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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Manager Tools.
- [00:03]
B
This is Sarah and I'm Mark.
- [00:05]
A
Today's podcast, Top 10 Hiring Mistakes. Number seven being swayed.
- [00:11]
B
As always, our content has been crafted by humans me and now is certified by the Proudly Human Corporation. The questions this cast answers are how should I make hiring decisions? What if my directs want to hire someone and I don't? How can I reduce the chances of being swayed by my direct?
- [00:33]
A
If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Don't you hate it when you're halfway through a multi part series and the next episode can't come out fast enough? Sound familiar? Manager Tools licensees never have to sit with that kind of frustration. They receive the full show notes for upcoming parts of every multi part series before the audio is even released. So they already know what's coming while everyone else is just sitting back waiting. And. And that's just one of the many perks of a Manager Tools license. Stop waiting and start knowing. Visit us online at manager-tools.com memberships to find out more. Today we are continuing a series of podcasts about the top 10 hiring mistakes and today we're covering number seven, being swayed.
- [01:23]
B
Yep, this one came from a real instance in the last six months and I've been waiting to write it for a while. So it came right out easily. Wrote it in about 90 minutes.
- [01:34]
A
I love that. Can I ask before we get going, was it an instance you experienced or one that we heard about on Friday night when we were out for dinner with our friend Sasha?
- [01:44]
B
Oh, actually, that's right. Sasha did mention one.
- [01:47]
A
She mentioned that.
- [01:47]
B
No, this came from a. This came from a chief executive.
- [01:51]
A
Oh, wow. Okay. I mean it's very common though. I mean, as it's two instances that I'm aware of in the last six months.
- [01:58]
B
Yep.
- [01:59]
A
In fact, it's so common it made our top 10 list. And the example today, or what we're talking about today is being swayed by another person, your direct, let's say for example, into hiring someone that you're not overly impressed by during the interviews themselves. And folks, when this happens, managers, hiring managers, the individuals who made the decision and were themselves swayed, always regret it. We hear about it. It's happening in situations all around us all the time. So today we're going to talk about how to not fall prey to one of the most common hiring mistakes.
- [02:39]
B
Yeah, just think of it this way. You've got an opening the candidate has made through the resume review, an HR screening, probably, and a further phone screen, which we recommend, even if HR screens and we Recommend you have one of your people screen them. Or if you don't have people who are that that qualified you, go ahead and do the phone screen. Maybe you would choose your most trusted direct if it was not going to be you. You interview a candidate and it's the final set of interviews and you're at the end of the day and your directs are interviewing that candidate throughout a business day.
- [03:13]
A
And folks, it's a day long interview series and at the end of the day you gather input from your directs and everyone is in favor of hiring except you. You have concerns and you're the only dissenting voice. Today we talk about what you should do. And the answer is, for those of you that want to know the answer, not hiring. We're going to talk today about why and how to avoid this outcome.
- [03:40]
B
Yeah. So our outline has three parts. First of all, it's important for you to know your opinion about a candidate matters more than all of your directs opinions. Number two, use our interview results capture meeting process to make that easier for you to manage at the end of the day. And then also teach your directs why you said no so they can up their interviewing game.
- [04:06]
A
So starting with why, folks, your opinion matters more than all of your directs. And our general guidance is that any final interviewing decision to make an offer to a candidate should be unanimous or virtually. So now we say virtually because there's always a chance that only one person recommends not hiring the candidate. And maybe the no is coming from among your interviewers, the most junior or the least experienced candidate, the one that knows least well how to evaluate the individual that's being interviewed. And in that case we say virtual unanimity because the one no is probably something that ought to be overruled or discarded because of that person's lack of experience compared to the other people on that panel.
- [04:55]
B
Yeah, now this should be obvious, but I'm going to say it because I got asked this question recently. We don't recommend that either decision, higher or not higher needs to be unanimous. Okay? It's only hiring that needs to be unanimous. Or in the case with Sarah mentioned, virtually unanimous. Again, we're not including you in the virtual anonymity because if, or because if, or unanimity because if in fact you are the one that's saying no. That's what this cast is about. But if you're direct for split on a candidate, some are yeses, some are nos, that should be an easy no. Again, only hiring the hiring decision, making the offer decision requires unanimity or virtual
- [05:37]
A
unanimity And I do want to go back a moment because I'm realizing now that at the end of the previous paragraph, I recorded. I said the word panel. And folks.
- [05:46]
B
Oh, my. I know, I know. And I blocked it out. It's painful.
