Are You a Poser When You Interview?

You know how to spot a weak candidate.

But who's watching you?

Every person you interview.  The way you behave is often the tipping point to whether the headlining superstar or solid role player speaking to you about joining your team - will be inspired, or keep looking for another career opportunity.

The problem?

Most hiring managers have never been coached on how to interview.  Never been fully trained.  Never given a full set of interview tools - from initial candidate contact through interview workouts then negotiations, and finally staying in contact, so your new player is excited about their first day on your team.

You’re told to just... interview.  Confidently.  Repeatedly.  And often, expensively wrong.

TRUTH CHECK

Interviewing is a skill.  Like every skill, it requires coaching, practice, and honest feedback to improve.

Here is how you should have been prepared to hire great people:

TOOLS:  Were you given a full set of interview scorecards, questions, exercises, scenarios, scrimmages to run with existing team members?

STANDARDS:  Did a hiring expert explain, demonstrate, and test your understanding of body language, tone of voice, how to set expectations, and how to be a role model for the team member you want the candidate to be?

3T:  Did anyone Teach you the basics, Test your understanding, then Train and mentor you until you mastered the skills?  The basics are your Standards (above), active listening skills, and how you communicate with candidates and your hiring team.

ROLEPLAY:  This is a key part of the second “T” of 3T:  Did anyone roleplay with you through one or more types of interviews?  Most people do not, and their interview skills show it.

COACH:  How often does someone sit in on your interviews or review recordings, and then help you expand your strengths and build your skills in areas where you can grow?

DEBRIEF:   Do you debrief with your hiring team after interviews, or just to make hiring decisions?  Sometimes the failure of a candidate is the interviewer’s fault - and not debriefing your process and interview skills is allowing good people to walk away, or motivating candidates to speak negatively of your company.

EXIT:  There’s a lot of key skills and processes to demonstrate at the end of each interview and how you communicate with candidates - who are a match or not.  One key checkpoint most people disregard:  Do you ask candidates how the interview went for them?  Was there anything they wanted to learn that was missing?  How could it have been better?

If your honest answer to most of these questions is no - you are making hiring mistakes.  You are checking the box - being irresponsible in some areas rather than your best.

The candidates across the table have often been coached, or at least they prepare and rehearse.  The good ones are their best.

Are you?

The best leaders hire great people.  But great hiring requires great interview skills and process - the result of creating a superior hiring process and mentoring program for everyone on your team involved in adding new people.

If you realize you and/or others involved in your hiring could be better, then let's talk.

#HiringStrategy #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment #HiringMistakes #GreatLeadersHireGreatPeople

Should You Hire Someone With a Gap in Their Resume?

The hiring manager at Crestwood Terra - I'll call her Diane - met me in the lobby with the energy of someone who was excited about finishing an important task.

"You're going to love her," Diane said, handing me a resume in a manila folder as we walked to the conference room.  "Sharp.  Experienced.  Great references.  Tom did the technical screen last week and said she nailed it."

I opened the folder.  Strong background.  Solid progression.  Then a gap.  Two years, ending eight months ago when she landed a short contract role that had since concluded.

"What was the break?" I asked.

"Sabbatical," Diane said, waving her hand the way people wave at small dogs.  "She needed some time.  Who doesn't, right?"

She laughed.  I smiled.

The candidate - I'll call her Claire - was already seated when we walked in.  Mid-forties.  Polished.  Confident handshake.  The kind of person who has clearly interviewed before and knows how to open well.

We exchanged pleasantries.  I mentioned her commute.  She laughed about the parking.  Diane hovered near the door for a moment, gave me a thumbs-up Claire couldn't see, and quietly disappeared.

I took out my Remarkable tablet and stylus.

"Claire, before I ask you anything, I want to be upfront - I'm not here to pry into your personal life.  My primary objective is to understand who you are today, and why this role is a great career move for you.  If it is, then I want it to be the best one you've ever made.  If it's not, I'd rather we both know that now."

She nodded warmly.  "I appreciate that."

We talked for about twenty minutes.  This gave me an opportunity to confirm some of the notes from her prior interviews with the company.  This also helps build her confidence - in herself, and trust in me.  Then I shifted gears to my main agenda.

"I notice you made a decision to step away for a couple of years.  What can you tell me about it?"

A pause.  Not long.  But noticeable.

"I needed a reset," she said.  "I'd been going hard for twenty years.  I wanted to travel, decompress, figure out what I really wanted."

"Sounds great.  Where did you go?"

"Portugal.  Some of Italy.  A little time in Costa Rica."

"Sounds wonderful," I said sincerely.  "Tell me - was there a moment while traveling when you seriously considered not coming back to work at all?"

Another pause.  Longer this time.

"I mean…"  She smiled carefully.  "There were definitely mornings in Lisbon where I wondered what it would be like to no longer commute and work every day.  It was so amazing there."

I wrote nothing.  I waited.

"But I knew I'd come back," she added.  "I'm not someone who sits still."

"What specifically brought you back - and why now?"

"The timing felt right.  I'm ready."

I nodded.  "What have you done during the past three years to stay current in the field?"

She mentioned a few podcasts.  A webinar series she had started but - she admitted with a laugh - hadn't finished.  A book she was midway through.

I asked about the contract role that ended eight months ago.

"It just ran its course," she said.  "The project wrapped."

"Was there an opportunity to extend it or move into a permanent role?"

A beat.  "We discussed it.  It just wasn't the right fit."

I wrote something on my Remarkable.  She watched carefully.

We moved into the scrimmage portion.  I had asked Diane in advance to send in Marcus, one of the team's younger leads, to work through a real scenario with Claire.

Marcus was 29.  Enthusiastic.  Fast.

He laid out the scenario - a product launch with a compressed timeline, misaligned stakeholders, and a budget that had just been cut by fifteen percent.

