We spend so much time pursuing the passive candidates that we overlook the ones knocking on our door. Something about the stigma of someone who’s out there looking. But in this time when literally tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs, it’s crazy to assume that everyone who is out there looking for a job is “damaged goods.”

Some people I’ve met even look for reasons to devalue the candidacy of active candidates who are still employed. I’ve heard recruiters question why people are responding to ads while they still have a job. This train of thought goes something like, “In this day and age if you have a job, why would you be considering making a move? Are you about to be fired or laid off?” What is it that makes us question the motives of people looking for jobs? Aren’t we making our jobs harder by only looking for the flaws in active candidates? I’m all for screening applicants, but lately I’ve seen recruiters time after time shooting themselves in the foot.

Are we back in high school playing “hard to get”? As Todd Raphael put it when we were discussing this topic, “It’s a silly game where a candidate is supposed to be pretending they’re not looking.”

And what makes someone a passive candidate anyway?

The same person can be both a passive and an active candidate. If you find someone on LinkedIn and it says they’re “open to new opportunities,” is that person active or passive? Some might say that if they are employed they are passive, and if they are not then they are active. But it’s the same person you found when you were searching a person with that skill set. What difference does it make if they are unemployed if they’ve got what your organization needs!

If you call someone in your network talking about your current search and he says, “I know this guy named Peter; you should call him, he’d be perfect” — is Peter a passive or active candidate? If Peter happens to have his resume on Monster and CareerBuilder, does that mean he’s less valuable because he needs or wants to find a new job? Maybe you overlooked Peter’s resume because he has experience in a different industry, but now that he has been recommended by a trusted source you’re willing to ignore that deficit in his experience. You may have disregarded a perfectly viable candidate because you were intent on finding so-called passive candidates.

We also make our jobs harder because right now lots of passive candidates are less likely to take your calls or consider a move. People are trying to ride out the storm. I have yet to meet the recruiter who says they need to make their job more difficult.

There are all kinds of reasons that people are actively looking for work, and most of them do not cast a pall on the applicant. What if I need to find a job because my wife is being transferred to Chicago? What if I need a job because my company is going out of business or laying people off? What if my company just merged and I’m being proactive in positioning myself on the market before the company starts making up their RIF lists or transferring departments and people to other states? These are all attributes that make the person a more, not less, desirable candidate. The man who is looking because his wife transferred has shown that he is a good team player who can support others. The person who’s lost a job due to a business folding has learned valuable skills about how to survive in a difficult environment. The woman staying ahead of the curve by looking before the merger RIF’s hit has demonstrated a keen business sense and the ability to be proactive and in control. We may find ourselves ignoring proactive, experienced team players with solid business experience just because they are actively looking for a job. Since when did looking for a better job become the mark of Cain?

Many of us assume that the passive candidate is better because these are the people who are currently employed and therefore, employable. They are doing a good job for someone. Why do we assume that they’re doing a good job? Because they are not out there looking. How circular is that logic? Unless you have access to their personnel file and can review their last three performance evaluations, how do you know this person is doing a good job? If you use only one metric — employed — to validate their candidacy, you may be putting too much weight on a flawed criteria. Most successful recruiters use multiple metrics to determine the viability of a candidate.

The recruiting landscape has changed once again. We need to change our thinking about candidates. There are Boomers who thought they were going to retire looking to extend their careers; there have been a flood of layoffs; companies are closing their doors. There are going to be a lot of candidates, good candidates, available to us. Very active candidates who need our jobs and are anxious to fill them. We ignore active candidates at our own peril.

And don’t forget, passive candidates often cost more to attract, to recruit, and to retain. If you want to find good candidates less expensively and more quickly, open your doors to active candidates. They will be grateful for the opportunity; anxious to show they can do the work and just may be the keys to solving your staffing problems.

What’s a recruiter to do?

Focus on retention. It’s at times like these that organizations earn their employees’ loyalty. As the saying goes, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve seen the market soar and tank. The way companies treat their employees in stressful and frightening economic times goes a long way in determining who comes out of these difficult times better positioned to re-take greater market share.

Kevin Wheeler had a great piece earlier this month about framing the future you want and identifying four things you can do now to make that future more likely. But there’s more that we can do internally. I agree with Kevin that keeping in touch with our best candidates and keeping our pipeline active is critical. The importance of using this time to plan and educate ourselves for our own future success cannot be overstated. But one of the first things I learned as a recruiter is “If you’re not recruiting your best people, someone else is.”

Now is the time to make sure that you are reaching out to your own best people and involving them in conversation. You’ve seen economic downturns before and so have they. We know that we’ll come out of these things, and when we do, the phones will start ringing.

