ?
• Are small decisions made quickly on the fly, or more slowly and deliberatively?  Are alternative points of view solicited?
• Are big decisions made by executive fiat, or by committee consensus, or only after inclusive and robust input, as in “You can always have your say but cannot always have your way”
• Decision consistency:  Are management decisions often reversed later or are they final?  Does the Board of Directors determine direction and policy, or does management often lead the Board to a course of action?  Once a decision is made does the organization tend to “stay the course” despite external events and internal politics, or are decisions revisited frequently as politics shift or new information emerges?  Do you have a CEO that loves to bring in new ideas from the latest management books?  Are there a lot of new management initiatives or just a few major initiatives executed with relentless focus?
• How are disagreements handled?  Is open debate encouraged or discouraged?  Is influence exerted openly or behind closed doors?  Is all communication low-key, polite, understated and reserved?  Are people respectful, yet openly passionate and occasionally heated?  Or is the debate more like verbal combat, and often laced with profanity?  Does the best idea carry the day, or just the person with more power?
• Are mistakes expected, just tolerated, or simply unacceptable?  Are mistakes an embarrassing sign of failure and flawed process, or just a sign you are trying new things and “swinging for the fences?”

 Management Style 

• Are people managed to broad goals and given wide latitude, or do you gradually let people “earn their freedom” by starting with small achievements? 
• Do employees set their own goals, collaborate on setting their goals, or are they simply assigned goals from above (sometimes derisively called “managed by spreadsheet.”)   Are goals incorporated into everyday work – reviewed daily, weekly, monthly, annually – or … not at all?  How much of compensation is linked to goal achievement?  What are the consequences of not meeting goals?
• What guides priorities and drives behavior?  Are people Customer service driven?  Mission driven?  Personal results driven?  Goals driven, Market driven, Metrics driven?  Relationship driven? Strategic plan driven?  Or simply, pleasing-the-boss-and-staying-out-of-trouble-driven?
• How exactly are results measured?  How transparent are the results to others?  How often are they discussed?  How do you know who the high performers are?  Can they measure their performance by objective standards on their own?
• Is clear specific direction always provided or is more self directed action the norm?

 Work / Life Expectations 

• Is this role good for someone seeking Work/Life balance or is it a full throttle, flat out 24/7 as in, “This is too important and there is no time to waste.  You’ll get 2 years of experience for every year you work here.  You can catch up on your sleep in your next job.”  Do people join your organization to significantly advance their career or to achieve an important mission?  Does the work itself provide meaning to people’s lives?  
• Is it young fun, single, with lots of after hours socializing expected or are employees more likely to dash home at quitting time so they can coach their kids’ soccer team?   
• Is it cool aloof corporate separation of work and personal (no family pictures on your desk) or is it full engagement – we are a family, no separation of personal lives – where everyone knows everything about each other?
• Is there a steady predictable schedule with fairly repetitive work, or is the work mostly predictable with some occasional spikes (for the annual meeting, etc), or is every day simply flat out unpredictable chaos with no two days looking the same?
• Work ethic: Is it: 80 hour week – come in early, work hard, skip lunch, work late in the evening, check email and take calls on weekends?  Or is it a 55- 60 hour week – come in early, work hard, eat lunch at your desk and leave an hour or so late most days?  Or is it a predictable work schedule that works well with a car pool or specific day care schedule?  Or is it totally flexible – a Results Only Work Environment – come in on your own schedule, crank out the results we expect, work from home sometimes, stay late sometimes, eat lunch wherever you want, or not, just get your work finished.  Or is it some unique combination of the above?   How do you feel about flextime, telecommuting, carrying a Blackberry, overnight travel, and working nights and weekends?

You’ll notice that job descriptions and job advertising rarely mention any of  these factors and that very little of these factors can be discerned from reading someone’s resume.   Knowing someone has relevant experience, credentials, and technical skills does almost nothing to predict fit.  This is one of many reasons why I think the resume is overrated in the candidate selection process.

