Developing a Profile of the Candidate You DON’T Want to Hire

We all know that hiring mistakes are costly. Estimates range from $40,000 to $200,000 per hire, which includes tangible costs such as training, recruiting, unemployment insurance, and severance as well as intangible costs such as impacts to employee morale and customer relationships.

To avoid bad hires, it’s essential to begin by developing a good job description.  The job description should clearly articulate the job requirements, qualifications, years of experience and other important factors such as travel expectations, physical requirements for the job and education.  In addition, it is a good idea to define what constitutes a “good fit,” and prepare questions that identify a match or a miss. You must know what you DO want. What we often overlook, though, is that it’s just as important to know what you DON’T want.  Approaching each candidate from the “do want / don’t want” perspective in the interview, follow up and reference phases of the process will improve your success rate at finding the right hire. So how do you develop a “Don’t Want” profile?

Learn from past mistakes. Review your hires and terminations over the past year. Were there any patterns among the employees who didn’t work out?  What qualities made them a bad fit for the culture? Were there any background areas – experience level or previous companies – that impaired their success?

Train your interviewers. Hopefully you are already training your interviewers on how to identify the qualities you DO want in an employee. Also train them to recognize the qualities you DON’T want.  Give them examples of subtle signals that indicate a bad attitude. Give them specific clues to watch for in the interview that demonstrate the person won’t fit the culture. Share with them the lessons learned from bad hiring choices in the past.

As a reminder, it is also a good idea to train your interview team on questions to avoid from a legal perspective.  You cannot ask any question during an interview that relates to an applicant’s race, color, religion, age, gender, national origin, or disability. In some states, inquiries about a candidate’s sexual orientation are illegal.

Put it in writing. Just as you develop a written profile for the qualities you DO want, commit to paper the characteristics and behaviors you DON’T want. Use it consistently in your hiring process. Update it as you learn more from hires that don’t work out.

The more structured, prepared and consistent you are in all aspects of your hiring process, the more likely you are to hire and keep the right employees.