It happens even in the best of organizations: A senior position needs to be filled. A team is formed to take responsibility for hiring the right candidate. It may include the CEO, the head of HR, the hiring manager and a search firm. The process looks straightforward, but for some reason, things go terribly wrong.
The hiring process becomes convoluted, exhausting and ineffectual. Instead of taking weeks to hire a candidate, the team takes months. To help them in making a decision, they put candidates through a battery of expensive tests. Unclear about the criteria they should apply in evaluating candidates, they end up with a long list after the initial interview, even when its purpose is to reduce the number of candidates to a short list. And at the final stage of the process, one of the team members disagrees with the others about the most suitable candidate and the position remains unfilled.
Based on decades of experience in executive search and career consulting, I firmly believe that these problems arise because no one on the hiring team is fully accountable for the hiring process and no one has the authority to make a final decision.
I also believe that accountability for the process and for the final decision should lie with the hiring manager, but only if this individual has the required knowledge, skill and experience to fulfill these duties reliably and responsibly. Experience comes with time. Knowledge and skill come with training and practise. A hiring manager needs training, for example, in defining and assessing a candidate’s fit within the organization.
As an experienced recruiter and the author of “Hiring for Fit: A Key Leadership Skill”, I offer personalized business coaching to bring your hiring skills to the next level. With focused training in the art of hiring, you can take accountability for the hiring process. You will learn about all the important elements of a great hire, acquire the skills to shape a seamless hiring process and feel confident in delegating tasks that can keep the process efficient and on schedule.
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