Measuring and Maximizing Quality of Hire

Lou Alder

Measuring quality of hire (QoH) is somewhat elusive, but critical if a company wants to know if its sourcing, recruiting, assessment, and hiring programs are working properly. Without it, implementing a raising-the-talent-bar strategy become problematic. In this article I’d like to focus on some core issues involving QoH, and offer an idea on how to measure it both pre- and post-hire.

Let’s get started by first defining Quality of Hire (QoH). In an article last year, I proposed this as a basic definition: how well a new person meets the performance needs of the job using the following 1-5 yardstick:

Level 1.0: Underperforms on all core performance requirements of the job.

Level 2.0: Reasonable match on most job needs, but needs extra management, direction, or coaching to meet the basic performance standards.

Level 2.5: Average performance. Meets basic requirements of the job with a normal degree of management coaching and direction.

Level 3.0: Solid performance. Meets significant performance requirements of the job on a consistent basis with minimal management direction and support.

Level 4.0: Consistently exceeds significant performance requirements of the job on measures of quality and/or quantity.

Level 5.0: Far exceeds significant performance requirements of the job on a consistent basis.

While typical interview and assessment tools can differentiate between above and below average performance, they don’t do too well in determining if someone is a Level 3, 4 or 5. Traditional job descriptions are part of the problem, not the solution, since they emphasize skills rather than performance. Generic competency models are similarly flawed, since they don’t adjust for the actual job requirements nor any unusual circumstances involved. Behavioral interviewing works to some degree by adding structure to the interview and reducing emotional bias, but is not specific enough in measuring variations in good performance. While these tools are adequate for separating the good from the bad, they’re far less effective for measuring QoH.

To more precisely measure pre-hire QoH, understand what drives performance and what causes underperformance. Assuming the person hired was appropriate on all traditional measures, a determination then needs to be made as to whether the person was hired for the right job, for the right manager, for the right company, and under the right circumstances. This type of multi-step approach offers a model for developing the means to measure pre-hire QoH. Here’s how:

1. Good person hired or not. First determine if the person hired was a generically solid performer in past roles doing similar work. For our purposes let’s define a Level 3 performer as someone who is in the top third or the top quartile of their peer group. These are people who get assigned bigger projects, get promoted faster, get bigger reviews, and receive formal recognition for a job well-done.
2. Good job fit or not. A good person put in the wrong job is a big cause of underperformance, yet in most companies this assessment is not as robust as it should be. To measure pre-hire QoH on a job fit basis requires an assessment of past performance to some predefined future performance. The Q12  identifies 12 factors that drive performance and satisfaction. Most of them relate to job fit, e.g., clarifying expectations up front; providing appropriate tools, resources, and materials; assigning people work they are highly motivated to perform; and providing appropriate training. Most companies blunderbuss their way through the job fit part of the assessment by over-relying on generic competency models, poorly constructed assessments, and an over-emphasis on skills. None of these help measure pre-hire QoH more precisely. A direct assessment of job fit, including the ability and motivation to perform the work at peak levels is an important subset of the pre-hire QoH measurement.
3. Good managerial fit or not. A good person doing the right job for the wrong manager is a primary cause of dissatisfaction and under-performance. Bad managers demotivate their teams, and the best ones inspire them. One way to measure managerial fit as part of pre-hire QoH is to compare the new hire’s developmental and managerial needs to how the hiring manager trains, develops, and manages his/her team.
4. Right company/situation or not. Given a good person, appropriate job, and the right manager, a mismatch at the company cultural or circumstance level could still undermine performance. During the assessment some measure needs to be made regarding these environmental issues, including pace, intensity, level of sophistication, complexity, how decisions are made, resource availability, and company politics. While most companies recognize the importance of this, the actual assessment is relatively superficial.

Considering this multi-step concept, here’s an approach for measuring and maximizing quality of hire:

1. During the intake meeting, prepare a performance profile clarifying the performance expectations for the job.
2. Look for the achiever pattern during an extended work-history review. This is comparable to gathering forensic evidence that the person is in the top half of the top half, doing work similar to that described in the performance profile.
3. Conduct a “performance review” approach to interviewing, rather than a traditional behavioral interview. Here’s how: during the interview spend 10-15 minutes digging into the best example you can find of the candidate doing something similar for each of the performance objectives listed in the performance profile (here’s an interview guide for this). Then “grade” the person the same way you’d conduct a performance review using the 1-5 scale noted above.
4. Examine the trend of performance over time and compare this to top performers in your company. The idea is that the steeper the slope of the line the stronger the person.
5. Assess managerial fit. One way to do this is to compare how controlling vs. hands-off the hiring manager is to how much direction and support the candidate has received in the past.
6. Measure cultural and situational fit by understanding the circumstances associated with the candidate’s best work. The idea here is to determine if there are any situational issues that affect performance.
7. Measure team skills by examining the functional makeup of and types of teams the person has led and has been assigned to.
8. Combine all of the separate scores for the 10 factors into an overall pre-hire quality of hire measure using the talent scorecard.

