A data-driven approach to hiring the people most likely to succeed
It seemed like a stroke of luck when she was referred by one of your VPs who’d previously worked with her. She had a rock-solid resume showcasing her success at several well-respected companies.
Her LinkedIn profile was top-notch, complete with recommendations from several former managers. She breezed through the interview process, leaving you and your team with no doubts about her intelligence, enthusiasm, and track record. Besides, she’s the kind of friendly, outgoing person you knew everyone would love. Six weeks later, you’re wondering how it all went so wrong.
Going Downhill Quickly
For the third time in two weeks you’ve been pulled aside by a colleague wanting to express concern about your new hire. She’s alienated one member of the company after another with a strange, overbearing approach to some aspects of her role and disregard for other tasks. Attempts to get her back on track have been ignored, and recently, there’s been a hint of hostility creeping into her communication with several of her teammates. She missed work again today, and you’re unsure what to think.
It’s not that she can’t do the work; it just seems she doesn’t want to. She seems to be doing pretty well at times, but there isn’t the consistent engagement you expected when you hired her.
And now you’re worried that she’s pulling down the rest of the team.
She’s not the wrong person. She’s not intentionally causing problems. She just doesn’t
You’re Not Alone
Sadly, this scenario plays out all too often, and it’s not confined to startups. It’s no surprise, given the astonishingly low correlation between what’s on people’s resumes and their likelihood of success in the role.
Bad hires are expensive, especially for startups. It’s not just wasted recruitment and training investments; it’s also hard-to-quantify elements such as impacts on team morale, damage to client relationships, and lost sales.
In a startup — where things happen extremely quickly, problems arise and are solved daily, and everyone wears multiple hats — fit is vital.
Injecting Some Science into the Hiring Process
Your startup is data-driven. It’s in your DNA to lead with data. Product people, developers, marketers… everyone comes to the table with data. Why is hiring — the very lifeblood of scaling your organization — so different?
Probably because there hasn’t been a simple, effective way of bringing data into the hiring equation at the right time. until now.
What Defines a Top Performer?
Ask your network what defines the top performers in their organizations, and you’ll likely hear about passion, genuine love for what they do, a thirst for continuous learning and improvement, and fearlessly taking ownership even in times of great difficulty.
Seldom will you hear that peak performance is built on particular experience, education, or even specific skills.
It’s not what’s on their resume that makes them great; it’s what’s in their heart.
Why, then, do we put so much emphasis on resumes in the hiring process?
Sure you dig deep in the interview process, having candidates meet with various stakeholders. You may have a well-structured set of behavioral interview questions and a consistently applied way to score answers.
You likely pride yourself on getting a good read on a candidate. Nobody lives your company culture as entirely as you do, and you know when you see that fire in somebody’s eyes.
Guess what? That’s what everybody says, yet they still make hiring mistakes. Lots of mistakes.
Who Was Overlooked?
An important question is, “What about everyone you didn’t interview?” Maybe you did choose well amongst those you interviewed, but what about that stack of resumes you blasted through, eliminating people from consideration after a cursory glance?
Were there “diamonds in the rough” that you missed? Perhaps people with unusual education or career paths that didn’t seem to fit the mold but might have become your next superstar hire?
How Do You Judge Based on a Resume?
How do you find that in a resume if job performance is built on a foundation of core personal attributes?
Indeed, you aren’t looking for the words. People who call themselves “passionate lifetime learners and problem solvers” or who say they “fearlessly take ownership in the face of every adversity” are probably mimicking what they read in an interview guide.
Indeed, you’re sophisticated enough to look for evidence of these traits in their past actions and results. But that’s far easier said than done.
What If You Knew?
What if you could look inside every applicant and see what makes them tick?
What if you knew who was “built” for the role?
What if you could get this perspective on every applicant before deciding which ones to interview?
You’d make better decisions about who to interview, and who not to spend time on.
Your interviews would be more effective, too. You’d ask better questions, focusing on how the candidate’s traits, motivations, and work styles align with (and in some cases clash with) benchmarks of top performers.
The Next Logical Step
Measuring candidates against proven success benchmarks for each role is a tremendous leap forward, but it’s possible to go one step further.
You may have a team of people in similar jobs. It might be sales, customer support, or some other vital function. If your company is like most, their job descriptions may be the same, but their performance certainly isn’t.
They’ve all got the skills, experience, tools, and training to prosper, but some outperform the others week after week, month after month.
Do you wish you had more people like your top performers?
SmoothHiring Custom Profiles enable you to model a success profile unique to your company, built upon the attributes that make your top performers the A-Players they are.