Think about it. When the market starts going up again and senior management is confident that the upswing is for real, you’re going to be asked to go out and get the people you need to sustain your company’s participation in the improving marketplace. But so is your competition — and don’t think they don’t know who the best people in your organization are. They’ve got a list of people in the industry that they covet. They may even have had conversations with your people at conferences or on their own.

You need to be reaching out to your best people now. Not necessarily to reassure them, because you can’t promise anyone anything, but to keep the internal lines of communication open. This is no time for HR to take on a bunker mentality behind closed doors. Hiding in your office is never a good idea. You don’t want to start rumors that could actually stoke people’s fears.

Jim: Where are all the HR people?
Joe: They’re in their offices with the doors closed.
Jim: The economy is real bad. They must be planning a downsizing.
Joe: Uh-oh, you’re right. I’ve heard that a lot of companies in this area are cutting jobs. As soon as things pick up I’m going start looking. Better to do it to them before they do it to me!
Jim: You got that right. Hey Bill, did you hear that there’s going to be a RIF soon?

And that’s how it starts. You don’t want to do is give people one more reason to listen to calls from your competition. The other question that comes to mind goes a little differently, but it’s another reason to be focusing on the positive things you can do when things look bad.

Joe: We’re really taking a hit from this economy. I hear a lot of companies are considering layoffs.
Jim: Yeah, HR is probably making a list right now.
Joe: How come you never see HR people on those lists?
Jim: Yeah! I mean we’re not hiring anyone right now. What are they doing? Why not lay off a few recruiters and save the jobs of the people who do the real work around here?

Doesn’t sound pretty, does it? That’s why you’ve got to get out there and be visible. I’ve heard that nobody wants to see HR walking around during a downturn, because people are afraid that we’re looking to see who’s working, who’s busy, and who’s not. Don’t let that deter you. Get out there. Be open and honest in talking with managers and their best staff to see what you can do to help alleviate people’s fears at a time like this. Encourage managers to have staff or town-hall style meetings with employees to give them a chance to speak openly about their concerns. HR needs to be side-by-side with managers at these meetings.

To be sure, there will be some companies letting people go, and yours may be one of them. But no matter what, no matter how deeply you cut, you’re not going to lay off your best people. These are the most valuable assets your organization has. Unless you’re turning out the lights and rolling up the carpets, as long as your firm is around, you want them working for you. These are the people who make your company successful, and will again in the future. That’s why you need to be re-engaging them now, when things look bleakest. You can’t give them double-digit raises or six-figure bonuses, but give them what you can, and possibly what they crave most: open communication.

Remind them of how valuable they are to the company. Stress that management is exploring options how best to weather this storm. Ask for their best ideas of what the company can or should do right now, six months down the road, or a year from now when things are different. Because things will be different. Maybe better, hopefully not worse, but certainly different. Ask them what they think is going to happen. They are closer to the front lines and therefore may be hearing different things than the people in the executive suite are hearing. Treat them with respect and get their input. After all, these are your best people. The same things that make them good at their jobs may also give them insights about where your industry is going.

I brought ideas like this to one company I was working with when they were considering layoffs. I asked senior management what they were planning to do for those employees who remained after the reductions. One manager said, in all seriousness, “We don’t have to do anything for them. They should be HTHJ. Happy to have jobs.” That organization did survive the setbacks it was going through, but has morphed and merged several times since. Many of the best people from that organization have left for the competition or to start businesses of their own. Sure the superstars made it through that round of downsizing, but as soon as it was over, they started looking.

Treating people with respect when things look worst is not just being nice to people, it’s good for business. These are the kind of people you’d have to pay a fortune to get if they were on the open market. Do everything you can now, while they are inside your doors, to keep them there. People are always less likely to look when the economy is bad, but the good people are just as likely to bolt if they see your company behaving badly in bad times. This is an opportunity for your organization to make its reputation. How many times have you heard companies boast about having been in business “X” number of years and never had a layoff? Companies point with pride at a record like that not because they’re nice but because it’s a recruiting and retention tool. They’re working to retain their best and most valuable employees.

Nucor Steel reduces executive perks and will even shorten the workweek from five days to four but doesn’t lay people off. It runs some of the most profitable and efficient steel mills in the world. Lincoln Electric guarantees jobs to employees with just three years of service and has not had a layoff since the 1950s. Its  turnover rate is infinitesimal.

Many of us are recruiters, and our job is to find the best people to fill the vacancies in our organizations. But we are also human resource professionals. When vacancies dry up, we need to focus on other things we can do to add value to our organizations.

Get out there. Be visible. Retention is the most cost-effective form of recruiting. And the time to do it is now.

This was a waste of time.

Not that my soul isn’t worth saving. But it was a waste because I am very firm in my religious beliefs and am not about to change them because of a 90-minute conversation with someone.

