The Metiss Group's Blog

One of the first steps in any effective selection process is the candidate phone screen.  To get the most out of this crucial activity, hiring managers should keep the following tips in mind:

• Schedule phone screen – don’t just call out of the blue; setting a time to talk to the candidate helps them prepare and allows them to give their full attention; schedule 20 to 30 minutes.
• Set expectations – let the candidate know early in the conversation this is just the first step and additional information will be gathered and the plan is to talk to other candidates; this gives the hiring manager the opportunity to end the call quickly if they realize it is not a good match and prepares the candidate for the selection process.
• Review salary requirements – get the money piece on the table early; if the candidate’s salary requirements fall outside the hiring range, move on, no sense wasting time.
• Confirm resume accuracy – cover the highlights of the resume; confirm the accuracy and probe for consistencies.
• Ask the same questions for all candidates – consistently asking the same questions helps to compare candidates.
• Ask two to three job-related behavior based questions – most of the job related questioning comes in the first interview, but asking some basic “deal breaker” questions upfront can save time with a first interview; drive for specifics and make there are good reasons for moving forward.

Phone screening doesn’t need to be time consuming and complicated and should be a productive step in the selection process.

Empowered hiring managers prepare before the screening and have more successful candidate interviews.

We have all known a leader who’s struggled trying to fill an open position because they wanted the perfect combination of hard skills and really weren’t persuaded by exceptional soft skills.  These leaders are holding out for a candidate’s work experience that includes a particular previous employer, or an unusual technical skill, or a certain project experience.

Surprisingly, when these same hiring managers are asked whether or not they would have been better off hiring a smart, energetic person to whom they could teach the hard skills, they answered “yes”  — especially when they’ve been waiting for those elusive hard skills for months.

To make matters worse, in almost every case in which a hiring manager was seduced by some particular hard skill for which they’ve hired, they fired for misaligned soft skills.  Rarely do we hear of someone being fired for not having a hard skill they professed to have.  Yet, how often have we heard someone fired for poor work ethic, no initiative, poor people skills, or they just don’t fit?

So why are hiring managers still so hung up on searching for candidates with ideal hard skills when they know most (not all) critical hard skills can be learned?  One reason is these leaders aren’t sure how to screen for those soft skills.  Another reason may be the IBM syndrome: the leader stands a better chance of being criticized for taking a risk on an unknown than for going with someone who has a “proven” track record.  The flaw in that reasoning is we don’t know if the candidate’s perceived success is due to their own skill, others on their team, the environment, or just a perception created by this candidate.

When hiring managers review candidates, they should challenge their bias towards hard skills and ask themselves what someone with good soft skills can learn.  One of Jim Collins’ most important leadership principles is “first who, then what.”

Empowered hiring managers focus on “who” and the successful “what” then comes.

We’ve all seen the heroic detective in the movies interrogate the lying criminal with deep questioning eventually getting them to admit the truth.  Psychologists have long recognized most “normal” people cannot effectively and consistently make-up details about past events on the fly and eventually tell the truth (psychotics are capable of imagining and recounting untrue facts while believing them).

Hiring managers should use a similar approach to interview questioning. When preparing to interview candidates (yes, they do need to do some pre-work if they expect a productive interview), they should plan three or four follow up questions to the initial question.

For example, while probing a candidate’s personal accountability plan to ask, “Tell me about a time when it was necessary to admit to others that you had made a mistake.”  Next follow up with questions like:

• “Who was involved in the situation?”
• “What did your boss do afterwards?”
• “How long was it before you admitted the mistake?”
• “What subsequent mistakes have you made and how have you handled them?”

Answering a series of questions becomes harder with each question and the interviewer will likely gain greater insights into the candidate with the follow-up questions.

Empowered hiring managers dig deeper in their questioning and make more successful hires.

