It’s no secret or rocket science discovery that humans shift their personalities and emotions to cater to individual situations and to bring forth specific reactions. In essence, as humans, we are manipulative even when we don’t know it.
Emotions and actions can change in a moment and during the interview process it can often be hard to know what and who someone actually is.
Long after the interview and hiring is over, many business owners realize their hiring mistakes and regret their decision. Hiring is costly. Turnover of employees is even more costly – from training to replacements, the money adds up when you don’t hire right the first time.
For hiring science, and psychology in particular, have plenty of ideas to offer on how to hire the best candidate for your open position. So many, in fact, that the British Psychological Society’s Occupational Digest blog was able to kick off 2012 with a round-up of recent findings applicable to entrepreneurs looking to select new talent.
Skip reading the full findings, we’re here to sum up the key two points:
Back to the humans shift their personalities and emotions to cater to individual situations and to bring forth specific reactions – therefore, what you might have heard or what are standard best hiring practices don’t really matter. In an interview it’s not hard to fool what knowledge may really be known or how a candidate truly acts in stressful situations. During an interview, you really see the best of candidates. Assuming the polite manners or the candidates with the highest education may not be your best hire. Sticking to best hiring practices of education and formalities could lead to a hiring mistake in the end that could have been avoided if when hiring you focused less on the what’s supposed to be right and more on the realities.
Hire the candidate you feel has previous experience working hard and the one that will be a good cultural fit to the work environment.
Hiring mistakes often happen when there’s a skills gap. The good news is, this hiring mistake can be avoided just by simply requiring specific skills test for the job available.
Likewise, consider a working interview – there’s no better way to examine skillsets than to see them in action first hand. You’ll be sure to see the reactions of a candidates when working and better understand how they handle stressful situations, rapid changes and others personalities.
All in all, science and psychology prove again and again that following your gut feeling usually doesn’t lead astray. Examine what happened with each candidates first impression and how they would fit with the team on a daily basis. Did the candidates posses confidence or a lack of caring for receiving a job?