"How do you want to approach it?" he asked her.

Claire sat back slightly.  "Well, the first thing I'd do is get everyone in a room and align on priorities."

"We've tried that," Marcus said pleasantly.  "They don't agree.  Sales wants speed, ops demands margin.  They've been going back and forth for six weeks."

"Then you need executive sponsorship to break the tie."

"Our CEO is hands-off on this one.  She wants the team to figure it out."

Claire smiled.  "Well, in my experience, someone always has to make the call."

Marcus waited to see if there was more.

There wasn't.

After Marcus left, I asked Claire one final question.

"When this role gets hard - and it will - what would make you consider stepping away from full-time work again?"

She looked at me for a moment with an expression I have seen before.  It is the expression of someone deciding how honest to be.

"I don't think that would happen," she said.

"I believe you," I said.  "Help me understand why."

The answer that followed was long.  It was not unconvincing.  But somewhere in the middle of it, she briefly mentioned something new.  The past two years had included "some personal things" she had needed to work through, and that she was "in a much better place now."

I thanked her sincerely.  I meant it.

In the hallway afterward, Diane was waiting with the energy of someone ready to pop a champagne cork.

"Well?"

"She's impressive," I said.  "And I don't think she's a fit."

Diane's face cycled through three emotions in about two seconds.

I walked her through it.  The technical currency gap that Tom's screen hadn't caught because he'd been evaluating past capability, not present readiness.  The contract role that ended ambiguously.  The sabbatical that wasn't quite a sabbatical.  The moment with Marcus where experience substituted for engagement.  

Plus, her final answer that was a little too long, too careful - and where she was finally candid about her time off - although still withholding details, which are probably none of my business.  I did not ask for more information on her “sabbatical.” 

"She might be a great hire for someone," I said.  "She's not ready for the pace of the role, the pressure, and the dysfunctions between your teams right now.  And she has something she's still working through that she isn't ready to name - which is fine.  But it could be something that affects her performance or tenure."

Diane leaned against the wall.  "Tom was so sure."

"Tom tested what she knew two years ago," I said.  "I tested who she is right now."

We stood there for a moment.

"I really thought this one was done," Diane said quietly.

"I know," I said.  "That's why you have me do these interviews.  Everyone has a bias - to find someone as quickly as possible.  My only bias is to confirm your hiring team’s conclusions and see what they missed - positive or negative."

What This Story Is Really About

A resume gap is not a disqualifier.  An unexamined resume gap is risky, possibly high risk.

Here is what the right questions reveal before you make an offer:

• Why someone left tells you about their judgment.  Why they came back tells you about their commitment.

• Vague answers to direct questions are data.  So is the pause before the answer.

•  Technical screens test past capability.  Hiring tryouts test present readiness.  Both are required.

• A player who has something unresolved is not automatically the wrong hire.  A person who won't acknowledge it - even a bit - carries hidden risk.

• The scrimmage reveals what the interview conceals.  Watch how they engage with your team, not just with you.

• The question most hiring managers never ask: What would bring you back to not working?  Ask it.  The answer will tell you everything.

• Body language and tone during discomfort are as important as the words.  Discern both.

• The final interviewer's job is not to confirm what earlier interviewers found.  It is to find what they missed.

If you want to know how to build a hiring tryout that catches what most people miss, then let's talk.

Note.  The names in this story are changed to retain confidentiality.

#HiringStrategy #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment #HiringMistakes #GreatLeadersHireGreatPeople

Should You Hire a Player Who Shows Fear or Insecurity?

Not every candidate who walks into your hiring tryout arrives with confidence.

Some arrive with talent - and baggage.

Before you make an offer, you need to know the difference between healthy humility and insecurity that will quietly damage your team.

Researchers Jeffrey Yip and Dritjon Gruda put it plainly in an article posted in The Harvard Business Review:  

Insecure leaders "may appear confident and charismatic, but under pressure their unresolved fears of inadequacy and rejection quietly distort decision-making and can undermine collaboration."

They may micromanage.  Emotionally withdraw.  Resist feedback.  Seek excessive praise.

Sound like anyone you've hired before?

TRUTH CHECK

Insecurity in a candidate isn't automatically disqualifying.  But you must identify it clearly before you make an offer - not after.

Yip and Gruda describe two types.

Anxious insecurity.  These candidates light up with praise and spiral when they feel excluded or criticized.  They tend to read professional disagreements as personal rejection.  

In your hiring tryout, they may be warm, eager, and highly likable.  Watch what happens when you push back on one of their answers.  Do they engage - or do they deflate?

Avoidant insecurity.  These candidates appear calm, rational, and in control.  But they are self-reliant to a fault and allergic to vulnerability.  They shun open dialogue, reject criticism, and rarely show uncertainty.

In your hiring tryout, they may present exceptionally well.  Watch what happens when you ask them about a genuine failure.  Do they go deep - or do they stay behind the wall?

Both types can perform well under the right conditions.  Both can quietly wreck a team under the wrong ones.

If you consider hiring a person with fear or insecurity, here are ways to make the best decision.  Do this before offering them a position on your team.

Map the real scenarios they will face in the role.  Not hypotheticals.  Real situations your team has navigated in the last twelve months.

A client who pushes back hard on a recommendation.  A peer who challenges their approach in a team meeting.  A missed target that requires a candid conversation with their manager.  A team member who underperforms and needs direct feedback.

Walk them through each scenario in your hiring tryout.  Ask them specifically how they would handle it.  Then watch the pattern - not the individual answer.

Then scrimmage them with your existing players.

This is non-negotiable.  Put the candidate in a working session with two or three of your current team members.  Give them a real problem to solve together.

You are not just evaluating the candidate.  You are evaluating the effect of the candidate on your team's current balance and cohesion.

The question isn't only "Can this person perform?"

It's "Does this person make the people around them better - or do they quietly drain the room?"

