In todays world of new organizational forms such as joint ventures and
strategic alliances and with the growing presence of teams, free agents and networking, finding the right person to fill a job has become more complex. Nowadays, the !"s of two companies of the exact same industry may need entirely different skills and personal styles. !ven though interviews, reference checks, and sometimes even personality tests infuse some logic and predictability into the hiring process, #$%&$' of all executive level appointments end in firing or resignation. (he point is explained with the help of a case where )ranco *ernabe, who had earlier successfully transformed worlds largest telecom company !NI, was hired to run (elecom Italia. (he management considered *ernabes skills so appropriate and even the stock price rose by &' on his appointment. "nly six months down the lane, *ernabes efforts could not distract a takeover bid by "livetti and he stepped down. +nother case used explains a similar case where the board appointed a veteran to run a more%than%a%start%up joint venture. ,ess than a year, the decision ended in disaster and a series of events including resignations, frustrations of employees made sure the company went close to bankruptcy. -hen companies move a slow pace, mistakes could be absorbed. *ut, today, global competition, capital markets and news media make a senior executives performance a high%profile affair. (here are ten deadly traps in hiring. /. The reactive approach: +fter firing or resignation of an old employee, companies look for a similar person to fill in the shoes. (he problem with such reactive approach is that it focuses its search on the familiar personality and effective competencies of the predecessor rather than the jobs re0uirement. 1. Unrealistic specifications: (he long and detailed job descriptions are usually compiled without considering the critical priorities of the new manager, thereby, making less people match the description. #. Evaluating people at absolute terms: 2raise and criticism are doled out in absolute terms. In interviews managers are asked some absolute 0uestions to which opinions are rendered in a vacuum which evaluate people in absolute terms. 3. Accepting people at face value: andidates are taken at face value and they are only seen putting the best effort to gain the job and their failures and negatives never get highlighted in an interview. &. Believing references: 4eferences care far more about their relationship with the candidate than helping the interviewer who they have never met. 5. The Just like me bias: 6ore than biases such as race, gender, nationality and halo effect, an interviewer is biased in rating a person who he feels is similar to him. 7. elegation gaffes: 6ost recruiters delegate jobs like creating job description and also sometimes, the first round of interviews. (his can lead to losing a promising candidate. 8. Unstructure! intervie": 6ost interviews are loose talks that are more like a friendly chat. + highly 0ualified candidate who does not excel at chitchat could get rejected. 9. #gnoring emotional intelligence: 6ost companies look for hard data like education, I:, job history and rarely look at the soft data like emotional intelligence. It has been researched that unsuccessful managers had their largest deficiencies in emotional intelligence. ompanies also need to choose emotional and social competencies. /$.$olitical pressures: 2eople are likely to hire their friends, people who superiors recommend so that they get an ally at work. (hey are sometimes tempted to hire weak people to save their chances of getting ahead in the organization. 2olitics in hiring acts like a 0uicksand and makes recruiters to make mistakes. !xecutives must not fall into these pitfalls and need to follow a systematic process of problem definition and need to do some homework. + series of carefully planned steps can put the key to ;hiring right within reach. In the problem definition phase, the team should do the following things < =efine re0uirements that will be driven by the companys strategy ollect competency re0uirements from the current employees >pecify minimum 0ualifications re0uired for the job =escribe competency re0uirements clearly in behavioral terms onsider emotional intelligence in the job description +chieve consensus with all those involved in the hiring decision +n example of successful hiring has been illustrated with a case where the !" of a bleeding !uropean conglomerate replaced every business unit head with unexpected individuals with the sole purpose of filling the jobs with right competencies. (he conglomerate has recently created enormous share value in the last decade. Next phase involves generating and evaluating candidates and finally recruiting the right person. 4ecruiters have to use ;high leverage sourcing in order to look for strong candidates. It means not looking for candidates but looking for people who know strong candidates. +lso, adopting a boundary less mindset will work which will help prevent traps like ;?ust like me and reactive approach. +fter generating a list of candidates, the evaluation phase begins. (rying to assess candidates at the same time as selling a job can be a mistake as it diffuses the energy needed to fully and dispassionately evaluate candidates. Instead, search teams must focus on conducting structured interviews as they are highly intuitive. In the best case, such interviews need to be conducted by more than one person in the organization as it provides powerful checks and balances within the system. ompanies need to increase the number of independent interviews if looking for a long%term employee. hecking references is also an important part of the systematic process. It can be done by contacting the references and judging them. (he reference conversation needs to be as rigorous as the interview itself. =uring the interview, the most important part of selling a job is to understand the main motives and the primary fears of the candidate. +t the same time, it is critical not to promise something the company cant deliver. )inally, nothing convinces more than conviction. (he best hires are always are the result of an outstanding level of persistence. @iring well re0uires a systematic approach. It also re0uires something stronger than discipline. !xecutives must never veer from the list of competencies and they need to invest time and effort to define the problem and do the homework. *ut mostly, a systematic approach falls apart due to eleventh hour hurdles, but it can be taken for granted that they will mostly result in firing or resignation. %ritical analysis of the article: (he article talks about the increasing importance of hiring process in todays world of globalization. (he scenario is similar to that of the real world where attrition rate of employees have become huge threats to organizations like Infosys, (ata onsultancy services. 4etaining the right talent and also selecting the right person for the job has turned out to be the most challenging job of a @4. (he article rightly explains the various traps that can lead to faulty recruiting. +ll the points elaborated are true to current scenario. @ow many times have we seen the role of politics in hiringA @ow many times have interviews failed to gauge the candidateA @ow many times have recruiters suffered from various biases and ended up selecting the wrong candidatesA (he article scores well in identifying each of the mistakes that are committed during recruitment. )ull points for the intensity with which each point has been discussed. (he article fails to clearly clarify as to how to improve recruitment process. 6any organizations which are hiring thousands of people each year are not able to follow a systematic approach in selecting candidates. In todays scenario, it is very difficult to decide upon the skill set as a lot of jobs and the work environment and highly dynamic in nature. !very time the company reconsiders a strategy or ventures into a new product or shifts a manager to another divisionB it cannot exactly scrutinize the manager according to the skills. @owever structured the interviews are, the success of the hiring process will remain highly elusive. "ther than that most hiring fail because the companies are not able to keep the employees satisfied. ompanies mostly make false promise during recruitment leading to high expectations which they are not able to live up to. &bservations about the article: It is a fact that most hiring process is filled with biases and often is influenced by politics. It also degraded by a vague set of competencies for the process which filters out the 0ualified candidates. In todays world, managers are looking for higher salaries and higher job satisfaction. (hey are also ready to move to a different job because some of them just like a change in their career. (he article clearly explains the faults in recruiting and makes a sincere effort towards remedies that could reduce ineffective recruitment of candidates.