Stronger Culture. Better Performance.

October 17, 2005 in Managing People 2 Comments

Hiring Process

I was speaking to a CEO last night who was in the midst of hiring several people for his staff (in a hurry). This left me with a couple of things to ponder.

First, and this is mostly for anyone out there who might be looking for a job right now or in the immediate future: GET SOMEONE ELSE TO PHYSICALLY PROOF YOUR RESUME AND COVER LETTER! There is no tolerance for typos, people (at least in resumes), and you may end up confidently stating that you would like to be the Human Resource Manger at some company (note that spellcheck would not catch "manger" versus "manager"). The CEO’s actual reaction: "What, are they going to put on some HR-related Christmas show for us?"

Second, is there anyone out there that is trying creative alternatives to the resume-interview-reference check method of hiring people? I remember hearing once that scientific research indicated that the job interview was statistically an outright BAD predictor of future job performance, but we use it almost exclusively in hiring everyone in our organizations. And I’ve met a LOT of leaders that are frustrated with the hiring process. My gut says there is a better way, but I honestly don’t know what it is, so I would love to hear about ANYONE’s experience trying something new.

2 Comments

  1. Nick
    01.11.2005 at 1:05 pm

    I haven’t tried anything like this, but I have read about people doing tryouts for their employees where they have them basically temp for them. It’s always seemed like a good idea to me. Give someone a project or something and pay them for it. I mean, that’s basically the value-added people see in using temp agencies’ temp-to-hire procedure, but there’s no reason you couldn’t administer the arrangement yourself if you had a mind to.

  2. Jamie Notter
    07.11.2005 at 2:18 pm

    Hey Nick,
    Cool idea! I suppose how you implement it would vary depending on the position, but my guess is it would be appealing to both the organization and the prospective employee. I suppose it’s a challenge for people who are searching while still working (but they could take vacation), but I bet both sides would have a clearer picture of fit after such an exercise.