Is Hiring Like Dating? Relying on Instinct

In speaking with hiring managers, I often hear that they are able to determine if someone will make a good hire through a simple interview and reliance on their “gut.” While instinct can offer some insight as to who will be successful, is it enough to make effective hiring decisions? Whether we like it or not, we are human, and part of being human is that we have personal biases. We tend to be drawn to candidates that we like (and are like ourselves), however, that doesn’t necessarily lead to identifying the right people for the job.

Think about this phenomenon as it applies to the dating world. I’m sure you can think of a friend or a family member who has met someone they consider to be the perfect mate. He or she is handsome, smart, funny, the greatest thing since the iPod. However, as time goes on, it starts to be revealed that this person is not so wonderful. When this happens, usually friends and family tend to notice before the person in the relationship.

Why is that? In psychology we refer to this as the confirmation bias, which means that we tend to look for information that confirms what we already know and ignore information to the contrary. Doing so makes us feel good about our decisions. This exact same thing happens with job candidates. We tend to be attracted to people that we like and have a difficult time making an objective evaluation of how someone is likely to perform.

So what is a hiring manager to do? The first thing is to truly understand the job and the knowledge, skills and abilities that are required for success. Then, through the use of scientific tools like personality assessments and structured interviews, you can gain a more objective evaluation of how the person is likely to perform in relation to those characteristics. Using such scientifically proven (and validated) tools will help you see beyond your biases and make good hiring decisions on a consistent basis.