It was not an unpleasant conversation. He seemed like a delightful man and we laughed at times as we talked. He was not going to change my mind, but I did respect his commitment. His dedication. He did not let go. Our flight took off at 5:45 in the morning and he was in full swing. He started the conversation before he had his seat belt buckled and he kept it up even as people were deplaning.

He was recruiting.

I was impressed with his zeal. Then again, he is recruiting for a very important cause. It occurred to me that he probably started up these conversations whenever he traveled. He was always looking for recruits, and to put this in recruiting parlance, he is frequently looking for “passive candidates.” He never rests in his search, as there are always openings in his organization. Was he effective? Not with me, but I wonder how many people he has successfully recruited. Lots, I would guess, from the extent of his travels. He has been all around the country and all around the world. He finds people wherever they are. That’s his mission, and that’s what his organization needs.

What’s your mission? Professionally speaking, what are you trying to accomplish? There’s a lot we can learn from Ted. Are you constantly recruiting? Do you strike up conversations with people on planes, in malls, or at events? Are you always trying to meet new people? In the movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” the sales manager says selling is as simple as ABC: Always Be Closing. There are lots of similarities between selling real estate and recruiting, but that’s for another article.

Perhaps we need to create acronyms to remind us how to be successful recruiters. Maybe, if you’ve been finding yourself lax in the networking department, your ABC is “Always be connecting.” If your pipeline is drying up and you’re feeling frustrated, JKL – Just Keep Looking! Or NOP – Never Overlook Possibilities. But don’t compromise your standards. Remember PQR – Persistent Quality Recruiting. But be sure to MNO – Make Numerous Overtures if you’re going to EFGH – Effectively Find Good Hires. OK, I mean, okay, maybe I’m getting carried away, but we do need to remember that candidates don’t always present themselves neatly at our office door. We find them when and where we least expect them.

When I was a human resource generalist for a large organization, I used to say that HR people never take off the HR hat. Whether you are at a meeting, on the phone, or at the holiday party, you are always on duty. Same goes for a recruiter. You never know when or where you are going to find that next great candidate. Ted had no idea about my religious background, my views, or the depth of my belief. That didn’t stop him, and he never lost his good humor as we talked. He did get a little more earnest as we began our final approach because he realized that he had precious little time left to complete his mission.

We can follow his lead. It’s easy to get turned off by a candidate. If we stop recruiting at the first “not interested” from our candidates, we’re going to have a lot of short phone calls. Ted didn’t give up. He made sure to get my business card early in the conversation, so I’ll be very surprised if I don’t hear from him. (Note: before I completed this article I had received e-mails from him.) He sincerely cares about what he’s doing. He’s good at what he does because he has a passion for recruiting. Do you? Do you find yourself getting burned out? Too many candidates, too many openings, or too many rejections?

I remember one time when a friend of mine was returning home from a college-recruiting trip. He did not usually take part in the college visits, as he was primarily an executive recruiter. His focus was management positions. But this trip included a couple of business schools from which his organization hoped to recruit people to be part of the management-trainee program as well as recruiting at other schools. So Mike went along for the whole trip. Now he was on his way back. He was tired, he was cranky (he always said that he didn’t care particularly for campus recruiting because it reminded him of how old he was) and he just wanted to put on his headphones, recline his seat, and close his eyes ’till he landed.

Well, you know what happened. The seat next to Mike was empty until just before the door closed. Mike was anticipating having a little extra elbowroom and then this guy came down the aisle carrying just a briefcase and a trench coat. He looked stressed out. Mike assumed it was due to his almost missing the flight. The man stashed his coat and case overhead and flopped into the seat next to Mike. Mike could sense that he wanted, or perhaps needed, to talk. Fighting every urge to close his eyes and pretend that he was listening to music, Mike removed his headphones and asked, “Rough day?” That was all it took.

His name was Bob and he was out of work. He’d been looking for about six months. He’d had a few leads but nothing had panned out and now he was returning home after a trip that he had hoped would result in an offer, but it didn’t look good. He had made this trip at his own expense to follow up on a lead and a phone interview. He thought that by making the effort and covering the expense of the flight, he might impress the company with his interest in the position and commitment to this opportunity. Bob wasn’t keen on relocating. He would rather stay in the Northeast, but he hadn’t been having any luck so he took a chance on casting his net a little further even if it meant uprooting his family.

But the interviews had gone terribly. The person he’d spoken with on the phone was too busy to spend more than a few minutes with him, he had to start from scratch with every person he met (hadn’t they prepared at all?) and several had no idea why they had been called in to meet with him. It was a frustrating day all around, and right now he didn’t have a particularly high opinion of the company he’d visited. He even said at one point, “I was going to pull my daughter out of the school she loves and away from all her friends for a company like this? Seems like this day was a total waste of time and, unfortunately, money too.”

