Candidates: Don’t Take a Job because it Matches Your Qualifications!

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

This statement may raise a couple of eyebrows, especially considering that to suggest hiring someone on the basis of anything but their qualifications seems well…discriminatory.  Since 1987 workplace discrimination claims filed with the EEOC have increased by 50% and many have argued that to right the ship organizations must hire on qualifications alone.  Some argue that hiring for cultural fit helps an organization, while others argue that hiring for cultural fit hurts the organization and is unfair to qualified candidates.  While opposing parties — mostly HR professionals, recruiters and hiring managers — butt heads about who’s right, another party has yet to be given significant consideration and that’s the candidate.

We don’t really need to ask the candidate what they want, do we?

Obviously candidates all want to be hired not on the basis of their color, age, ethnicity, weight, etc. but rather on their qualifications alone.  Candidates usually don’t even consider “cultural fit” when evaluating a position.  That is until….

….they secure a job with an organization into which they don’t fit.  With such high unemployment all that matters to the candidate is salary and “do I get the job” but after they are hired many will discover that cultural fit really does matter.  Now some may argue that “cultural fit” is just another word for discrimination and in many instances I wouldn’t argue with them.  Indeed thousands of qualified and pleasant candidates are turned down yearly because of that lame excuse, “they just don’t fit in to our culture” but what happens when the candidate is hired and they truly don’t fit in culturally?

The fact is that corporate cultures vary widely and candidates should be cautious before jumping on board with a new organization.  I have read recently several accounts from candidates about how they did not fit in with their new co-workers.  In one account the employee looked forward, upon getting hired, to working with their much older colleagues and gaining their experience.  To her dismay her colleagues constantly discussed their grandchildren, physical ailments and what they would do when they retired.  As a result the candidate found little common ground with her co-workers.  Now sure maybe this candidate should just get over it but maybe not.

A second candidate explained they were offered a job on the basis of their education and qualifications yet left after just 6 months.  They did not fit in culturally with the organization and so felt such loneliness at work that they couldn’t bear the environment for forty hours a week.

Examining this example, arguing that cultural fit doesn’t matter is difficult given that replacing a candidate taxes the organization’s time and money.

If you are a sales person, for instance, who likes to travel constantly, do you want to be hired on the basis of your qualifications by an organization who wants you to ride a phone all day in your cubicle?  Of course you don’t!

While getting a job simply because you are the most qualified candidate may seem ideal, you run the risk of jumping into an organization that doesn’t fit your ideals nor maximize your strengths.  Poor hiring fit is similar to being a Meg Ryan, rom-com type of person forced to watch a marathon of Freddy Krueger and Jason flicks.  Sure you love movies but not all are to your taste and many will make you want to get up and leave before the end.

Posted in Corporate Culture, Job Fit, Recruiting | Leave a comment

Would You Want to Work for You? The Dangers of Mirror Image Hiring!

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

I recently started a discussion on Linkedin regarding the prevalence of discrimination in the workplace which branched off, as discussions tend to, into a conversation about cultural fit and mirror image hiring.  I have already discussed the usage of “cultural fit” in hiring so I want to tackle what a few labeled as “Mirror Image” hiring.   

Mirror image hiring operates along the same lines as hiring job candidates for cultural fit.  The principal is based on the assumption that if I have a group of employees contributing to the success of my company then surely all future employees I hire should mirror my attributes and those of my successful employees.  If you’re the boss you look into the mirror with your winning smile and say with a sparkle on your tooth, “You’re the best!  You are who I want to hire for this organization!”   

Makes sense right?  If your employees think like one another and share the same successful attributes then your organization should have fewer conflicts, employee satisfaction should be high and as a result your turnover should be low.  As I write this I’m almost buying into this theory.   

Now, as I like to say, here’s the rub.  Does hiring “me” cross the line into discrimination?  I’m white, fairly fit, and despite my thinning hair, am not yet middle aged.  Should I hire only guys my age and eliminate women, minorities, the couch potato and the elderly with whom I might not have much in common?  As an employer wouldn’t I run the risk of eliminating some great candidates who don’t fit my behavioral profile?   

