Study Reveals Mistakes in Global Hiring Process
The firm’s Global Selection Forecast 2012 research — conducted in partnership with Oracle — is the first forecast report completed after the recession; it revealed employment data about missed opportunities throughout an organization’s hiring process that impacted confidence in new hires and their fit to the job. The research results were from more than 250 staffing directors and 2,000 new hires from 28 countries.
“For most companies, the actual process for making a hiring decision is less effective than a coin toss,” said Scott Erker, Ph.D., senior vice president of Selection Solutions at Development Dimensions International. “The key to making better hiring decisions is to know more – and guess less – about who you hire.”
Only 48 percent of all organizations rated the hiring process as highly effective while the same amount of staffing directors rated retaining new hires as a top priority.
The major findings include:
Where is the person we interviewed?When asked to name the top reasons for hiring mistakes, nearly one-third of staffing directors blamed over-reliance on a hiring manager’s evaluations and 21 percent blamed candidates who exaggerated their actual skills.
I didn’t apply for this job!While a little more than half (51 percent) of new hires are confident in their decision to accept a new job, the failure of the hiring process to paint a realistic picture of the job, department and company adds to the rest of new hires’ uncertainty. The research found that employers who do a better job of giving future candidates a realistic job preview produced hires that were more confident in their decisions, highly engaged and less likely to immediately look for another job.
Bad interviews do more harm. Only one in three staffing directors said their hiring managers are skilled at conducting high-quality interviews and that same number reported being satisfied with their interviewer-training program.