- [05:50]
A
I blocked it out. It's too painful. Exactly. Now, folks, when I say panel, in this case, if you're familiar with manager tools, hiring guidance, what I mean is a deconstructed panel, a series of individual interviews asking the same question. Exactly. Rather than the six people from our organization all together in the same room interviewing the candidate. So when I say panel, I do mean panel. I just mean deconstructed panel.
- [06:18]
B
Yeah, that is a terribly confusing definition. We. We literally, I think we have a podcast called Panel Interviews of the Devil.
- [06:26]
A
Or.
- [06:27]
B
Yeah, they're stupid.
- [06:28]
A
Yeah, they're probably stupid. Worst thing ever. I don't know.
- [06:30]
B
HR likes them because they're. They're, quote, logistically easy, which in fact, they're not. But they're hated by candidates. They lead to less good decisions. People are disengaged. It sends a message of lack of desire in the candidate, and so on. Anyway, okay.
- [06:46]
A
And I would suggest tying it back to today's topic. It's even more dangerous that you would be swayed in a group panel interview scenario along this same theme. Right, Right.
- [06:59]
B
Yeah. And I want to say there is one exception to the no rule. If you're doing a technical interview, and if you're hiring for a technical position, you always have one interview, which in fact may be longer than the other interviews. You might need 90 minutes to truly understand the person's technical capabilities. Like, for instance, for a software engineer doing a regression analysis or doing some. I've forgotten the word for code. That is normal language code. Just doing some logic stuff about how you would attack a particular problem. Something like that. If a candidate passes all other interviews, including yours, but that technical interview is a failure because no one else is going to be assessing technical skill. Because you don't have time in a normal interview to do both a full technical dive and. And then also an interpersonal behavior dive and a cultural guide and a communication skills examination. The technical interview is a failure, then we recommend not hiring. That can be a single no vote essentially eliminates all the others. You would not apply virtual unanimity to a situation where everybody said yes, but the technical interview was a failure because a technical interview is essentially a go, no go gate all by itself.
- [08:18]
A
And going back to the idea of a series of individual interviews, if having a technical interview is A gate, as Mark just said. And you're planning on having the series of interviews. You ought to plan it so it's the first interview so that you're not having four or five interviews before the technical interview, which itself is a go no go. It's a really good first step. If you don't pass here, then we don't as an organization spend unnecessary time
- [08:45]
B
and, and some people ask why would we let them have gotten that far? Well, in fact, we probably haven't conducted a technical interview and either the phone screens and a resume. Resumes are full of prevarications, folks. It's may not be complete enough and you've got to validate it with actual skills. I, I remember sitting in on hundreds of technical interviews where they made people go to a whiteboard or, or write some faux code and then actually defend their code. You can't do that in a phone screen. You could do it online, potentially in a zoom or a teams call, but it would be certainly harder, I think.
- [09:21]
A
Yep, agreed. Agreed. Okay, so why does your opinion matter more than everyone else's? Well, folks, because you're interviewing around both ability and promotability. While your directs are likely interviewing simply for ability, your directs are a lot less able to figure out promotability than you're able to figure it out. And while it gives us no pleasure in saying so, it's our experience that a direct hiring, recommending a peer be hired, are thinking primarily about the person's fit on the team and that candidate's ability to ease the workload of the team. That exists because there's an opening right now on the team. And, and whether or not someone can do the job of today and fill the hole that currently exists is not enough. It's not a high enough standard, not a standard that the hiring manager, who in this case is you, would apply and thus you become that interview. That's the one who could say no.
- [10:26]
B
Now some people would argue, and frankly, it's a reasonable argument, folks. So we're not, we're not trying to beat you down on this one. The job you're hiring for is to address a need right now, right? So why shouldn't we just be evaluating for the job? Perhaps, perhaps a candidate will blossom once in your team and your company and your culture. Maybe in their previous company they were in the wrong team or the wrong company or the wrong culture. But again, this is still usually insufficient for an effective manager.
- [10:57]
A
One way to think of this differently is to think not of promotability per se, but Rather of adaptability and flexibility. Maybe the job that you're hiring for has a very limited chance of promotion. And that's often the case in specific roles that require special skills like accounts payable or safety or maintenance.
