3 Common Hiring Mistakes With Recruiting “A Players”
A funny thing that I have noticed about superstars is how rare it is to repeat success. There are many obvious examples from the ranks of corporate CEO’s, when many highly lauded executives have moved on to another opportunity only to meet abject failure. Robert Nardelli from GE to Home Depot, John Sculley from Pepsi to Apple, Carol Bartz from Autodesk to Yahoo are just a few of the more high profile examples. They all had varying length tenures, but they all suffered from the same problem. They had extensive skills but those skills did not translate in the new environment.
This skills vs. environment issue is something I have seen play out again and again across many types of roles and levels of responsibility. In a HR tech startup I co-founded, one project involved analyzing the executive training program for a Fortune 100 firm. The program trained highly prized recruits for two years to groom them for senior roles within one of the business units. However, many of the recruits had quit once the program concluded. It was discovered that people who stayed and thrived had one thing the other recruits did not have; a strong background in research and development. It did not matter that the recruits were Ivy League MBA’s with impeccable credentials or that the company was a highly respected firm that won numerous best employer awards. If the person did not fit well into the organization, the relationship never worked.
Studies bear out much of the dichotomy between a job candidate’s skills and long-term success. Leadership IQ looked into why newly hired employees fail and concluded that 89% failed for reasons other than not having the requisite skills for the job. Many of the factors cited such as motivation, temperament, communications and such all point to the fact that while skills are important, they may have less of a factor in job performance than we have come to expect.
One might be excused for coming to the conclusion that hiring is at best a crap shoot. Many of the tools that we have become familiar with seem to do a poor job at actually assessing talent. However, there are ways to reduce the risk of hiring failures by being aware of common traps one makes during the hiring process when evaluating candidates. The following three points cover the most egregious yet correctable mistakes when hiring for highly critical roles:
Job Title Divergence – One mistake is thinking that a particular job title encapsulates one set of immutable and easily transferable skills. The more responsibility and ownership one has over the direction and execution of corporate goals, the greater variability in the skills required to be successful. This is because the role is less about a set of tasks to be completed (thus more easily defined in a job description), and more about leadership skills, decision making and higher level analytical thinking. These “softer skills” tend to be missed in most tests and interview scripts that focus on technical and functional job skills. However, a larger part of one’s success in a job owes more to skills that are not as easy to capture on a test.
Past Performance Bias – Just like investments, past success is a poor barometer for future performance. While it can demonstrate one’s bias towards action, what made a person successful in past roles may not transfer well into the other job (because of Job Title Divergence). Looking at the historical record can color the candidate vetting and decision making process because at the risk of offending a highly “pedigreed” candidate, there is a tendency to soft ball the assessment process. This came to light in my HR startup where a client had a series of VP of manufacturing hires fail in quick succession even though the candidates had excellent track records. We performed a deep analysis of the skills required for the role, then found a candidate that was completely outside the industry that was more of a fit based on the newer profile. The lesson was to focus more on the skills (covering functional, management, and leadership domains) needed for the job during the hiring process rather than on past performance.
Culture Fit Dissonance – While the first two mistakes are serious, discounting or completely ignoring the issue of cultural fit within the broader organization has lethal results. Mark Hurd was prasied as a great hire when HP first brought him onboard as CEO, yet several years later after his departure HP was in disarray and demoralized. The “HP way” was about innovation and product focus, but the Hurd way was about sales and money management. Culture fit is not something that can be immediately gleaned from a resume or at a distance. Even the cursory interview or two does not work. Mark Zuckerburg spent 50 hours in total over the course of many meetings and many months with Sheryl Sandburg before hiring her. It was obvious she was that proverbial “A player” and had the requisite skills, but Mark had to be sure she would fit in at Facebook.
So, what is the most important lessons to take away from this? Do not underestimate the damage caused by the misalignment of culture in your hiring! It is a slow killer and something that is hard to recognize when you are under the impression that everyone around you is an “A player”. That is the heavy selection bias that colors our viewpoint when it comes to evaluating talent. We dismiss the poor hires as bad apples, disgruntled employees, or simply liars. On the other hand, we overestimate employees that we deem great hires as having superior skills. The reality is that being highly skilled is only part of the equation. Talent can only thrive when skills, culture, and goals meet.
This is not to say that there are not extraordinary people that seem to have that “A player” aura. Steve Jobs managed to resurrect his early career to become one of the most legendary business leaders of our generation. Richard Branson would be another excellent example of being massively successful in a number of endeavors. However, these are entrepreneurs that defy categorization. They are not people that are simply plugged into someone else’s culture; they create culture. They would never be people that you hire, because they are outsized personalities and overwhelming forces of charisma, energy, and conviction.
Do not get caught in the game of hiring A players and chasing talent. Have the strength of conviction that your culture and hiring process are sound. If you have a compelling vision, a promising product, and a good network, you can find talented people to join your team. The people that show genuine excitement about your idea, give up sleep and weekends and fat paychecks, and show initiative are your true A players. Those are the people that are going to stick it out with you when things are rough.
