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Don't Allow Bad Hires To Derail Your Team: 6 Questions for Effective Hiring
Spot the common characters with uncommon interview quesitons
Dave Kline
March 01, 2023
Subtraction by Addition
The Hunger Games
Read time: 4 minutes 31 seconds
We've all been there. The team is working flat out. Everyone is at 120% capacity, and we can't find the right person to fill the open spot. The search stretches from weeks to months, and just when we resign ourselves to giving up, it happens: we make a hire.
We're relieved. The team is delighted. Help is finally on the way.
But we have this nagging worry in the back of our minds: Did we settle? Did we lower our standards as desperation became exasperation? Will this be the help we need, or did we accidentally do subtraction by addition?
Unfortunately, we won't know we made a mistake until it's too late. We often only discover this after the person has been onboarded and is doing more harm than good. And now we're faced with two expensive problems:
Thoughtfully removing a poor fit we just hired and
Starting the entire search process all over again.
But what if we could avoid these bad hires in the first place?
While there is no foolproof process, you can dramatically swing the odds (forever) in your favor.
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The Common Culprits
The Usual Suspects
It can be easy to miss the warning signs. And when we do, these are the 3 common archetypes that leave us with buyer's remorse.
The Toxic A-hole
What makes someone toxic is they're manipulative. And they tend to be very competent. So you have someone with a track record of success that shows up very well in an interview. Sounds like an A-player, right?
What are the signs?
Serial short stints (a year or less) are a flag you have to go deep on
Reluctance to give a reference from the last company
Defensive on weaknesses, attributes failures to circumstances and environment
How can you buy down risk?
If there's a chance you have this archetype in front of you, it's critical to do everything you can to check. I would do everything possible to find a trusted reference within my network before I move ahead.
The Loveable B-Player
These candidates are seducing. You want to get the interview over with and go out for beers. Time melts with them, and before you know it, your hour interview is over, and they chatted you up the whole time. Don't get me wrong. I want to work with people I enjoy.
What are the signs?