#485 Recruitment Theory 18 | Our 'Failures' in New Graduate and Mid-Career Hiring

Today, I would like to organize some past cases regarding 'failures' in recruitment. These are examples of mismatches, and I would like to introduce them from both the job seeker's perspective and the company's perspective.

Why do interview failures happen?

It might sound like I'm undermining the whole point, but it is impossible to judge how well someone will perform based on just a few interviews of about an hour before they are hired.
You don't really know until you have them actually work, and even then, you might not know. Only after they have produced results over several years and have fully integrated into the organization can you say, 'That was a successful interview.'
Therefore, interviews are like a high-risk, high-return gamble.

Because it is such a gamble, you want to have as many safe bets as possible.
The 'safety' in those safe bets is things like 'experience at a major company,' 'educational background,' 'qualifications,' and 'most recent annual salary,' and if those are present, you tend to think, 'Well, it should be fine.'
And the point is, sometimes those are actually the dangerous cards...

There are various lessons to be learned, so let's introduce them case by case.

'Failure examples' from the job seeker's perspective

Let's start here.
These are sad cases that I understand precisely because I have worked as both a recruiter and an HR manager.

1. Didn't really understand what kind of company it was

This is common among new graduates! I was the same way at my first job out of school, haha.
However, for people who are job hunting so casually, they might not care what they do, but it's about the business, or rather, the culture and the core aspects.

'Is the management really this one-man driven...'
or 'Do I really have to work this much overtime...' and things like that.
However, since the first job often involves imprinting, there are rare cases where a 'superhuman' is born who perceives a distorted culture as normal, thinking 'this is just what a company is like,' but they eventually find out the truth from friends.

2. It was worse than expected once I got inside

This is common among mid-career hires.
'Wow, this is completely different from what they said in the interview!' kind of thing.

Even so, because people can't just change jobs so easily, they try their best for a few years, but in many cases, they can't hold out that long.

On the other hand, there were also people who cut their losses immediately.
In the past, a person hired as a CFO candidate with department head status quit after about a month, and that person had written off the company, saying, '...This company is no good.'
Seeing this, I thought, 'That is a truly capable person,' haha.

3. The story was different

This should never happen, but... it happens sometimes.
It is truly terrible to make someone do sales when they joined in a customer success position because they hated sales.
Bad companies will say in these situations, 'We're a venture company, so such morning-order-evening-change is a daily occurrence! Woo-hoo!' but it's because they say things like that that they are bad.
They can't go public because they say things like that.

Examples of 'failures' on the company side

Next is this one.
It feels like, 'I didn't notice the psychopathic nature of a monster job seeker,' and I could honestly introduce countless cases like that, but since there are too many, let's introduce a few selected ones.

1. Salespeople who seem like good talkers at first glance but have absolutely no substance

This happens quite a bit. I've seen about two cases so far.
They have one thing in common: they look good on the surface. They seem like pretty cool salespeople, they are personable, and they even have a side that makes people like them.
However, the actual work is completely useless. They are glib, but they can't keep promises, their reporting and communication are weak, and they don't understand the customer's needs at all...

However, this type of person makes a very good first impression and is easy to pass in interviews, so let's verify them with difficult questions.

2. Coming from a major corporation

Employees who joined a major company as new graduates and then quit to join a mid-career position are relatively like holding a gold card, and job changes seem advantageous at first glance, but...
There haven't been many people who were successful at a major company and then also successful at a venture company.
I feel like about 80% of them didn't really thrive.

Why is that?
I don't know because there isn't one common factor, but I vaguely feel it's because major companies have the power of the company brand, while venture companies don't, and that creates a difference.

3. Former managers

Among so-called executive candidates who become managers immediately upon joining, there are really many examples of failure with former managers too, haha.
There are quite a few people where I think, 'You guys were definitely hated by your subordinates at your previous job too, right?' haha.
I feel it's difficult to become a manager as an outsider without having done the actual on-site work.

Rules for not failing in interviews

With that said, I think there are many examples of failure on both the job seeker side and the company side, so let me teach you some life hacks to avoid failure.

Job seeker side

It's best to investigate whether the company is worthy of trust.

In your interview interactions, you should check things like what time the recruiter sends emails or whether employees answer the phone no matter what time you call.
Also, I recommend looking at the history of management members using the Wayback Machine. If executives are changing constantly, you can predict that many members are quitting because they are fed up with the management.
By the way, I don't think review sites are that helpful because they mostly contain opinions from negative people.

Corporate side

While "educational background" and "work history" are not helpful at all, you can judge things like email response times and writing skills. If they fail to answer questions, use rough language, or have many typos, I feel these are directly linked to whether or not they can do the job.

Also, I think people generally don't lie about their most recent annual salary.
The intuition that a salary is too low for a certain age is surprisingly often correct, so you should check that strictly.

Also, employees who have families (and whose family members are dependents) rarely quit, so that might be a criterion for judgment as well.

And, though this is a personal bias, I feel there have been more people who could do the job well among those with unconventional backgrounds than among elites.

Summary

That said, "experience" is also important, so let's conduct plenty of interviews and improve our skills!