Ok, earlier today I posted on mistakes made by candidates in the interview. Now it is time to look at mistakes made by hiring managers in the interview. From CareerBuilder.com’s article Five Common Hiring Blunders and How to Avoid Them:
Experience is important, but life experience is sometimes better
Yes, you want to make sure your candidate has relevant experience in the field, but don’t place all your eggs in that one basket. Some candidates lack the desired amount of relevant experience, but they make up for it with their life experience. Military experience, studying or working overseas, volunteering a year of their life to saving the whales, or taking a year off of work to write a novel; these all offer valuable learning experiences and experiences other candidates can’t duplicate. In tough times candidates can draw upon their life experience to develop a solution, or use it to look at problems from different view points. Anyone can work long enough in your industry, but not anyone can boast about blistering cold while living in a thermal tent somewhere in the Antarctic.
We preach this truth often since it is the number 1 hiring mistake we encounter. My guess is that a hiring or sales manager who does not understand how to properly assess a sales candidate will simply revert to hiring experience. If the new employee is a bust, the manager can simply state, “I’m not sure what happened – they had extensive experience selling in our industry.”
I wouldn’t necessarily promote life experiences as an alternative. Instead, I would encourage you to assess the candidates and see what the iceberg looks like below the waterline (a strange metaphor that makes sense if you visit our assessing page). It is far more insightful to assess a candidate and interview them with that information at your disposal than attempting to divine abilities from an embellished resume.
Another common mistake we see in interviews:
Too much talking, not enough listening
During the interview process, slow down and make sure you are letting the candidate speak. Spend more time listening to them and less time talking about your company or the position interviewing for. You need to make sure that you fully understand their background, experience, and qualifications and if you’re the one doing all the talking. It is important for you to find out if the candidate does in fact have an opinion of their own, and if so, does it correlate with the opinions already in place at your company?
Don’t spill your candy in the lobby. What I mean is that even bad salespeople can be good communicators. If you are talking extensively about the position, company or culture, you are tipping your hand in a way that can be used by schmoozers to adjust their answers. Remember, the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation. Ask questions, drill down on their responses and allow the candidate to do the vast majority of the talking.