In his recent book “The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business,” Patrick Lencioni describes how a legendary company screens for their core values.  The company’s culture is built around a healthy sense of self-deprecation and humility. When candidates come in for interviews, they typically wear classic business suits, starched shirts and ties. The male candidates are asked to exchange their suit pants for khaki shorts and complete the remainder of the interview (which includes a tour of headquarters) wearing the shorts.  The candidates in their suit coat, shirt, tie, dark socks, shinny shoes, and silly shorts are demonstrating one of the company’s core values. Many candidates object and opt out of the process on the spot; others humbly embrace the notion and continue with the interview.

Core values are critical to companies and if candidates cannot embrace them while seeking the job, they surely won’t live them on the job.

Empowered hiring managers who challenge their candidates to demonstrate their core values continue to have successful organizations.

Why should a leader bother indicating the percentage of time they’d expect an individual to spend on various accountabilities within a job?

That question is often best answered with other questions:

What happens if an HR person wants to spend 50% of their time in compliance and 20% in benefits administration but the organization needs the individual to spend 30% in recruiting and 40% in talent development?

How about the sales person who wants to spend 40% of their time nurturing existing client relationships and 30% of their time networking.  But the organization knows from previous experience the position requires at least 50% of the time cold calling to get those calls and 25% in elaborate proposals and reporting?

On the surface, assigning percentages of time for accountabilities seems like an easy step to skip because it’s assumed “it’s obvious!”   However, it can be the deciding factor for an individual to de-select themselves from consideration in a job and a predictability factor of success for any incumbent.

Organizations empowered to identify time percentages in their job accountability descriptions experience more success.

More and more companies are using assessments during their selection process to help in finding the right candidate. As a result, candidates are becoming increasingly familiar with and interested in selection assessments. Many candidates are now asking hiring managers if they can see the results of their assessments. We strongly urge our clients not to share or even discuss assessment results with candidates until they are hired (using the assessment results during a new hire’s on-boarding helps the new hire get off to a great start).

Assessments are confidential property of the organization for which they have paid and regardless of a candidate’s insistence, hiring managers should not feel obligated to show them their reports or discuss their results. Without expert interpretation, these assessments can EASILY be misinterpreted. So, unless the hiring manager or the candidate chooses to invest in having the assessments debriefed by a behavior expert, the candidate’s impression of what the assessments indicate can create an inaccurate impression of the selection process; this often leads to inappropriate conclusions about where the candidate stands in the selection process.  Since no assessment should ever be a go/no-go decision point, the organization may find itself defending how the assessments are used within the process, not just the validity of the assessment itself.

When candidates ask for their assessment results, we recommend the following response:

“We appreciate your interest in our selection tools, but it is our hiring policy not to share assessment results with candidates. Should you wish to purchase assessments on your own, we’d be happy to introduce you to our assessment provider.”

Empowered hiring managers manage the selection process effectively and are more successful.

Everyone has heard the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  If hiring managers believe the way they’ve hired in the past gives them as much confidence as rolling dice, why wouldn’t they do something different in hopes of increasing their odds?

Many leaders have a process to yield excellent results and prevent weak, or worse, disastrous hires.  It is important to tweak the process from time to time to accommodate various needs.  That may include using a search firm to source candidates who are then run through the process, adding an additional round of interviews, moving assessments up in the process, or doing a much longer phone interview before flying a candidate into town.

The bottom line is, there needs to be an evolving process – not just a particular kind of interview, or use of an assessment.  A process that yields certain results and allows for adjustments when necessary is critical.  Don’t throw out an entire process, but objectively examine what seems to be working well and where it could be improved.

Empower hiring managers to make successful hiring decisions by giving them a process that works.

You’ve no doubt heard the line “My mind’s already made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.” Unfortunately, many hiring managers unknowingly have this mentality.

Confirmation bias is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs.  People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively and ignore information that goes against their beliefs. Whether we like it or not, we all have confirmation bias and try as we might, it still impacts our hiring decisions.

The best way to prevent confirmation bias from contributing to poor hires is to have a third party expert assist in the hiring process.  Whether conducting interviews, analyzing assessment results, or performing reference checks, the objectivity offered by an impartial third party can prevent making a hiring mistake.

Empower hiring managers with an unbiased selection expert to help with the hiring decision, and you’ll make more successful hires.