One problem companies have in measuring pre-hire quality of hire is the continued reliance on old tools. The metaphor that to a person with only a hammer every problem looks like a nail, rings true in this situation. To measure pre-hire QoH more precisely requires a different way of thinking and different measuring sticks. The multi-step approach is a simple way to rethink the problem in combination with a pre-hire performance review type of interview. Using a quality of hire scorecard like this is a reasonable approach to assess all of the variables that best predict on-the-job performance and those that contribute to underperformance. As long as the scorecard is based on real job needs and circumstances, the same evaluation process can then be conducted post-hire. The causes of differences in predicted vs. actual job performance can then be identified and used for process improvement.

Implementing a talent acquisition strategy requires some type of QoH metric to monitor effectiveness and provide immediate feedback. After the fact is too late to do anything much about it, since you won’t know if it’s working or not. The approach suggested here offers a commonsense roadmap to begin. From what I’ve seen, getting started is often the most difficult part of the journey.

The Myth of the Hard to Fill Job

Howard Adamsky

“I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs”. –Samuel Goldwynn

I just finished looking at a position profile for a job with a pharmaceutical company. The laundry list of bulleted requirements for this position is 22 — and I can assure you that these are not easy-to-find requirements. They’re all action words and full of responsibility for everything under the sun. (Yes, advanced degree required.) Perhaps God can do this job but in terms of mere human beings, I do not see it happening. I picked up the phone and had a conversation with a trusted associate who tells me the position has been open for a long time and has now been classified as “hard to fill.”

I dislike this “hard-to-fill” mindset. I know that some jobs, by their nature, are going to be a challenge, but the impossible ones just irritate me for a host of reasons. Let me enumerate just three of them below and we can then move on to solution-oriented thinking.

1. It is Alive. After a while, hard-to-fill jobs take on a life of their own. Corporate recruiting quickly sees that the requirements are bizarre, and as such, a self-fulfilling prophecy begins to take hold. Very soon, no one is good enough for the job as the hiring manager breezes through resumes rejecting all. The corporate recruiters fail at every turn to impress the hiring manager, who actually thinks that this is a reasonable search. Sadly, it’s often a needle in the haystack dilemma that will come to no good for anyone involved.
2. Hard to Please Hiring Manager. Hard-to-fill jobs, by their nature, often come from the most unreasonable of hiring managers. These are the managers who “know what they want and want what they want” with little regard to the available population. From those individuals, who are seldom pleased with recruiting in the first place, there seems to develop an almost perverse pleasure in finding reasons for not interviewing candidates. Often, they will have a cursory conversation with a candidate by phone if you pressure them, not get back to you, and when you track them down, tell you they did not like the candidate. Reasons why? It is in some notes they have and will get back to you. They seldom do.
3. Circus Time. They seek out agencies. The hiring managers now turn on internal recruiting with a fury, saying that they just do not like any of the people you are showing them. Now that recruiting is demoralized, the fun and games really begins as the agencies embark on pumping in resumes. Naturally, because this is a hard-to-fill job, reaction time is often slow because the expectations to fill the job are not very high in the first place. Endless time is taken as the “critical job” sits empty. Honestly, how critical can it be if no one is doing it for six or eight months? The illusionary fee hanging over the head of the agency hire amps up the manager’s expectations to even greater levels because if they are going to pay a fee, the person better be a water-walker. Honestly, this is dismal for all concerned.

Hard-to-fill jobs? Almost never.

Hard-to-please hiring managers and/or corporate cultures of dysfunctionality: often times, yes. Illusionary thinking in terms of expectations and misguided hiring philosophy? Once again, often times yes. There are, in almost all cases, no hard-to-fill positions. Most positions that are open for endless time are that way for a reason. Let’s look at just a few of the many possibilities.

• Perhaps it is not one job but actually two. Does OD/HR need to be called in to assess requirements and realign thinking and/or structure to make it work?
• There is only budget for one job? Nonsense. A budget is artificial and nothing more then a spreadsheet, often put there by individuals who are, in reality, clueless. Change the budget and split the job or cut the requirements and hire two of them at slightly different levels.
• Cost is too high? Why are you looking at cost when you should be looking at value and ROI? What if excellence cost a bit more then the bean counters had hoped for? Going one step further, what is the “cost” of not filling this position? Where are the pain points, and who feels them?

Lastly, organizational influences and political muscle should gravitate toward a discovery initiative as it relates to the real and meaningful problems associated with hard-to-fill jobs. These jobs should not sit and languish for endless time. The longer a job is open, the more scrutiny it should be under. Hard-to-fill jobs are a problem begging for a solution. Once unearthed, the associated difficulties should be vigorously addressed and corrected.

Do this and we empower recruiters to hire great employees. Fail to do this and they chase after illusions and sad possibilities.