In the fairy tale version of this story, Bob was perfect for a hard-to-fill position that Mike was working on. No, that didn’t happen, but they did exchange cards and Mike met with him back in New York. Mike didn’t have an opening, but he was very impressed with Bob’s strategic approach to finding a job, his clear analysis of the organizations with which he had met, and his insightful manner of summing up a complex situation, looking at it from all perspectives. Mike referred him to a colleague who was recruiting for someone with Bob’s skills, and he succeeded in securing a position. Mike succeeded as well. Bob always had good things to say about Mike’s company. The recruiter to whom Mike referred Bob has become a more valuable part of Mike’s network, referring several good candidates, a few of whom Mike has hired.

There’s a lot we can learn from Ted, and from Mike. Never stop recruiting, wherever you are, no matter how tired you are, no matter what time of day it is. You never know where that next great candidate will be, or who will lead you to that person. Would you have caught the signals that Mike picked up on? Guy comes on a plane looking stressed, carrying nothing but a trench coat and briefcase, dressed in a suit appropriate for an interview — this might be a guy worth talking with. Maybe it’s just someone who needs to talk, not someone we can hire or refer. It never hurts to hone our networking skills.

To best serve our organizations we need to be constantly on the lookout for talent, and we can never predict where we’re going to find it, or when. Very often candidates will present themselves when we least expect it. By keeping an open mind we increase our likelihood of success. Maybe not immediate success, but somewhere down the line. Gary Player used to say, “The more I practice, the luckier I get.” I tell people, on both sides of the interview table, that the only way to get good at interviewing is to interview. The best way to keep our recruiting antennae honed is to constantly look for signals and indicators, then to test our assumptions. The more we practice the more we’ll succeed.

And don’t close yourself off the next time someone plops down next to you on a plane. It might be your next great hire, or it might be Ted. Either way, you’ve got something to learn and possibly a lot to gain.

You may not save a soul, but you may help someone and you may even fill a job. And for a recruiter, that’s a pretty good day.

This is the one of the classic responses we get when we try to partner with managers to fill their positions. Filling jobs is HR’s job. “Can’t you just find me someone?” the manager will say. “And better ones than you found last time? The last one didn’t stick around very long. I don’t think he even lasted a year. Left after eight or nine months.” Sound familiar?

To effectively fill jobs today, we can’t just keep “throwing spaghetti at the wall” hoping that it will stick. We need to establish a partnership and a process for working with the managers we support to insure that we are finding the people with the correct skills mix who will be successful in our organization’s environment.

Many organizations have clear, well-defined processes for both recruiters and hiring managers to use when staffing. Whether it means using a sophisticated applicant tracking system or some homegrown system using e-mails and online requisitions, the process involved in getting new staff on board is usually well defined. All too often, the hard part is getting our managers to work with us to achieve the mutual goal.

Too many managers are unwilling or unable to actively participate in the hiring process, thereby dooming it to fail. Hiring new staff is too important a task to leave to human resources. This is not to demean HR. But to really make sure we are bringing in the staff with the skills and talent we need, who will be able to get the job done in our organization, we need the involvement, the support, and the active participation of the hiring managers. The first thing to do is to try to figure out why the manager is reluctant to commit their energy to partnering with the recruiter in this crucial process.

Why don’t managers get involved in hiring? How much time have you got? The reasons I’ve heard are as numerous as the excuses terminated staff give for why they were fired. But the majority seem to fall into five categories.

• The insecure manager who is unsure how to hire (”I don’t know how.”)
• Managers who have been burnt in their hiring efforts before (”I’m not good at this.”)
• Managers who are constantly fighting the clock (”I don’t have time.”)
• Managers who think its HR’s responsibility (”It’s not my job.”)
• Managers who are unfamiliar with the software (”I don’t know your system and don’t have time to learn it.”)

Each of these require us to take a different approach to resolve the problem, reassure, and engage the manager, and find a way to make the hiring manager our partner.

“I don’t know how.”

When dealing with the insecure manager we need to draw him out to find out why he feels that this is a skill he can’t master. One of the first things to do is reassure him. Use lots of questions to get him to open up.

• What will the new hire be expected to accomplish?
• Why does this need to get done? Why is it important?
• What are the skills that the new person must have?
• What circumstances exist under which they will be expected to work? Lots of deadlines? Little clear direction? What’s the workplace like?

Use this line of questioning to help the insecure manager better understand what it is that he’s looking for and what results he’s going to get from hiring someone. Lots of people are promoted to manager for their technical or business-related skills. Now he has to learn how to do the more challenging part of the manager’s job: selecting and managing people.

