Business has heated up, so people availability is tightening up and most of the managers I know are burning up their Blackberries looking for talent.

For over 25 years, first as a headhunter and then as a retention consultant and coach, the question I hear most when it comes to hiring is, “What’s the number one cause of a bad hire?”

I love easy questions, and the answer to this one can be summed up in one word: charm (the candidate’s), which leads to selective hearing (in the hiring manager, et al). Charm (AKA, bonding, connecting, empathizing, etc.).

How many times have you interviewed a candidate and thought, “What a great person.” Or “The team loves her.” Or “Having him around every day would make this a more enjoyable place to work.” So where’s the harm? Most folks prefer to work with a congenial group of people.

The harm comes from the effect charm has on our ability to really hear what’s being said—and what isn’t. Charm is the basis for good chemistry and very few of us can hear past that.

Worse still, charm acts as a filter so that we only hear what we want to hear, i.e., those things that support our desire to hire the person.

Candidates, too, are susceptible to charm. Over the years I’ve heard many of them say, “I have no idea why I accepted the offer, it’s not really what I wanted to do.”

Overcoming the charm factor doesn’t mean you need to hire incompatible people you, and your organization, don’t want to have around, it just requires some good prep work to be done before you start interviewing.

Beating charm starts with a good req. It requires thinking, so you really know what you’re looking for, or, as I love to say, a req, not a wreck. But the true secret found when the req is almost done and you define the final item: the absolute, bare minimum requirements needed to do the job, without which you will not hire.

Now all you need to do is stick to them!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Business info, Culture, Hiring, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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