“So, let’s call her right now, offer her the position, straight away,” I suggested.

“But, you haven’t even read the profile,” Kristen protested.

“I don’t need to read the profile,” I replied.

“But if you don’t read the profile, how can you know if this person will be able to do the job?”

“That is an excellent question. How can we know if this person will be able to do the job if we don’t have a job description to help us read the profile?”

“Well, we have the job posting.”

“Kristen, I read the job posting. There is more in here on company benefits than there is on expectations. I think you don’t want to do the work to figure out what we expect from the position.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to do the work, I just don’t have the time. I have a lot of other important things I need to be doing,” Kristen insisted.

“It’s not that you don’t have the time. You have as much time as you need. It’s just not a high enough priority.” -TF

“Before I look at the personality profile, let’s take a look at this job posting and see if we can create a job description that will help us,” I insisted.

“Do we really have to?” Kristen pushed back. “You know, if we don’t make a decision quickly, I’m afraid this person might take another job. That’s why I asked you to come in this afternoon, to look at the profile assessment.”

“So, you would rather make a wrong decision this afternoon than a better decision tomorrow.”

Kristen was exasperated. “I don’t think we can wait until tomorrow. I told the candidate we would call her with a decision before the end of today.”

“Here it is,” Kristen announced. “I couldn’t find the job description, but here is the job posting that we put on the internet.”

“So, you don’t know if you have a job description?” I asked.

“You know, we were in such a hurry to get this posted, I don’t think we actually wrote a job description.”

“So, how will you evaluate the candidates who respond?”

“That’s why I asked you to look at the profile assessment. Everything is there. That’s why I think we have a good candidate,” Kristen curtly replied.

“Oh, really,” I mused.

“Yes, based on this personality profile, I think this is someone I could really work with.”

“I think we have a good candidate, here,” explained Kristen. “Profile looks great. I think it’s exactly what we are looking for. Let me show you.”

“The profile assessment, the one about dominance, influence, sociability factors and compliance behavior?” I replied.

“Yes, the profile looks great,” she repeated.

“Before I see the profile, can I look at the job description?”

Kristen stopped, a puzzled look on her face. “Yes, the job description. I know we have a job description, but, it must be in my office. Here, you can look at the profile while I go see if I can find it.”

“Tell you what? Why don’t you go see if you can find the job description, while I go get a cup of coffee.”

“You don’t want to see the profile?” she urged.

“Not really, not yet.” -TF

“So, how did you miss this critical piece of information during the interview?” I asked. Ted was beside himself for a recent hire.

“That’s the thing. I gave him some theoretical examples to find out what he would do in a couple of specific situations. He answered the questions pretty well,” Ted replied.

“Then, what’s the problem?”

“He answered the questions pretty well, theoretically speaking, but he had never actually performed the work himself. It is almost like he read a bunch of articles in a trade journal. He knew the buzz words and conceptually how things worked, just no real experience.”

“So, what do theoretical questions do for you, as a manager conducting an interview?”

“Quite frankly,” continued Ted, “it just encourages the candidate to make stuff up and lie to me.”

“Indeed.” -TF

“It happened again,” Ted explained. “I told myself that the next time we needed to hire someone, I would be prepared for the interview.”

“And?” I asked.

“Scott came down the hallway. He said the candidate had talked to four other people and everyone liked him. I didn’t even know we had interviews scheduled.

“He asked if I had fifteen minutes to talk to the candidate, just to see if I liked him, too.

“Funny, I liked him, too.”

“So, what’s the problem?” I pursued.

“Everyone liked him, but here we are, two months down the road and I find out he doesn’t have any experience in one of the most critical parts of the job. He just told me point blank that he has never done this before. Worst part, he tells me he doesn’t even see that as part of his job. If we need that done, he suggests we hire an expert or a consultant to help out.

“Just what I need, to hire another consultant because someone on the inside can’t do their job.”