The Perfect Fit

How to Eliminate 50% of All Hiring Mistakes

The following are the thoughts of Lou Adler, aka "The Original Headhunter" as written for LinkedIn last week.  I thought they were interesting and worth sharing.

"Hiring is too important to leave to chance. Here’s the problem: if you like someone when you first meet, you maximize their positives and minimize their negatives. If you don’t like someone,  you maximize their weaknesses, and minimize their positives. If you can get past the first 30 minutes you can actually make an objective assessment. This is harder than it sounds, but here are some ideas that might help you: 

How to Minimize Perception-driven Hiring Mistakes 

1)   Wait 30 minutes. Hear all of the evidence, pro and con, before making any decision. In the case of interviewing, wait for at least 30 minutes after the interview starts before concluding if the person is a possible hire or not. 

2)   Divide and conquer. Don’t give anyone on the hiring team a full yes or no vote. I use a talent scorecard (a copy is in my new book) listing all of the competencies and factors driving on the job success to make the assessment. I suggest that each interviewer be given only a few of these to “own.” During a formal debriefing session each interviewer is then required to substantiate his/her ranking on just these factors with evidence. This way the whole team makes the assessment, neutralizing the impact of biased assessments. 

To Twenty-Somethings On Work-Life Balance

My good friend and colleague Rose Jonas (aka The Job Doctor) wrote this article for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Career column on Sunday, September 30th. Here's The Job Doctor blog.

A note to twenty-somethings:  Don’t go for work-life balance.  You have just begun your career.  Don’t even THINK about telling potential employers or your boss you want it.

The twenties can be an unsettling decade.  You’re on your own.  If you’re like many these days, you probably haven’t married.  You’re not sure what you’re about, what you want, or what you’re capable of.   But you wear your best false-self face, you’re full of bravado and bluff, and you say you have the ambition of a presidential hopeful.

Know this about your twenties, and into your mid-thirties:  You will never have as much energy or drive as you have now.  This is the time to go for it, to give it your all (and that means extra hours); NOT to have WLB.  Companies value your ambition, your ideas, your take-the-hill attitude, and they’re willing to drop their experienced fifty-somethings in favor of you, who are – BTW – cheaper than the older guys.  If you’re in your career job, go!

What if you’re in a holding pattern, and have “just-a-job”?  Should you give it your all, or seek WLB?  After all, you’re simply marking time till you can find your real job. We develop good and bad habits no matter what we’re doing, so you SHOULD give your mall job your all.  You’ll be in better shape when your career opportunity arrives.  You don’t want to take (and later have to break) a “mall job” attitude to your career launch.