Not only that but will my organization really make it to the next level if I’m surrounded by “Yes” men who refuse to challenge my directives or at the very least don’t propose fresh ideas from a perspective I had not considered?  A team composed of varying people that may offer differing points of view can create a breeding ground of innovative ideas. 

I’m reminded of a recruiting assignment for a software company on which I worked.  We behaviorally profiled the President, Sales VP and Sales Manager.  All three men were extremely bold, assertive, disciplined, and tenacious and guess what, they wanted all their sales people to have the same attributes.  Do you think all these bold, assertive and tenacious men got along?  No!  The exceptionally bold, assertive, and tenacious President managed his exceptionally bold, assertive, and tenacious people in a manner that he himself would not want to be managed.  As a result most of the salespeople quit within 90 days.   

As you know the cost of replacing a salesperson can often be 2-3 times that salesperson’s salary so the company’s recruiting strategy was disastrous.  In essence the boss tried to hire himself not understanding that he would not want to work for himself. 

So while mirror image hiring may sound like a keen idea, you run the risk of discrimination, idea stagnation, and people walking out on you.     

Posted in Candidate Screening, Corporate Culture, Job Fit, Recruiting | Leave a comment

The Most Important Diversity Issue Isn’t Race!

Posted on April 30, 2012 by jrobinson

Or ethnicity, or gender or sexual preference. Which is not to say that these aren’t real and important issues.

But in my experience as a manager, the most important aspect of diversity, in terms of impact on the workplace and productivity, is “thinking styles”.

The concept of right brain and left brain thinking was developed from research conducted in the late 1960s by an American psycho-biologist Roger W Sperry. He discovered that the human brain has two very different ways of thinking. One (the right brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The other (the left brain) is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. Sperry was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1981, although subsequent research has shown that things aren’t quite as polarized as once thought (nor as simple).

Researchers continue to unlock the secrets of the human brain. According to Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, “the human mind is better thought of as a series of relatively separate faculties, with only loose and non-predictable relations with one another, than as a single, all-purpose machine that performs steadily at a certain horsepower, independent of content and context.”

To take this further, other researchers posit that the human brain, your brain, comprises dozens of different and separate cognitive abilities. They group these under two general categories: Fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. The first category of cognitive abilities, fluid intelligence, includes things like pattern recognition and abstract thinking, which tend to peak in early adulthood. The latter category, “crystallized intelligence” includes skills that are the result of experience and education, things like verbal ability, inductive reasoning and judgment. These abilities can continue to develop and expand as we age.

While fluid intelligence appears to be the result of nature, i.e., genetics, and therefore is relatively fixed, the good news is that we can actually have an impact on the experience-based cognitive abilities that make up our “crystallized intelligence”.

So not only do we each have our own unique array of different cognitive abilities upon which we can draw, but also our personal inventory of “brain powers” changes as we age. In other words, we all think differently from one another, but we also think differently at different stages of our lives.

I have always found that the most powerful teams in terms of output consist of a full range of thinking styles. This usually means a diversity of personalities and ages. Unfortunately, however, many managers hire employers who think (I said “think”, not “believe”) just like they do. They’re taking the easy way out. It’s harder to manage a team of diverse thinkers. But the diverse rewards justify the effort.

How often do we turn job candidates away not for race, age, ethnicity, etc. but because they don’t fit culturally within our organization? In essence because they don’t think and behave like we do.

 

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When does Hiring for “Cultural Fit” become Discrimination?

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

I have read numerous discussions over the past year in HR magazines and on Linkedin discussing the importance of hiring employees that match your company’s culture.  The reason being, if I have three equally qualified candidates from which to choose, clearly at that point I must hire the individual who best fits my organization’s culture.  By doing so I should increase the chances that not only will I be satisfied with the employee but they will also be satisfied with the organization.  Employee satisfaction often walks hand in hand with employee retention and high employee retention usually means less expense for our company.  So hiring for cultural fit seems logical, right? 

