In a couple of recent posts on the Six Figures Blog: Recruitment – Are Your A Players Driving It? and When hiring, what is the right mix of intellect, energy & good looks! we looked at some of the pitfalls that are made when hiring, with often the smartest and best person missing out on the job in favour of the best looking and most likeable candidate!
Why are we so focused on hiring people we like? It is natural really to go for the most likeable candidates, particularly if you have to work with them. Work does need to have some enjoyment factor, we have to work in teams and hiring people we like is one of the few things we have control over. Realistically, we spend so much time at work that of course we want to work with people we get on with. A lot of people stay in jobs they don’t like because they like their colleagues. Given the amount of time most of us spend at work, particularly those earning $100K+, it is important that it is still somewhat of a social place. We often need to work in teams and therefore do need to get along. However, while we employees want to work with people we like, are organizations suffering if they are not getting the best people? It is very much a catch 22.
How easy is it to get the balance of the right talent with the right amount of likeability? Should one override the other? Share your views here on the Six Figures Blog.
6 Comments
Huge failing on the part of HR people everywhere is the seemingly common sense idea that hiring should be on the basis of “fitting in” … with the culture, with the team, with the boss.
Big problem: the culture changes, team members move on, the boss gets promoted or leaves the company.
So, hiring on the basis of who the interviewers “like” is mind-numbingly stupid.
Apart from that, what a bland result, what a sub-optimal team is created, when like keep hiring like. Mediocrity guaranteed! Inevitably the lowest common denominator decreases year after year.
Besides, who is to say that the interviewers are such impeccable judges of character or, more ridiculously, impeccable judges of “likability”?
It’s the very worst of all worlds when competence and fitness for the purpose of the job role is not the overarching, indeed, preferably the only, deciding factor.
Of course, if two candidates are objectively equal and the manager happens to prefer blue eyes to brown eyes, sure, what the hey …
If being likeable is a seen as a critical criteria in succeeding at work, then I have yet to see a single piece of research validating this view.
In my experience likeability becomes a factor because the interviewer has low interview skills and does not know the real success competencies they are seeking to assess during the interview.
As a result the interviewer conducts an unstructured, opinion-based interview in which they only thing they can make a considered decision about is whether they like the candidate or not!
Ross – can’t agree with that.
I’ve only ever conducted highly structured interviews, but “likability” is still extremely easy to perceive.
People’s nature, their character – and, I suppose, their “likability” – seeps through no matter the demure, or personality, the person tries to present. In other words, even when on their best behavior, confined to a structured interaction controlled by someone else, people are woefully bad at faking it.
Indeed, that’s what I like most about structured interviews: ask everyone the exact same simple, or complex, questions and it’s amazing how different the responses, including how rapidly even the best rehearsed candidate can do themselves out of a job.
Besides, it’s usually the case that the person who flubs the basic measures of competence and experience in interview is also the the most bothersome, and, therefore, I would argue, the least likable.
Having said that, I’ve worked with an awful lot of people who are widely liked, widely popular, but are not competent and are highly disruptive to the work environment and to teams. I can never understand what’s going on in those instances, or how those people keep their jobs – lazy management?
The type of studies conducted into this sort of thing are mostly trite, almost amateurish in the method and conclusions, therefore, quite useless as a serious contribution to improving staff selection, and therefore, improving organisations.
This is an interesting discussion. The majority of problems that occur in a workplace are not about whether a person has the skills for the role they are in, but rather they are “people” problems. Problems between employees or between employees and customers = productivity down. So yes, we do need the “best” people. that’s why some of the questions in interview should be about the emotional intelligence aspect, not just about relevant experience. That way there is some hope of “balance” between the skills and the “fit”.
See here
http://www.6seconds.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=299
Caz – not sure what you disagree about with respect to my post as your comments support my view.
My point was that a poor interviewer hires on likeability because they haven’t got anything else to go on. A capable interviewer will certainly uncover likeability but not make it their primary hiring criteria.
There was interesting physiology experiment done where people were required to interview people for particular jobs. They hired actors who tended to the better looking and dressed them to look the part. With better looking applicant who looked the part, the interviews assumed they were qualified and they were the ‘successful’ applicants. A hiring professional would see through this you would assume, however when dealing agencies who are clearing houses these days how often do you meet someone who has the knowledge to undertake that task? Most agents I have met have so little knowledge of the duties and skills required I am would not be surprised that they went on looks. I am in my fifties, I have that when agents don’t know my age they are more likely to put me forward.
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[...] will guide how you behave and respond in the interview. As covered in a previous blog post “Why we need to like the ones we work with and how this impacts hiring decisions” most of us hire those we like, that we can see making agreeable [...]
[...] There is nothing new here and as a former Google employee commented, all of what came about was standard text book stuff. Part of the research also looked at hiring of managers. Again, no surprises here; however, I think it is an area people like to ignore – that Managers tend to hire people who are like them. We wrote a post about this topic some months back ‘Why we need to like the ones we work with and how this impacts hiring decisions’. [...]