Transforming Hiring Strategies with Lou Adler's Insights

Lou Adler, President of The Adler Group, has proposed paradigm-changing thoughts on hiring strategies that address common pitfalls and promote better outcomes. Here’s a summary of his key ideas:

• Hiring strategy drives tactics - In the late 1990s, there was hope that the war for talent would be won using the latest HR technology, new job boards, better assessment tools, and updated hiring techniques. Yet little has changed despite the promises and enormous annual spend in the billions of dollars. It turns out that hiring managers still make the same hiring mistakes. Bias still permeates the decision-making process and the best and most diverse candidates are still not applying to boring job postings that seem nothing more than ill-defined lateral transfers.
• Think in terms of a hiring system: There is more emphasis on efficiency, rather than improving quality of hire. Applicant tracking systems helped a bit, but measuring post-hiring success, and relating this to the pre-hire process is rarely considered. He developed the concept of Performance-based hiring to address these deficiencies, and it worked. His organization offers a one year guarantee to those companies who used this process.
• Great candidates vs. great hires: He asked hiring managers to describe the attributes of their strongest staff members. Typically, exceeding expectations topped the list followed by getting things done, overcoming challenges, being reliable, not making excuses and taking on extra responsibility. From a team standpoint, the best people work well with others. They coach and mentor their peers, and they can collaborate and contribute to cross-functional project teams. For those who are managers, they build and develop strong teams and to top it off, they're good organizers and planners, effectively managing their own activities, completing their own work on time and budget and managing projects or teams. When the same managers were asked to put the list of outstanding people aside for a moment and describe what they consider as ideal candidates for new roles, the list was surprisingly different. An ideal candidate typically was supposed to possess a traditional list of skills, experiences, and must-have requirements. Then they need to agree to a compensation range, a title and a location before they'll even be interviewed. Then they'll be assessed on their interviewing performance, first impression and personality. Most hiring managers agree they'd rather hire people who can deliver the results, but when asked how well do the traits of a great candidate predict the likelihood the person will become a great hire, most said no or maybe a little when they consider the people they've hired who seem great during the interview who were disappointments once on the job. Then he asked if they've ever met or hired someone who turned out to be a great performer who didn't meet the criteria of an ideal candidate. Just about all say yes to this and point to specific people they know or whom they've promoted or someone who didn't make a great first impression, was a little nervous in the interview. Given this comparison, it's clear that using the great candidate criteria to filter and screen people from consideration makes no sense and is counterproductive. Not only is it poor predictor of success, it also inadvertently eliminates outstanding candidates from consideration.
•  Shift from transactional to consultative hiring processes: If a new employee is enjoying the job, its likely he/she will say something positive about the compensation, but if the job is really great, he/she be very enthusiastic about the work itself, the company culture, and the people they are working with. They will also possibly emphasise the continuing opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact. This is what a win-win hiring outcome is all about. But if the move wasn't what one hoped, disappointment likely relates to the lack of these non-monetary factors since they are the true drivers of on-the-job satisfaction and success. Unfortunately, there are too many of these cases. This is largely due to an emphasis on the pay package when the offer was negotiated rather than the factors that drive post-hire satisfaction and success. Changing this negative outcome starts with a simple concept. Don't make long-term career decisions using short-term information. To ensure your candidates are making the best long-term career decisions, ask them this question before formalising an offer. Forget the money. Do you really want this job? Even if they provide an enthusiastic yes, be sure to ask why. If their explanations are vague, don't make the offer. It could indicate too much short-term decision making. A good answer, and one that's likely to strongly predict a win-win hiring outcome involves the work itself and why it's intrinsically motivating. The quality of the team and the hiring manager. The opportunity to learn, grow, and make a significant impact in the company itself. This includes the culture, its values, how decisions are made, and its growth prospects. All of this must be balanced with the start date offer package. Collectively, this is why the new job represents the best career move among other opportunities the person is considering. If the role is the best on these factors, more of your offers will be accepted. This is true even if your compensation package isn't the biggest, as long as it's competitive.
• Move post hire performance into the pre-hire process : A Job Description (JD) needs to define the work a person needs to do, not the skills a person needs to have to do the work. The JD should answer what a person needs to do over the course of their first year that would indicate outstanding performance? Regardless of the role, the answer is always six to eight key performance objectives, or KPOs, that define the task, the action that needs to be taken, some measurable result, and some time-frame. Gallup came out with a massive study reinforcing this idea. This research was published in "First Break All the Rules, What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently," describing the factors they found that drove on-the-job success and satisfaction. Collectively, Gallup called these factors to Q12. The first one was: Clarify expectations upfront. Followed by: Assigning work people find motivating, giving them the appropriate tools, and having a supportive manager. From a common sense standpoint, it's what people do with what they have, not what they have that drives their on-the-job success. By asking candidates to provide detailed examples of their most comparable accomplishments for each of the KPOs, it's possible to accurately assess their ability and motivation to handle this work. In the process, you'll discover that the strongest people you attract, interview, and ultimately hire will have a different mix of skills and experiences than what was listed on the traditional and more original job description.
• Define the job, not the person doing the job: Underlying this entire performance-based hiring program is the concept that if you want to hire a great person, you need a great job. Yet somehow, hiring managers, recruiters, and HR leaders are reluctant to let go of traditional job descriptions that list skills, experiences, and must-have competencies, despite the fact they are flawed for a number of big reasons. First, for people seeking a career move, they appear to be nothing more than ill-defined lateral transfers, so the strongest people are unlikely to even apply. Worse, just because someone possesses the skills, it doesn't mean the person will be competent or motivated to do the actual work. However, by defining on-the-job success as a series of key performance objectives, or KPOs, these problems are virtually eliminated. A bigger and more important benefit is the ability to attract a broader and more diverse pool of outstanding people who can do the work but who have a different mix of skills and experiences.
