Engineering a Better Hiring Process: Overcoming Cognitive Biases and Improving Outcomes

Has this ever happened to you?

• You think you are at the finish line of a hiring process, and all of the sudden it keeps getting strung along (‘Oh, we just want you to meet Bob. And you and Jane should really go out for lunch’)
• You get assigned to do an interview for a role a colleague is hiring- but all you get is a resume in advance- so you end up asking the candidate the same questions everyone else probably already did
• You apply for a job with a laundry list of qualifications, many of which (but not all) you meet, but get rejected anonymously by the ATS systems without really knowing why
• You hire someone that doesn’t work out and regret something you didn’t ask or look into in the hiring process. But then you forget to check for those things when you hire the replacement

I’ve had the privilege of working closely alongside engineers of various stripes for the past decade. I’ve been amazed at the challenging problems they’ve solved, the products they’ve delivered, and the processes they’ve designed.

I’ve also been amazed by how little of their considerable skills have been applied to the process of hiring people… unarguably one of the most important things that any company does.

The problem, partly, is one of ownership. Frequently the business and HR aren’t exactly sure where their authority and expectations lie when it comes to hiring process design. And there’s isn’t enough discussion upfront about what it should be as a new requisition is opened up.

I’ve also seen what good looks like. Danaher is famous for applying the philosophy of kaizen (continuous improvement) to literally everything. Their hiring process is no exception. When I was interviewing with them for an executive role, they knew exactly what they were looking for, how to assess for it, had not only clear assignments of each interviewer, but also spent a full day doing an in depth psychological profile on me. And at the end of that process, their ability to predict success and fit was incredibly high. (I didn’t get the job, BTW- and that was the right call on their part!)

A good friend of mine had a phrase: ‘Every process is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets.’ He’s right.

Do you understand the results of your process? Have you thought about the design of the inputs? Do you understand the relationship between the two?

When it comes to hiring, process matters a lot. There is no one size fits all approach that is the best. It should be fit for purpose based on the type of role. But there are good processes, and there are bad processes.

Your hiring process should:

• Seek to get enough candidates in the top of the funnel that you will have to choose between multiple qualified people
• Act as an advertisement for your company, and appropriately represent the experience of working at your company- remember that candidates are evaluating you too
• Predict candidate success in the role by getting you as accurate of a picture as possible on that person’s capabilities and skills

Common mistake patterns:

Overly ad hoc

• Other than the basics (resume reviews and interviews) there is no process. It’s up to the recruiter and hiring manager to come up with a new approach each time. Both people are busy so they figure it out on the fly.

No definition of good

• The target for ideal candidate is unclear. There’s a job description, of course, but it is full of cut and pastes from other JDs. There’s no alignment on true must haves and nice to haves. No consideration for likely tradeoffs. And thus no way to really thoughtfully assess the candidate against a standard, and thus predict success.

Lack of coordination among interviewers

• There are plenty of interviews, and maybe a quick pre-wiring discussion but no separation of duties. So the candidate walks through their resume a bunch of times, repeats the same canned lines and walks away unimpressed by what she just saw

Fine with ‘say’ not ‘show’

• The candidate seems like a good person, so everything, including their technical skills, is taken for granted (guess, what… even good people have a tendency to exaggerate)

Cognitive biases

• We all like to think we are clear, perfectly rational thinkers. Guess what, we are not. We need to be aware of our own innate baises, which can lead to bad decisions during the hiring process. These include:

1. The halo effect (we like one thing, say the candidate when to our alma mater, and that overwhelms everything else)
2. Confirmation bias (we look for data to re-enforce our first impression)
3. Attribution bias (we assume that outcomes are a results of capability, not circumstance)
4. Affinity bias (we prefer people who are like ourselves)

The best processes include the following:

1) True understanding of what’s needed and what’s nice to have. And an understanding of specifically how you are assessing quality against that

• Separate the base level required skills from what can be learned, and gauge ability to learn as part of the process

2) Sourcing from diverse pools 

• The larger the top of your funnel is, the better (as long as you have effective screening criteria)
• Leverage: internal referrals, inbound resumes, outbound outreach to passive candidates, etc.

3) Balanced, intentional evaluation of technical skills and people skills

• Consider this model: view the people skills as minimum requirements, and then from there optimize on technical skills within your budget
• This means: hard passes on anyone that won’t fit company values, struggles with effective communication, cannot think strategically or creatively enough for job requirements, etc.
• Form a perspective on the value of specific certifications- can you take competence as a given? If not, consider a hands on technical assessment to gauge proficiency (or use technical interview questions with varying degrees of difficulty)

4) References

• ‘Trust but verify’- it’s perfectly fine to assume honesty and good intent, but references can prevent bad decisions and are time well spent
• You expect references to be strong, since the candidate chose them, and it’s okay if there is a bit of mixed take (just means the person is being honest).
• Frame your questions against the job ‘must haves’ and look for weak points there

5) Understand the value of your time; it may be better to utilize an external recruiter that has a strong network to take this work off your hands