- [11:22]
B
Yeah, but even without the higher standard of promotability, adaptability and flexibility should always be a standard, even if the rule doesn't likely lend itself to a promotion for great performance. There are plenty of other situations that require adaptability. Consider the next economic downturn. Okay, layoffs are going to occur. We wish that wasn't so, but it's become a common thing. We wish we could go back 50 years and figure out how not to do that. Well, one of the ways to do that is to not over hire, which too many people do. In fact, Silicon Valley did that during the pandemic and the only company that didn't, in fact is Apple. And everybody else had to lay people off. And Apple said, this is going to be hard, there's going to be a lot of stress, we're going to grow through this, but at the same time we're not going to hire any more people. So we want everybody to pull together and then at the end, and this is probably not a reward in the minds of the people at Apple who work so hard, but nobody got laid off. Whereas no offense to Meta or to Google or to many other of the stalwarts or Salesforce or anybody else, they ended up laying off a lot of people and it definitely hurt the Silicon Valley economy significantly. And if you have hired people who aren't promotable but maybe also aren't adaptable, what happens is you'll have trouble reorganizing your team into new roles after losing some of your team during the layoff. And you will again regret hiring a person that maybe you had concerns about adaptability, flexibility, promotability, when in fact your team was simply trying to solve the problem right in front of them right now, which is too much workload.
- [13:04]
A
Exactly. And folks, that's nothing to say of the impact that AI is having on the job market right now. And for the record, we are recording this guidance in early 2026. So AI and its effects, its impact on people's work, day to day work, the need to be adaptable and flexible.
- [13:23]
B
Right? Who can predict it?
- [13:25]
A
Exactly. Exactly. All we know to be certain is adaptability and flexibility are necessary. That's the only thing I would argue that we know right now. And thus someone who is not adaptable to these kinds of tectonic changes isn't going to do well during and after these changes. And as a manager, it's your job to not just hire for what we need right now, but hire for the future. Which let me be clear, none of us can predict with 100% accuracy. Most managers know that in times of change, adaptability, flexibility and learning are critical. And to not screen for that which you are the manager and are more likely to be good at than your directs is to limit your team's ability to handle whatever may come your way. And change will come. That's the only certain things are going to change. So hire for people that adapt well to those changes.
- [14:29]
B
Yeah, change is the only constant in professional life. Effective managers assume it, plan for it, even in their hiring. And folks, hiring is the single most important strategic decision that a tactical, frontline manager makes for his or her company. A company's people are its greatest resource. No matter how cynical that sounds to people, better hiring leads to better outcomes. If a candidate does not improve your team, both now and in the future, and you choose to hire them, you are disregarding the strategic value of hiring. So don't be swayed by all your directs recommending hiring. When you decide not to hire, you will be the one dealing with the problems.
- [15:08]
A
Yeah, that's exactly it. Actually, Mark, this last week I was in Atlanta and we were talking or I was talking to an individual, a manager that was in the room, and the question he had was specifically around how do I talk to this individual on my team? They want to be promoted. They're really, really good at their current job, but they, they're doing exactly what their current job requires. And that's the conversation, right? The conversation is you don't get promoted or get a raise or a bonus, what have you before. You've done the work associated with deserving that increase, you do the work associated with that increase, and then the pay or the next role, or whatever it may be comes later.
- [15:48]
B
That's why we have the 150% standard.
- [15:50]
A
Exactly.
- [15:50]
B
If you want to get promoted, you have to do 100% of your job, and you probably have to have done about 50% of your boss's job. Not all the same, same time. Okay, that's probably too much. But you'll have to have learned very part various parts of your boss's job or some other equivalent to your boss's level job so that when you take it over, it's not all completely new. But people don't want that. People say, no, I want to be promoted because I did my job well. If that were the case and the company's doing well, everybody's doing their job, everybody gets promoted. That model falls apart very, very quickly.
- [16:21]
A
That's the thing. And tying it back into this content, it says to me in my brain, of course you're the one with veto power. You're the only one that knows whether or not your new hire could do 50% of your job. Because you're the only one that knows your job.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah.
- [16:36]
A
In a world where AI is generating more and more of the content you consume, we want you to know everything you hear on this podcast is proudly human. Written, researched and delivered by real people who've spent decades in the trenches of management and leadership. No algorithms, no shortcuts, no generated guidance. Just honest, proven human expertise. The same way it's always been. Visit us online at manager-tools.com to learn more.
- [17:07]
B
So second, use our Interview Results Capture Meeting Process and the Manager Tools Interview Results Capture Meeting Process may be one of the most important contributions to we've made Manager Tools has made to hiring managers effectiveness. I have been using it for years beforehand and teaching it all across the world and now we're able to share it. I think, I think it came out 10, 15 years ago. least we have an entire eponymous podcast about it linked to in these show notes for licensees. If you're not a licensee, you can go to the podcast page on manager-tools.com and listen from that link as well. Okay, we won't insert the guidance, the entire guidance from that cast here because that would then be an entire another cast inside this one. But we, we think we ought to give you at least a high level overview to address the specific tactical way you can combat the issue of you being a no when all of your people are yes.
