Study after study (Google, Harvard Business Review, Gallup, LinkedIn) show hiring mistakes are a top concern of CEOs, HR leaders, and hiring managers. Leaders everywhere suffer from bad hires that were preventable. Our research over the decades shows that CEOs secretly believe that half their hires are “disappointing performers.” And half of those (25%) are bottom performers who are fired and replaced. But CEOs often “live with” marginal performers.
Why? Because our sample of over 1,000 company CEOs shows that CEOs want to hire A Players - high performers - but their success rate is only 25%. Bummer - that means they hire three non-A Players for every A Player hired.
Why so many bad hires? Because in the USA, most companies prohibit their managers from taking reference calls. So, hiring managers don’t get to talk with the former managers of candidates.
Why can’t hiring managers talk with candidates’ bosses? Because if a manager of a poor performer gives a negative reference, a job seeker might conclude that their former employer unfairly criticized them - and so they sue the manager, the company, or both. Welcome to litigation-obsessed America.
The result, for CEOs, HR managers, and the poor hiring manager who cannot assemble an A Team, is agony.
Hiring Mistakes Cause Many Forms of Agony
We, at Topgrading, Inc., have heard hundreds of hours of agonizing disappointment with crummy hires. When we assess candidates for senior roles - where a hiring mistake is extremely costly - we routinely hear why they hire us. The “why” is to avoid the frustration and agony that comes in many gut-wrenching forms:
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“Our company performance is impaired.” “With a hiring mistake in the CFO role at my start-up, my company failed.” Ken Griffin, CEO of hugely successful Citadel, says that his industry requires all A Players hired, and he’s happy that Topgrading has infused Citadel with A’s.
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“My economic success is less.” “Each hiring mistake on my executive team costs us over $1 million.” “My annual bonus has been low the past three years because of my hiring mistakes, so my family has not seen the (new house) (lake home) (new car) (Europe trips) I promised.”
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“To be honest, my repeated hiring of marginal people batters my self-confidence.” “How can I think of myself as a dynamic leader if three out of four people I hire are not the A Players I really need?”
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“It’s more than agony I feel – I get really pissed off when I learn that candidates lied to me. After a month or two, I learn that their resume was full of hype, and in interviews where I ask for their weaker points, they hide their serious faults.”
Solutions
Our mantra at Topgrading, Inc. is:
Bad hires are not your fault; they are the fault of your defective hiring methods.
With seven best-selling books on hiring and having performed over 20,000 4-hour interviews of candidates for senior jobs - where a hiring mistake is extremely costly - we’ve carved out a reputation for having the hiring method that has produced the most A Players.
Aside From Topgrading Professional Assessments, What Can I Do to Improve My Hiring Success?
Plenty:
1. Create a job scorecard.
Typically, companies create a job description to hire against, but job descriptions are vague and incomplete. Instead, create job scorecards with numeric goals and accountabilities.
2. Use the PreScreen Snapshot (click here) to screen all applicants.
It’s a simple request that job seekers provide “a little more information” just about their two most recent jobs. It’s powerful. It includes the Topgrading Truth Motivator that ensures you’ll suffer from no more hype and BS. It ensures you’ll get honest reference calls with former managers.
3. Conduct phone screen interviews with applicants with the most impressive PreScreen Snapshots.
Typically, that’s one-third of the Snapshots - the ones from applicants who have earned high performance ratings.
4. Conduct tandem Topgrading Interviews of finalists for senior roles.
It’s basically 10 questions about every job - why they took it, their accomplishments and failures, their assessment of bosses (do YOU fit the profile of liked bosses?), what bosses will say about them in reference calls, and why they left the job.
We learned decades ago that even A Player leaders find conducting 4-hour, chronological interviews covering all jobs very complex and difficult. However, by adding a second interviewer, the tandem Topgrading Interview lightens the load and makes the resulting assessment more accurate.
5. Ask finalists to arrange calls with their recent bosses.
The PreScreen Snapshot contains the Topgrading Truth Motivator, and what this means is that you will not be BS’d! You’ll no longer be fooled by job seekers. In your tandem Topgrading Interviews, you’ll learn about every boss, and so YOU decide which bosses you’ll want to talk with, and your candidate will arrange the calls. You’ll get reference calls with the most important people you want to talk with - and … no phone tag.
Topgrading can help you hire honest, high performers. Contact us.
Dr. Brad Smart is Founder and CEO of Topgrading, Inc. Topgrading is dedicated to helping companies of all sizes maximize the hiring of high performers. Topgrading assesses candidates for senior positions (where the costs of mis-hires are high) and trains all managers to create teams of almost all high performers. Brad has seven published books on hiring; the most recent three (the first, second, and third editions of Topgrading) were all best sellers.
To learn more, download our free eGuide.
Improve your hiring success with Topgrading. Our proven hiring process will transform your selection methodology so that you get better hiring results across all industries, including hiring HR professionals. Our leadership and candidate assessment tools will help you assess, hire, retain, and grow outstanding team members. Contact us to learn more!
