Writing at Management-Issues.com, Nic Patton says corporate recruiters are often blazing ahead and spending more money regardless of the results.  Specifically, in her article she says:

Fewer than half of British firms are effectively monitoring whether the ever spiraling sums they are spending on recruitment is money well spent and, even when they do realise things aren’t working, their gut reaction is simply to throw more money at the problem.

Here are some other tidbits she offers:

• - fewer than half systematically evaluated the success of an individual recruitment process
• - only around half of [companies using recruiting system software] were using the system to produce statistics that could assess the success of individual recruitment methods

 One would think that will all the systematic approaches available for decision making, something as important as a recruiting/screening/hiring system would be used with a measured approach.

 Winging it Doesn’t Work
Unfortunately, this “wing it” mentality is still common. I’ve seen many leaders and senior managers flying by the seat of their pants in recruiting and bragging about their ‘gut instinct,’ all while employees kept coming and going as through a revolving door.

Pride on their part? Yes, probably. Smart? Not really.

This article reminded me of a situations that occurred about eight years ago, when a sales manager wanted to use my screening and hiring system to identify good sales reps. He set up an appointment for me to meet his boss, the GM.

 Long story short, the GM said no-go.  “Just trust you gut,” the GM told the sales manager. (He conveniently swept away the glaring facts of high turnover at the time).

About a year after that the GM walked into the sales manager’s office with a fax. “This just came down from corporate,” he said. “They want us to use this system for hiring sales reps. Looks good. Let’s use it.”

The system described on the fax was nearly the exact method I had advocated the year before.

Obstacles to Success:
So what happened?  A poor sales effort on my part?  Maybe.  Poor listening on the GM’s part? Maybe. Pride? Fear that his gut instinct wasn’t good enough? Maybe yes, maybe no.  Maybe a combination of all three.

Regardless, he didn’t want to change the way he was recruiting until he was told to by his own supervisors. This kind of pride (or ??) is all too typical in corporate America, no matter what size the company.

Leaders! The research in Nic Patton’s article doesn’t lie. So:

• 1. Know what you want. 
• 2. Examine what you’re getting.
• 3. Adapt based on whatever facts you can find, not simply on “gut instinct.”

Considering that employment and recruitment agencies are expected to see an increase of services rendered in the coming six months, the time you invest (planning, evaluating, making adjustments to your plan) will likely come back to you ten fold down the road.

 ADDENDUM: For an easy-to-use method on hiring, training, and retaining good employees, check out my E-book on the subject.

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Filed in Business, Opinion, Training, Motivation, Management, Sales, Leadership, Teambuilding