Every day, thousands of companies in the UK are exposing themselves to significant risk, open ended litigation and a downright poor return on their investment by making the wrong hiring choice.
Successfully bringing someone new into your talent pool requires part intuition, part investigation and a robust recruitment process which majors on in-depth honesty, not just from the potential recruit, but crucially from the employer itself.
If you’ve ever experienced being ‘sold’ a job that bore little reality to what you found when you walked in the door, you’ll know exactly what risks – and potential consequences I’m talking about. Like buying a house or a new car, when job hunting, we tend to focus on the things we like. We all have ‘hot buttons’ and skilled salespeople (and I’m definitely including internal and external recruiters here) know exactly how to press them.
These buttons can be aspects of the role that the potential employer likes to focus on (package, development, promotion opportunities) and the general all round greener grass that we might want to seem very appealing. Even more so when we’ve decided that we really want the person to work for us! But what are the dangers of selling a role, or only certain aspects of a role to a wide-eyed keen but green candidate?
Some time ago I was doing some training for a technology company that had recently hired a highly skilled person to work in their enterprise sales team. He was a bright and personable guy, who had an impressive track record and was excited about his new role. But unbeknown to him and his shiny new employer, he was also being set up to fail.
Why? For these three fundamental reasons; firstly because whilst he’d come from another technology company, he was used to making a few very high value sales a year, that relied on a fairly significant but now unavailable pre and post sales support infrastructure to help him achieve his results. Secondly, his tried and trusted approach required far more research, value creation and proof of concept testing than his new ‘shoot from the hip’ employers needed or wanted. And thirdly and most importantly, the sales processes, resources and cultures of his new and former employers were fundamentally different.
But at the interview stage, the employers were dazzled by his sales numbers and the companies that he had sold to - companies that were on their ‘hot list’ to acquire as clients. The candidate was dazzled by the more entrepreneurial culture, which on the surface was a refreshing change, but in reality was “you can do what you like but you do it yourself!” Tempting share options were added to the mix, a high status car and a grandiose job title, cooked up by the MD to seduce but actually causing resentment among the established sales team.
What neither party had discussed or properly understood, was the reality of the operating environment and the differences in both culture, resources and collateral, that can make someone very successful and productive in one company, struggle or be completely unable to replicate their success in another.
It took 6 months before both parties fully realised their mistake and the MD was finally able to admit to his colleagues that he had made a wrong hire. For the sales person, a dent on his CV and a bruised ego that took him back to the bosom of his former employer. For the employer, 6 months pay (with a 3 month OTE guarantee) car costs, expenses, management and training time and the recruiters fee added up to a substantial investment. And to recoup this expenditure, significant additional sales would have to be made by the remaining glib but slightly disenfranchised sales team.
And the value of contracts signed by this new hire during his tenure? Zero.
Another client we worked with who had similar problems in the past has now evolved a completely different recruitment approach. As well as the traditional two interview process, they have added a telephone screening interview, a social element (the prospective manager takes them out to dinner as client entertaining is part of the role) an assessment centre, (so they can be observed in situ with other candidates testing social, communication and influencing skills) as well a some carefully selected psychometric profiling.
The interviewers have all been trained by us in effective interview techniques and if anything, now over-emphasise the less glamorous aspects of the role. As a result, their new hire attrition rate has plummeted and a modest but carefully thought out investment at the front end of the hiring process has saved a considerable amount at the back end.
And with a lot less bruised egos to suit!
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