An anxious candidate may seek constant validation from your strongest players, pulling focus away from the work.

An avoidant candidate may shut down collaborative energy and signal to your team that vulnerability isn't safe.

Both outcomes cost you more than the hire was worth.

If you decide to proceed, build your operating plan around Yip and Gruda’s 3R’s.

Regulate - steady the environment so they don’t spiral under pressure.

Relate - connect their work to outcomes they genuinely care about.

Reason - bring them back to logic and evidence when emotion or defensiveness takes over.

Know in advance which R you will need most.  Know which team members can deliver it.  And be honest with yourself about whether you have the capacity to lead this person well - or whether you are simply hoping the problem resolves itself.

It rarely does.

The right hire adds something positive to your team without costing you the cohesion you've already built.

Hold that standard.

QUESTION:  Have you ever hired someone with visible insecurity, and had it work out well?  What made the difference?  Share it in the comments.

If you want a hiring tryout process that reveals these dynamics BEFORE you make an offer, let's talk.

#HiringStrategy #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment #HiringMistakes #GreatLeadersHireGreatPeople

How to Achieve Rapid Growth

A new Egon Zehnder study published in Harvard Business Review surveyed more than 500 senior revenue-driving leaders worldwide - CMOs, Chief Revenue Officers, Chief Commercial Officers - across every major industry.

Their finding?  Only 29% of companies surveyed achieved rapid growth, defined as top-line revenue increases exceeding 10%.

Twenty-nine percent.

‍The researchers found that growth accelerates when leaders are aligned, empowered, and equipped to collaborate across functions.  That's the formula.  Leadership alignment.  Real empowerment.  Cross-functional collaboration.

Here's what most hiring managers miss:  These are skills you must test in your hiring process.  If you're not testing for them before you hire, you are gambling with your growth.

The study identifies the capabilities that separate high-growth companies from those that stall.  ‍ ‍

Let me translate them into hiring terms - specifically, the "interview workouts" you should be running in your hiring tryout before you make an offer.

TRUTH CHECK

A hiring tryout isn't just an interview workout.  It's a scrimmage.  You don't offer an NBA contract after watching someone shoot free throws alone in an empty gym.  You watch them play defense under pressure.  You see how they talk to teammates when the score is close.

The same logic applies to your next leadership hire.  Here are five areas the research flags - and one example of how to test each one.

Building high-performing teams.  Ask the candidate to map the last team they built or inherited.  Who did they move into different roles?  Who did they let go?  Who did they develop into a leader?

Then ask them to role-play a performance conversation with a struggling team member - you play the employee.  Watch whether they can balance accountability with trust.

Wisely applying AI.  This isn't about whether they know the tools.  It's about judgment.  Give them a real business scenario from your company - a marketing campaign, a customer service bottleneck, a sales forecasting problem.

Ask them to walk you through exactly where they would use AI, where they wouldn't, and why.  The candidates who can't answer the "where I wouldn't" question are the ones who often create problems.

Collaborating efficiently and effectively.  Give them a cross-functional project scenario with competing priorities - sales wants speed, finance wants margin protection, and operations wants lead time.  

Put two or three of your team members in the room.  Watch how the candidate facilitates.  Do they dominate?  Do they defer?  Or do they actually move people toward the best decision?

Achieving a high marketing ROI.  Ask them to submit an example of their past results - but realize someone else may have done the core work.  More importantly, have them analyze a real campaign result from your company - or a sanitized one - and tell you what they would change and why.  

Then ask them to walk you through their process and specifically how they would achieve the results you require.

Building trust with prospects and clients that grow sales.  Role-play a first discovery call with a skeptical prospect.  Or a renewal conversation with a client who is considering leaving.  The 71% of companies that aren't growing rapidly often have leaders who are excellent at pitching and poor at listening.  Watch for which one shows up.

The hardest test of all:  Can they balance one or more of these with operational excellence?

Give them a "house on fire" scenario - revenue is down, a key client is at risk, and a critical team member just resigned.  All in the same week. Ask them to walk you through their first 72 hours.

You aren't looking for the perfect answer.  Observe how they think under pressure.

The research is clear.  Growth is a leadership problem.  Alignment, empowerment, and cross-functional collaboration don't happen by accident. They happen because someone hired the right leaders - you test them before making an offer - and keep developing them after they join your team.

Your interview workout process is your first management decision about every person you hire.

Make it count.

QUESTION:  What's one question you've used in an interview that successfully revealed whether a candidate could do the job?  Share it in the comments.

If you want to build a hiring system that tests for the capabilities your growth strategy actually requires, let's talk.  

If you prefer to better understand the cost of your bad hiring decisions first, then try our free Bad Hire Calculator to put a real number on it. 

#HiringStrategy #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment #HiringMistakes #GreatLeadersHireGreatPeople

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #CultureFit

Who Do You Admire - What’s That Say About You?

Charlie Munger identified Liking/Loving Tendency as the #2 psychological force in human misjudgment.

His point:  The people and ideas we admire shape us - for better or worse.  We tend to ignore the faults of those we love, favor people and ideas associated with them, and distort facts to protect our high opinion of them.

That's human nature and it can be a weakness.

But in a hiring tryout, it's also a window.

TRUTH CHECK

You may learn more about a candidate by asking who they admire than by asking what they've accomplished.  Accomplishments can be rehearsed.  Admiration can reveal character - and the answers are often unplanned.

Ask them about three people.  One at a time.

Person #1 - A leader they have never met.  Someone from business, history, or sports.  Ask them:

• What specific accomplishments do you admire?

• What do you admire about their personality or behaviors?

• How do you relate to their personal or professional beliefs?

• Why do you believe what you've heard about them is true?

That last question matters.  A candidate who has never questioned the source of their admiration may not question much else either.

