Insights on how to improve one’s odds as a recruiter.
By Chew Kheng Chuan 03 October 2009
When I pause to consider the countless number of people I have hired over the past 23 years of working life, I ask myself whether I made good choices or bad ones, and how many ‘winners’(and ‘whiners’) I have picked. While I have not done a thorough accounting, my abiding sense is that my record is probably at best, 50-50.
That is to say, half the time I’ve got it right, and half the time, I’ve got it wrong. That almost sounds like tossing a coin to make a decision about whether to hire someone for a job! It took me a long time to understand why I got it wrong half of the time, and I believe my new insight will allow me to improve my odds as a recruiter in the future. Let me however save that for later, otherwise it will be too easy, to simply give away what it took me 20 long years to discover!
The ‘experience’ factor
When we consider the criteria for hiring someone, many of us feel that a critical factor is ‘experience’. Does the candidate have the requisite experience to address the demands of the particular job? That seems like a logical must-have. Consider that for the highest job of the land in the United States, this was what initially counted most seriously against Barack Obama. Both Hillary Clinton and later John McCain tried to use the ‘lack of experience’ factor against the young, first-term senator from Illinois.
And yet, when I came across Dee Hock’s dictum, I felt it spoke a most important, if difficult, truth. Dee Hock is the founder of VISA, and this is what he has to say about hiring people:
‘Hire and promote - first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; And last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; Without motivation, capacity is impotent; Without capacity, understanding is limited; Without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; Without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.’
But, seriously, can one really expect someone without the requisite experience to do the job well? It doesn’t seem the most sensible or safe thing to do. And yet, I should look no further than my own experience in professional fundraising. When I was first hired to be the founding director of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Development Office six years ago, I did not have the resume of a fundraiser.
And I was hired not to be part of a large, established development team, but rather to start the new dedicated development office. My mission was to help the university raise $100 million in three to four years. So I set about to get the experience I did not have. And in six years, the university exceeded its fundraising target - by 700 per cent or seven-fold!
I guess that proved - at least to me - that no prior experience is necessary provided one knows where and how to get the necessary experience to get the job done. As Dee Hock advises, once integrity, motivation, capacity, understanding, and knowledge are in place.
Even in a tight labour market, which we have frequently seen in Singapore until the global financial crisis, we often got hundreds of applications for any position we advertised for.
It is quite a task to read through all the applications, and on paper, many do seem adequately qualified for the job. How does one successfully discern and discriminate, to separate the wheat from the chaff?
Many would agree that, other things being equal, when hiring someone, we would place a lot of emphasis on the recommendation of friends whose opinions we trust. And yet, I have encountered a few unfortunate occasions when even the superlatively high recommendation from trusted friends were not safe. In earlier and more trusting days, some of these people I hired based on the strong endorsements of trusted friends turned out, alas, to be the human equivalent of lemons.
Certainly the quick lessons there were that one man’s meat may indeed be another man’s poison, and not only when it comes to food.
So, lesson Number 2: invoke a mindful degree of scepticism even in the recommendations of people whose opinions you generally trust. In the specifics of your particular requirements, working style, and demands, they may not be on the same page after all.
Talent is over-rated
When we interview we think we are looking out particularly for evidence of talent. Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success both examine this important issue to undermine some canards about what it takes to succeed. The first book tells the interesting story of two 22-year-olds, fresh out of college, employed at Procter and Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. From all accounts, both of them were neither particularly ambitious, career-minded, nor impressive. One of them even recalled later that ‘We were voted the two guys probably least likely to succeed.’
And who would have bothered to take note of these two apparently unimpressive young men in 1978 - except that before they reached the age of 50 in 2006 they would have become the CEOs of General Electric and Microsoft? They were Jeffrey Immelt and Steve Ballmer.
Their success wasn’t in their DNA; it was their training, their perseverance, focus, attention, emphasis on results and hard work.
Thus, merely detecting talent is not the simple road to hiring heaven. Why then are our hiring decisions sometimes heaven and sometimes hell?
For me at least, the simple, almost comical answer is that, when we interview, particularly for a critical job that needs urgent filling, it’s like falling in love. To put it more accurately, I have come to realise to my horror and amusement, that the frame of mind we sometimes, in fact often, bring to an interview as an interviewer, is unconsciously akin to the frame of mind we have when we fall in love.
Many people who have grown older and wiser will understand that when someone is in love, they are, shall we say, not very objective. To the smitten, the beloved is beautiful, charming, faultless, cute, sexy - in fact, just perfect.
Later on, when we are no longer in love, we realise it was a delusion. But while we are in love, and especially if it’s mutual, there are fireworks.
Being in love therefore creates a temporary delusionary amnesia, which may last a few hours, or a few years. During that time, the beloved fulfils a great need - to be loved, to be cared for.
