The current hiring process that most companies implement today is fundamentally broken.
What are the facts that allow for that conclusion? Research shows that 80% of turnover is the result of bad hiring decisions. What’s more, 60% of the bad hiring choices made negatively affect the motivation and performance of other team members, and 39% of businesses report productivity losses from poor hiring.
Yes, evidently, bad hiring is catastrophic for a business. Despite this reality, around three quarters of employers still admit to hiring the wrong people.
So, what’s the cause and why does the hiring protocol remain unchanged?
Hiring managers aren’t just picking people for their team at random. However, their decisions continue to be driven by guesswork and they determine whether a talent will be a positive addition to their workforce according to the following two factors:
- Relying too heavily on the CV as a predictor of success
- Gleaning insights from people who won’t work directly with the candidate
Focusing on these two aspects when hiring ignores a vital element in predicting a good hire: surfacing a candidate’s “fit”.
“True Fit” is the Secret Sauce to Successful Hiring
“True Fit” – the term used to refer to understanding professional capability and the synergies between a candidate and the respective role, is the key to determining whether or not a potential employee is really suited to a position.
Of course technical skills are important, however there’s more to finding the right candidate for a role in your business than just previous experience or official qualifications. You could hire a sales consultant who has all the latest qualifications and 10 years of experience in a company similar to yours.
However, if that person isn’t matched to the manager’s leadership style or doesn’t prioritize the same values as the rest of the team, sadly, in a short time will prove to hold your business back from success and productivity.
“True fit” is the key indicator to understand whether a potential employee will become a part of the rest of the team. For instance, a talent with the “True Fit” for a role will:
- Engage with the key missions and goals of the business
- Be motivated by the work they do every day, finding it interesting and exciting
- Thrive under the management style and commands used by the senior team
- Share the same values as their team members, and the wider business
Fixing the Hiring Process with “True Fit”
We’re living at a time when 46% of new hires fail before they reach the 18-month mark in their new jobs. Take a moment to ask yourself why that may be.
Consider this: until now, only a hiring manager decides on hiring a new talent. What about the supervisor or team leader of that potential hire – shouldn’t they also assess whether a candidate “fits” their team before a decision is made? Synergy between new candidates and the people they’re working with is a factor that should no longer be ignored.
The relationships between people in a team are just as important as individual skills they each possess. Managers and their employees need to be able to see eye-to-eye, or productive work simply doesn’t get done.
There are two steps to follow for incorporating “True Fit” into your hiring process.
- Making sure the right people’s voices are included in the decision-making
Bringing the candidate’s future manager or team leader into the hiring decision allows for a deeper consideration of how those two people will work together in the months and years ahead.
2. Reducing the level of importance placed on the CV as the ultimate map for finding the right candidate
Current CV-based screening processes rely on success predictors which have grown increasingly outdated and unreliable over time. Education pedigree and past experience can only tell so much about a potential employee.
Looking at the technical skills of your candidates and failing to consider the human being behind the CV means not looking at their full shape. Companies need to consider not just whether a candidate meets the professional requirements, but also whether they can follow directions, work as a team player, and how they can deliver on the KPIs that matter most to the brand.
Updating the Hiring Process
To update the hiring process, a more holistic approach must be taken.
Replacing CV screening with job simulations replicates the role’s working environment so that companies finally have an opportunity to understand whether a candidate will thrive with their potential supervisor, and how they would approach key aspects of the role.
Looking at the potential “True Fit” of a candidate assesses how the multidimensional facets of a candidate come together, and ascertains whether they’re the most compatible person to the role and fellow workers, including:
• Technical skills, knowledge, and education (attributes listed on a CV)
• Work fit: the kind of work the person finds intrinsically motivating and engaging
• Relational fit: what the candidate needs if they’re to be managed successfully, and whether that matches the management style of your leadership team
• Environmental fit: how well the candidate can adapt to the communication styles that run through the business, and the values intrinsic to your company
• Cultural fit: whether your company and the candidate are driven by the same goals
The hiring process has been broken for too long. It’s time to use the power of “True Fit” to solve it.
About the Author