• Convert HAVING to DOING: One method for understanding how a critical competency or technical skill is used on the job is a technique called convert having to doing. You'll be able to use this approach whenever a hiring manager is insistent on a candidate having a specific skill or some essential experience. Converting having to doing can also minimize bias by converting a soft skill into some tangible objective. For example, if the hiring manager requires a competency like excellent communication skills, just ask how it's used on the job. During the interview, asking candidates for examples of accomplishments most comparable to the KPOs. A recruiter doesn’t need to put the entire performance-based job description into the job posting. Instead, they should include a few highlights and describe why the role is important. However, it is strongly suggested to give the complete profile to the final candidates to get their reaction and insight. This is how you ensure the person ultimately hired for the role fully understands the job and the expectations. If you want to hire a great person, you need a great job, not a laundry list of skills, experiences, and required competencies. The process described here is how you create that great job. Open the pool to a broader group of more diverse and more talented people, and most important of all, achieve more win-win hiring outcomes.
• Overcome bias: Without a performance-based job description as the primary criteria for accessing competency, interviewers use their own biases in making the assessment. In these cases, something other than the candidate's ability to do the work will be used to make the hiring decision. One way to eliminate the impact of bias is to recognise the problem right away when you first meet the candidate. Consider that whenever you feel relaxed when first meeting a candidate, you'll naturally start to seek out positive confirming information and ignore the red flags. The opposite happens when you meet someone who quickly turns you off. You then unconsciously go out of your way to prove your hunch is right by asking more difficult questions and minimising any positive answers. Reverse logic in doing the opposite can help you become more objective based on this initial reaction. In this case, when you instantly like someone, ask more challenging questions and when you don't like someone, force yourself to be more engaging and open-minded. This is where the be a juror, not a judge admonition can help. The principle here is to remember to use the interview to collect the evidence to make a hiring decision rather than making it during the interview. The wait 30 minutes rule can help by forcing yourself to wait this long before even considering a yes or no decision. You'd be able to wait the full 30 minutes just by asking questions in the performance-based interview. One big cause of bias is the use of 30-minute back-to-back one-on-one interviews. These should be banned immediately since bias and first impressions drive this type of questioning process. Replacing these with a 75-minute, well organised panel interview with two to three people who have been trained using the performance-based interviewing methodology is a much better approach.
• Find the intrinsic motivator: The preparation of a performance-based job description is a key to achieving more win-win hiring outcomes. When opening up a new job requisition it's possible to attract a broader pool of stronger and more diverse talent who find the role exciting and challenging. In most cases these candidates will have multiple opportunities, and unless the career opportunity is clearly differentiated, they'll normally accept the offer with the biggest compensation package. This is where developing the employee value proposition or EVP can give you a true advantage. The EVP needs to be linked to a job and not an generic EVP across the company. Preparing it starts with this question, "Why would a top candidate want this job if it weren't for the compensation package?" By understanding what's in it for the candidate, you'll be able to not only create more compelling messages, but also drive the point home at every interview and interaction with the candidate, that your job is the best long-term career move. As long as your compensation package is competitive, these non-monetary factors will be more important as candidates compare your job to other opportunities being considered.
• Job branding - The mission matters: By tying the job to the company strategy mission or an important project, it's possible to attract stronger and more talented people who are looking for more than a lateral transfer with a bigger salary. This technique is especially powerful when the job skill or trait is tied to one of the candidate's intrinsic motivators. This is called job branding. For example, your attention to detail drives our profitability is a lot better than saying the person must be detail oriented and have a degree in accounting and five-plus years in the manufacturing industry. These job branded statements speak directly to the candidate's core strengths and they have a deep emotional and personal appeal. To get started with this job branding process, be sure to convert all of your critical must have skills and competencies into important outcomes. By making this information visible at the top of your job postings and outbound emails, you'll be able to attract people who find these opportunities worth serious consideration. The importance of these factors should be stressed during the interview as a means to ensure the candidate sees the role as a clear career move. While the compensation will always be important, it will be less important if the job offers more stretch, more impact, more satisfaction, and multi-year growth, proving this is how you get more offers accepted and achieve more win-win hiring outcomes.
• Offer a career move, not a lateral transfer: It's important for recruiters, hiring managers, and companies to ensure their candidates have all of the information needed to make important career decisions. In the process, they'll be able to attract and hire the strongest and most diverse talent for the right reasons, and as a result, achieve more win-win hiring outcomes.
• Deliver on the promise: Companies are too interested in quickly hiring people who have traditional list of skills and experiences and who were good at interviewing. Candidates, on the other hand, were less focused on the career growth opportunity the job represented, and too much on the start date compensation package. By moving the measure of hiring success from the start date to the first-year anniversary date, it was shown that it's possible to achieve more win-win hiring outcomes by balancing the compensation package with the career opportunity of the job provided. The process starts by defining work as a series of performance objectives rather than the traditional list of skills, experiences, and competencies. But the impact of clarifying expectations upfront goes far beyond finding and selecting the best candidates for an open role. It's at the core of what it takes to be an exceptional manager, hiring and developing people who are both competent and motivated to do the work that needs to be done. The performance-based job description defining the six to eight key performance objectives or KPOs of the job is also the core of the onboarding process and the ongoing performance management process. In combination with a performance-based job description and the performance-based interview, quality of hire is not hard to predict.