Why You Aren’t Hiring the Best People

I recently watched an interview with Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations at Google. He was promoting his book “Work Rules — Insights from Inside Google that Transform How You Live and Lead.” The author addressed many issues from what he refers to as “Intellectual Humility” to “Let the Inmates Run the Asylum.” The area I thought most relevant to my readers was the chapter where he discusses “why hiring is the single most important people activity in any organization.” It’s all about recruiting and hiring people, and it debunks most of what you, and in the past I, have done to get high quality employees.

Some of the important points for hiring the best people include:

1. Spend more money on hiring great people and you’ll save money on training, poor performance management, and turnover. Attracting, hiring, and placing talent is an essential part of building and maintaining a business, and should be reflected in your budget.
2. Hire slowly. We all know mediocre people start looking better when the job has been open a few months and the manager is screaming for help. This is treacherous. I had a simple rule: a person who was a “maybe” always became a “no.” The few times I broke my rule, I had to live with the terrible consequences. I’d rather wait with no one than deal with a bad hire. Also, I anticipated openings, so we were generally ahead of the game. That is because I knew:

1. Good people are already employed. I recruited many, many people over the course of my career. I hired more people away from competitors than I took from applications (the employed vs. the unemployed or disgruntled). When I pitched a prospective employee, they often informed me they were “already happy.” I replied, “I understand but I am offering a new challenge that will bring you more success and satisfaction.” Generally it worked. The point is I went to them; they didn’t come to me. I was always looking for great people and knew they were few and far between. I also had a budget for an exceptional candidate, even if I didn’t have a job at the moment.
2. Everyone’s job is looking for the best. My direct reports and other team members knew an important part of their job was to scout people and be an ambassador for the organization, so as to attract quality. Whether it was at a conference, shopping the competition, or attending a professional gathering, we were always scouting. Bringing talent to the company was an important element of compensation review. We also rewarded people specifically for finding good candidates.

3. Admit we all bring prejudices to the interview process. We think we know who makes a successful hire but it’s not based on data and more on whom we know and what we like. This is why we have to analyze our failures AND successes. You went to an Ivy League school and there were smart people. That doesn’t mean the same people will work well in your culture. Look at your top performers — what do they really have in common? You might be surprised. It’s the way “Moneyball: The Art of Winning the Unfair Game” debunked baseball recruiting and salary principles. Which is why:

1. Managers should not do the hiring. Bock argues they cannot be objective or analytical about the process. They have a need and they think they know what works. They are tempted to hire people they like based on superficial traits unrelated to personality and history, the job’s needs, and are tempted to compromise their standards when the days become months. Also, managers are generally terrible interviewers. Google takes most of this away from its managers and places the role with dedicated professionals.
2. You must see a large number of applicants to find the top performers. Resumes and applications tell you some facts but can disguise good and bad. They are often not from the top people. Because you are hiring slowly and have attracted what you think are good people, you need to see a good number to get the top 10% or better. It means you are always interviewing.
3. Focus on their accomplishments not where they come from. What you can do for me often depends on what you have done recently. Smart people get A’s in college. Smart people who worked their way through college and earned an “A,” traveled from a distant lands to reach their dreams, or built an app at age 14, probably will bring a greater level of creativity and motivation to your place than the person who was given everything through privilege and really accomplished little on their own. It’s all part of the hiring equation.

Many of these points for hiring the best people will contradict what you believe or are currently doing when it comes to attracting, recruiting, hiring, and retaining top level employees. Google has developed this process over years and now has more than 50,000 employees. There just might be something to it.