This is where a lot of the insecurity comes from. When faced with the challenge of interviewing and hiring someone new, very often it may seem easier to just do it yourself rather than learn how to select new staff. Our job is to remind him that he got promoted to manager because he did a good job but also because he’s smart enough to do this. Interviewing and hiring staff is a skill, just like any other. It’s not intuitive and it can be learned. We need to help the insecure manager to relax and work more openly with us. Give him a roadmap to follow when hiring and he’ll be able to find the right person.

“I’m not good at this.”

Sometimes a greater challenge is reassuring managers who have been burnt in their hiring efforts before. When working with this manager, you will again ask lots of questions, but in a different direction.

• What went wrong last time?
• How can we prevent it this time?
• What’s the same and can’t be changed?
• What can be changed?
• How should it be changed?

The key is to get the manager over her fear of making another bad hire. Is she concerned about her reputation? Is she afraid to upset the chemistry of her current department? Everyone agrees that they are overworked, and that bringing in some reinforcements would alleviate some of the workload. But the manager sees a cohesive well-functioning team and she’s afraid of the impact that introducing someone new may have. Further, if the last new hire left in a messy termination, this could make the manager gun-shy to bring on anyone new. We all know how time-consuming and ugly (if not downright painful) some terminations can be. Find out if this manager is laboring under the “What if I have to fire this person someday?” cloud. If you’re worrying about firing someone someday, it’s practically impossible to hire anyone.

“I don’t have time.”

One of the most difficult managers to pin down is the manager who is working under unrealistic time constraints. Your approach will be a little different this time. You’ll still use questions, but the manager may not think he even has time to answer your questions, much less interview anyone. A few ways for you to find out what you need to know to find the right candidates are:

• Go to him on his schedule, whenever you can; don’t expect him to make time for you.
• If he won’t give you the time to work out the specs of the job, shadow him, or his staff, to learn about the job.
• Can he delegate the first interview to a senior staff person?

To make it clear that you understand the kind of environment in this group, the intense time pressure under which they work, be sure to make “working under extreme time constraints” one of the strategic skills you’ll seek in candidates for the job. This will make it clear to the manager that you do understand what he’s going through and will increase his confidence in your ability to work with him. Further, if he feels that you really do understand, he’ll be more likely to cooperate with you to insure that you get the right person. Another way to gain the manager’s confidence is to speak his language. Link strategic hiring to performance management. This is a bottom-line, results-focused manager. Show him that you can operate the same way.

“It’s not my job.”

Some managers will still tell you that hiring people is HR’s job. The bottom line is, HR can’t do it alone. We have to convince this manager that filling jobs effectively is a collaborative effort.

• We need her input if we are going to find and hire the best person for the job.
• Without it we’ll just keep churning and churning.
• We can fill jobs quickly, but we’d rather fill them only once.
• Our goal and her need is to be effective, not simply efficient.
• Speed is not the answer, quality is.

If you are questioned or challenged by this manager (”Can’t you do your job? Why do I have to hire people?”) your response must be that “Yes, I certainly can hire someone. But I want to hire the right someone, not just anyone.” Again, find out what is at the root of this manager’s reluctance to collaborate. Is there really an insecure manager under the surface or someone who’s been burned before? Remind this manager that she deserves the best person out there. Working in partnership with you in the planning phase is the best way to insure that she’ll get that person.

“I don’t know your system and don’t have time to learn it.”

The manager who claims to be unfamiliar with the applicant software is becoming more and more rare, but there are still a few out there who hide behind this excuse. I have found that usually this is just a mask for the real issue, and part of working with this manager is getting to the bottom of his reluctance. In a nice way we need to make it clear that the technology is here to stay and technological advances in human resources are no different than advances in any other line of business. We simply aren’t going back to paper applications and snail-mail resumes. The business and the market won’t let us. Approaches to take with this manager are:

• Explain that hiding away from the software is no excuse in today’s environment.
• Tell them it’s easier than they think.
• Work with the manager to get to the real issue.
• Offer to go through the software again to familiarize the manager with the system, but do not let it become standard operating procedure. You have your job to do, and using the software is part of the manager’s job.

Bluntly put, blaming it on the software is probably the lamest excuse out there. It usually means that the manager is challenged on time, past history, or lack of experience. Our job is to find out what’s really going on so we can use the right tools or the right line of questioning to get to the right solution.

The key to creating a partnership with our managers is not to demand that they accommodate our requests. We need to sell them on the benefits of working with us and the value of their input. We really are trying to find them the best person out there, but we can’t do it alone. Jobs keep changing and the needs of the organization keep evolving. To be effective in meeting the needs of our managers, keep the lines of communication open so we know what they need and can anticipate when they’ll need it. The better we get at predicting what we can do to help their business run smoothly, the more they will see us as the partners we strive to be. Then we won’t have to go chasing after them; they’ll be soliciting our input because they fully understand the value and benefit to them of working more closely with us.

