TL;DR: Hiring outcomes that don’t work out aren’t always the result of poor judgment. More often, they’re the result of making decisions without the right information. Better hiring decisions start with understanding both the role and the person before you hire.
Almost every hiring manager has experienced it. A new hire doesn’t work out. Then the questions begin. “What happened?” “I thought they were going to be great.” “Nobody could have known.” But I think organizations are asking the wrong question after a hiring decision doesn’t work out. Instead of asking, “What did we miss?” they should be asking, “Were we evaluating the things that actually predict success in this role?” Because hiring decisions usually don’t fail from a lack of information. They fail because the wrong information carried the most weight.
The issue usually isn’t poor judgment. Most hiring managers make the best decision they can with the information they have. The problem is that too often the hiring process emphasizes experience, interview performance, and gut instinct without first defining what success looks like in the role or identifying the natural talent traits most likely to produce it.
Ask Better Questions Before You Hire
A strong hiring decision starts long before the interview. It starts by answering questions like:
- What results does this role actually need to produce?
- What natural talent traits are required to produce those results?
- Which candidate is most naturally wired to succeed in this role and environment?
Once those questions are answered, resumes, interviews, and assessments all become much more valuable because they’re evaluating candidates against something meaningful instead of impressions.
Why It Costs More Than You Think
You Solve the Wrong Problem
When a hire doesn’t work out, organizations often assume the person was the problem. But sometimes the role wasn’t clearly defined. Sometimes the hiring manager was looking for the wrong experience. Sometimes the interview never uncovered the talent traits that actually mattered. Without objective information, it’s difficult to know where the process broke down, so the same mistakes get repeated.
It erodes trust in the hiring process
When someone is a poor fit, it can cause tension and frustration on your team. Maybe their communication styles don’t align or their way of working slows the entire process. Either of those will begin eroding the relationships between team members and their confidence in future hiring decisions.
It opens the door to bias
Instinct feels neutral, but it rarely is. Unstructured decisions are where bias creeps in, favoring candidates who feel familiar over candidates who are actually qualified. The financial consequences of getting it wrong can be significant.
How to Make Better Hiring Decisions
Understand what success looks like
Every hiring decision should begin with the role, not the resume. Before reviewing a single resume, identify the key results the role must produce. Then determine the natural talent traits most likely to produce those results. Hiring becomes easier when you know what you’re actually looking for.
Use the right talent assessments
Not all assessments measure the same things or are appropriate for hiring decisions. The tools I use from TTI Success Insights are designed to provide objective information about how someone naturally communicates, what motivates them and how they think and make decisions.. Combined with interviews and experience, they add another layer of information to help organizations make better hiring decisions.
Document the reasoning
Documenting how the decision was made helps your organization learn over time. When hiring decisions are tied back to the role requirements, interview findings, and objective assessment data, it’s much easier to improve the process with every hire.
The Goal Isn’t Certainty
No hiring process guarantees success. But every additional piece of information helps you make a better-informed decision. Before making your next hiring decision, ask yourself:
- Have we clearly defined what success looks like in this role?
- Do we know which natural talent traits are most likely to produce that success?
- Have we gathered enough objective information about whether this candidate possesses those traits?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, the issue isn’t confidence. It’s that you probably need better information before making the decision.
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