Here’s the rub however.  When do we use the explanation of “Cultural Fit” as an excuse to discriminate?  I recently started a discussion on Linkedin regarding the prevalence of discrimination of not only groups such as minorities, women, and the elderly, but also Asians, the attractive, smokers and the obese.  As one commenter put it, “Cultural fit has become the new euphemism for discrimination.”  Further responses were varied.  Many took the stance that everyone had biases in one form or another and that we just needed to roll with the punches, stop whining essentially, and continue to put our best foot forward until you land with the organization that best appreciates you.   

After all, if you didn’t get the job HR could just argue that you didn’t fit in well culturally.  For example, one commenter said they turned down a qualified candidate because the person was, as she put it, a redneck and they didn’t think a redneck would work well with the customers.  “Redneck” if you didn’t already know, isn’t one of the EEOC’s protected classes.  In essence the qualified “redneck” candidate was not a cultural fit.  One commenter supported her by saying the organization’s needs were evaluated from the perspective of the customer and the candidate could not meet them.   

Another commenter said they refused to hire a candidate who, by his intense smell, obviously smoked.  Why?  Because it would bother other people in the office.  This is another example of cultural fit coming into play. 

Others took the stance that in no shape or form should discrimination be tolerated.  If the candidate is qualified, HR departments should give equal consideration to each candidate.  But is this really possible to do when the company’s profits are on the line?  Look at Hooters restaurants, for example, which for years have employed women who must have certain attractive physical characteristics.  Their high priced lawyers helped them win a lawsuit several years ago and they are still allowed to employ only women of a certain appearance.  If they did not wouldn’t their profits suffer?  Couldn’t a case be made that women of a certain appearance, and of course men were unable to effectively do the job as set forth by the company’s culture regardless of their past waitress/waiter experience?   

 If I’m obese and am turned down for a retail job for a sportswear company where most of the salespeople are attractive and fit, is this discrimination or was my failure due to a lack of cultural fit because management knew my overweight appearance would turn off customers?  Is this discrimination or rather a case of a lack of cultural fit affecting the organization’s bottom line?   

Are companies beginning to establish that candidates can be discriminated against under the pretense of cultural fit if their “smoker’s cough”, obesity, or even their rough around the edges “redneckery”, hurts profits or disrupts their colleague’s ability to perform well? 

If you’re a woman, or old, or of a different ethnicity organizations should give you fair consideration because these are attributes out of your control.  And yet if your personality or appearance is a cause for rejection whether you’re black, Indian, or even pregnant, can we say anyone is really protected?   

So the question continues to be when are we being discriminatory and when are we just looking out for the best interests of our company?  

Posted in Candidate Screening, Corporate Culture, Job Fit, Recruiting | 5 Comments

iPhone Hiring? Is Being Impractical Really the New Cool?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

Video interviewing is a new technology getting noticed more and more among HR professionals and recruiters for its many benefits in helping organizations hire more effectively and affordably.  I like video interviewing.  I get all the benefits of it and have written  about it in the past.  I’m a big supporter of conducting video interviews.  With that said video interviews must be done right. 

Now I know everyone either has an iPhone or maybe wants an iPhone.  It is the new cool toy!  I like the iPhone, and as with video interviewing, I have no problem talking about how wonderful it is.  But when it comes to conducting video interviews over an iPhone (or iPad) I have an issue.   

Why you ask?  Because some people want you to believe that PCs and laptops are about as cool as Betamax players and if you’re going to do a video interview, you should conduct it with the most cutting edge piece of technology.  But just because you can conduct an interview on an iPhone doesn’t mean you should.  

Once upon a time wasn’t the microwave considered a miraculous piece of hardware that must have been alien in origin for its sophistication?  “Hey look everyone we don’t have to boil hotdogs anymore we can cook them in 30 seconds!”  Can you imagine what they must have been talking about in 1980?  “Why spend four hours cooking your turkey in the oven when you can do it in one?” 

