I often find my friends in human-resource management lamenting a poor success-rate in recruitment. A significant number of newly hired employees have failed or left, even though their academic credentials, knowledge and experience were "carefully validated" in the selection process.
The failures mostly stem from "lack of adjustment to the company's culture" or inadequate behaviour.
It frequently appears that, in the recruitment process, the interviewers were not trained to assess either the candidates' match with the organisation's "DNA" or the critical behaviour needed for success, and they did not evaluate the candidates' social and emotional intelligence.
Becoming aware of these pitfalls, a famous cosmetics company once conducted an interesting experiment: it recruited a batch of sales agents on the basis of their social and emotional competencies. A year later, the new recruits had significantly outperformed the sales agents hired through the traditional selection process by an average of US$90,000 in extra sales revenue per person. Moreover, the turnover of the "experimental batch" was 63 per cent below the standard rate.
A number of social- and emotional-intelligence assessment instruments can be helpful in a recruitment process. Those based on research by Belsten, Goleman or Bar-On are well established. But these will not be enough. The interviewers must solidly gauge a number of critical behaviour-related factors for success in the organisation. These could be, for example:
-"Human connectivity", or relationship orientation;
-Positive outlook;
-Flexibility, or capability to adjust to change;
-Collaborative approach;
-Courage;
-Learning preferences;
-"Street smart" acumen;
-Bias towards action;
-Integrity;
-Self-awareness and authenticity; and
-Resilience and stress resistance.
Effective interviewers need to dig deep. As the saying goes, "if you look for water, you are more likely to find it if you drill one 100-foot well, than if you drill one hundred 1-foot wells". Therefore, behavioural-competencies interview techniques must be employed to seek out solid evidence of behaviour in the past, as a predictor of behaviour in the future. Here are a few typical questions:
-Tell me about a time when a colleague gave you good advice (tracking openness to feedback, willingness to change, collaborative behavior).
-Tell me about a time when you failed.
-Describe a situation when you were under pressure to get more done than seemed possible.
-How was the toughest conversation you ever had, at work?
-What turns you off at work? Why? And then what happens?
-Tell me about a relationship with a colleague that mattered very much to you.
Candidates need to be fully themselves in an interview, so it is important to establish a safe, non-judgmental space for the discussion and to indicate upfront that there are no strictly "right" or "wrong" answers to any question. Candidates should also be reminded that we share one objective in common: to establish with maximum clarity what each side offers, with its strengths and weaknesses, so as to avoid any later surprises or disappointments.
It is also worthwhile investigating candidates' career aspirations, their realism and how well the company may satisfy them, in the short-term and later on.
Two more good practices:
-Write down the questions candidates ask (to identify what matters to them after the interview is completed), and
-Invite the short-listed candidates for a final interview with a panel of several members of their future team. Candidates can't fake answers in such a challenging environment. As bonuses, you can assess their resistance to stress and they can meet their potential colleagues.
Albert Einstein once said, "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead; it can only serve".
Recruiting good brains with "good hearts" - good social and emotional intelligence and adequate behaviour - will be particularly critical in our emerging right-brain economy. It takes much more than interviews focused on academic credentials, knowledge and experience.
Jean-Francois Cousin is an accredited executive coach and a former managing director of a Fortune 500 company in Thailand. Follow his articles in Hi! Managers on every fourth Wednesday of the month.
