Today’s Quick Thought is about the difference between recognition and measurement.
I talk to business owners and executive leadership regularly about their hiring process, and I keep noticing a pattern. Here’s how it goes.
I ask them about their process: how do you recruit, how do you interview, what do you look for in a potential employee?
Most of the time, I get pretty good answers. They have a process in place, multiple interviews, screening, etc. The interesting part always comes at the ‘what do you look for question?’
It’s interesting because most of these people have a good idea what it is they are looking for - at least to some extent, some more basic and others more sophisticated.
And so I ask a follow up question: have you made a mistake when hiring someone? And what happens when you do? The answer is always ‘yes I have, and it’s been very bad for myself and my business.’
The problem isn’t that these leaders cannot recognize what they are looking for. Most of them know what they are looking for from an employee in a given position.
It is that they cannot measure that in the job or application. Measurement provides data, and from data good decisions can be made.
Recognizing that you need a ‘go-getter’ doesn’t really help you very much - it’s hard to recognize a ‘go-getter’ from a 20 minute interview. You might not even catch that from a 30 day trial period.
You need a tool that can measure what you already recognize. We’ve have those tools and are experts in applying them. If you’re ready to start measuring your applicants and reap all the benefits that come from that, get in touch.