Person #2 - A leader or peer with whom they have worked.  Ask them:

What are three ways this person was a great role model?

• Now flip it - what three ways could they have been better?

• What was their biggest accomplishment?

• Tell me a true story that demonstrates how they treated others.

• What do you remember most about how they communicated?

• Anything else worth noting?

The flip question is often where you learn the most, if you’re listening carefully.  Candidates who can't identify a single flaw in a former leader or mentor are showing you something important - and not something good.  Watch for idealization.  It's one of Munger's traps in plain sight.

Person #3 - Someone they have known personally.  Make it comfortable:  "I'm not asking for personal information, so you don't have to share their name."  Then ask:

• What impressed you most about their character?

• Why did you enjoy them?

• If you could work on any project with them, what would it be?

• If you could do anything fun together, what would it be?

• How did they serve others?

This third set of questions can provide treasure - because the player’s guard is often down and the admiration is most personal.

What you are listening for:

As they describe each person, you are listening for Munger's three traps.

Trap #1 - Do they ignore obvious faults in the people they admire?

Trap #2 - Do they uncritically favor ideas, products, or approaches simply because someone they love championed them?

Trap #3 - Do they shade the truth — even slightly — to protect their high opinion of a person?

None of these tendencies disqualify a candidate.  They are human universals.  But a player who demonstrates more than one across more than one person they admire, may struggle to give you honest assessments of team members, clients, or strategies when their personal loyalties are in play.

Munger noted the flip side as well:  A person constructed to love admirable people and ideas with genuine intensity has a huge advantage in life.  Buffett said the same.  

The goal isn't to find candidates who admire no one.  It's to find candidates whose admiration is grounded, discerning, and honest.

The best hires know why they admire someone - and appreciate people you’d want on your team - top performers who live by your values.

This combination of sincere admiration and clear-eyed judgment is rare.

Hire the player when you confirm it.

QUESTION:  What’s the best true story you have about a candidate explaining someone they admire?  Share your experience in the comments.

If you want to build a hiring tryout that reveals character, judgment, and self-awareness before you make an offer, let's talk.

#HiringStrategy #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment #HiringMistakes #GreatLeadersHireGreatPeople

What Happens When They're Not Making Their Numbers?

Charlie Munger called it the #1 psychological force in human behavior.

Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency

His point: Almost everyone thinks they understand how powerfully incentives drive behavior. Almost everyone is wrong. Even Munger admitted he underestimated it his entire career.

Here's why this matters to your next hire.

Every candidate sitting across from you is motivated by incentives. They will tell you what they think you want to hear. They will describe their best months, their biggest wins, and their most heroic moments.

You need to know what happens when the incentives aren't landing.

TRUTH CHECK

The real character of a player doesn't show up when they're hitting their numbers. It shows up when they're not.

Here's how to find out BEFORE you make an offer.

Run pre-mortems. Not one. Three.

Give your candidate a realistic performance scenario - a sales target, a growth goal, a team objective - whatever the role requires. Then walk them through three outcomes.

Great result. Define a great result in their role that maximizes their potential incentive pay.

Ask them to walk you through exactly how they achieved it. What did they do first? What were their key processes? What did they do consistently? What did they do when it got hard?

Listen for specificity. Vague answers mean they were along for the ride when someone else drove the result on their resume.

Neutral result. Define an okay result in their role that earns half their potential incentive pay.

Ask them where the bottlenecks were and what they did to overcome them. Ask what they would do differently.

Watch whether they take ownership or explain how the market, the team, or the company blocked their ability to achieve - victimhood or reasonable answer? People who blame neutral results on external forces will do the same thing to you.

Poor result. Define a poor result in their role that disqualifies them for incentive pay.

This is the one that may matter most. Ask them: How often do you confirm your incentive pay is on track? What happened to your motivation when you knew your incentive pay was in jeopardy? What did you tell yourself? What did you change? How did you collaborate with others to overcome your challenges?

Munger's Federal Express example is instructive here. FedEx couldn't get their night shift to perform - until they changed the incentive structure. Pay by the hour, you get hours. Pay by the completed mission, you get the mission accomplished.

Your team responds to the incentive system you build.

To consistently win, you need to hire people who get creative and more cohesive as a team when there are challenges - not those who play the blame game.

Two Trip Lines - Posers or Top Performers?

#1 - Ask them directly: "Tell me about a stretch where you weren't making your incentives. How long did it last? What caused it? What did you do about it?"

Then stop talking.

Watch whether they get honest or get defensive. Listen for whether they describe a real recovery with real steps or give you a rehearsed story with a tidy ending. Watch whether they can sit with the discomfort of the question or rush to escape it.

The candidate who can walk you candidly through a failure - and show you specifically how they got out of it - is far more valuable than the one who has never had a bad quarter on paper.

#2 - Ask them: " If the market turns against you in your first year here - slower economy, increased competition, tighter budgets - what is your plan to hit your number anyway?"

You are not looking for optimism. You are looking for a realistic plan developed on-the-spot based on wisdom, experience, and skill. It won’t be perfect because they aren't in the role yet. Look for nuggets - assets you can develop.

Munger was right. Well-designed, equal opportunity, fairly administered incentives are superpowers.

But the best hires bring something the incentive structure alone cannot create: The discipline to perform before the reward arrives.

That's the player you want on your team.

QUESTION: How do you test a candidate's response to adversity in your hiring process? Share it in the comments.

If you want to build a hiring tryout that reveals how candidates perform under pressure - not just on their best day - let's talk.

#HiringStrategy #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment #HiringMistakes #GreatLeadersHireGreatPeople

Discipline and Character in Hiring

Jim Collins is quoted in Shane Parrish’s book, Clear Thinking:

“There is no effectiveness without discipline,

and there is no discipline without character.”

Every leader knows this is true.

But how many apply it to hiring?

Collins isn't just describing personal virtues.  He's defining the standard every leader must meet when building a team.

