Before making a decision focus on what is important

It is important to take into consideration a candidate’s previous results before you decide to hire him. The fact that a candidate has produced before and can prove it is VERY valuable in order to avoid severe hiring mistakes. This does not mean that a formerly productive person cannot become a failure in a new position BUT, and this is important, he or she is normally as interested as you in resolving a situation, and you will seldom experience complications in case you need to part ways.

Who wants to get a striker who has never scored a goal onto a football team? Who wants to hire a director of a sales department who has never increased the sales of a group in any area? Or who would hire a director of manufacturing who never started or stably increased production anywhere?

Even though most people agree that it is important to know about past production, many managers and executives sign employment contracts without even looking at or verifying the results given by the candidates. This could lead to VERY expensive and completely unnecessary mistakes.

Areas that one preferably should pay some attention to during the hiring process include:

Positive:

• Candidate has no problem proving his or her high production in a previous job(s).
• Candidate can prove that his/her results in a previous job(s) were above average.
• Production increased through the years and, if this was not always true, the candidate can talk about it and tell you what happened when it went down.
• Candidate was in a difficult situation and he/she managed to resolve it.
• There are no “holes” in the candidate’s CV that could not be easily explained.
• Candidate showed a clear interest in the part of the interview related to production and results.
• Candidate does not have the slightest problem giving you contact info for people who should know his or her level of production.

Negative:

• Candidate is not able or, worse, not willing to provide the production records from a previous job.
• There was a lack of obvious value-creating results in previous jobs.
• Production through the years has been decreasing. The candidate doesn’t seem to think that is a problem.
• Candidate has a big problem defining what valuable results he/she produced in previous jobs.
• Candidate doesn’t seem to have resolved any difficult situations.
• There are “holes” in the candidate’s CV that cannot be explained in a simple way. That a candidate was not successful in one of his earlier jobs does not necessarily disqualify him or her.
• Candidate showed very little interest in the part of the interview related to production and results.
• Candidate is hesitant to give the contact info of his/her former employer for reference.

Performia recommendation: While making your decision whether or not to hire someone, we urge you to focus on the above-mentioned statements. Do this until you know. And if this is very complicated, realize that that is a bad indicator all in itself, drop that candidate and look for another one.