Four steps to follow to make better hiring decisions

Too many leaders greatly underestimate the downside—and upside— in making disciplined hiring decisions and thus fail to take the process as seriously as they should.

Simply by hiring well leaders can create performance advantage for their teams that becomes even greater once people progress into comfort and competency in their roles.

Regardless of what position needs to be filled, the objective should be to always find someone who would wholeheartedly commit to it and thus excel in it.

Relying on a highly disciplined selection process as the means to building an exceptional and highly engaged team is the critically important first step toward achieving superior performance.

That said, here are four steps to follow to make better hiring decisions:

1. Be clear on what skills you need

We’ve all heard the expression “opposites attract” and tend to believe there’s a lot of truth to it. But consider your own personal relationships.

The truth is that we tend to surround ourselves with people who are like us. People like people like themselves.

The idea that people like people like themselves is something that you should circulate in your psyche every time you interview a candidate and find yourself really liking them.

That’s because we’re also inclined to hire people like ourselves. And very often, hiring someone just like us—with very similar talents, experience, and personality—is entirely inappropriate for the role you are filling.

To avoid falling into this trap, you need to be very clear on what specific role for which you are hiring and, in advance of meeting with applicants, stipulate the skills it requires.

One effective way of accomplishing this is to identify the top performers already in the job and determine what specific traits commonly lead them to excel. Then, set your sights on finding people like them.

2. Always seek to strengthen your team

When I was a regional manager overseeing a network of bank branches, one of my most talented and experienced branch managers, let’s name her Lindy, called me and resigned after learning that her above-average salary would suffer a massive cut under the new bank’s compensation plan.

Because Lindy had brought great depth, maturity, and competency to the job, it seemed a foregone conclusion that her replacement could never match up to her.

Ultimately, I decided to honor a top-performing assistant manager on my team, let’s call her Erin, and rewarded her with a promotion. Because she was much younger and far less seasoned than Lindy, I accepted that Erin would have a long learning curve before she would excel.

But this assumption proved terribly misguided and taught me this invaluable lesson: never limit in your mind what the possible outcomes can be.

Almost everything about Erin was different from Lindy but it had long been her aspiration to be the manager at this specific branch. Because of this unusual passion, she had given a tremendous amount of thought to what she would do as the branch leader.

What I never really expected was how much this desire could translate into performance. Erin took the branch to higher levels of achievement in her first year as a manager than had ever been accomplished before. And she built her momentum almost immediately.

This delighted me as much as it astonished me. Losing Lindy was tough for me personally and tough for our team—we greatly loved and respected her. But Erin brought her own talents and personality to the role and excelled in ways I never imagined.

3. Look for evidence of ambition

After examining the lives of some of the US’ most accomplished artists and scientists, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom discovered it was personal drive and determination – not natural ability – that predominantly led to their success.

People come to possess great talent over time because of the love they have for what they’re doing and their resolve for perfecting their craft.

A key objective in the interviewing process, then, is to identify people whose past achievements reveal these same special qualities.

Unless you are hiring for highly technical or senior-level positions, the qualities of ambition and persistence should rank above current skill level when building your teams.

To determine if a candidate has these qualities, you only need to look at their earlier work. A candidate’s achievements and successes (or lack thereof) in previous jobs is the best indicator of future performance.

In the absence of a broad work history, a candidate’s grade-point average, athletic participation, involvement in organizations, and employment while in school all provide indications of the motivations a candidate will bring to your team.

Look for examples of unique achievements, examples of how they overcame major challenges (drive and determination) to meet their goals.

When hiring, at every position, seek to identify winners—people who are passionate about what they do and who find ways to excel. And there are plenty of winners out there.

Winners build and sustain momentum. They take initiative and want to contribute. They get results.

Winners have a growth mindset and are always working to improve. Winners are generous as well as collaborative. Winners are fun to work with—and they strengthen others.

4. Interview with purpose

Most organizations provide managers with a recommended (or required) list of interview questions, and the ones I have used at different companies were all generally effective.

At the same time, stock questions like these rarely are perfect and do not always elicit complete insight into the viability of candidates.

It’s also been proven that asking candidates unanswerable questions such as “How many balloons would it take to fill the room?” is a complete waste of time.

People only ask questions like these to make themselves feel smart. More often than not, they embarrass and even alienate the job candidate they’re hoping to recruit to their team.

When you think about your questions, try to use them to help you identify if your applicant has the high-priority qualities you require: character, ambition, persistence, as well as the heart to do the specific job for which you are hiring.

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