Hire With Your Head

1. Hire Great People: Your Success Depends on It

"There is nothing more important to your personal and company success than hiring great people! Nothing."

Career-Defining Importance. Hiring exceptional talent is the most critical task for any manager. The quality of your team directly impacts organizational performance, and consistently recruiting top performers can accelerate your career progression and company success.

Performance Impact. Great hiring isn't just about filling positions, but about building high-performing teams. Research suggests that effective hiring represents 70-80% of a manager's success. By focusing on recruiting exceptional talent, managers can transform organizational capabilities and create competitive advantages.

Strategic Perspective. Top performers differ significantly from average candidates. They:

• Look for career opportunities, not just jobs
• Make strategic decisions based on long-term growth
• Require more sophisticated recruiting approaches
• Possess higher motivation and potential beyond traditional skill sets

2. Define Performance, Not Just Skills

"If you want to hire superior people, first define superior performance."

Performance Profiles Over Job Descriptions. Traditional job descriptions listing skills and qualifications are ineffective. Instead, create performance profiles that clearly outline what someone must accomplish to be successful in the role.

Performance Profile Components:

• 6-8 specific performance objectives
• Measurable outcomes
• Clear expectations
• Challenging opportunities
• Realistic environmental context

Candidate Assessment Strategy. By focusing on performance requirements, companies can:

• Attract more diverse candidates
• Reduce hiring biases
• Improve candidate matching
• Create clearer expectations for new hires

3. Attract Top Talent Through Compelling Opportunities

"Recruiting is not something you do at the end of the interview. It starts at the beginning of the hiring process."

Strategic Talent Attraction. Top candidates are selective and seek meaningful career opportunities. Recruitment is a sophisticated process of presenting compelling professional challenges, not simply selling a job.

Candidate Decision Criteria:

• Job match and challenge
• Hiring manager's leadership potential
• Team quality
• Company prospects
• Compensation (secondary consideration)

Recruiting Techniques:

• Create an employee value proposition
• Highlight strategic job importance
• Demonstrate potential for growth
• Use performance-based job descriptions
• Create competitive, interesting job advertisements

4. Master the Two-Question Performance-Based Interview

"Accurate interviewing is about peeling the onion and digging deep into an accomplishment, not asking a bunch of clever questions."

Interview Effectiveness. Traditional interviews are unreliable, with only 57% accuracy in predicting job performance. The two-question approach focuses on understanding a candidate's actual capabilities through deep exploration of past achievements.

Core Interview Questions:

• Most significant accomplishment question
• Job-related problem-solving question

Interview Principles:

• Collect information, not make immediate decisions
• Use fact-finding techniques
• Analyze performance trend lines
• Assess motivation and potential
• Look beyond surface-level interview skills

5. Implement an Evidence-Based Assessment Process

"Most decisions are made with little evidence. Managers tend to have preconceived biases, beliefs, and perceptions."

Objective Candidate Evaluation. Eliminate emotional and intuitive hiring decisions by implementing a structured, evidence-based assessment process that requires substantive proof for candidate rankings.

Assessment Guidelines:

• Use performance profiles as evaluation benchmark
• Limit voting rights
• Require factual evidence for assessments
• Conduct formal team debriefing
• Avoid superficial judgments

Assessment Tools:

• 10-Factor Candidate Assessment template
• Panel interviews
• Reference checks
• Skills testing
• Background verification

6. Complete Comprehensive Candidate Evaluation

"Background verifications need to be part of the hiring process."

Thorough Candidate Validation. Beyond interviews, comprehensive assessment involves multiple verification steps to ensure candidate quality and minimize hiring risks.

Evaluation Components:

• Detailed reference checks
• Background verifications
• Skills assessments
• Cognitive testing
• Take-home problem-solving exercises
• Legal compliance checks

Risk Mitigation Strategies:

• Verify academic credentials
• Check employment history
• Conduct credit reviews
• Perform criminal background investigations
• Use drug testing

7. Recruit and Close Offers Strategically

"The best people are willing to make salary concessions if the job offers a strong career move."

Advanced Recruiting Techniques. Successful offer acceptance requires sophisticated negotiation focusing on career opportunities rather than pure compensation.

Recruiting Principles:

• Create compelling opportunity gap
• Demonstrate job stretch and growth potential
• Use 30% PLUS Solution
• Test offer components before finalization
• Maintain candidate engagement

Negotiation Strategies:

• Position job as strategic career move
• Emphasize long-term opportunities
• Provide multiple growth dimensions
• Create competitive environment
• Maintain continuous communication

8. Build a Talent-Centric Organizational Culture

"Being talent-centric means that managers will willingly meet a candidate at inconvenient times."

Cultural Transformation. Develop an organizational approach that prioritizes talent acquisition and treats candidates like valuable customers.

Cultural Characteristics:

• Proactive talent identification
• Flexible interviewing processes
• High-performance standards
• Continuous candidate engagement
• Professional recruitment experience

Implementation Strategies:

• Design candidate-friendly systems
• Invest in recruiting technologies
• Train managers in talent acquisition
• Create compelling employer branding
• Develop robust talent pipelines

9. Use Workforce Planning to Secure Top Talent

"If you're reacting, you're not planning."

Strategic Talent Acquisition. Implement forward-looking workforce planning to anticipate and prepare for future talent needs proactively.

Planning Components:

• Quarterly hiring forecasts
• Strategic alignment
• Talent pipeline development
• Internal mobility tracking
• Long-term talent strategy

Planning Benefits:

• Reduced time-to-hire
• Enhanced candidate quality
• Lower recruitment costs
• Improved organizational agility
• Better talent matching

10. Create Systematic Hiring Processes

"Hiring is too important to leave to chance."

Systematic Approach. Transform hiring from a random, inconsistent activity into a reliable, repeatable business process with clear methodologies and standards.

Process Development:

• Executive management commitment
• Standardized interviewing techniques
• Performance-based evaluation
• Continuous improvement mechanisms
• Technology integration

Implementation Strategy:

• Start with pilot programs
• Measure and track results
• Develop comprehensive training
• Create accountability mechanisms
• Continuously refine processes

Last updated: January 4, 2025