That’s my point.  Conducting a video interview using your iPhone or other mobile device is like cooking a turkey in your microwave oven.  Sure you can do it but why would you?  I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t.   

Reason Number One: It will look bad!  Most candidates want to conduct a professional interview with you.  This isn’t a video web chat with their old college roommate.  They want to look and sound their best.  While candidates generally favor video interviews done on a desktop or laptop, conducting one on an unstable device such as a phone is impractical.  The only current application I can see for doing an interview on a phone is because the candidate is unable to get to one of the one billion PCs in use today worldwide. 

Reason Number Two: It will look BAD!  Yes, I realize I already said that but it is worth repeating.  Do you really want your candidate to interview over their phone while walking down a sidewalk?  Let’s see how good a candidate looks while conducting an interview on a subway or in the back of a cab while his head snaps to and fro as the cabbie plows through pot holes.  Your candidates don’t want to deliver bad interviews to you nor do you want to see bad interviews. 

Now I know what you’re about to say.  A candidate would never do that.  They would go somewhere quiet and noise free to conduct their interview.  If the candidate indeed has time to do that then why wouldn’t they then do it on their laptop or PC?  Why bother with holding their phone up in front of them the whole time trying to keep their aching arm steady?  The same is true for trying to conduct one on an iPad.  Can you see a candidate with fully extended wobbly arms steadying an iPad in front of their face and trying to answer questions?  

I understand that smart phones are all the rage but let’s not get crazy.  Form factor matters.  For another example from the history of technology diffusion, it took years of work on handheld devices, with failure after failure (even Apple’s Newton!) before Palm introduced one that found broad market acceptance.  The Palm has evolved to today’s smart mobile devices, but they are best used for certain applications, with video interviews not on the list.

Mobile interviews are like microwaved turkeys.  Yes you can do them efficiently but the poor taste and presentation make you wish you had done them right from the beginning.

 

Posted in Interviewing, Recruiting, Video, Virtual Interview | Leave a comment

Discrimination: It is so Prevalent, Everyone Gets a Fair Shake!

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

We all know discrimination exists in the hiring process.  The primary concern is to give equal consideration to job candidates across different races, genders, ethnicities, and to those candidates from different age groups.  This is important because if organizations don’t give fair consideration to these groups then the HR department or hiring manager can get in big trouble if the candidate decides to file a lawsuit citing discrimination.

I have written numerous times in the past on varying forms of discrimination.  Asian candidates have been passed over for positions and promotions because allegedly they don’t exude “executive presence.”

Overweight individuals and smokers are passed over because high work absenteeism and health care costs are linked to employees in poor health.  Healthier appearing candidates are often given greater consideration for employment.

I have spoken with a sales manager who worked for Big Blue (IBM) back in the day and they gave demerits to individuals with beards or who wore loafers.  Why?  Isn’t it obvious?  Wearing shoes without laces must mean you are lazy!  Silly yes, but it’s a true story!

Recent physiognomy studies point to our ability to accurately predict an individual’s competence in whatever they do just by viewing a short video of them.  How many people are passed over because the hiring manager notices during the interview that the candidate lacks that certain something?  It may not be color, age, or gender, but something is missing and their gut is telling them to go with someone else.  And sometimes we’re just discriminated against because we’re not likable enough.  Candidates would like to believe they are hired merely on their qualifications but how often is that actually  the case?  Appearance and cultural fit come into play more than they realize.

Now a recent research study out of Europe suggests that attractive female candidates are discriminated against more than not only their attractive male counterparts but also their less attractive female competition.  Wow, just when you think being pretty gives you a leg up you discover that it could be an impediment.  The reason for this discrimination according to the research?  Good ole jealousy from predominantly female HR departments!  I’m not surprised really.  My hair is thinning, I’m 5’10 and weigh 150 pounds soaking wet, and dress most of the time like I’m going to a baseball game.  You think I want to see all the girls swooning over Thor, our new Nordic IT guy who is so good looking even I want to buy him a drink?