Hiring is where discipline and character are tested most.

Discipline in hiring looks like this:

• A structured, consistent process for every role - not casual interviews and gut decisions.

• Hiring criteria defined before the search begins, not shaped by whoever impresses you in the moment.

• Every person involved in hiring decisions trained to expertly fulfill their responsibilities to attract, assess, or add amazing players to your team.

• A commitment to keep searching until the right person is found - not settling because the process feels like it is taking too long.

• Reviewing every hiring outcome - good and bad - to continuously improve your system and hiring skills.

Character in hiring looks like this:

• Acknowledging honestly when your hiring system is producing bad results instead of blaming candidates or the market.  And owning your part of the problem.

• Acting on what you know - fixing the system, coaching your team, investing in improvement.

• Treating every candidate with respect, regardless of their behavior or performance.

• Value every candidate’s time.  Recognize the risk they are taking spending time with you and betting your team is offering their best career move.

• Holding yourself to the same hiring standard you expect from everyone else on your team.

Here are the two tests every leader should apply:

DISCIPLINE TEST

Does your hiring system consistently attract, assess, and add people who meet or exceed your expectations?

Do not guess.  Check the data for the past year or another timeframe.  Add up the employee turnover, performance numbers per team member (past and present), and hiring costs - all of them.  Use our free Bad Hire Calculator.

If the results do not meet your expectations, then your system and your team's skills need work.

CHARACTER TEST

Do you know your hiring system could be better - and people involved in attracting, assessing, and adding new hires are making mistakes?

Then, what are you doing about it?

If you know there are problems and aren't acting, that's not primarily a process problem or something you can blame on others.  I kindly suggest it's a leadership problem with you.

Your lack of action is hurting others too.  Not just your team, clients, and bottom line.

Bad hiring decisions hurt the people you hire.  You took them away from other opportunities.  You wasted months of their career.  You caused them unnecessary emotional distress.

Great leaders care almost as much about the players trying out for their team, as they do for their existing team members.

The good news:  Both discipline and character can be developed.  That's exactly what we do at Hire the Best.

Drop a comment below or email info@hirethebest.co to schedule your free consultation.

Isn't it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?  To stop hurting your team, and others who sincerely want to join your team?

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #HireTheBest

Inertia and Albert Einstein

Shane Parrish in his book, Clear Thinking, exposes the toxic power of what he calls the Inertia Default.  Here is one of the most powerful insights he gives that you need today:

“Inertia keeps us doing things that don't get us what we want.”

Sound familiar?

Your team struggles to attract enough qualified, high-caliber candidates to your job openings.

You keep hiring people who fail to meet your expectations.

Your new hires take too long to become productive and profitable.

And yet - nothing changes.

Parrish goes further, encouraging you to make a change - stop the pain:

"If you find yourself or your team resisting change or continuing to do something in one way

simply because that's how you've always done it in the past - be on your guard.  

The inertia default is likely at work."

It is at work.  And it is costing you far more than you realize.

Your hiring process and skills are not giving you the quality of people you want on your team.

You know this.  The evidence is sitting in your own hiring history.

Yet you follow the same process.  Make decisions the same way.  And quietly hope for different results.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I'll be more charitable than Einstein:  It's not insanity.  It's inertia.  It’s bad habits.  And unlike insanity, inertia can be fixed.

The fix doesn't require months of disruption or a massive budget.  

It requires you to commit to change:  “I’ve got to deal with this.  We could hire another employee (or many) if we hired right in the first place.”

Stop defending a process that isn't working.  Start building one that does.

Your commitment starts with a conversation.

Talk with me for 15 to 30 minutes.  I'll give you specific, actionable ideas to improve your hiring system immediately - at no cost, no obligation. At minimum, you'll walk away knowing what needs to change and why.

That's more progress than another bad hire will give you.

Drop a comment below or email info@hirethebest.co to schedule your free consultation.

Isn't it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #HireTheBest

Doubling Down When You Hire Wrong

Shane Parrish warns us in Clear Thinking:  “When circumstances change, we need to adapt.”

Your circumstances have changed.

You believe your hiring system was good enough to attract, assess, and add top performers to your team.  Maybe it was in the past, but today it's failing too often.  The people you hire are not meeting your expectations - or they quit too soon.

Yet you haven't changed a thing.

Parrish explains exactly why:  

"Inertia closes minds and stifles the motivation

to change how we've been doing things."

And then this:  

"The longer we avoid the hard thing we know we should do,

the harder it becomes to do."

Read that again.

The longer you delay fixing your hiring system, the more impossible it feels to fix.  What started as a manageable problem - a few bad hires, a flawed process, an untrained hiring team - has quietly grown in your mind into something overwhelming.

But here's the truth:  

Your hiring, management, employee development, and retention problems have grown in direction relation to the amount of time you have avoided fixing your hiring system and skills.

You know your hiring system is broken.  You know the people making your hiring decisions have never been formally trained.  You know this is costing you money, time, growth opportunities, and good people.

And yet you keep running the same broken process with limited skills and expecting different results.

That is the Inertia Default in its most expensive form.

The fix is still small.  It is not the monster your fear has misrepresented it to be.  A few hours and a modest investment are all it takes to start building a hiring system and improved hiring skills that actually work.

Saving the financial, time, and emotional losses caused by one more bad hire far exceeds the cost of fixing your hiring problems today.

Drop a comment below or email info@hirethebest.co to schedule your free consultation.

Isn't it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?

P.S.  The hard thing you know you should do is one conversation away.  Stop doubling down on a broken system.  Start building a better one.

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #HireTheBest

You’re Delaying Because You Don’t Know the Real Cost

Of the last five people you hired, how many are exceeding your expectations?

How many are simply meeting your expectations?

The rest are falling short.  And that number may be all five.

