The State of Hiring

In the past, I've had my share of hiring success stories, just like most interviewers have. I've also hired plenty of people who fell into that average-performer category. But oh, the pain of a bad hire! I don't know which I focused on more — hiring high performers or simply avoiding bad hires. Clearly some bad hires are worse than others, but none are a pleasant experience. I recall one particular hire in my early years of interviewing. His first day on the job was supposed to include getting on an airplane and flying to the corporate office to begin management training. As it turned out, he figured out a way to cash in the airline ticket we gave him and neither he nor the money was ever seen or heard from again. Then there was the time I was ready to expand my recruiting agency. It was a one-person operation with yours truly doing all the work, which became too much to handle. It was time for me to hire my first employee. I was very careful in my selection process, and quite confident in my abilities. After all, I was a successful recruiter and had already interviewed hundreds of job candidates! The person I selected came with interviewing and hiring experience as well as management experience. She seemed like a hard worker and expressed a profound interest in the job. On top of that, I liked her. However, much to my dismay, it turned out to be a total disaster! For the next few months, she had one excuse after another for not meeting her goals and her lack of productivity. Initially I felt compassion towards her hard-luck stories and gave her the benefit of doubt. Since she wasn't bringing in much revenue, the cost to retain her was putting a financial strain on the business. That hiring choice caused me so much stress! I would have been better off if I had never hired her and did all the work myself. I almost lost the business because of one poor hiring decision. The good part, however, is that experience got the wheels turning in my head: how did I get it so wrong?

After thousands of interviews, along with tracking the job performance of those hired, I discovered the real difference between high performers and everyone else. It's not how eager a person is to get the job, or even about their bounty of skills, but rather, it's how eager a person is to do the job. The million-dollar question was, how could I make this distinction before they were hired? I knew the answer would lead me to a place where I could genuinely tell the difference between the great hires and the not-so-great ones. Then it hit me: everything revolves around how we assess self-motivation.

Speaking of Motivation ...

Motivating employees has always been a hot topic in the business world. As supervisors, we're continuously trying to come up with ways to prod workers to take action, produce results, and achieve higher goals. We spend countless hours seeking ways to make workers want to perform better. We coach and counsel. We dangle carrots. Sometimes we discipline and threaten job loss just to get them to do the job they were hired to do. Around the turn of the century, this age-old problem got a new name: "unmotivated employees" are now called "disengaged employees" and the act of motivating employees became "employee engagement." It's the same problem — unmotivated employees — just a new name.

Have you ever noticed that the word "motivation" is often preceded by the word "self"? One would think we could just say a person is motivated or isn't. But somewhere along the line, someone attached the word "self" to the word "motivation" to make a distinction. When we refer to motivation, we aren't automatically talking about the ability to put one self into motion, not at all. This is where many interviewers go astray. They think all they have to do is assess whether or not a candidate is motivated.

So, go ahead and ask a candidate about his motivation. Ask him, on a scale of one to ten, how much effort he puts into his work or how important he thinks initiative is. Or how about a candidate who finished a project. Can we assume she is motivated? The project got done and that's what counts, right? What if the boss told her prior to the project, "If you miss this project deadline the way you have missed so many others, you'll be fired"? What if the boss constantly had to check up on her progress and push her when she lagged behind? What if this employee made excuses and argued with her boss, insisting that the boss was being unreasonable, that there was no way it could all get done? What if the employee spent too much time on the phone or took long smoke breaks? The project may have gotten finished barely on time. But during a job interview, this person can brag about how she finished a tough project. Only talking about the success of the project and conveniently leaving out the details about the boss's push, this candidate probably appears to have been self-motivated. But she wasn't. She had trouble with the "self" part.

If you fail to assess motivation correctly during the interviewing process, you can become the proud supervisor of employees who lack self-motivation and will be dependent on you to motivate them — also known as employee engagement. Too often these people slip through the screening process and are hired.

How Are We Really Doing at Hiring?

Organizations spend a tremendous amount of time, money, and resources teaching managers how to motivate employees as a way to improve the organization's overall performance and success, yet put forth very little effort training interviewers.

I think a little healthy introspection might offer some enlightenment. Ask yourself these questions: Why do we assume we have hired well when the employee is underperforming? Did they change or did we miss the mark? If the act of motivating employees is so effective, why then do we still have unmotivated or disengaged employees? Why do we think trying to fundamentally change another human being is a better strategy than fixing the selection process?

So then, what is the state of hiring and why is it important that we know the answer to this question? It's important because many interviewers and many organizations believe they are already doing a fine job at selecting their employees. This belief comes with a side effect: not being open to learning and implementing a better way. After all, what is there to improve when you're already good at hiring? Before we can leap into...