My friend was released after just 20 days on the job.

She was given work assignments to complete that had never been discussed in the interview. At her exit interview, her manager admitted he had overestimated her technical skills in the interview. She had not professed extensive technical skills in the interview. She was given no notice that she was to be terminated, just asked to come to the conference room at 3 pm on what turned out to be her last day.

Reflecting back, she realized that there had been virtually no communication with her manager over her last three days leading up to her termination. What’s ironic is that she was actually getting a lot of work done then. She felt that she was finally just starting to get the hang of things.

This was during the time when her manager was probably meeting with HR to work out and finalize her termination. At the exit interview, she was told that she “didn’t pick things up quickly enough.”

My friend had asked lots of questions of her manager while employed there, particularly when given work that was beyond what had been discussed in the interview. But whenever she asked her boss about her assignments, he talked about other things and never really answered her questions.

When a manager says something like “you didn’t pick things up quickly enough,” this can also be seen to mean, “I didn’t take the time to manage you well.”

Especially with new hires, managers have to invest a lot of time in integrating the new employee. When a new piece of equipment is obtained for the office, there is often instruction in how to use that piece of equipment, at least for the person who is responsible for using it. We may even send the person to training in how to use the machine.

Sink or Swim?

We don’t seem to do that consistently with people. We throw them into situations and expect them to “sink or swim.” We cannot afford to have too many new hires sink. It just costs too much money.

It costs a manager something more than money to admit that he may not have managed the person in the way that they needed to be managed. He didn’t take the time to figure out how to motivate the person. He didn’t figure out how the new person learns best, through careful instruction or trial and error.

The cost is that the manager has to admit that he made a mistake. That he was wrong. It’s much easier to blame the now-terminated new hire:

• “You didn’t pick things up fast enough.”
• “You weren’t communicating enough.”
• “You didn’t understand the culture here.”
• “You were a bad fit.”

In all these cases, the common denominator may have been that the manager didn’t do a good enough job in interviewing the person or integrating the new hire into the workforce in the first weeks or months. In every case, the manager blamed the employee for what may have been the manager’s shortcoming.

Managing is hard work. It’s not intuitive. No one is born a manager. Some people are born leaders, but managing requires training and it takes time.

Good managers can be developed, but only if they are given the time to learn, also the same way new hires need time to develop.

Managers need to master a broad skill set to be effective in all phases of the role:

• Understanding how the department operates so that the right mix of jobs is created.
• Interviewing (which is so much more than just talking to people) to effectively determine whether candidates have the correct skill-match for the position.
• Orienting the new hire to the workplace and to the job and his or her colleagues. Integrating a new hire takes weeks, not hours. Too frequently, managers leave orientation up to HR. No offense to HR, but new hires are too valuable to be trusted only to HR. The HR team has a critical role to play in integrating new employees, but the new hire is going to listen far more to what their new manager tells them than anything HR has to say.
• Setting performance objectives so that the new hire clearly understands what is expected of him or her.
• Giving feedback on an ongoing basis, not just at the end of the year in an anxiety-ridden performance evaluation.
• Recognizing and rewarding people for their effort as well as for their accomplishments.

When you look at all the expectations that we have of managers, it’s easy to understand why we invest so much in management development and training. It takes time to become an effective manager. Anyone promoted to management generally figures this out in the first few days on the job.

The piece that too often gets overlooked is training our managers in people management. How to interview candidates, how to select the right ones who can be most productive in their environment, and how to continue to get the most out of them on the job. Managers need to learn how to engage their staff so they give their best effort on the job as opposed to just doing enough not to get fired.

The good news is we usually give new managers the time to figure out how to do their new job, in part because of all the time and money invested in developing this person to the point of promotion.

No doubt, this new manager would certainly be annoyed if after a few weeks in the new position, their manager called them into a conference room and started in with, “You’re not picking things up quickly enough.”

Uncertainty is a constant companion during a job search, and it often follows us on the job.

When you’re out of work, you are frequently plagued with doubt and the fear that you’ll never find the job that’s right for you. Then you see an ad and get excited. This is not only a job for which you are suited, but it’s something that you’d actually be excited to do 40 (or more) hours a week. It looks like a good company and the salary they advertise fits your budget. You sit down and start to crank out a cover letter.

Then the doubts creep in. What are they hiding? If it’s such a great opportunity, why is the position open? Do I really want to do this? The commute is kind of far?and so on.

Next thing you know, the enthusiasm has drained out of you. Your cover letter, if you actually finish it, has none of the exhilaration you first felt when you saw the ad.