The Truth is Great Marketing

• We’ve had clients share scary financial data in an interview.
• We’ve had clients share information about strategies that failed, and express uncertainty about their current plans. 
• We’ve had clients tell people the workload is nearly overwhelming.

And great people stepped up and took the jobs.  Because challenge is very attractive to the right people. But challenge alone is not enough. 

It may sound paradoxical, but when you admit how difficult your problems are, you actually make your opportunity MORE attractive.  Good people look for honesty, and really appreciate humility.  They figure, “Hey, if I’m going to bust my hump working for you, I want to be sure you understand what a big accomplishment it will be when I succeed!”   They want to be important, not diminished by doing a job anyone can do.

If you have taken the trouble to think deeply about what you want someone to accomplish in their first year on the job, if you have given real thought to the challenges they will encounter, then you can draw them into a conversation about how you might achieve results together.  The candidate has to mentally “put themselves into the job” and “see themselves succeeding” in order to have a conversation about solving your business problems.  And that’s great marketing.  

Is that what your interviews feel like?

Panel Interviews Made Simple

Small and midsize employers often struggle with how to best structure the interview sequence.   Sometimes nobody is consulted on a hiring decision, and sometimes everyone is consulted.   The real issue is not how many people interview, but whether the  interviewers have first agreed on what they are looking for.   Agreeing on the hiring criteria before interviewing is incredibly rare in my experience – “I’ll know it when I see it” is not a strategy.  

 I suggest using the direct manager as the key decision maker – typically in a one on one interview.  Then I like to gather input from peer level colleagues who will regularly interact with the new employee.  (Never include subordinates in an interview panel.  It’s a nice courtesy to schedule a quick walk by or ”meet and greet” with their new boss – but it is never appropriate to include them in an interview – it’s just weird).

Including peers in the interview sequence often means you are asking an opinion from an inexperienced or infrequent interviewer who does not have a full picture of the job.  So to gain their perspective, develop their interviewing skills, and save time, an interview panel often makes sense. 

Some readers may gasp and say “Aren’t panel interviews stressful and difficult for job seekers?”  Well, yes, it does add some pressure, but, so what?  Presumably the person you are hiring will attend meetings with multiple people, need to read body language, respond to questions, present information – and is a a panel interview much different than that?  Not really. 

A panel interview also gives the job seeker a great opportunity to see how your team interacts with each other -  how formal you are,  how much deference and respect is granted to colleagues – and it’s certainly a more efficient use of time for a busy, working candidate.  So on balance, panel interviews are profoundly useful – far wiser than one on one interviews with unskilled interviewers.

So here are the basic rules to make panel interview work.  Have your questions prepared in advance, and agree on a standard way to evaluate all the  candidates  – I suggest a one page list of critical competencies.  Don’t play games or try to add any artificial pressure with rapid-fire questions – just let the candidate answer questions one at a time.

Next – and this is important – when the interview concludes and before you discuss the candidate, ask each panelist to write down their thoughts.  Do this in writing, quietly, for at least a few minutes.  Then ask each person to share their notes, again without opinion or judgment – like a brainstorming session.  In this way all viewpoints are heard.  Then and only then should you have a group decision – ideally moderated by the key hiring manager.   In this way all differences can be aired, better interviewers can share keen observations others may have missed, and poorer interviewers can hopefully begin to see what they misinterpreted or simply missed. 

With the key decision maker moderating, the conversation is kept on track – and focused on the key competencies of the job, not irrelevant judgments and petty observations that many interviewers devolve into when there is no structure in place.  I want to help you avoid both groupthink – where everyone agrees with the boss, and also the “loud mouth factor” where some outspoken interviewer hijacks the entire conversation like a Somali pirate.

