How To Hire the Right People

“The first thing you have to do is hire the right people.” Have you ever heard that profound piece of advice? Of course you’re going to hire the right people - if you know who the right people are. If that’s the case, why isn’t more time spent defining what the job requires of the right person as the first step in any talent selection?

If you Google the keyword phrase “hire the right people” you will get 76,000 responses. If you Google the keyword phrase “hire the best” you will get 872,000 responses. You will find the great majority of responses deal with ways to evaluate candidates. Lots of information on tools - checklists, questions, how to structure an interview, how to write a job description, recruiting practices, and so on. But very few of those 948,000 Google responses address the key question - How to define the best person for the job - the right person for the job - based on the job, not
the applicant?

Most organizations focus on the technical benchmarks. Education, experience, industry knowledge, certifications, level of accomplishment and contribution, recommendations - hard information of high value - fairly easily obtained. And so these technical benchmarks and the intuition of the interviewers become the basis for the selection decision.

But the benchmarks critical to success or failure are often treated with a few statements about working in teams, ability to communicate, listening skills, sense of humor, and so on. Hard to define, describe and agree on. So the benchmarks that make the difference in success and failure- ever more so the higher up in the organization the job is- remain only vaguely identified - certainly not agreed to by the interviewers. And that is the weak link in the selection process.

It doesn’t have to be that way. The stakeholders of the job, the people that have done the job, the people to whom the job reports, the peers the job works with, all have knowledge of the Behaviors, Personal Skills, and Motivators that make the difference between success and failure. Getting that information in a form that could be used in selection has been a real challenge. But now there are tools and processes that can benchmark Behaviors, Motivators or Attitude and Personal Skills that those in the know feel are necessary for success. And those benchmarks can then be used in the selection process – to see how candidates measure up to the job, not to some measure of “good enough,” or “best we could find.” And let’s face it, no person will bring the ideal profile to the job. The benchmarks can then be used to develop the person selected so they can be more successful, quicker.

Intuition is the force guiding most selection decisions. But intuition is influenced by many different inputs, as well as the biases created through life and work experience. By adding to intuition the benchmarks of Behavior, Personal Skills and Motivators, and the consistent application and comparison of those benchmarks to the selection process, intuition can be much more secure in its decisions. And that leads to commitment toward the person selected - and that’s a good thing. The “throw them up against the wall and see if they stick” approach can be replaced with a commitment to success. And when that happens, turnover goes down, retention and productivity go up. And the right people for the job - the best people for the job - strengthen the organization.

With so much more talent available, it’s a good time to examine selection practices to ensure the right people are being selected for the right jobs. It’s tempting to hire the best people - whatever that means - out of a large talent pool. But it’s critical to select the best talent matched to the right job for that talent.

About the Author:

Andy Cox is President of Cox Consulting Group LLC. He founded his firm in 1995 after extensive experience in leadership positions in Fortune 500 corporations. His focus is on helping clients select, develop, retain and enhance the performance of leaders and emerging leaders. He can be reached at http://www.coxconsultgroup.com or contact him at acox@coxconsultgroup.com