- [18:07]
A
And folks, first, what you need to do is remember to teach your directs that the purpose of an interview is to make a hiring decision. It's not enough for one of your directs, or anybody for that matter, to have a discussion or a chat with someone to evaluate their fit and then want to make a decision based on these chats that they're having. What an interviewer learns in discussions with others who've interviewed the same candidate is second hand information and therefore inherently less accurate and less valuable than interviewing itself. So every interviewer must know at the end of the interview whether or not they are going to recommend hiring or not hiring. And thus, in order for them to be prepared to do that, come out of the interview with a recommendation, hire or no hire. They have to know going into it. They're expected to do that upon the end of the interview itself.
- [19:06]
B
Yes. So the IRCM Interview Results Capture meeting brings all interviewers together at the end of an interviewing day. Some might have to send an email, some might have to be virtual, you know, on teams or zoom or what have you. But we don't recommend that if you can avoid it. This is an important decision. If you have eight people on your team, you're adding, what is that, 12% more capability or lack of capability to your team. It's going to take up 12% of your relative time and actually more than that to manage that new person because they're new and they don't know all the processes and systems. They have no institutional memory, so to speak. Interviewers should be encouraged, you should encourage them before they interview to avoid discussing candidates between themselves before the interview Results Capture meeting. So an interview is a very specific thing. It leads to a decision in the interview. Interviewers should feel some stress. They can't just go in there and chat their way and get a feel for the person and sort of see how it goes, knowing that they're all going to get together and talk later. No, when you get together and talk later at the interview results capture meeting, you're going to be briefing people on what you recommend for the team. This will make them just that alone. Telling them they have to have a decision right at the end. Yes or no will make people better interviewers, more serious, more intent, more intentional, and also more intense in the process.
- [20:37]
A
Exactly. So, folks, in the interview results capture meeting, every interviewer presents their recommendation using a what and why format. The what is a simple yes, no recommendation on hiring. Then the why addresses three to four broad areas that might be changed, but not by much. Interpersonal, cultural skills and technical skills.
- [21:04]
B
Yeah. And for each of the three to four areas, each interviewer follows their hiring recommendation with specific behaviors the candidate engaged in that supports their decision. And we will tell you, it will take you some time to help people understand when they say I really liked him, that is not a behavior. You have to say what he or she said or did in the interview or proved or pointed out in a long answer that made you think that interpersonally they were a good fit with your team.
- [21:37]
A
Behaviors, folks, for those of you that aren't overly familiar with manager tools, the words they said, how they said them, facial expression, body language and work product, which consists of quality, quantity, accuracy, timeliness, documentation, and in some cases, statistics, safety. These are behaviors the what they did, not the what we Perceived.
- [21:59]
B
Exactly. That's why we teach. When we teach, when we have an effective hiring manager conference, we teach writing down what the candidate said, not your impressions. By the way, if in fact there is a question about the interview, you can actually quote what the interviewee said rather than saying, I really like this answer. That is not powerful support and documentation describing that you felt good as opposed to saying, he said this, she said this, he said this, or he did this in the interview, or I asked him three times and he still did not give me an answer. Those are different things.
- [22:37]
A
Yeah, exactly. And then for each of the three to four areas, every interviewer follows their hiring recommendation with those behaviors. So an example of how it might sound. I recommend we don't hire Andrew interpersonally. He kept interrupting me even after I asked him to let me finish the question. Culturally, I have concerns as well. He said twice that collaboration was overrated and he believed in leaders deciding skill wise. There's no question he could do the job. He told me about his success bringing a difficult project in on time. Technically, I think he's fine. He answered my question about gallium and aluminum strata exceptionally well. But the interpersonal and cultural areas are big concerns and therefore, again, I say no.
- [23:28]
B
Good. And once each interviewer has reported other than you, then you, the hiring manager, provide your report with that same higher, not higher, recommendation followed by behaviors supporting in those three, four areas. Now we say three to four because one of the four that we listed that Sarah listed was technical skills. And if nobody but one person did a technical interview, then nobody else is going to be talking about technical skills. They might mention it, but the technical skills will generally be handled by that one interviewer.
- [24:02]
A
Yeah, exactly. And folks, note what we're doing here is we're doing an around the table briefing, if you will.
- [24:09]
B
Yes.
