Have you ever made the mistake of hiring someone who made a great impression during an interview but later turned out to be a lousy employee? If so, you’re not alone. According to OPP, a business psychology consulting firm, 39 percent of company leaders say they relied on gut instinct when hiring. Not surprisingly, the same 2010 report also found that 71 percent of line managers would change the hiring decisions they made if given a second chance.
While there is no single method you can use to determine how any candidate will perform on the job, learning how to prevent your gut instinct from leading you astray can greatly improve your odds. Before making your next job offer, consider the following 5 ways to limit the way a good impression can lead to a bad hiring decision.
1) Best of the worst. If you find yourself saying, “this candidate is a lot better than the last one,” you may be headed down the wrong path. It’s entirely possible that none of the candidates you interviewed are right for the job. Don’t make the mistake of picking the best of a bad lot. If the candidates you screened don’t have the skills you are looking for, you might have to go back to the job listing and start again.
2) Save the best for last. Often the candidate at the end of the interviewing process seems like the most promising, especially if there are no stand-outs. To avoid this bias, it’s helpful to arrange second interviews in a different order than first interviews. A second set of eyes can also be invaluable. To get the best results, make sure interviews are done independently as group interviews often bias the decision-making process.
3) Angels and Devils. Gut instinct operates on a different level than rational decision-making. While rational business decisions depend on metrics and incremental improvements, gut decisions are always binary. No one ever says, my gut likes this candidate 20 percent more than the other one. That’s because gut instinct relies on pattern recognition while rational decisions are based on calculations. When hiring by gut instinct, it’s often easy to fall in love with a candidate who is only marginally better than the other possibilities. Using a scoring method that identifies key skills and grades them can greatly improve your odds of success.
4) Hungry, Stressed, Tired? While it may not be apparent, how you feel during the interview has a lot to do with whether you like a candidate or not. If you don’t have a clear set of criteria, you may be remembering how you felt rather than how you felt about the candidate. Your mood may also affect how the candidate interacts with you. If you are rubbing your eyes and fading in and out during the interview, the candidate may assume you are not interested in them. If you’re not feeling well, reschedule the interview for another day.
5) Confusing familiar with good. While an experienced manager may recognize positive traits in a candidate, instinct may also recognize traits that have no causal connection to performance. It may be that all of your successful employees wore white shirts in the interviewing process or all went to your alma mater. Separating positive traits from incidental information requires a scoring mechanism. Winging it can lead to costly hiring decisions that take your company away from its focus and damage your brand.
While it is impossible to eliminate biases that come from gut instinct, an analytical scoring system can help differentiate superficial impressions from valid information. Before conducting your next interview, make sure you have identified the skills and traits necessary to perform the job. Then score each candidate using the same scale and weighting. After you’ve made your hiring decision, use the same information to conduct 90 day and annual reviews. Over time, you’ll have a solid tool for selecting the best new hires for your organization.
At SCR , we can help you find the experienced energy sector talent you need. We supply talent throughout the world, and we can find you the people you need for your organization or your next project. Contact us today!
