Dear Stephen,
I am a Vice President of Sales for a large manufacturer, and we are hiring in several markets right now.
What frustrates me is not finding candidates. We seem to have plenty. What frustrates me is making hires that look right at the time and then do not work out.
Our process is thorough. Candidates meet with HR, the hiring manager, senior leadership, and sometimes outside consultants. We conduct assessments, check references, and spend a great deal of time evaluating people before making an offer.
Yet every year we still have a few hires fail, often within the first twelve months.
These mistakes are expensive. There is the cost of recruiting, onboarding, training, lost productivity, and sometimes damaged customer relationships. When it happens, everyone starts looking for someone to blame. Was it HR? Was it the hiring manager? Was it the recruiter? Was it me for approving the hire?
The reality is that most of the time everyone involved agreed the candidate was the right choice. So why does this keep happening?
— Frustrated VP of Sales
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Dear Frustrated,
I hate this question because when an outside recruiter is involved, we usually absorb a good portion of the blame. Frankly, that comes with the territory, and it is one reason we guarantee our placements for a full year at The Viscusi Group. The problem, of course, is that replacing a bad hire does not erase the disruption, lost time, and frustration the company experienced in the first place.
What struck me most about your letter is the number of people involved in the hiring process. HR interviewed the candidate, the hiring manager interviewed the candidate, senior leadership interviewed the candidate, references were checked, assessments were completed, and everyone looked at the same person and reached the same conclusion. That is how most companies hire today.
Years ago, one executive might have made the decision. Today, hiring is often a group exercise, with multiple people weighing in, comparing notes, and collectively deciding who receives the offer. When a hire does not work out, it becomes very difficult to point to one person and say, "This was your fault."
At some point, you have to accept that hiring is not an exact science. I have always viewed it as more of an art. You can improve your odds, gather more information, conduct better interviews, and check more references, but no process eliminates risk entirely.
After more than three decades in executive search, I have learned that people are far less predictable than we would like them to be. Some candidates interview brilliantly and fail, while others barely impress anyone during the process and go on to become top performers. Put the same person under a different manager, in a different culture, or under a different compensation plan, and you may get an entirely different outcome.
Salespeople are especially difficult to evaluate because persuasion is part of their skill set. The very thing that makes them successful with customers can also make them exceptionally convincing in an interview. The same can be true of senior executives. Experience, references, and assessments can improve your odds, but none of them can guarantee success.
One area where I do think companies can improve is reference checking. Whenever possible, I believe the hiring manager should personally conduct at least some of the reference calls. Ask tougher questions, push beyond prepared responses, and listen carefully to what is being said as well as what is being avoided.
I also like speaking with people who are not on the candidate's prepared reference list. Obviously, you have to be careful not to jeopardize someone's current employment, but some of the most valuable information I have uncovered over the years came from conversations that were never part of the formal process. If something feels off, pay attention to it. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say, "I had a concern during the interview process, but I could not put my finger on it." Sometimes that concern turns out to be nothing, and sometimes it turns out to be everything.
Even then, you are still going to make bad hires because every company does. The organizations that handle it best are not necessarily the ones that hire perfectly. They are the ones that recognize problems sooner and address them faster.
What I see far too often is a company spending months debating whether HR missed something, whether the recruiter overlooked a warning sign, whether management asked the wrong questions, or whether the assessment tool failed. Meanwhile, everyone already knows the person is not working out.
My advice is simple: learn whatever lesson there is to learn, make any necessary adjustments to your hiring process, and move forward. The cost of carrying the wrong person for another six months is usually far greater than the cost of admitting a mistake and starting over.
And for what it is worth, I still feel terrible whenever one of my clients has to terminate someone we recruited. In reality, recruiters rarely make the final hiring decision. Our job is to identify, recruit, and present strong candidates. The client conducts the interviews, evaluates the options, and ultimately decides who receives the offer.
That does not make the situation any easier when a placement fails. I feel badly for my client because they invested time, money, and trust. I feel badly for the candidate because a career move that once seemed promising did not work out. Nobody wins in that situation, and after all these years I still take it personally.
As for who should be blamed, the truth is probably everyone a little and nobody entirely. If a group of smart, experienced people followed a thoughtful process and the hire still did not work out, that is not necessarily a failure. Sometimes it is simply the reality of managing people, building teams, and running a business.
Stephen