When deciding, consensus is nice, but good sense dictates that you listen most carefully to the person with best hiring track record.  Beware of opinion/assumptions not grounded in fact.   In the discussions about the candidates, be sure someone asks hard questions to flush out bias and opinion.   To avoid assumptions, here are a few good questions to ask the group:

• “And we know that because?”
• “Is there another conclusion we could reach, given those facts?”
• “Is there another explanation for why that occurred?”
• “Would all the key stakeholders see it that way?”
• “How could we independently verify that?”

What is The Value of a College Degree?

When I meet with a client to discuss a new search, I ask a million questions.  “What does success in this job look like a year from today?”  “How will you measure it?”  “What are the toughest challenges the new person will face on the job?”  “What will they need to be really good at, to drive results?”  And on and on.  My goal is to get an “action hero” movie playing in my head, starring … the person we need to go recruit.   But somewhere toward the end of the conversation I also look for strikeout factors – things the client would never consider in a candidate. 

And often clients rule out people who have not earned a 4 year college degree.  

In fact, this table of unemployment rates, shows the huge disparity in unemployment rates between high school grads and college grads.  And the recession is just widening the gap.

At the risk of appearing to be an idiot, I often ask clients why they want a degree.  The answers can be really fascinating.  Because a degree is usually a proxy for something else – like “polish” or great communication skills or the ability to follow-through on a difficult task over several years.   Yet we all know college grads who lack all those attributes, and many people without a degree who have all those attributes in spades.  So personally, I’d rather go look for those attributes specifically, and skip the whole “degree as proxy for something else” conversation. 

But it’s not as simple as that.

While some people don’t learn from any experience, I think a 4 year degree can provide a unique learning experience that is critical to success in many “knowledge worker” jobs.  A 4 year degree often exposes you to people who did not grow up in your hometown. People who do not share your values.  People who may challenge your thinking in areas you never really thought about before.  A good curriculum would ideally expose you to courses in a variety of disciplines you never had to think about before.  Ideally you get out of your comfort zone and begin to think about a wide range of issues - and learn to examine problems from a variety of perspectives. 

In college you have a unique opportunity to not just acquire knowledge, but to learn new ways of thinking -  and this is directly relevant to thriving in today’s turbulent environment.  Business guru Jim Collins says turbulence is the new normal - today’s business challenges will test your assumptions, challenge your thinking and demand innovative solutions. And few things can prepare you for that like a good college education.

I’m not saying college is for everyone, and I recognize that for many people it is simply financially unattainable.  But what I am saying is this:  while some people don’t learn from any experience, nobody can learn from an experience they never had.

So how are you learning how to thrive in turbulence?

Topgrading from A to ZZZZZZZZZZ

What if you had a blog war and nobody showed up?

First some background.  I am a total staffing wonk.  I obsess over recruiting process (just ask my team).  I’m fascinated with Boolean searches and by Kelly Dingee’s Sourcing Report.  Over the years I’ve made a pretty good dent in reading the 100 best business books of all time.  I even have a Google alert for news articles referencing Stephen Fuller (you know, the economist?  I even gave him a tag in my tag cloud – look there on your right … you follow him too right?  I’m sure lots of us have a Google alert set for him…right?)   ….and they all moved away from me on the Group W bench ….

Yeah, so I am having a pretty good laugh at myself over this dustup I’m having with Brad Smart over Topgrading.  The Topgrading blog has a new post asking their readers to post a comment here defending the use of topgrading for small companies.  (I riled up a Topgrading executive search consultant along the way, but I’m still waiting for that first employer to comment…. Bueller, Bueller?)   Oh, sorry… did you fall asleep and miss the argument?  Here’s a summary:  I’m against it.  Brad’s for it.   Everyone else is working on more pressing matters.   

I found that out in a recent speaking engagement.  I was doing what I enjoy most – excitedly raving about recruiting strategies in front of a friendly HR crowd at a SHRM meeting.   They were keenly interested in discussing the impact of social media, and how it will change the landscape we all work in.  Things were going great.  Everyone was engaged and having fun, then I told the “fascinating” story of  this incredibly civil conversation I had on my blog with the very classy Brad Smart.   Cool right?  So, you know, being an interactive kind of guy,  I asked the audience, so what do you think? 

