Hiring Wisdom: Blessings in Disguise When You Make a Bad Hire

Once you get over your disappointment because the “eagle” you thought you hired turned out to be a turkey, here’s a simple way to turn this unfortunate experience into a blessing.

Just ask yourself: “Where did we go wrong?” We learn far more from our mistakes than our successes, so this is a golden opportunity to improve your hiring system.

Here are some things to consider:

Did your telephone pre-screen ensure that person met your standards or did you find out too late the person didn’t have reliable transportation or wasn’t the morning person you needed for the 6 am shift?
Did you interview and/or test for mental and physical capacities? If new hires fail because they can’t catch on or don’t have the required stamina, you need to institute a test or interview questions that determine their capacities to do the job. (If you would like a set of sample questions, drop us a note at info@humetrics.com.)
If they fail because they’re not team players or undependable, they’re pulling the wool over your eyes in the interview and you need to test for attitude and/or ask lots of attitude interview questions as well as asking about the attitudes you need when you call references.
If the driver you just hired has an accident right off the bat, your test for this skill is not rigorous enough or you’re not checking DMV records and references. (Or he just could have been unlucky that day.)

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.