Corporate recruitment bias: a competitive disadvantage - como las companias deben mejorar su sistema de entrevistar a los que solicitan trabajo - TA: how companies should improve their interviewing system for job applicants

Take any American company today, large or small, and ask two simple questions about their recruitment capability. First, "Are the people who are making hiring decisions adequately and formally trained in the process of conducting effective interviews?" And second, "Is the staffing process open, inclusive and far reaching? Or is it closed, exclusive and narrow in scope?" In my view, answers to these two questions will strongly indicate a company's strategic vision relative to old and new hires, and its sustainable competitiveness relative to its products, services and customers. It basically underscores the importance of all hiring decisions. Particularly if you equate the enormous cost associated with hiring and having to replace a mis-fitted professional at any level. Like Robert Half, author of the best seller, "Robert Half On Hiring", I subscribe to his observation that: "No management function is more critical than the hiring of people who will go on to become competent, motivated, and productive employees," and "That's why it is both ironic and surprising that the vast majority of hiring decisions are made by people who are essentially novices at the game -- people, that is, who lack the experience and the skills needed to make hiring decisions on the basis of something other than how they happen to 'feel' about a particular candidate after an interview."

In my view, an untrained interviewer, tasked to make hiring recommendations and/or hiring decisions on: recent college graduates, student interns and experienced professionals -- will be unduly influenced by factors unrelated to the essential position and its related qualifications. I call this a natural recruitment bias factor. An inclination or preference that interferes with impartial judgment. It is natural because as humans, with a variety of experiences, we all have natural tendencies towards likes and dislikes. Some of us will choose apple over cherry pie every time. Others will prefer certain kinds of music over others. And all of us will associate with people we are naturally comfortable with. Now as such tendencies are applied to the employment interview process, I contend the untrained interviewer will follow a natural recruitment bias in selection compared to an interviewer who is trained to be focused on job requirements and qualifications rather than personal likes and dislikes. And though a natural bias will always exist to some degree, I assert that professionally trained recruiters will consistently recommend the hire of the best qualified candidate over lesser qualified individuals and qualify their decision by citing logical reasoning. Also professionally trained interviewer will be much less prone to have legal challenges or complaints about their technique and selection procedures.

Recently I had the privilege of addressing audiences comprised of college placement administrators and corporate staffing representatives on the subjects of: "The Ultimate Recruitment Tool Kit," and "Employers Going Direct: Skipping the College Placement Office." From open exchanges during and after my presentations I was happy to discover many adept and proactive university and company representatives collaborating on creative ways to foster partnership's for the benefit of improving career opportunities for student interns and graduates. The Rocky Mountain Association of Colleges and Employers (RMACE) is the outstanding organization I addressed. Its members are energized and focused and, more importantly, committed and supportive of one and other and their shared vision of bridging a quality education with outstanding career opportunities. Their initiatives and membership development efforts underscore their commitment to sharing a working knowledge of best practices in the field of college placement and recruitment. The subject matter I presented was received with a sincere appreciation that new methods and trends are always welcomed for consideration. Creating a recruitment took kit can empower the recruiter to be more effective and efficient on the job, and understanding why certain employers would circumvent the college placement office assists those administrators on ways and means of promoting better linkage.

But as critical and impacting as RMACE and organizations and associations like it are, the reality is -- a far larger percentage of companies do not take the time to become part of such associations or make the investment to stay on the cutting edge of staffing and other human resources issues. There are many reasons for this. Time, leadership, vision, budget and continuous improvement attitudes are some of the factors typically missing in companies who do not innovate or participate in RMACE or similar organizations who promote continuous improvement. Some, frankly, are often too busy making a profit or trying to make a profit to be concerned with making sure all of their recruiters and interviewers are adequately trained and prepared to conduct effective recruitment interviews. Such companies are quite content with traditional recruitment sources, processes and interviewer techniques to be bothered with becoming more innovative. Efforts resulting in, for example, the hiring or promoting of 80 to 85% white males over women and people of color, suggests an acceptance of an historical reality repeated year after year in some industries. Such companies are steeped in tradition. A recruitment tradition that regularly clones itself when you see alumni, now corporate executives, continue with the tradition that brought them their initial opportunity. And they argue: "Why mess with an old and valued tradition that works. It brings us quality people?" Or, "We have looked high and low and we cannot find black agronomists or Hispanic engineers at the Ph.D. level," for example. And, "the women we have interviewed simply do not have the in-depth experience this position requires." In effect, many companies simply go with the flow of traditional recruiting sources and approaches. When they come-up short on the quality and quantity of more diversity in candidates, they conclude that such candidates do not exist or are not available at this time. So hiring and/or promoting large percentages of white male candidates from a select few colleges and sources is clearly understandable and acceptable in this kind of recruitment tradition.

So I pose the initial two questions on recruiter training and recruitment sources to those in corporate America who are concerned about improving competitiveness now and going into the next century. A new century that guarantees to be even more competitive, more technologically advanced and interactive, and more relational and participatory then ever before. The surviving and successful companies of today who will move into the 21st Century will be defined by the performance of their people. People have always been the essential common denominator for failure and success. A company's ability to identify, attract and capture the top talent that will deliver the quality products, services and results -- will define that company's success, now and in the future. Becoming strategically capable of attracting and landing top talent, with broader diversity, whether in finance or engineering, from Santa Fe, New Mexico or Ames, Iowa -- will depend on efficiencies and effectiveness in recruitment and source selection and their maintenance.

Finally, from my on-going study of: "The Impact of the Recruiter on the Decision of the Recruited," I have long recognized that an effective and professional interviewer is the predominate influencing factor why a candidate chooses to work for or not work for a company, over other influences such as: company reputation, professor/teacher, relative and salary, in my initial analysis. So, corporate America, if a recruitment disadvantage is not what you want please apply my introductory questions to your current process, recruiters and interviewing managers. If you are not happy with your current staffing results and the results from your self-audit, please consider joining organizations like RMACE, contacting interviewer training experts like Drake Beam Morin to assist you in finding the right fit in people and advertising in magazines like Hispanic Times -- where your new visibility will be recognized by people who never knew your employment opportunities existed. I will be happy to put you in touch with results oriented people, organizations and publications. Good luck.

Comments are welcome. Address to VBMG, P.O. Box 1015, St. Louis, MO, 63022. V B Martinez is available for speaking engagements, career coaching and recruitment process support. Contact at same address or call (314) 394-8155 (Fax) -- 5688. V B Martinez is president of the V B Martinez Group of St. Louis, MO.

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