In fact, it’s kind of blah: “I’m responding to your ad that I saw on [fill in your favorite job board]. I feel that I am an excellent candidate for this position because, blah, bah, blah.” As you re-read the letter, you doubt that even you would hire you.

If you actually get a response to your submission, you start to wonder even more about the company. As Groucho Marx once said, “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member.”

How could they respond positively to that letter? They must be pretty hard up to fill this position. By the time you have a phone-screen interview, you’re about ready to advise everyone you know that if they have stock in this company, they’d better sell because the company is in trouble.

Should you deign to appear at the appointed time of the interview, you may be leaning to one side from that chip on your shoulder that’s the size of an emerging nation. Needless to say, you sabotage the interview at every turn, which only goes to prove that you were right in the first place. You didn’t want to work here anyway, did you?

When you don’t get an offer (heck, you probably won’t even get a response) you’re okay with that. Because you turned them down. And you walked away unscathed because you did it to them before they could do it to you. Nope, no two-bit, fly-by-night company is going to hurt you with rejection again.

This, unfortunately, is how many people are approaching interviews these days. Candidates expect the company to treat them badly. No acknowledgement of receipt of the resume, or at best an automated response from some piece of software. Weeks can go by before people are contacted for an interview and then when the candidate shows up, the interviewer is often unprepared or the person the candidate was slated to see is busy and someone else is in his place. Is this any way to staff your company in the dreaded impending recruiting crunch?

Most organizations will read the previous paragraphs and say, “That’s not the way we do it.” But how many organizations poll their candidates to get their perceptions? I don’t mean the ones you hire. Not the ones who successfully navigate the shoals and land a job. What about going back to that incredibly rich source of information, the candidates not chosen, the so-called rejects?

It has been said we learn a lot more from our failures than from our successes. When a candidate doesn’t get a job, we think that they were unsuccessful. Maybe we were as well. Maybe we failed to see what the candidate really had to offer.

If you survey the people who got jobs, you’re probably going to hear all the good things you want to hear about your selection process. But what would those people not hired say? Did we probe their abilities? Or did we look to confirm our first impressions? Did we truly serve our organizations by trying to find the best person for the job or did we opt for the safe choice?

When I’ve polled managers as to which they preferred (experience or potential), they invariably chose both. When pressed to choose one, the answer is usually potential.

Most managers feel they can develop talent and count on their recruiters to provide it. But an insecure or inexperienced recruiter too often makes the offer to someone who simply has done a similar function for someone else before. It’s safe to point to a person’s resume and say, “Well, they’ve done it before for our competition so I believe that they can do it for us.” But some people have 10 years of experience and some people have one year of experience 10 times!

We are not in the business of making safe choices. There’s a saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” If we are going to really make our organizations successful, as it becomes a seller’s market for the candidates, then we are going to have to do a much better job of finding and recognizing talent.

Rules for finding and recognizing talent:

1. Look where you haven’t looked before. Don’t ignore your traditional sources, but don’t rely solely on them either.
2. Look where your competition isn’t. Job fairs are a great place to mingle with candidates, but it’s also a great place to meet and greet your competition.
3. Don’t let your first impression also be your last impression. Explore your biases and understand your preferences. Was it the candidates’ skills that attracted you or the fact that they attended the same school you did?
4. Ask questions that allow the candidates to dazzle you. Don’t overuse closed-end questions that prevent candidates from shining.
5. Think creatively about where else you might apply their skills if the candidate is not right for the position for which they interviewed. Almost everyone has something to offer. Which managers are more open to developing potential rather than relying solely on experience? Which departments have the time to grow their own?
6. Sell the position to every candidate, not just the ones you plan to pass on to the next interview. The person may not be right for this position, but they may be perfect for the next. You want them to leave the interview thinking nothing but good thoughts about your organization. Further, this candidate may not be the right engineer, programmer, or nurse for this opening, but the candidate probably knows other people in the same profession who may be better suited. Turn every candidate not hired into part of your sourcing network.

In order to effectively apply these rules, we have to be ready to “Sell and Quell.” Sell our organizations and quell the fears and uncertainties of our candidates. We’ll keep our pipelines full of talent if the word gets out that ours is an organization that treats candidates well even if they’re not going to make an offer. And we’ll keep our organizations full of valued employees if we make sure that our managers remember that those uncertainties don’t go away once the candidates are employed.

They need to keep “selling and quelling” with their current employees because as I said, uncertainty often follows people even when they get the job.

While researching a project on stress, I caught sight of a forum thread on an HR website that said “Interview Questions.” As I said, I was researching stress, so this would naturally pop up in my search. After all, we know that interviews can be stress-inducing situations.

This site was asking recruiters to share some of their favorite interview questions. Having spent a number of years in corporate recruiting and having trained countless recruiters in how to interview, I thought, “Okay, let’s see what new and creative questions people are coming up with.”