- [24:09]
A
Followed by the manager going, last. Note, there's not a discussion among everyone after each interviewer presents. Discussing a candidate overall does occur, but not until after every interviewer, including you, has presented their recommendation. Which means that in the vast majority of cases, there will be little to no discussion. The process and format prohibits lobbying for a candidate or some sort of vote occurring. Or to the point of today's podcast, an individual saying something and then swaying another individual in their conversation.
- [24:49]
B
It goes back to the same thing. You have to have your decision already made at the end of the interview.
- [24:53]
A
Exactly.
- [24:53]
B
It will change how every one of your directs interviews. It will make them a better interviewer.
- [24:58]
A
And that's part of the reason that Mark said earlier in our Guidance here of the interview's result capture meeting. We don't recommend someone send their, their recommendation in via email because now we've gone around the room, if you will, but Sarah's response, because she wasn't there, was just read out loud. She's the only no. For example, everyone else said yes. Now it's conversation, period. And she's not there to, to defend her.
- [25:24]
B
To make her case.
- [25:25]
A
Her recommendation. Exactly. So now it becomes difficult to, to get a terminus on that recommendation during that meeting if someone just sent their recommendation in and it turns out to be contrary, if you will, to everyone else's recommendation.
- [25:39]
B
And I can guess what a lot of managers, a lot of you all are listening right now and are saying, that's going to be hard. That's going to be really hard. We have a lot of other stuff going on, folks, if you don't get it yet. Hiring is the most important strategic decision that tactical managers make. You must prioritize this. Sorry, we don't ask you to prioritize everything. Okay. But hiring and one on ones, you better prioritize them.
- [26:04]
A
Absolutely.
- [26:06]
B
Okay, so last point. We want to teach our directs why we said no. In the case of swaying. If all your directs or five out of six of your directs said yes and you're going to say no, and so therefore it's going to be a no because we don't want you to be swayed. That's the whole point of this podcast. You've got to talk to them about what, what your take on the interview was. If it does happen that everyone's on, everyone's on board, but you are not, use the interview results capture meeting to teach them why you said no. It might be that you had a different take on some of the categories you're looking at interpersonal or cultural or communication skills or what have you. Explain why even though they said yes, what you heard or saw that made you decide differently.
- [26:54]
A
Exactly. And folks, if you generally agree with your direct opinions on the categories, but find the candidate not acceptable or flexible or promotable, we want you to explain that as well and do so by being very specific with the behaviors the candidate showed or did not show. Yeah.
- [27:15]
B
Now, the Interview Results Capture Meeting podcast is a hall of fame cast. So if you're listening to this and we just gave you a high level overview of it, but we didn't go into detail. I think we went into enough detail to get you started. We encourage you to go listen to the interview results Capture meeting.
- [27:33]
A
Absolutely. Actually, one of the organizations we work With Carrie proven. And the folks at Mortgage center refer to this meeting as their defend the culture meeting.
- [27:42]
B
Yes. It's so good. I'd forgotten that. Yeah. Defend the culture. Hey, if you're uncertain, it's. It should be a no. It should absolutely be a no. And I will tell you, Sarah, now that you mention it, I actually have goosebumps because Carrie. And I'm sorry, I've forgotten her former boss's name.
- [28:00]
A
Christopher.
- [28:01]
B
Christopher. They did such an incredible job. Did not we have them present at the mc. At the mc about their culture, the transformation of their culture.
- [28:12]
A
No, I think that was the year before last.
- [28:14]
B
Yeah. It was incredibly impressive, the hard work they did at Mortgage center to change the culture there. Really, really exciting.
- [28:22]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [28:23]
B
Okay. Do you want to do the summary?
- [28:25]
A
Sure. All right, folks, so all in all, today we recorded, we talked in depth about the fact that we don't want you to be swayed. Don't be swayed to hire a candidate because your team all liked them. Your voice carries more weight because the burden of a bad hire is going to fall to no one other than you. You. Your team of interviewers may not be looking far ahead enough. In fact, I would go so far as to say they're probably not looking far ahead enough. And you might see that as a tough conversation with your team, but it doesn't have to be one. The team that can't grow and adapt can't support an organization as it grows and it adapts.
- [29:07]
B
Yeah, that's good.
- [29:08]
A
Thanks for joining us, folks.
- [29:10]
B
Thanks, everybody. That was a pleasure.
- [29:12]
A
It was great. We hope that this one helped you. Now help us help others. And tell all your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. And remember, five stars only, please.
- [29:34]
B
Sam.