Are we insane to hire bad people?
A lot of process related efficiencies have been tried and technologies created to filter CVs and qualify young professionals better, yet the risk of bad hires has not reduced.
Let’s use the following (overused) quote as a framework to evaluate the process of spotting great young talent, today.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein.
The process to go about finding talent was created before I was born, in a pre-internet world of snail mail and in-person meetings. Talent pools were mostly limited by geographies or cities. So, if you were a young professional seeking a job then, who you knew, who recommended you, and sometimes where you studied, mattered the most for an employer.
Sadly, not much has changed in the process of hiring a young grad today.
While most companies claim to be non-discriminatory, let’s face it. CVs are rarely filtered without a heavy bias towards certain Universities, Academic Grades, High Schools, Genders, Social classes, Second names, Nationalities, Skill labels and Automated Assessment Test Results.
Candidates are recommended to team leads and line managers by HR teams or recruiters. These folk are known for being good at a number of things, but not for conducting technical interviews or guessing an applicant’s job performance.
I make this logical conclusion because there are numerous failed technical interviews, everyday, in which line managers do not foresee the candidates performing on her/ his teams. All of these candidates mostly came recommended by HR teams or recruiters or through an impressive looking CV.
Why is there such an enormous waste of time and resources when we know that over 75% of candidates, selected for technical interviews with line managers, are rejected? Whichever way you look at it, I think our process is failing us. People smarter than I am are also talking about it.
Why do employers and admissions counselors choose weaker candidates based on an arbitrary number they see? It’s an evolutionary tick. “It’s a deeply routed psychological shortcut,” Swift said. “We’ve learned to make efficient trade-offs between thinking deeply and making the best choice, and getting the answer right most of the time without devoting much effort.” — The psychological phenomenon that skews college admissions and hiring.
I think another way to look at this expensive and low yielding process, is by turning it on its head.
Before you shred this new process apart, I would like to remind you that I am no professor with a published research paper on the issue.
I have tried it myself. I have results from others who are also using this new process. We are doing things differently.
I (too) would like to think that I am not insane.
I intend to write more posts detailing the results and efficiencies brought about by this new process, if you are interested.
