When you hire wrong don’t be shy to fire
EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW PRACTICES
MONTREAL • What happens when you hire the wrong person for the job?
An example dominating the news in the past few weeks is Michael Brown, the director of the U. S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, who is now out of a job amid criticism of the organization’s response to the hurricane devastation in New Orleans and questions about his qualifications for the post.
This problem plays out in companies all the time, experts say. “ The old adage is that you hire slow and fire fast,” said Daryl Lynn Dagenais, a human resources consultant with Vertex.
“ When you realize you’ve got the wrong person, you may have to red circle the individual.” That means Mr. Wrong doesn’t receive raises or promotions and his career will not progress in your organization, she added. “He may be asked to take a lower position. The longer you keep someone on staff, the harder it is to let him go. Years can go by.”
Often, the colleagues of the wrongly hired person become aware of his unsuitability before his bosses because of their proximity in the workplace.
“People do slip through the net, often by falsifying their resumés, although human resources officials are better trained at doing effective interviews than they used to be,” said Rose Ann Alfieri, vice-president of business development at DBM, a global human capital management services firm.
“If you’re working shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, say in marketing, and he doesn’t know how to put a marketing plan together, the question is, do you blow the whistle on him to management?
“If the person can’t deliver what he’s supposed to deliver, it’ll affect your work because he’s on your team. You’ve got to tell someone. That’s being a responsible employee,” she says.
The wrong hire can create what Ms. Alfieri calls “the weak link in the chain.”
A career transition study conducted by DBM and released this year says job seekers spent on average a month longer finding jobs in 2004 than in 2003 because of slower job creation and the fact interviewing and recruitment processes are “taking longer as hiring organizations use more behavioural interviewing techniques to ensure new hires have the desired cultural fit.”
“People are afraid of making mistakes in hiring,” Ms. Alfieri said.
Retailer Hope Milner, who runs La Premiere Co. de Paniers in Pointe Claire, Que., says she has sometimes hired the wrong person. “You see a façade of a person in an interview,” she said. “There’s a lot of information on the Web and in books about how to present yourself in interviews. So anyone wanting to show themselves well can get all the answers down pat.”
On one occasion, a candidate presented herself with excellent credentials. “I hired her as a supervisor and things went well for the first month but once she became familiar with us, she began using really foul language in front of the customers and she would tell dirty jokes to the staff. I had to fire her, but I sure got fooled when I hired her.”
Ms. Dagenais says employers who find themselves with the wrong employee have two options. “ You can dismiss the person or give the employee time to correct his record. Sometimes, employees can turn themselves around, sometimes not.”
Her advice is to focus on the problem rather than the personality.
“ And you should set stringent deadlines by which the person has to show improvement, or this will be costly for you.”