When we look to hire a person for a job, it is often a situation where there is a great, sometimes desperate, need. We look to the new hire to solve our problems, to save the contract, maybe even save the company. We are in a state of fervent hope that the right person will come along with the necessary skills, talents, smarts, experience, and savoir faire. We may not articulate all this, but some form of it is present at an unconscious or subconscious level.
This powerful dynamic is what induces the ‘in-love’ frame of mind. When we are in love, we relinquish our objectivity. We hear what we want to hear, and see what we want to see.
Dangerously, we subconsciously assume this frame of mind when we speak to our interviewee. When the interviewee speaks, we may unconsciously screen out and not even hear some of the information that is being offered. Bear in mind that the interviewee is also on his or her best behaviour, and trying their best to project only the positive aspects of themselves. On our part, we latch on to all the positive points which the interviewee makes, whether in speech, by assertion, or by demonstration. Yes! Yes! Yes! We run through the mental checklist with all the favourable impressions the interviewee is conveying. Sometimes, the negative points are simply invisible. We are in love, we are deluded.
Incidentally, interviewees are also in a similar state of mind. There is a great need on their part to get the job. Whatever negative thing is said about the company or its policies, are either disregarded, or excused, or invisible, They feel a need to be accepted, to be part of the organisation. So they project to themselves their best possible notion of what the company is going to be like, and how their interviewer is going to behave as a colleague, or a superior, when the interview is over. They, too, are in love.
So, am I saying that when we interview for a job, whether as interviewer or interviewee, we are in love? Let me put it this way: We are in danger of being akin to being in love because of our great mutual need, and this is characterised by an unconscious sense of delusion. It is very easy for us not to be objective. As you believe - perhaps I should say, hope - so you will see.
What then are the lessons? Be aware of this phenomenon: it is a trap. Make a conscious effort to be objective, by figuring out what objective evaluation can be brought to bear in assessing the qualities of the candidate. Listen carefully to what the candidate is saying, and how he or she is saying it. I am not saying throw ‘gut feel’ and ‘chemistry’ out of the window. But it would a big mistake to rely principally on how you feel. Because you may be ‘in love’. And the result may be no better than a decision you would make by tossing a coin.
# The author is Chief University Advancement Officer at Nanyang Technological University. Prior to his career in the university sector, he was for 17 years the founder and managing director of a brand consulting, design, corporate and marketing communications company
4 comments:
Pick winners, not whiners
Insights on how to improve one’s odds as a recruiter.
By Chew Kheng Chuan
03 October 2009
When I pause to consider the countless number of people I have hired over the past 23 years of working life, I ask myself whether I made good choices or bad ones, and how many ‘winners’(and ‘whiners’) I have picked. While I have not done a thorough accounting, my abiding sense is that my record is probably at best, 50-50.
That is to say, half the time I’ve got it right, and half the time, I’ve got it wrong. That almost sounds like tossing a coin to make a decision about whether to hire someone for a job! It took me a long time to understand why I got it wrong half of the time, and I believe my new insight will allow me to improve my odds as a recruiter in the future. Let me however save that for later, otherwise it will be too easy, to simply give away what it took me 20 long years to discover!
The ‘experience’ factor
When we consider the criteria for hiring someone, many of us feel that a critical factor is ‘experience’. Does the candidate have the requisite experience to address the demands of the particular job? That seems like a logical must-have. Consider that for the highest job of the land in the United States, this was what initially counted most seriously against Barack Obama. Both Hillary Clinton and later John McCain tried to use the ‘lack of experience’ factor against the young, first-term senator from Illinois.
And yet, when I came across Dee Hock’s dictum, I felt it spoke a most important, if difficult, truth. Dee Hock is the founder of VISA, and this is what he has to say about hiring people:
‘Hire and promote - first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; And last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; Without motivation, capacity is impotent; Without capacity, understanding is limited; Without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; Without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.’
But, seriously, can one really expect someone without the requisite experience to do the job well? It doesn’t seem the most sensible or safe thing to do. And yet, I should look no further than my own experience in professional fundraising. When I was first hired to be the founding director of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Development Office six years ago, I did not have the resume of a fundraiser.
And I was hired not to be part of a large, established development team, but rather to start the new dedicated development office. My mission was to help the university raise $100 million in three to four years. So I set about to get the experience I did not have. And in six years, the university exceeded its fundraising target - by 700 per cent or seven-fold!
I guess that proved - at least to me - that no prior experience is necessary provided one knows where and how to get the necessary experience to get the job done. As Dee Hock advises, once integrity, motivation, capacity, understanding, and knowledge are in place.
The recommendation factor
Even in a tight labour market, which we have frequently seen in Singapore until the global financial crisis, we often got hundreds of applications for any position we advertised for.
It is quite a task to read through all the applications, and on paper, many do seem adequately qualified for the job. How does one successfully discern and discriminate, to separate the wheat from the chaff?
