Remember the Titanic? Of course you do. And you likely remember Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet frolicking all over the decks of the most amazing ship ever to sail. I really hope this not your only frame of reference to the Titanic.
You also likely know that Titanic was indulgent, elegant, elite and allegedly unsinkable. All of these descriptive words made a ticket aboard its maiden voyage the hottest ticket in town. All of this glamor, glitz, pomp and circumstance masked the tragic fact that the ship was indeed sinkable and no level of presentation and style was going to keep it afloat under the circumstances it found itself engulfed in that cold night in April 1912.
Interviewing and hiring could learn a thing or two from this tragic story. If all you knew of the Titanic in terms of evaluating its worth as a sea faring luxury vessel was the information available prior to April 14, 1912 you would likely be in buy mode. Once you dig a little deeper and look at after sail (analogy after hire) performance you would run for the nearest life raft and stake your claim.
Employment Digest has a post up today from Lori Clark, Principal of Clark Aviation. Lori talks about candidate body language during the interview (EDIT - the link to Lori's actual article can be found here) and offers some advice about the non-verbal cues one might send out under the scrutiny of interview evaluation. It is pretty much the same old, same old when it comes to body language advice in an interview but as I was going through the post I was struck once again about how much most recruiters and HR professionals value presentation over performance when evaluating and selecting talent.
All Show, No Go is a phrase I associate with this phenomenon.
When a recruiter, HR professional, hiring leader or person involved in interviewing and evaluating talent spends a significant amount of time evaluating the ability of a candidate to perform based on the things Lori outlines they are very often going to make terrible hiring decisions. Most high performing talent are awful interviewers. It is well documented, and there is data to support, that best candidates are often not the best talent. They are also not likely to perform once actually hired. Evaluating after hire performance is the best measure of the health and viability of a recruiting organization and selection engine. The best candidates are all about presentation and the best talent (subsequently the best employees) are all about verifiable results, productivity and job performance. Since best employees are more focused on getting results and performing at a hight level they very often do not present themselves well in interviews.
A methodically developed competency model with a well designed scored behavioral interview will help those involved in selection to make decisions based on verifiable performance and results. It takes the focus off of surface level things that a candidate brings to the interview and puts the focus what they can actually do.
Stop hiring for the show and start hiring for the go.
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