1. Focusing on a candidate’s resume rather than on exploring in depth their aptitude, past behaviors, and current attitude.
The right candidate can share specific stories illustrating their past behavior that will give you confidence they can quickly overcome challenges and gain any necessary expertise.
2. Not verifying alignment with personal and company needs and values.
Calibrate mutual expectations – do occasional long hours mean 8am-5:30pm once a month or 6am-midnight 1-3 times a week? Verify their behavior in the past aligns with your core values. Don’t overlook alignment with their spouse/significant other.
3. Hiring a totally new expertise without outside help.
You especially need a BS detector when hiring your 1st Sales Manager, 1st HR Director, 1st CFO, 1st IT Director, 1st Quality Director, etc.
4. Not orchestrating the interview process
Make sure every member of the interview team has an assigned task – identifying the candidate’s passions and core values, verifying skills and experience, selling the company’s features, closing the hire.
5. Setting low expectations.
Ask the candidate how they intend to change the company’s status quo within their first 90 days. What do they bring to the table? With their experience they should be able to make an immediate impact, applying their knowledge of different programs, processes, technology, etc.
6. Assuming you will only need to hire two people to fill two openings.
HR professionals have told me that in their experience, one well vetted hire out of three will not work out because of poor chemistry once they were on the job.
7. Trying to replace a long-term employee with a clone.
Use a zero budgeting approach, identifying the key results you need and expect the hire to accomplish without them checking with a supervisor first. Over the years the long-term employee’s job has molded itself tightly around their particular passions and competencies, many times at the expense of the company’s current needs and opportunities.
8. Missing a key requirement of new or replacement positions.
There is an invisible characteristic of a healthy organization, diversity of passions. A healthy organization requires a mix of counterbalancing advocates. For example, an aggressive growth advocate balanced by an advocate for stability and profitability. Identify where you need to add a passionate advocate to maintain a healthy balance.
9. Not proactively countering the inevitable buyer’s remorse.
Start with a highly personalized offer letter, then immediately give them business cards and logoed items, invite them to planning sessions, etc. Ask them how they will respond to a counter offer from their current employer. (Studies suggest around 15% of candidates take the counteroffer.)
10. Not firing someone within their 1st 90 days when it’s clear the chemistry isn’t working.
The only way to know for sure that the chemistry between the company and a new hire works is to live together. If it clearly isn’t working within the first 7-90 days, it won’t ever work. (It’s not unusual for a third of your hires to fail chemistry.)
Whatever your personal, professional, or corporate goal may be, you want to work with team members that energize, inspire, and fully support your vision.
A strategic planning process that clarifies the what, why, and sustains the how will enable you to turn vision into reality. If you’re interested in having a facilitated strategic planning meeting that moves you from concept to tangible implementation, read my latest book – The Chemistry of Strategy, check out our service offerings online, contact us by email, or better yet, give us a call at (800) 207-8192 to arrange for a complementary consultation to determine if you are ready for strategic planning and if our program is right for you.
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