And only one hand went up.  He said “Can you explain what Topgrading is? I never heard of it.”   And that’s when I started laughing at myself.  What a wonk I am.   

So no, I wish Brad Smart every success, but topgrading won’t get immortalized in my tag cloud like Stephen Fuller.  (He still rules)

The epic battle over Topgrading for Small Companies is settled - more pressing issues won the day.  So on this blog, we’ll keep talking about things you care about, and not Topgrading for small companies.  But don’t you worry, I’ll go back to my reading stack for other obscure references to torture you with.  A 500 word treatise on Black Swan anyone?

Topgrading for Small Companies? Still No

 Brad Smart, the author of Topgrading, wrote a very thoughtful reply to my recent post called “What Exactly is a Top Performer?”   I was pretty hard on Topgrading in my post and Brad intelligently rebutted my arguments in several areas, suggesting I read his free 50 page e-book “Avoiding Costly Mis-Hires.”  

I did read the e-book, and I will get to that, but first I have to say… this is great!  We’re having a conversation about my favorite topic, in a public forum, with a renowned expert on hiring.   And when I say “we” – that includes you – so post a comment, send me an email if you are shy, share your experiences!  

• First a bit of context.  I consult with, and write this blog for, small to midsize employers. 
• Brad Smart consults with employers of all sizes.  He is best known for his work with GE and the global 100, but he has plenty of raving fans among smaller employers.  One big fan is the very well-respected Verne Harnish -  founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) – who calls Topgrading the “Best Approach to Interviewing.”   Verne also says Topgrading is “not for amateurs” and warns that it takes time and focus to make sure you are getting it right.

And there is the rub.

I read Brad’s free 50 page e-book (pdf).  It does indeed make a strong case for Topgrading, with lots of links to other resources.  (One link that grabbed my attention was ”Most Personality Tests are Shams“).  Naturally you cannot learn Topgrading in 50 pages, because, as Verne notes, it’s not easy to learn.  

The e-book’s primary objective is apparently to rebut the (common?) argument that Topgrading is hard to learn, by proving that it’s worth it.   He makes the case well, and I really enjoyed reading it, and loved seeing my favorite quotes from Jim Collins and Peter Drucker about the competitive advantage of hiring great people – Brad and I definitely agree that hiring high performers makes a huge impact on your ability to get results.   

But in reading it, I found nothing that would help my clients make better hires, short of implementing a massive, formal, top heavy initiative to learn how to conduct a Topgrading interview.  And that is simply not practical when you are hiring only one or two of each kind of person, and not 50 or 100 like they do at GE.  Smaller organizations need to think hard, move fast, and make the best decisions possible with imperfect information – jobs are not static, they change rapidly.  You can’t look back at the last 50 people hired in a job or look forward to tracking their results a year from now, because you hired ONE.  As someone who runs a search firm, I am also cognizant of the candidate perspective, which is generally not favorable toward Topgrading.  

So I’m sorry Brad, I sincerely appreciate your comments, but I still think Topgrading is too top heavy for 99% of small and midsize companies – and I just don’t think it’s necessary – there are better ways to achieve the same results.  Maybe Verne will prove me wrong, but I just can’t recommend it.  We’ll continue putting all our energy into developing faster, less expensive, less cumbersome ways to help our clients consistently hire people who will drive business results.

Now, that said, here is where I absolutely, positively agree with Mr. Smart:

Hiring People with Resilience

I’m fascinated by a new show on TV called “Lie to Me.”  It’s about the world’s leading deception expert – a human lie detector.  The show is quite entertaining, but you won’t need to learn his techniques to improve your interview results. People reveal a great deal about themselves in an interview, but – like a lie detector – much of what you learn isn’t found directly in their answers.