So with all this discrimination occurring for nearly every possible reason, does discrimination really still exist for the ”protected classes”?  Let me put it this way.  Let’s say I’m an African American candidate sitting in a room full of other candidates waiting for my opportunity to speak with a hiring manager.  Naturally I might be a little nervous because I’m a minority and I might not get a fair shake but knowing what I do about discrimination I look around the room and take stock of my competition.

Sitting diagonally across the room is Bob.  Bob has a receding hairline, a beard, and his pants are riding up over a pair of brightly colored socks.  When he laughs I notice a piece of broccoli caught in his tooth.  Yes, that and his socks are sure to distract the hiring manager!  Not to mention that beard has got to go!

Sitting next to Bob taking up two seats is Janine.  Janine is very pleasant and we’ve been engaging in casual conversation for the past 10 minutes but she’s pushing at least 250 and has a mole on her upper lip.  That’s not going to do her any favors!  I’m guessing my premiums are way lower than hers and believe me, I know the HR manager will take note.

Sitting to her left is Jake.  Jake has just popped a second stick of gum in his mouth because he’s already been outside twice to smoke!  We can all smell it on his suit each time he enters the room.  As my pastor says, smoking won’t send you to hell but you sure smell like you’ve been there.  To my far right a few seats down is Tran.  He’s impeccably dressed but he’s Asian and short and I’m guessing he’s not exuding that so called Executive presence for which he might be discriminated against.  I know it’s sad but I’m starting to feel pretty good.

Lauren is chatting me up to my right and I can tell by her smile she’s into scrawny guys with little hair.  She smells divine and is dressed professionally but she’s a total hottie.  If the HR person is a woman I have a good chance she might feel threatened by Lauren’s good looks and not move her forward.  Lauren, you’re gorgeous but this job is more important to me than your phone number.

To my left is Mike.  I don’t know much about him.  He looks fine but his constant griping about “the government” has put all of us on edge even if some of us agree with him.

So despite all my competition and my minority status I sit back, relax, and realize that all of my competition in one way or another will be discriminated against!  The hiring process is so unfair to everyone that it almost has become fair to us all.

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Video Interviewing: Why Early Adopters are Cooler!

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

What is an early adopter?  An early adopter is one of the cool kids in school you always wanted to be who took risks in fashion and technology that set them apart or ahead of the herd.  Their choices while perhaps questionable at the time later became popular and mainstream.  An early adopter is the guy bold enough to wear a white sports jacket and loafers without socks two seconds after the first episode of Miami Vice aired.  While you were still listening to Blondie’s “Man From Mars” on your 8 Track player, the early adopter was already cranking the new Madonna album on her laser disc player.  An early adopter spent a cool grand on a DVD player in 1998 when you were still stocking your VHS library with the latest re-mastered versions of Star Wars.  In 1997 the early adopter was placing job postings on Monster rather than in the newspaper.  Just now thinking about buying an iPad?  The early adopter was sitting in Steve Jobs’ driveway four years ago waiting to buy one the moment after Steve conceived it in his sleep.

Early adopters are cool because they are able to identify and adopt a trend they know will be successful long before others have often even heard of it.  We look up to early adopters because while we sit back playing it safe they march forward and test out the tools we’re too afraid to use.

 “Don’t want to change process” is the number one reason cited why organizations would not adopt Video Interviewing in the coming year according to a recent survey of over 150 HR Professionals, Recruiters and Executive Search Consultants.  Unwilling to change even if the current process is broken is not the talk of early adopters.  The early adopters were scouring the web two years ago looking for new technologies that could improve their hiring process.  Five years from now when the laggards are still phone interviewing and kicking themselves for not adopting video sooner, the early adopters will have already begun using the next evolutionary stage of video interviewing.