That gap has a price tag.  And most leaders have never actually added it up.

Think about what a single bad hire costs you:

• Weeks of lost productivity.

• Management time consumed by performance issues.

• Team morale damaged.

• Customers underserved.

• A role reposted, re-interviewed, and re-onboarded.

Multiply that by every hire that didn't work out in the past two or three years.

The number is bigger than you want to know.  Which is exactly why most leaders don't calculate it.

But not knowing doesn't make the cost disappear.  It just makes it easier to delay fixing the problem.

Shane Parrish is right:  Inertia keeps us comfortable with processes that are quietly costing us far more than we realize.  And hiring is where that cost compounds fastest - because WHO you add to your team determines the success of your team more than any other single factor.

The fix doesn't require a complete overhaul overnight.  It first requires clarity.

Start here:  Use our free Bad Hire Calculator to see exactly what your current hiring decisions are costing you.

The number will motivate you in a way this post cannot.

Once you see it, let's talk.  One conversation with a Hire the Best coach will give you a clear path to stop losing that money for good.

Drop a comment below or email info@hirethebest.co to get started.

Isn't it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?

P.S. Great leaders act when the evidence is clear.  The evidence is waiting for you in your own hiring data.  Run the calculator.  Then contact us.

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #CultureFit

Your Hiring Process Isn't as Good as You Think

You believe your hiring process is solid.  Maybe even really good.

But the data disagrees.

Answer this one question honestly:  How many people have you hired in the past 12 months who failed to meet your expectations?

If your answer is more than one, you have a problem.  

And your hiring process and skills are the reason.

Not bad luck.  Not a shallow talent pool.  Not the economy.  It’s your hiring process and skills.

Here's what makes this hard to see:  Familiarity masquerades as competence.  You've run your current hiring process enough times that it feels natural, even comfortable.  That comfort tricks you into believing it's working - even when the evidence says otherwise.

Shane Parrish calls this the Inertia Default in Clear Thinking.  He also says this:

"Time is the ultimate currency of life."

Think about what that means in hiring terms.

Every underperformer you manage.  Every role you repost.  Every replacement you onboard.  Every team member who quits because the wrong hire poisoned their environment.

That is lost time - your most valuable currency - being spent on consequences that a better hiring process would have prevented.

You don't have a bad luck problem.  You have a skills and systems problem.  And skills and systems can be fixed.

Here's the math that should make this an easy decision:

If you invest $1,500 in hiring coaching, I guarantee you will save a minimum of $12,000 - if you apply what you learn.

That's an 8X return.

And it’s conservative.  I expect to save you $25-$50,000 during the twelve months after we work together.  Depending on how many people you hire annually, the savings can compound to $100,000, $500,000, or more.  I've delivered these results before.  Repeatedly.

Pay $1,500 to get $12,000 back?

You should do that all day long.

The only thing standing between you and that result is the belief that your current hiring process and skills are good enough.

The data you have proves that’s not true.

Don't wait any longer.  The fix is closer than you think.   It starts with one conversation.

Drop a comment below, or email info@hirethebest.co to schedule your free consultation.

Isn't it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #HireTheBest

Is Fear Causing Your Bad Hires?

Let's be candid.  You are hiring people who do not meet your expectations.

And you are not making it a priority to fix it.

It’s not because you don't care.  Not because you think bad hires are acceptable.  But because improving your hiring process means taking time away from everything else demanding your attention right now.  And that feels like too high a price.

That instinct has a name.  Shane Parrish calls it the Inertia Default in his book, Clear Thinking.

Inertia isn't just physical laziness.  It's the quiet, persistent voice that says:  "I have more important things to do."

It steers you away from the work that matters most and toward the work that feels most urgent.  Hiring improvement rarely feels urgent - until another bad hire lands on your team and the real cost hits you.

Here's what Parrish says about breaking it:

"While we can't eliminate our defaults, we can reprogram them.  If we want to improve our behavior, accomplish more of our goals, and experience greater joy and meaning in our lives, we need to learn to manage our defaults."

And then this:

"The good news is that the same biological tendencies that make us react without reasoning can be reprogrammed into forces for good."

That reprogramming starts with one honest question:

Is protecting my schedule actually costing me more time and money than fixing my hiring problems would?

Think about the hours you spend managing underperformers.  Reposting roles.  Re-interviewing.  Onboarding replacements.  Repairing team morale.

The time you're "protecting" is already being consumed 10X or more - just on the back end after a bad hire - instead of on the front end preventing one.

The leaders I coach make one major shift:  They stop treating hiring improvement as a distraction from their real work and prioritize hiring as the highest-leverage work they can do.

Because it is.

The right people multiply everything else you accomplish.  The wrong people tax everything you build.

You don't need to overhaul your entire approach overnight.  You just need to start.

Drop a comment below, or email info@hirethebest.co to schedule your free consultation.

Isn't it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #HireTheBest

Your Hiring Process Fails. Inertia Is Why You Haven't Fixed It.

Shane Parrish gives us a “whack in the head” - major wisdom point in his book, Clear Thinking:

"Starting something is hard, but so too is stopping something.  

We resist change even when change is for the best."

Parrish calls this the Inertia Default.

The Latin root of "inertia" literally means laziness or idleness.  Physicist Leonard Mlodinow puts it bluntly:  "Once our minds are set in a direction, they tend to continue in that direction unless acted upon by some outside force."

So… here's the question you need to sit with:

What will be YOUR outside force?

Because right now, inertia is running your hiring decisions.  And it is costing you far more than you realize.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

• The finalist candidate who chose your competitor instead of you.

• The new hire who no-showed on Day 1.

• The person who crushed it in every interview - then couldn't follow a basic process in Week 1.

• The solid team member who quit because your new hire was damaging the culture they believed in.

• The promising new hire who left after 90 days because they never felt set up to succeed.

