I have been involved in some form of “interviewing” and “hiring” people for about 15 years. I am ashamed to say…I don’t think I am any better at this process than I was when I started. That’s sad. Who spends that amount of time doing anything and doesn’t improve?! And before I hurt any feelings, let me put the disclosure out there: I TREASURE the people that do what they say they are going to do during their interview. TREASURE.
So this is for all of the others that don’t. In the last 12 months, I have suffered traumatic, emotional and mental scaring due to people who lied to me. Personally and in Business. By the way, I want to discuss this “personal vs. business” thing…nvm, next blog. I mean, I can see and remember all of the things that were discussed during each of their interviews. But the results of their work product was vastly different. Does every company have these people? Do they have an association? Do they discuss tactics, strategies, successes?
While I’m no angel and certainly didn’t always live up to some of my employer’s expectations every time, the masses would certainly say that I met and/or exceeded their expectations. And I’m not talking about the ones that give it their all, and things just don’t work out. I am talking about con artists. These people that KNOW there is no way they can deliver 80% of the things that they state they are capable of during the interview. I am focused on the interview because that’s where this expectation is established.
Examples: Last year, I had a salesperson in another state turn in completed multiple contracts within a couple of months of his hire date. At the time, I applauded my personal efforts for being able to attract and secure this employ. Shortly after I strained my arm, patting myself…I discovered that not only were these deals not complete, there were no real contracts with these companies, the clients had no knowledge of my employee. Everything…fictional. EXCEPT, the monies our company is paying this employee. Very real indeed.
In another instance, I paid more than the average American makes in a year just in fees to secure a new employee. My objective was to pay these fees in attempt to secure an employee that delivered what they said they could deliver. More fraud, more lies. More monies scammed. From both the agency and the employee.
I read an article in the paper yesterday where an interview was done with a car salesperson. This guy had been selling cars for more than 40 years. He made the statement that the car business was full of lies.(I thought..duh!) What surprised me was that he said it began with the manufacture lying to the dealers, the dealers lying to the sales people, and the salesman lying to the consumer. BUT THEN, he said the consumer tells the most lies. He lies that he has better credit, better job, can afford more car, has longer job tenure, etc… That led me to start thinking about business owners. Are we the end-victim of the lies that are running rampant? Did we start this? Did capitalism spawn a foundation of untruths that are now commonplace? A P&L statement has got to include a column for this type of spend. Should we just start including a “bluff” category for this loss? At least for me, the volume of spend will rank in the top 10% of spend.
I am more than willing to accept that I have less than zero skills in interviewing to be a victim of this crime, except..I know several business owners that have suffered multi-seven digits losses over the years battling this epidemic. While this blog has no objective other than a “whaa” rant, I am interested in hearing your input on if you see this as a growing trend? Is this a result of dissolving ethics in the workplace? Yell back…
Lanny
April 17, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Lanny,on the ‘Non-profit” side of things, I’m batting far less than 500 on good hires. And I’m talking about hiring ministers. The interviews were great! Promises were made. Representations about former accomplishments were glowing. But the results never matched what was said in the interview process.
I heard one conference speaker address this (after making a similar confession). He said that he no longer spends a lot of time on “what will you do for this company” and much more time on what other people say this person did in the past for their company. And of course this means the hard work of going two or three levels deep on the reference list.
As the old saying goes… past performance is a good predictor of future potential. But I know when I’m hiring, I tend to be too trusting of the picture the candidate is painting and wanting to seal the deal and move on. But the time that’s “saved” on the front end is multiplied against you on the back end. Lessons learned, I guess.