Hiring Probability - Recruiting Is Not Over Until the New Employee Has Logged Into Email...

We have a little game I like to play in our department.  It's called "hiring probability"...  It's like Liar's Poker, but no money changes hands...

There's talk about candidates all day, every day in our department.  Whether it's an initial phone screen, a round of face-to-face interviews or even just a resume submittal, I have one question for myself and my peeps when it comes to the prospects of hiring the candidate in question - what's the probability?

Hiring probability is defined as the probability that you will get an accepted offer from the candidate and they'll start work for your company.  You can throw out a probability number when you see a resume for the first time, when you have a signed offer, and everything in between.  Is it 10%, 45%, 95%?  Only the shadow knows...

It's easy to get jazzed about a candidate.  It's easy for hiring managers to get jazzed as well.   I like getting jazzed (who doesn't), but I've learned to curb my enthusiasm with a hiring probability check.  Here are some factors that can reduce the hiring probability for even the perfect candidate:

-Compensation issues.. (candidate wants too much)
-Manager Issues... (the thought that the candidate will ultimately balk at a manager with personality traits that alarm them)
-The aggressiveness of their current employer to counter and get inside their head once they find out what's up...
-<Fill in the Blank> - there are hundreds of factors that can reduce your hiring probability...

My favorite time to get a reality check regarding hiring probability from my team?  During the offer stage and once the offer has been signed, sealed and delivered.  The reason to check hiring probability at the offer stage is obvious enough.  We're preparing to negotiate, and trying to figure out the best way to close the deal.  Lead with our best offer?  Hold something back because we think the candidate fancies himself a negotiator?  It all depends on the situation, and we'll go a variety of directions with the offer to maximize the ultimate hiring probability.

The crazier time is when the candidate has accepted our offer, and we have everything back - the signed offer letter, background package, etc.  How could the hiring probability not be 100%?  counter-offers, guilt trips by current employers, promises to love the candidate more moving forward - they all conspire to reduce the hiring probability below 100%, even when everything is signed.

Harry Joiner at Marketing Headhunter said it best - "an executive search isn't over until the winning candidate quits his current job and leaves the building.  Jump over to Harry's post and follow his trail of tears. 

I've experienced what Harry is describing, and it's a painful process.  I'll go one step further and say that any recruiting process isn't over until the new employee has logged into your email.  On-site, none of that fuzzy remote stuff...   

Comments

[Michael Homula]

While there are some excellent points in this post there are equally as many issues raised in terms of the state of recruiting effectiveness in corporate America. Measuring hiring probability has to start with the recruiting call. Great recruiters don't make offers that have any probability of not getting accepted. Great recruiters take necessary steps during the recruitment process to ensure that every offer that is made is accepted and counter offers aren't accepted and, in fact, aren't even made. It really comes down to properly training recruiters, both corporate and third party, to add value to the recruiting engine rather then just processing information and pushing paper around. Recruiting is an art and sadly many recruiting teams are content to just process rather then add value.