I believe in ten years more than sixty percent of all first round job interviews will be conducted online using video.  I don’t think that’s a bold statement.  In fact I believe I’m being a bit conservative.  Presently the cool kids, the early adopters I mean, have already begun using video interviewing to screen and identify top candidates earlier in the process.  Why?  Because they get it.  They saw two years ago the need for a simple, affordable way to quickly screen and compare job candidates without wasting time and money interviewing bad candidates in person.

The early adopters were able to envision video interviewing not just as a tool to be used for interviewing candidates at a distance but also to evaluate and compare all candidates. Saving time and money are just the obvious benefits of video interviewing.  Early adopters realized that by far the greatest benefit that visual screening via video provides is much greater insight into each candidate earlier in the hiring process, resulting in improved candidate selection. 

While the drawback of being an early adopter is that you sometimes have to pay more in order to be cool, video interviewing is often so affordable that it challenges the cost of phone interviewing and yet it is five times more powerful.  It’s like getting your iPad3 for the cost of a netbook!  Video Interviewing gives you all the reward without any of the risk.  Video interviewing is your cool limo ride to the prom with the high school quarterback.  Why would you pass that up?

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Not Getting the Job? It’s Nothing Personal or Is it?

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

What do hiring managers most want to learn about a candidate during the face-to-face interview?  If you asked a job candidate they would probably say the hiring manager wants to know if they have the necessary skills to do the job.  If you asked the hiring manager they might agree.  

But I have spoken to many hiring managers and HR Professionals who tell me that they know within the first five minutes of meeting a job candidate whether they are right for the job.  Does the speed of reaching that conclusion suggest that maybe it wasn’t skills they were most concerned about?  Well the answer is that within the first five minutes the hiring manager determined not whether the candidate could do the job but whether they could work with the candidate and if the candidate would fit into the corporate culture.  Executive recruiters agree that what they most want to learn from a candidate is three things and every question asked during the interview is a variation of these three questions.  The three questions are, “Can you do the job, will you like doing this job, and can I get along with you?”  That’s what they want to know and when you think about it, that’s all they need to know. 

The hiring manager pretty much has a good idea if a candidate can do the job from looking at the resume.  All follow-up questions are asked to confirm their judgments.  But within those first five minutes they can determine if a candidate will fit in culturally and if they can get along with that person as much from the information they discern from observing the candidate.  Physiognomy studies prove it!  Humans can draw greater insights about a person by looking at and listening to them than they can by reviewing that candidate’s resume.  This is why so many managers are employing video interviewing in their hiring processes.  Within a few minutes of screening a candidate’s video they can determine enough about the candidate’s enthusiasm and energy to determine if the candidate should be brought in for the face-to-face video. 

What does this mean to the candidate?  It means the interview isn’t all about their skills it’s mostly about them.  I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Don’t take it personally,” right?  Well if a candidate is rejected after the job interview the rejection very well might be personal and not about their lack of skills.   

But at the end of the day, isn’t the hiring manager’s judgment about corporate fit to be relied upon?  And if it is, isn’t it preferable not just for the employer but also for the candidate to find that out early and avoid the likely bad outcome if a poor fitting candidate gets hired?  Isn’t not being hired a better outcome for all concerned? 

So maybe we should say “It’s personal, but don’t take it personally!”    

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Can Video Enhance Your Structured Interview?

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

If you hadn’t heard there are a whole lot of people out of work these days (approximately 13 million) and hiring companies, especially the high profile ones, are literally overrun with job applications.  

The Wall Street Journal reported that last year 7.6 million job seekers applied to the 65,000 open retail and corporate positions advertised by Starbucks.  This averages to 117 applicants per position!  As staggering as that sounds it pales in comparison to the 2 million candidates who applied to Google’s 7,000 openings which averages to about 285 candidates per opening!  Unbelievable right?  Well Procter and Gamble had it even worse as 1 million candidates applied to one of their 2,000 job openings which averages to exactly 500 candidates per each open position!  How would you like to work in that HR department? 

