Don’t Just Hire a Candidate That Can Do the Job: Hire the Best Talent in the Market

March 8th, 2013

How can managers balance the urge to hire the candidate who possesses the skills to do the job, but not the “A” player pedigree, caliber, or past performance? The answer to this question separates the exceptional hiring manager(s) and great companies from their not-so-successful counterparts.

The trap most managers fall into results from seeking immediate productivity, and understandably so. That is why the majority of managers go after skills instead of broader-based competencies. It is appealing to have someone new come in with the absolute and appropriate skills, hit the ground running, and be productive almost immediately. “Skills blindness” is never an optimal long-term play and almost never the best solution. Not truly assessing the candidate’s cultural fit and past performance plus skills is almost certain to lead to mediocrity. The team or company will always lack the ability to scale with a lack of internal depth for promotion, and when a higher-level position comes open, the pressure always exists to hire the person that can help now, so managers hire skills from the outside again and sell the future for the present.

Hiring for Competencies

Exceptional managers think of hiring as the most important responsibility and action they own. It is seen as an opportunity to improve and to bring in more talent, with “talent” being the driver. But pedigree, intelligence and caliber are the attributes important for the hire, not “skills.” Competency in a particular role takes precedence over skills, making the candidate pool larger and increasing the odds of finding candidates possessing those important attributes to hire. Candidates with the proper competencies will learn new skills very quickly, and by the time they have adjusted to the new corporate environment, they will have learned the skills necessary to excel in the role.  And considering the speed at which corporate America is moving/changing, odds are all unique skills will change or become outdated.

High-Performance Team Needs a Clearly Defined Hiring Process

To build a high-performance team or company with exceptional performance, look first at the hiring process. Everything is driven from here. What is the goal? What is the plan? How are candidates being interviewed? What is being achieved? The responsibility rests on the interviewing team to determine caliber, past performance, track record of success, depth of experience, accountability, competency and cultural fit.

Accurately assessing past performance and behavior holds the key to predicting the future, and the interview(s) must provide that data. It’s not “give me an example of your experience with JAVA applications.” It’s “Give me an example of the largest Internet application you have developed.” and “Give me an example of the last time you had to learn new skills to complete a project.” “Did learning new technology increase the length of the project?”

The next time the opportunity to hire surfaces, take advantage of the situation and join the Exceptional managers. Look beyond the job description (skills), open the spec and build a pool of candidates, plan the interviewing process to yield the results desired, and hire the best talent, not skills, for the role. The “best athlete” is always the best hire.

For those interested in enhancing your ability to hire the exceptional, call Honer and Associates. We welcome the chance to discuss this issue with you.