Interviews are not simply a game of tennis, volleying questions and answers back and forth.  Some of the best information is found when you look beyond the individual answers into the patterns.  Every candidate tells a story, and it carries forward from job to job.  If a candidate was a “victim of circumstances” in several jobs, that pattern is likely to persist.  If the last 3 bosses were “unreasonable” then the next boss is likely to be perceived the same way within about 6 months.

To gauge psychological resilience, one candidate story I look for is this:  Who do they say is to blame for failures?  Was it always external factors (a sleazy competitor, or the bad economy) or was there always someone else to blame like a bad boss or “those idiots in marketing.”  Did the person ever humbly accept some of the portion of the blame for a failure?  I listen for how they perceive their role.  Did they see themselves as the person with the power to change things, or simply the victim of circumstance?  Do they say ”I knew it was a risk, and when it went off course I tried to do something to correct it, but ultimately I misjudged it.” 

Frankly, I love failure – it’s a wonderful teacher.  But not everyone learns from it, and many people fear it so much they never take necessary risks.  If the job seeker never takes responsibility for a failure, they can never learn from it, and they can never improve their performance.   If they have never failed, never picked themselves up, adapted their behavior to new circumstances, and gotten back in the game – they may not be resilient enough to drive results in a turbulent economy. 

As Winston Churchill once said “Sucess is nothing more than going from failure to failure with undiminished enthusiasm.”

“I’m Hiring a Person, not a Resume”

We presented a strong slate of candidates to a client this week.   The recruiting process had gone well up to that point and, anticipating good news, my Project Manager was intensely curious to hear feedback from our client.  (We also knew they had been looking for quite some time prior to engaging us on the search, so we knew they had high standards).    We discussed all six candidates at length with the client and the conversation seemed to go very well.

Project Manager:  “So what do you think of the candidate pool?”

Client:  “So far I like what I see, but I’ll reserve judgement until I meet them.  I know I’m hiring a person and not a resume.”

That’s exactly right.

Seth Godin wrote a great post on “What are you good at?”  He observed that “Content” – skills and domain expertise - look good on a resume (such as knowing excel or having a CPA).    But these things are overvalued in the hiring process.

Unlike domain knowlege,  ”Process” is more subtle.  It’s emotional intelligence – that ability to persuade others, or manage a project with tact and discretion, or deal with multiple priorities.   It is harder to show on a resume, and more difficult to comprehend in an interview, but ultimately more critical to success on the job.

That’s why knowing how to interview is so important, because you are hiring a person, not a resume.

What Exactly is a Top Performer?

I cringe every time a hiring executive tells me they use Topgrading.  My reaction is visceral when people mention “Hiring A Players.”  (So naturally I cheered when Harvard Business Review published the far more sensible “Let’s Hear it for B Players.”)

I acknowledge that Brad Smart is a very credentialed guy and he has built quite a dynasty on the Topgrading concept -  I just never see it applied intelligently in small and midsize enterprises.   Never.  (Remember,  I work hard to avoid using absolutes in sentences, so I must be adamant about this).   

OK, so I also freely admit that I gave up and only made it halfway through the book (worst beach read ever).  I just find Topgrading too rigid and impractical.  And no way will most managers first learn the interview techniques and then spend 3 hours in a CIDS interrogation, I mean interview. . . no, I mean interrogation.

What I object to most about Top Grading is the vague definition of an “A Player” -  “the top 10% of available talent for the compensation level” -  like anyone could possibly determine who exactly qualifies.  But this is what really irks me; even if you did figure it out, it would NOT help you hire correctly.

One thing I know for certain:  top performance in one environment does not necessarily predict top performance in another.  Simply hiring Olympic athletes or poaching your competitor’s top person guarantees you nothing.  Nothing.

So rather than filling your company with mythical “A Players”  here is strategy that will dramatically improve both your results and the quality of your life: