Prehire assessments are becoming a commonly accepted step for qualifying executive candidates for hire. From your perspective, the process seems clear cut: put together a comprehensive job description (including success factors and culture fit factors), create a multi-step interview process, use a credible and well constructed testing process, and, make your decision.

The thing people don’t talk much about is what happens to you – the person doing the hiring – when the candidate you wanted to hire, really isn’t. In my experience, the hiring party goes through a process much like any kind of loss, almost a process of mourning.

The reason for this is that testing often is the last step before making the hiring decision. You’ve had a number of opportunities to get to know the candidate, their qualifications and how they would fit into your organization. The result is with each progressive step and meeting, you begin to picture the person being on board. You bond and connect. And, you start to lose focus on the process and start focusing on the person being on board. You get ahead of yourself.

The problem is that the process isn’t yet done. Remember that the testing and follow-on discussion are placed at the end because they serve to bring together everything else that’s been learned up to that point in time: resume review, interviews, reference checks, informal meetings with others in the organization and so forth. In the testing/discussion step, you gain two things.

First, you gain perspective about what you’ve learned about the candidate in a very comprehensive way. If you hire the person, you can use that information to optimally onboard them.

Second, you may not hire the person, or you may hire the person and then fire them within six months or less (even though many things recommended against that action, except you bonded). In my experience, the hiring executives become very demoralized at that point because they feel the search failed, or they failed because they hired the wrong person and then quickly derailed.

At that point, many executives disengage from the search process. They feel they won’t be able to find new candidates and that subsequent attempts to hire for the position will also be met with failure.

But, progressive companies take a different approach. They take a non-hire event as an opportunity to seriously aggregate what they learned in the process. And, they come to see that what they thought they wanted in a candidate, was different. This serves to re-focus every person in the process, and creates a more finely tuned picture of what the company is looking for.

So, when your search process results in testing that raises serious questions about the fit of the candidate for the position, take that as an opportunity to step back, learn, re-tool and move forward with a better and more accurately focused process. Paying attention to the data you’ve collected allows you to avoid hiring the wrong person, and allows you to (hopefully soon) hire the person who will be a much better fit.

Most times companies rush the employee selection process. A typical scenario is that the position has been open, perhaps for some time. The company may be missing opportunities. And, other people are working much harder picking up the extra work caused by the unfilled opening. Needless to say, this creates a lot of pressure on the hiring team to move things along – find a candidate and get them hired!

Fact is, this kind of approach saves a bit of time upfront, but can be costly in the long term. And, by adding in a few small steps, the hiring team can learn a lot more about the candidate – learning things that either confirm they have the right person, or that they should move on.

Here are some things to try:

1. Always have multiple face-to-face contacts with candidates – possibly two formal meetings and a less formal dinner

2. After getting past the first meeting, have the candidate do a pretty in depth writing sample, for example, their 12            month tactical plan.

3. Have people lower in the organization, and perhaps in affiliated departments, do group interviews – get a view of         how the broader organization feels about the candidate

Over time, the candidate will become more comfortable being around people. So, you’ll begin to meet their “real self” and not just their “interview self.”

Taking more time to get to know the candidate and have the candidate know you benefits all parties. Your hiring goal should be for the candidate to be a good fit for the Company and the Company to be a good fit for the candidate. The multiple interview and writing sample approach are two key elements for getting there.

Almost every person I’ve ever met feels that hiring using their “gut feeling” nets them the best candidates. But, so many job searches are often a failure. Is the “gut” a good way to conduct any sort of pre-hire or pre-employment assessment?

Fact is, hiring solely by gut, rather than by a proper prehire assessment, can bring disastrous consequences. Why? Because it’s based upon limitedpre and biased information. When hiring, a prehire assessment must be thorough and accurate.

Information obtained via the gut hunch is limited because it is mostly based on nonverbal and indirect behavior—a firm handshake, direct eye contact or a sparkling and engaging personality. Yes, these are ideal traits for a candidate. However, all too often, selections are made solely on these surface elements and a well-written resume, not through proper prehire assessment. The gut hunch does not offer enough information to select somebody who could potentially be with your company for 20+ years. Hiring and/or promoting without a thorough and complete prehire assessment, could determine the difference between your organization’s success and failure.

Why is gut hunch information biased? Because, it comes from the natural subjectivity of the interview process. The fact is, we are often naturally attracted to people who are most like ourselves. Odds are, if you see yourself in the candidate’s personality, you’re going to like them. (NOTE: Don’t be embarrassed—it’s just human nature.) To people we naturally like, we ascribe all sorts of positive attributes—skills, smarts, you name it. The fewer the people doing the interviewing, the greater the bias.

What are some of the ways to more accurately assess a candidate before hiring them? Here are some tips you might find useful:

• For upper level positions, always have diverse people on the hiring team (intellect, department, years at the company, etc.—their differing perspectives will lead them to see the candidate from different angles, and also lead them to ask different questions from each other). The composite of those viewpoints makes for a more accurate picture of the candidate’s relative “fit” for the position.
• Add to your subjective point of view something objective, like prehire assessment tools. These assessment techniques provide a scientific measure of the degree of “fit” between the job description and what the candidate brings to the table.

About The Solutions Group

The Solutions Group provides professional consultation services, including prehire assessment, leadership assessment, succession assessment, executive coaching, executive development and leadership development coaching.