Many would agree that, other things being equal, when hiring someone, we would place a lot of emphasis on the recommendation of friends whose opinions we trust. And yet, I have encountered a few unfortunate occasions when even the superlatively high recommendation from trusted friends were not safe. In earlier and more trusting days, some of these people I hired based on the strong endorsements of trusted friends turned out, alas, to be the human equivalent of lemons.
Certainly the quick lessons there were that one man’s meat may indeed be another man’s poison, and not only when it comes to food.
So, lesson Number 2: invoke a mindful degree of scepticism even in the recommendations of people whose opinions you generally trust. In the specifics of your particular requirements, working style, and demands, they may not be on the same page after all.
Talent is over-rated
When we interview we think we are looking out particularly for evidence of talent. Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success both examine this important issue to undermine some canards about what it takes to succeed. The first book tells the interesting story of two 22-year-olds, fresh out of college, employed at Procter and Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. From all accounts, both of them were neither particularly ambitious, career-minded, nor impressive. One of them even recalled later that ‘We were voted the two guys probably least likely to succeed.’
And who would have bothered to take note of these two apparently unimpressive young men in 1978 - except that before they reached the age of 50 in 2006 they would have become the CEOs of General Electric and Microsoft? They were Jeffrey Immelt and Steve Ballmer.
Their success wasn’t in their DNA; it was their training, their perseverance, focus, attention, emphasis on results and hard work.
Thus, merely detecting talent is not the simple road to hiring heaven. Why then are our hiring decisions sometimes heaven and sometimes hell?
Rose-tinted lenses
For me at least, the simple, almost comical answer is that, when we interview, particularly for a critical job that needs urgent filling, it’s like falling in love. To put it more accurately, I have come to realise to my horror and amusement, that the frame of mind we sometimes, in fact often, bring to an interview as an interviewer, is unconsciously akin to the frame of mind we have when we fall in love.
Many people who have grown older and wiser will understand that when someone is in love, they are, shall we say, not very objective. To the smitten, the beloved is beautiful, charming, faultless, cute, sexy - in fact, just perfect.
Later on, when we are no longer in love, we realise it was a delusion. But while we are in love, and especially if it’s mutual, there are fireworks.
Being in love therefore creates a temporary delusionary amnesia, which may last a few hours, or a few years. During that time, the beloved fulfils a great need - to be loved, to be cared for.
When we look to hire a person for a job, it is often a situation where there is a great, sometimes desperate, need. We look to the new hire to solve our problems, to save the contract, maybe even save the company. We are in a state of fervent hope that the right person will come along with the necessary skills, talents, smarts, experience, and savoir faire. We may not articulate all this, but some form of it is present at an unconscious or subconscious level.
This powerful dynamic is what induces the ‘in-love’ frame of mind. When we are in love, we relinquish our objectivity. We hear what we want to hear, and see what we want to see.
Dangerously, we subconsciously assume this frame of mind when we speak to our interviewee. When the interviewee speaks, we may unconsciously screen out and not even hear some of the information that is being offered. Bear in mind that the interviewee is also on his or her best behaviour, and trying their best to project only the positive aspects of themselves. On our part, we latch on to all the positive points which the interviewee makes, whether in speech, by assertion, or by demonstration. Yes! Yes! Yes! We run through the mental checklist with all the favourable impressions the interviewee is conveying. Sometimes, the negative points are simply invisible. We are in love, we are deluded.
Incidentally, interviewees are also in a similar state of mind. There is a great need on their part to get the job. Whatever negative thing is said about the company or its policies, are either disregarded, or excused, or invisible, They feel a need to be accepted, to be part of the organisation. So they project to themselves their best possible notion of what the company is going to be like, and how their interviewer is going to behave as a colleague, or a superior, when the interview is over. They, too, are in love.
Beware: believing is seeing
So, am I saying that when we interview for a job, whether as interviewer or interviewee, we are in love? Let me put it this way: We are in danger of being akin to being in love because of our great mutual need, and this is characterised by an unconscious sense of delusion. It is very easy for us not to be objective. As you believe - perhaps I should say, hope - so you will see.
What then are the lessons? Be aware of this phenomenon: it is a trap. Make a conscious effort to be objective, by figuring out what objective evaluation can be brought to bear in assessing the qualities of the candidate. Listen carefully to what the candidate is saying, and how he or she is saying it. I am not saying throw ‘gut feel’ and ‘chemistry’ out of the window. But it would a big mistake to rely principally on how you feel. Because you may be ‘in love’. And the result may be no better than a decision you would make by tossing a coin.
# The author is Chief University Advancement Officer at Nanyang Technological University. Prior to his career in the university sector, he was for 17 years the founder and managing director of a brand consulting, design, corporate and marketing communications company
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