If you want to increase assessment accuracy and save time, conduct more panel interviews. These are much better than an all-day series of one-on-one 45-60-minute interviews. When organized properly, panel interviews help everybody involved learn more about the candidate, even weaker interviewers, if they just observe. Panel interviews also provide a great means for subordinates to get involved in the hiring process. Subordinates should never conduct one-on-one interviews, since they usually are trying to work for someone they like, so they focus on the wrong issues. For another, they're rarely objective, and worse, many of them are weak interviewers. A panel interview overcomes all of these problems. However, I didn't always believe this strongly that panel interviews were that good of an idea.

In this article, I want to present 12 common hiring problems that can be virtually eliminated by using performance profiles instead of job descriptions.

As you know, I suggest that recruiters prepare a performance profile whenever starting a search assignment. A performance profile describes the top six to eight performance objectives a person taking the job needs to do to be considered successful.

I've been a very successful recruiter, a reasonably successful trainer, and a middling author for the past 25 plus years. Early on, I came up with a new way to take search assignments, by first asking my clients to describe what successful people doing the work required did differently than average people. My objective in asking this question was part of a youthful and dubious goal of doubling my search commission income while cutting in half the time spent on any search.

If your hiring manager clients are not doing a good job of assessing your candidates, you should review this article with them. No matter how good a recruiter you are, if your clients pass on your good candidates, you're working too hard doing searches over again. The key is just to assess a candidate's motivation to do the work.

Consider this: Based on hundreds of observations, about two-thirds of the time hiring errors can be attributed to one of three major interviewing mistakes. They're all easy to correct. It only takes a few simple steps which anyone can learn and use.

Part II It is my contention that the only way to systematically hire superior people is to clearly define superior performance before beginning any new job search. In Part 1 of this two-part series, the idea of using a performance profile instead of a job description was introduced as a means to accomplish this. The benefits of using a performance profile include more accurate assessments, a bigger pool of top candidates to choose from, significant reductions in time to hire, and -- by clarifying expectations upfront -- a more highly motivated and competent workforce.

Part I I've been a recruiter, recruiting trainer, and recruiting consultant for over 25 years. Before that (when I worked for a living), I had 12 different jobs in 10 years with three different Fortune 500 companies. During this 35-year span, I've either hired to work for me, or placed, well over 500 people, conducted over 2,500 interviews, and debriefed over 5,000 candidates and hiring managers.

For years, I've been writing about the use of performance profiles as the lynchpin of effective recruiting. Everybody who has ever used one for conducting a search has experienced better results. By this I mean more and stronger candidates, improved relationships with hiring manager clients, better understanding of real job needs, more consensus about candidates, candidates who are easier to close, a significant reduction in salary demands, fewer counter-offers being accepted, a reduction in turnover, increased job satisfaction and far better on-the-job performance.