Hire With your Head - Essay Example

Task: Hire With your Head The hiring process has a direct bearing on an organization both financially and general productivity. It is not only the cost of hiring process but also other costs including subsequent downtime, lost business, re-training, lower productivity, detrimental impact, and most importantly the cost of termination. Additionally, there are also legal costs and ethical considerations any organization might face due to a poor hiring process. It, therefore, is imperative to make the process as perfect as possible through asking the right question, testing the correct skills and ascertaining the best qualifications. In ordinary situations, finding good people that match expectations prove difficult. As a result, most organizations stumble to the ground despite having qualified individuals (Alder 178). All these problems point back to the hiring process, which might be expensive with regards to opportunity and money. In this light, the paper takes a deep insight at chapter 6 of Lou Alder’s book Hire with your head. Evidently, Lou Alder is a senior corporate executive experienced in finding, evaluating, hiring and assimilating new employees into the work environment. Through his book Hire with your head, a systematic approach prevails for discovering and bringing on board new employees of exceptional skills and productivity. Notably, the hiring process is complicated by Alders book simplifies the continuous process. Interviewers often mistake the first candidates and approve them for the strategic positions. In essence, Alder regards, these simple mistakes as serious hiring problems that retain the wrong candidates while the right candidates face expulsion. The first interview is an avenue for collecting information and not a decision-making platform. Any interview that induces choice of options at the first stage stagnates or change the hiring process. As every organization seeks full proof ways of finding the right employees, they arm themselves with various things required for an interview. In this respect, an organization armed with the right skills escape the problems associated with hiring concerns. According to Alder a carefully planned interview does great justice not only to the employees but also to the employers. It saves associated employee cost, reduces risks and takes way future employees problems connected to the employment process. In as much as the book portrays hiring as a complex process a walk through from the job advertisement, interview process, and selection of promising candidates introduces relief. Alder covers every part of the process, putting into perspective challenges while also focusing on the potential areas to consider (Alder 183). A good hiring limit turnover, training expenses and most importantly promotes productivity. According to Alder, the hiring process remains the best and important avenue to change the direction of any organization. In as much as the production, process can also initiate proficient policy and operation techniques that promote the production, hiring is inevitable. Alder appears to be a saviour and problem solver in the complex hiring procedures full of challenges. Alder’s view of the hiring process makes it one of the best areas to counter all significant problems experienced during the recruitment process. Notably, the hiring process produces the best candidates who underperform in different job descriptions. These critical mistakes can derail organization’s objectives a factor also taken into consideration by Alder. According to Alder, the first interview creates a platform for collecting information. In as much as, it represents over 50 percent picture of the candidates, a second and subsequent processes reveal more. It, therefore, is important not to stop at the s step but encourage more interaction with the candidates for fruitful results. Despite expressing his ideas through various chapters, the paper focuses on chapter six “everything else after the first interview: completing the assignment (Alder 167). The study attempts to use different questions to unearth diverse things that managers do not know about potential employees. Conceivably, the question answer process, which takes the form of a conversation brainstorms several questions of importance that play a great role in the recruitment process. The invaluable questions furthermore attempt to put into perspective different questions, which occasionally present challenges to potential applicants. From this perspective, the questions do not only concentrate on the managers but also how best to pass the challenging process. Last but importantly, the questions will cover key critical points from chapter six Questions 1. What is the importance of the first interview? Certainly, seeking and retaining the best recruits does not entail charming or selling ideas but finding the right information. After posting job adverts in different platforms andn receciving applications. It is vital to verify the information of the applicants based on the qualification required by the organization. The short listing process must follow laid down procedure, important avenue and resources available. In the process, qualified candidates get the chance of appearing for the first interview where general questions on qualification, skills, and intension are assessed. In essence, the first interview provides an avenue for knowing the candidate but not enough to guarantee employment 2. After the first interview, how do you stay on the objective? Indeed the hiring process is continuous. It is a step-to-step assessment that passes through different testing scenarios to ensure the right candidate with suitable qualifications is retained. After the first interview, managers at times get confused or become judgmental based on the information presented by the interviewees. In fact, managers use the added time to look for any good reason to confirm or disqualify an applicant. According to Alder, the first interview is a mere representation of half skills and qualification. Therefore, any organization that bases its hiring on the level is tantamount to register failure, a factor likely to impact on an organization’s landscape. Interestingly, the first interview presents less than half of what one ought to know about the candidate. Instead of limiting focus on both the negative and positive information of the applicant, most managers look at positive elements. They magnify the positive data while rationalizing the negative information about the applicant. It is noteworthy to mention both positive and negative information equally contribute to efficient hiring. Therefore, both should receive an aggressive approach to increasing accuracy of the assessment. 