Each of these is painful.  Expensive.  Yet, preventable.

Yet inertia whispers the same comfortable lie every time:  "It's not that bad.  I have more important things to do."

That lie is keeping your hiring system broken.

Jim Collins - leadership guru, author, and former Stanford professor - said it as clearly as it can be said:  "The right people are your most important asset.  The wrong people are your greatest liability."

Think about that for a moment.

Your most important asset.  Your greatest liability.  Both determined by the same decision:  Who you hire.

And yet, most companies have never once invested in formally training their hiring decision makers.  Never.  The people interviewing and selecting your next key hire are improvising - relying on gut feel, habit, and hope.

That is the inertia default in action.

Here's what breaking it looks like:

1.     New belief:  Our hiring system is not good enough, and our people need real training to make better decisions.

2.     New process:  A proven hiring system - like Hire the Best - that builds consistency and confidence into every hire you make.

3.     New habits:  Hiring decision makers who have been coached by professionals, not left to figure it out on their own.

The outside force you need doesn't have to be another bad hire.

It can be a conversation.

Talk with me for 15-30 minutes.  I'll give you free, specific ideas to start fixing your hiring system right now.  No pitch.  No pressure.  Just insight you can use immediately.

The cost of doing nothing keeps compounding.  The cost of one conversation is zero.

Drop a comment below, or email info@hirethebest.co to schedule your free consultation.

Isn’t it worth 15 minutes to stop making bad, costly hiring decisions?

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringMistakes #HireTheBest

Your Team Cannot Be Its Best Until You Fix Your Hiring

Championship teams are not built by accident.  They are built by leaders who understand that hiring great people is not a task on a checklist - hiring is the foundation of everything.

These leaders proved it:

"The right people are your most important asset.  The wrong people are your greatest liability." - Jim Collins, Leadership Guru, Author, and former Stanford professor

"Someone who is exceptional in their role is not just a little better than someone who is pretty good.  They are 100 times better." - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO & Founder, Meta

"It's not about collecting talent.  It's about building a team.  Some players fit better into one system or style of play than they do in another." - Bill Belichick, former Head Coach, New England Patriots

"A great employee is worth three good ones in a typical role - but in a creative or complex role, the gap grows to ten times or more." - Reed Hastings, CEO & Founder, Netflix

"You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality." - Walt Disney, Founder of Disney

"The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world." - Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple

"The cost of a bad hire is always more than the cost of taking your time to find the right one." - Unknown

"I'd rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person." - Jeff Bezos, CEO & Founder of Amazon

"The strength of an army lies not in its weapons, but in the character of the men who carry them." - Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese General

"I can easily predict a company's success by reviewing their system to attract, assess, and add new talent - and how they coach everyone involved in hiring." - David Russell, CEO & Founder, Manage 2 Win and Hire the Best

STOP PROCRASTINATING

Every week you delay fixing your hiring process is another week your team operates below its potential.

The leaders above did not build championship organizations by winging it.  They built systems - first, to hire wisely - then, to manage, develop, and retain the top talent they hired.

The best in the world ALWAYS make hiring a priority.

You can too.

Our Hire the Best coaches are ready to help you build the system and develop the skills to attract, assess, and add top performers - starting now.

Ready to build your championship team?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #Leadership #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment

Hindsight Does Not Pay the Bills

You have hired people who did not meet your expectations.

Maybe more than you want to admit.

You recognized the problem.  You vented about it.  You got busy with other stuff.

Then you hired another person the exact same way.

And got the same result:  The new hire did not meet your expectations.

DEJA VU?  Yep.  We have all been there.

Here is the difference between leaders who build championship teams and leaders who keep recycling the same hiring mistakes:  

One of them decided to stop winging it.

The other one is still waiting for their luck to change.

TRUTH CHECK:  Bad hires are not bad luck.  Almost all of them are the predictable result of a hiring process that has never been intentionally built, improved, or coached.

But change is uncomfortable.  So, most leaders do nothing.

They tell themselves their approach is good enough.  They blame the candidate, the job market, or the economy.  They underestimate the compounding cost of every weak hire - the wasted salary, the lost productivity, the damaged culture, the time spent managing someone who should never have been hired in the first place.

Let’s be candid:  Procrastinating on your hiring system and skills is lazy although comfortable, and VERY expensive.

Every bad hire you ignore is a decision to hire again sooner than you’d like.

INCREASE YOUR ROI:  Hindsight is free.  Not applying what you learn is expensive.

Fixing your hiring system and improving the skills of your hiring team is an investment that pays for itself with one hire - the next one you make.

Our Hire the Best coaches work with leaders who’ve decided they’re done with winging it - and committed to build a hiring system and skilled hiring team that consistently attracts, assesses, and adds top performers to their team.

Ready to stop repeating history?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #HiringMistakes #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment

You Hired a Talker. Not a Doer.

The interview was effortless.  Track record at previous companies appears solid.  Exactly the kind of experience you needed.

You made the offer with confidence.

Then you experienced how they worked the first week on your team.

The work was sloppy.  Deadlines slipped.  Basic processes were not followed.  You pointed it out, assigned training, brought in a mentor.  Nothing significantly improved.

Week two.  Same story, if not worse.

You started to wonder if you hired the same person you interviewed.

Does this sound like someone you have - or have had - on your team?

TRUTH CHECK:  Some candidates naturally talk a good game - very compelling, seemingly sincere, and claim achievements without clear specifics.  They know the right words, the right stories, and exactly how to present past "wins" that cannot be easily verified.

You were not evaluating performance.  You wanted to be sold, so you could hire someone and get back to your other responsibilities.

A compelling interview story is not evidence of skill, work ethic, or coachability.  The only way to confirm a candidate's real performance is to test it before you hire them - not discover it during their first 90 days on your payroll.

INCREASE YOUR ROI:  Today, stop thinking hope is a hiring strategy.