To put it mildly, I was shocked. The questions people were submitting, and they were asked for their best, included:

1. “What would your best friend say about you? Your worst enemy?”
2. “Is honesty really the best policy?”
3. “What do you do in your spare time?”
4. And the vampire-like, impossible-to-kill, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Haven’t we officially retired these questions? Where’s the one about what kind of tree would you be or your favorite color crayon? Is it any wonder we’re still fighting to establish our credibility in some organizations if recruiters insist on using questions like these?

I tried to imagine myself sitting on the other side of the desk (I’m sure that the people using these questions haven’t thought about the proper seating for an effective interview) and how I might respond.

Remember, these are all questions that people submitted to the website as their best questions to use in an interview.

I am not making these up:

1. “If a spaceship were to land outside this office and you were asked to get in, would you? Why?” (Is an acceptable answer, “Because they had a ray gun?”)
2. “Am I a good interviewer? Why or why not?” (Well, if you have to ask me, maybe we ought to switch chairs.)
3. “If you were a part of a car, which part would you be and why?” (Gee, I was all prepared for the tree question. Lemme think.)
4. “What do you enjoy most about your current/last position? What did you enjoy least?” (Boy, I never saw that second question coming!)
5. “If you had the opportunity to participate in a circus performance, which role would be yours?” (Well, I wouldn’t be the clown because clearly, that role is taken.)
6. “What makes you difficult to work with?” (Is the correct answer, “Stupid questions that are not job-related?”)

And then there were these six, all from the same source:

1. “What are ur strengths and weeknesses?” (Spelling?)
2. “Why should I hire you?” (Because you’re trying to fill a position?)
3. “How has ur education prepared u for this job?” (How has yours?)
4. “If I asked ur present employer to describe u, what would they say about u?” (They might say that I’m employed there so why are you asking!)
5. “What qualities should a successful manager have?” (How about good interviewing skills.)
6. “If u had ur life to live over again?what would u do differently?” (Skip this interview!)

Overlooking for a moment the potential liability and indefensibility of most of these questions, how do these relate to how the person will perform the job at hand? For years, I’ve told people that any question used in an interview needs to be related to the job, how the person will meet the requirements of the position, and if the candidate can produce the necessary results. Maybe we need to turn things up a notch. Don’t just make the questions job-related; make them results-focused.

One of the keys to success for an HR professional is to truly understand the businesses that we support. To do this we have to know the outcomes of the business, what results they are looking for, and how we can help to meet those results. We can meet them by providing the people who have the skills to get the work done.

But it’s not just doing the work; it’s completing the work. It’s achieving the outcomes that make the organization profitable.

Therefore, in our interviews we have the opportunity to query the candidates not just on their abilities but also on their accomplishments.

Don’t simply ask them about what they’ve done or accomplished in previous jobs. If you only ask them about what they’ve done, you may never be sure if they can achieve the results you need. But in all those circus questions, the recruiter is no doubt trying to determine the person’s work ethic, or how they see themselves in the work world. Better to ask them about how they went about completing projects, overcoming obstacles, and meeting deadlines/quotas/goals.

Make it clear that yours is an organization that values the successful completion of objectives in your interviews. Take the time to convey to the applicant what’s really important in your organization. And in most organizations, what’s important is getting the work done, properly, on time, and correctly.

I’m not going to give you a bunch of stock questions to use in your interviews. I can’t. I don’t know what results you’re looking for in the successful candidate for the position. I don’t know what your organization expects the candidate to achieve. I don’t know how your organization defines success.

But I know where you can get all this information. Sit down with the hiring manager and find out the expectations for the candidate. You’ll be that much closer to finding the right candidates for the job.

I’ll give you one question that you can use. When you meet with the managers, long before you interview a single candidate, ask them this:

“What will you see when the person we hire has done the work completely and correctly?”

Get your managers focused on outcomes and results, too. Managers sometimes think they have to talk about competencies, emotional intelligence, or work ethic when meeting with recruiters. In other words, they think they have to talk “HR-ese”.

But what most managers like to talk about is results, performance, and all that their department has accomplished. This will give you a clue as to what they value and what they see as the keys to success in their organization.

If they talk about meeting deadlines and commitments to the customer, then you know you need to find someone who can work under pressure to get the work done on time. If they stress quality and getting it right the first time, no matter how long it takes, then you know that attention to detail and organization is critical to the candidate’s success. If the talk is all about things that the department has done for the customer, then a service-oriented candidate is the solution.

Use the information you get from your managers to determine your strategy for sourcing and recruiting the appropriate slate of candidates. You’ll know what’s important to being successful and this in turn will make you more successful in meeting the needs of your clients. Then you can keep the clowns, extra-terrestrials, and deadwood out of your organization.