With such a glut of resumes hurtling towards them, HR departments have resorted to using dull instruments, such as Applicant Tracking Systems, to weed out candidates who don’t remotely fit the job description.  According to the Corporate Executives Board, a research and advisory firm, only 35% of job applicants actually meet the basic job requirements of the job to which they had applied.  So when we look at Procter and Gamble we can conclude that around 325 applicants for each position were unqualified.  This of course still leaves 175 possibly qualified candidates which have to be screened further, then phone or video interviewed, and finally interviewed face-to-face. 

Successfully conducting an in-person interview with the job candidate after all the screening has been done is essential.  Wharton Management Professor Iwan Barankay states, “”The predictive power of interviews is low unless they are very structured, which includes asking all the candidates the same questions, and then grading and evaluating them the same way.  A freeform interview where you just meander along in a conversation doesn’t reveal any important information.” 

Video Interviews, specifically automated interviews that allow candidates to interview themselves, provide not only a more powerful alternative to phone interviews, not only because they are recorded, but also result in a structured interview.  

Gaining in popularity, video interviewing allows the administrator to upload job specific questions to which the job candidates can respond.  Each position can have its own set of questions.  Candidates login with their webcams and answer the hiring manager’s questions that appear on screen.  Their responses are recorded and immediately available for HR or the hiring manager to screen.  What is significant is that each candidate answers the same questions so not only is there no bias in regards to age, gender or ethnicity but also the candidate’s recorded responses can be compared to one another.  This allows the hiring manager to make a more informed decision about who to bring in for the face-to-face interview.   

When you have 200-500 applicants applying to each of your positions, Video Interviewing provides an efficient and structured way to find that shining needle in the proverbial haystack. 

     

Posted in Candidate Screening, Interviewing, Virtual Interview | 1 Comment

Physiognomy? What it is and How it can Help You Hire.

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Ryder Cullison

When I first heard of Physiognomy I had no clue what it was nor could I barely pronounce it.  In short, Physiognomy is the belief that a person’s personality can be determined by their facial features and shape of their skull.  Popular in the 19th century, the practice of Physiognomy was discounted for most of the 20th century by psychologists until recent studies suggested a more modern interpretation of the practice can produce accurate judgments about people’s abilities.   

In early 2000 a group of people were shown 2 second long clips of professors lecturing and were asked to determine the teaching ability of each.  Amazingly the responses by the group matched those of students who had been taught by the professors for a whole semester.  So in just two seconds a group of people were able to fairly predict a professor’s ability to teach!  A few years later 100 hundred students were shown photographs of chief executives from the top 25 and bottom 25 companies in the Fortune 1000 list and were asked to determine their leadership potential.  The chief executives were unrecognizable to the students, (Warren Buffet wasn’t even recognized) but the students’ assessments of probable leadership ability were directly related to the company’s profits.  Basically the students could accurately predict, just by looking at them, the most successful people.  The studies concluded that the snap judgments by ignorant people were more accurate than assessments made by well-informed professionals. 

I have spoken to many hiring managers and while many may not admit it, they basically determine within the first five minutes of meeting a job candidate that they are not a good cultural fit for their company.  If you apply the conclusions mentioned above these hiring managers might make that judgment within the first sixty seconds but unfortunately they cannot dismiss a candidate within sixty seconds of meeting them.  No, they must spend thirty minutes of their valuable time interviewing a candidate they know is not a good fit.  How valuable would it be to the hiring manager’s time for them to see a two minute video clip of the candidate prior to committing thirty minutes of their valuable time to interviewing the candidate?  If we can determine a person’s capabilities after seeing a two second clip of someone, think how much more we can learn in two minutes!  Hmmm, if only a solution existed that allowed people to see video of interested candidates prior to the face-to-face interview thereby saving the hiring manager time and streamlining the interview process.  Oh wait, of course, video interviewing can do all this and more!

Posted in Candidate Screening, Interviewing, Job Fit, Video | 2 Comments