• 
• Training
• Consulting
• Resources
• Online Store
• About Us

• » Articles
• › The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
• › Newsletters

Articles & Resources

RSS Feed

Assessing Team Skills

Lou Adler, May 14, 2008

Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter

For most of us, cooperating with people, discussing ideas, collaborating on projects, influencing others, and working on cross-functional teams typically represents 50-75% of most workdays. Team skills are critical and those that do it well are rewarded in terms of influence, support, promotions, and bigger reviews. Those without it are avoided, shunned, or assigned to the proverbial closet. Working with people without decent team skills literally sucks the energy out of the rest of team, bringing everyone down.

» Continue reading "Assessing Team Skills"

The Uneven Evolution of Corporate Recruiting

Lou Adler, May 9, 2008

Topics: Recruiting

Much of the hiring process from sourcing to closing to onboarding has changed significantly over the past 20 years. Much hasn't. And therein lies the problem.

» Continue reading "The Uneven Evolution of Corporate Recruiting"

Seven Deadly Sourcing Sins

Bryan Johanson, May 7, 2008

Topics: Newsletter

You all know about the seven deadly sins. Commit any one of these and your eternal future may be in jeopardy. Today, I'll reveal the seven deadly sins of sourcing. While their eternal consequences may not be quite so dire, their negative effects on your ability to attract the best talent are an absolute certainty. For those of you who are well versed in classic literature, now would be a good time to recall Dante's seven levels of hell or some of the more graphic Greek tragedies. If I remember correctly they don't end well. So, to avoid similar consequences you might want to pay careful attention to these common sourcing pitfalls:

If you were able to answer these questions with some degree of specificity, you may now proceed to the next six sins. All good sourcing activities require deep job knowledge, so it amazes me how many recruiters expect to attract top talent without it. Your ability to create a compelling pitch, post a killer ad, or convince a candidate who's on the fence to move forward all comes from job knowledge. Job knowledge also allows a recruiter to understand what the benefits are for the candidate (i.e., opportunity, growth, stretch). Otherwise, all you have left is compensation and benefits, and in this market, that's not nearly enough.

» Continue reading "Seven Deadly Sourcing Sins"

Assessing Leadership Using the Two-Question Interview

Lou Adler, April 30, 2008

Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter

As a recruiter, and as part of a rather callous objective of maximizing income in the shortest period of time, it became quickly apparent that being a better interviewer than my clients was a critical skill. The quest to achieve this was how the two-question Performance-based Interview and 10-Factor Candidate Assessment scorecard were born.

» Continue reading "Assessing Leadership Using the Two-Question Interview"

Your Recruiting Success Depends on How Well You Manage Managers

Lou Adler, April 25, 2008

Topics: Managing, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers

In a recent ERE article I made the case that a tipping point was close at hand for converting recruiting and sourcing into a scalable and systematic business process.

» Continue reading "Your Recruiting Success Depends on How Well You Manage Managers"

Get Ready for the Recovery - Now Is the Best Time to Build a Proactive External Talent Pipeline

, April 23, 2008

Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting

Now is the time to get ready for the recovery. It may sound strange, but if you have been in recruiting for any period of time, you know that hiring fluctuates—it goes up and down, expands and pauses. These cycles come with the territory. Some shifts are more dramatic than others, and currently it appears we are in a more profound slowdown than we would like. The signs are all around us with the housing crisis, gas prices, and layoffs recently announced in some industries. Some leaders may be quick to question what recruiters are doing when there is little or no recruiting going on. Be ready with this answer: creating a proactive pipeline of great candidates for future openings.

» Continue reading "Get Ready for the Recovery - Now Is the Best Time to Build a Proactive External Talent Pipeline"

Use an Evidence-based Assessment Process to Hire More Top Talent

Lou Adler, April 16, 2008

Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter

Sometimes the best person for a job is not the best interviewer. Most often the best interviewer is not the most talented among a group of three or four candidates. Frequently the best person for a job, who is a good interviewer, is underwhelmed by the opportunity available and comes across as quiet or uninterested. On top of these problems, add hiring manager bias, lack of understanding of real job needs, temporary nervousness on the part of good candidates, and lack of preparation on the part of the interviewing team members. Collectively, it's fairly obvious why current interviewing and assessment techniques are poor predictors of on-the-job success. All this suggests that the traditional unstructured interview as well as the structured behavioral interview are inadequate in overcoming these hiring process problems.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss this topic as a panelist on a Human Capital Institute web program with Cathy Lee Gibson, the former Director of the Human Resources Program at Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. The focus was on how to better "manage" hiring managers. This is a point of significant interest to any of the recruiters among us who have lost a good candidate because one of our clients made an incorrect assessment. It should also be a point of major interest to any hiring manager who is at odds with their recruiting or HR group regarding how to best measure candidate quality.

During the webcast I described the evidenced-based assessment approach we've developed as part of Performance-based Hiring^sm to specifically address this all-too-common problem. Our solution was to change the method used by the interviewing team to decide whether to hire someone or not. Rather than add up a bunch of superficial or biased yes/no votes, the idea was to delay the assessment until all of the interviewers could present their findings. Once this is completed, the group collectively makes the hiring decision based on all of the evidence presented. Cathy summarized this whole point succinctly by saying it was akin to being "a juror, not a judge," during the interview.

» Continue reading "Use an Evidence-based Assessment Process to Hire More Top Talent"