3. The answer sound very interesting, however, is there data to support the argument? Certainly! According to Adler, unstructured interviews only give a 57 percent accuracy of subsequent performance. However, this is likely to improve to 75 percent for organizations using structured performance profile based interviews. A combination with other tools can raise the viability of the process to 80 or 90 percent much more efficient than firing or managing an employee. 4. Interesting! What are these additives that can improve efficiency and effectiveness after the first interviews? It should not be assumed with disregard that I do not value the first interviews; nevertheless, they are not comprehensive. It is important to conduct reference checking, drug testing, assessment testing and most importantly background verification among other interviews. These processes make hiring competent and professional. For example, candidates under the influence of drugs are likely not to deliver adequately as compared to employees acting under normal conditions. 5. Speaking of reference checking, how can managers promote the objective? Reference checking is a fact-finding mission about the interviewees. To prevent generality, a reference checklist is necessary to qualify, find scope and relate applicant to the employee environment. According to Alder, back up statements are vital in proving competency and role in the mentioned events. Conceivably, reference checking offers a platform to relate, compare and analyse facts against statements mentioned by respondents. 6. What are some of the things to accomplish in the second interview? Factually, one interview does not offer a fool-proof hiring decision. A second interview explore additional information while at the same time confirming others existing. Some of the probable activities that can help an interview process include; inviting applicants for lunch, dinner or business meetings to observe behaviour and skills. 7. How efficient are panel interviews in the hiring process? Notably, one-on-one are important, however, group interviews have proven efficient in increasing efficiency and accuracy of interviews. Properly organised panel interviews are a platform for both the interviewers and interviewees to learn and ask many questions at once. In a panel interview, divergent views become uniform and personal feeling do not play any role in the process. In as much as other people regard them as poor, cold and intimidating they are more objective, save time and conversational. 8. How can one organize and conduct a successful panel interview? Panel interviews can intimidate or confuse candidates if not well conducted. An excellent panel should represent less than four interviewers guided by a leader. Panels without leaders often end in chaos as each compete to either outfit the candidate or prove their point. Therefore, the panel should constitute the primary interviewer (leader) and the secondary interviewers. To alleviate the intimidation aspect, which normally quashes potential candidates, it is vital, to ease candidate fears before the offset. It is also important to make the candidate comfortable by interviewing and not interrogating. Therefore, a neutral or low-key tone is essential in the process. It is also important to involve the candidate in the hiring process to ensure collective review of information. 9. Apart from reference checks, background checks are equally important, how can one achieve its success? Not all potential candidates uphold high integrity levels. Applicants tender misleading resumes and doctored certificates. Therefore, before settling or deciding which candidate to appoint for a given position, background checks are inevitable. Background verification confirms degree, employee history, driving record, criminal background among other valuable information. According to Alder, the cost of conducting the process is cheap and yet secretive. Rob Bekken mentioned by Alder says background checks eliminate unnecessary lawsuits. People of questionable backgrounds raise integrity and ethical performance. Any information on the same, therefore, is important in spearheading performance. People of reputable backgrounds often deliver high performance contrary to employees with criminal or bankruptcy. In many cases, employees with unclear backgrounds drag the whole organization into their problems a factor that might disrupt or halt all functions. For instance, an employee having fraud charges from another company can affect the operation of service industries like insurance or savings and credit institutions. 10. What is the purpose of tests after the first interview? The validity and value of tests have not changed from 1978 although they test the same skills. Notably, assessment tests should confirm and not predict competency. Most tests fail to gather the right information because of the structuring. Good tests should assess cognitive ability, skills, personality, and measure competency. For example, many questions during interviews question what candidate can do instead of the skills present to help the intended objectives. The questions, therefore, are irrelevant and non-related to the job specification. For example, tests eliminate all forms of hiring malpractices like corruption or nepotism. After tests, only the qualified candidates make it to the next round. Therefore, tests limit handpicking or favouring candidates due to publicity or backdoor payments. 11. How does cognitive ability contribute to the hiring process? According to Alder, cognitive ability measure intelligence, hence the capacity to adapt to new environments. Evidently, different techniques can be applied to measure intelligence including Wonderlic personnel test. Despite the effectiveness in identifying and assessing a potential candidate, it is vital to ensure the questions do not predict but only confirm what is available. For example, the aptitude test during the interview should question the information present in the curriculum vitae. A qualification must be supported by existing skills through either direct or aptitude tests. Any process that fails to meet the above criteria creates a mismatch between the sought and existing skills. 12. What about behavioural, personality, and skills tests? Personality-skill tests broadly measure influence, teamwork and extroversion. The problem, however, is that all the tests focus on the preferences and not competency. Conceivably, many hiring institutions have set standards of personality or skills. To conform to the existing criteria, they concentrate more on the required and predictable personalities rather than what applicants possess. Therefore, this point to a performance based interview that roles down from the performance profile to behavioural assessments. Above all, all hiring processes should increase accuracy as much as possible. Works Cited Alder, Lou. Hire with your head, third edition. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Inc, 2007. Print Read More