Do you think you are really getting to know your applicants before you make your hiring decisions? Do you have a good idea how to tell who will be a High Performer and who is just marketing themselves? High Performers are just ordinary people who are able to achieve more results. So, how do you tell these ordinary people from the polished applicants who have rehearsed answers that make them sound great? Can you simply ask an applicant:

• “Are you a team player?”
• “Are you self-motivated?”
• “On a scale of 1-10, how driven are you?”
• “Tell me about a time you took initiative.”

Any interview-savvy applicant can gracefully answer these questions without giving the interviewer a clue to the truth. Anyone that believes interviewing is already being done well should take a closer look. Too many companies have too few High Performers. In today’s highly competitive business environment, human capital has never been more important. There is plenty of room to improve employee selection. Every hire impacts many areas of a business. Customer service, training effectiveness, employee morale, and profits all feel the effect of hiring decisions. Somewhere, we learned that if we hire an applicant with the skills we need, the results will be an employee who will do a great job. WRONG! Skills simply mean the applicant can do the job, it does not mean they will do the job better than anyone else. Skills are “enablers,” not “personal motivators.” Skills, work experience and job knowledge can all be acquired by showing up for work and doing a job just well enough to not get fired. If you teach an indolent person the best skills, could you create a High Performer? Probably Not. Will these skills change their attitude about working or increase their energy level? Will great results suddenly be a by-product of these skills or will they choose to settle for less? Skills are not a substitute for motivation.

Applicants are learning more about getting a job than interviewers are learning about hiring. Between skills NOT being an accurate indicator of job performance and applicants who have interview smarts, hiring results are mixed. Our current interview strategy treats applicants like a gift wrapped present - with a catch. You must decide if you want the present before you can see what you have. So, you look at it and try to get as many clues as you can to determine if it is something you want. Is there lots of money inside or is it a gag gift that will explode in your face? Is it a good hire that can add a lot of value and profits to a company or is it a bad hire that could cost the company a lot of money?

Making hiring decisions based on skills leaves job performance a mystery to unfold after the hire - hire first and then find out what you have. If only you could get some information that would be a better predictor of future job performance. Well, you can! To accurately identify High Performers, interviewers must first learn WHAT information is the best predictor of future job performance. Gathering the right applicant information can take the guesswork out of hiring. A good hire is like unwrapping the present FIRST, you find out what you have before you decide if you want it. Learning the best interviewing techniques makes it much easier to accurately identify High Performers and reduce hiring disappointments.

This is a two-part article. In PART 2: Help is available! The conclusion includes Interviewing This is a two-part article. The conclusion includes Interviewing Tips and Techniques to better identify High Performers. Locus of Control, a 50-year old psychology will be introduced to improve interviewing effectiveness. This behavioral psychology can provide interviewers with insight to the achievement attitudes and behaviors that are present in ALL Top Performers. By using simple interviewing techniques, Locus of Control can add information that will improve the accuracy of distinguishing the High Performers from the Impostors. You don’t have to wait until Part II is posted. If you’d like to receive it now, we’ll be happy to e-mail it to you. Simply click HERE and type “Part II” in the comment box and we’ll send it to you.