The Metiss Group's Blog

Hyperbolic discounting is the tendency for people to prefer a smaller, immediate payoff over a larger, delayed payoff. Much research has been done on decision-making, and many factors contribute to the individual decision making process. Interestingly, delay time is a big factor in choosing an alternative. In fact, studies have shown most people would choose to get $20 today instead of getting $100 one year from today.

Leaders often make similar mistakes when selecting new hires.  Many times, hiring managers are seduced by certain hard skills a candidate can immediately apply and may pass over a stronger candidate who needs time to develop those skills.  Remember: most employees are hired for hard skills, but fired for lack of soft skills.  When selecting new hires, hiring managers must consider the candidate’s future contributions; not their immediate productivity.

Empowered hiring managers understand human behavior and how they can overcome their natural tendencies to make more successful hires.

This entry was posted on June 9, 2017 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Leadership, Selection. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.