Fix your hiring system with a proven process.  Our Hire the Best coaches will show you how to Attract, Assess, and Add true top performers instead of posers.

Ready to hire doers?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #HiringMistakes #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment

You Hired AI. Not a Human.

The interviews were sharp.  The answers were thorough, well-structured, and impressive.

The skills assessment came back strong.  You were confident this was your hire.

You made assumptions.

Then they started the job.

It quickly became obvious your new hire could not perform at the level you expected - and demand.  The articulate communicator stumbled through basic conversations.  The "experienced" professional could not execute the skills they demonstrated during the process.

You did not hire a weak candidate.  You hired a great AI prompt.

Have you done this before?  Or is this the first time you got fooled by a low quality candidate, who used AI to appear solid?

Here's the hard truth:  AI has given every candidate - qualified or not - the ability to generate polished, persuasive answers to almost any interview question or skills test.  And most hiring processes are not designed to expose the poser.

You were not evaluating the player.  You were judging the output of their AI prompts.

A well-coached AI response is not evidence of skill, judgment, or character.  It never will be.  The only way to confirm what someone actually knows is to test them in real time, in ways that block AI from participating.

This is not a simple mistake.  It is a systematic one.

Your hiring process is flawed and people involved in assessing candidates need skill training and coaching to improve their ability to discern true character, actual skills, and a player’s real ability to advance your team.

BOTTOM LINE:  If your interviews and assessments can be passed with a smartphone and a ChatGPT account, your hiring process is already out of date.

Hire the Best coaches help managers lead interviews and test players in ways that systematically confirm the facts about people who want to join your team - and catch AI when a poser tries to leverage it to fool your hiring team.

Ready to hire real talent?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #HiringMistakes #HiringManagers #AIinHiring

You Hired a Narcissist

The resume was impressive.  The interviews were even better.

Confident.  Charismatic.  Exactly the kind of player you were looking for.

So, you made the offer.  And for a few weeks, everything seemed great.

Then you overheard side conversations that were concerning.

Verbal abuse.  Emotional manipulation.  Intimidation.  Or worse - physical threats and sexual harassment that left your team shaken and your organization exposed.

The person you interviewed is not the person who showed up.

Sound familiar?

Here's the hard truth:   Narcissists are exceptional interviewers.  They are skilled at reading people, mirroring what you want to see, and performing confidence without substance.  Your standard interview process was never designed to catch them.

You missed the signals because you did not know what to look for.

A polished resume and a great interview are not evidence of character.  They never were.  And character is exactly what determines how someone treats their peers when the pressure is on and no one is watching.

This is not just a bad hire.  It is a liability - for your team, your culture, and your company.

BOTTOM LINE:  If someone on your team is damaging people, then you must act quickly to remove them from your team no matter what positives they appear to be contributing.

One starting point is to fix where your hiring process failed long before their first day.

Hire the Best coaches help managers assess character, not just credentials - so you build teams where everyone is safe, respected, and positioned to win.

Ready to hire people worth trusting?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #HiringMistakes #LeadershipDevelopment #CultureFit

You Hired a Ghost

You posted the job.  You screened the candidates.  You interviewed the finalists.  You made the offer.

And then... nothing.

No call.  No email. No explanation.  No show on their first day, even though they signed your offer letter!

Welcome to candidate ghosting - one of the most frustrating trends in today's hiring landscape.

You invested hours of your time and thousands of dollars in the process, and the person you chose simply never showed up.

Or maybe they did show up - for a week.  Then disappeared.

Sound familiar?

Here's the hard truth most hiring managers don't want to hear:  The primary cause of ghosting is rarely the candidate. 

It’s the hiring team - including you.

Ghosting alerts you to a flaw in your hiring system and the hiring skills of the people on your hiring team.

You missed the yellow flags - maybe even the red ones. They were interviewing elsewhere the entire time, just kicking tires, while you assumed they were your guy.

And you never gave them a better reason to choose you over the competition.

Ghosting typically means you are also hiring other people who do not meet your standards.  That’s costly - big bucks, hundreds of hours wasted, and a lot of unnecessary stress.

Most managers have no way to assess a candidate's true level of commitment and motivation during the interview process.  So, they extend offers based on impressions and assumptions rather than confirmation, meaningful connection, and evidence - and then pay the price when the person vanishes.

BOTTOM LINE:  If you have been ghosted by a candidate - or a new hire who disappeared - your hiring process has gaps, and those gaps are costing you more than you think.

The Hire the Best coaches help managers build a system that confirms a player’s commitment BEFORE an offer is made - so you stop investing in people who were never really convinced your team was their best option.

Ready to stop hiring ghosts?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #HiringMistakes #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment

You Hired Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde Showed Up.

Does your newest hire have you feeling like you're living in a horror movie?

You're not alone - and there's a reason it keeps happening.

In the classic 1931 film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a brilliant scientist discovers that good and evil coexist within every person.  When he develops a formula to separate those forces and tests it on himself, he unleashes Mr. Hyde - a dangerous alter ego he can't control.

Sound familiar?

The person you interviewed was impressive, confident, and full of promise.  The person who showed up after the offer letter?

Someone else entirely.

This isn't bad luck.  It's a system problem.

Most hiring managers are never trained to assess what's really driving a candidate's behavior - their true motivations, their stress responses, their character under pressure.  So, they hire the Dr. Jekyll they see in the interview, with no idea Mr. Hyde is waiting in the wings.

BOTTOM LINE:  If your hires keep surprising you in the wrong ways, your hiring process has gaps — and that's coachable.

The Hire the Best coaches specialize in helping managers build the skills to see the full picture before extending an offer.

Ready to stop being surprised?  Let's talk.

Email us for a free consultation - info@hirethebest.co

#HiringStrategy #HiringMistakes #HiringManagers #LeadershipDevelopment