Get rid of the job interview to pick good employees.

Can you imagine a pro football team that picked its players by reviewing their resume and asking them about their “biggest weakness”?

As absurd as it sounds, that’s what many companies do when it comes to hiring new people.

Best selling authors Dan and Chip Heath write in the June 2009 edition of Fast Company that American business has the hiring process all wrong.  Most businesses shift through resumes and applications, and then conduct interviews to hire someone.  They attempt to assess how well someone might fit into the organization and size them up to make a hiring decision.

Even though this is the “official” hiring process followed by most companies, years of research proves it to be highly ineffective in predicting the success of new employees.

We couldn’t agree more.

The best indicator of future job performance is past job performance.  The best way to assess past job performance is through review of past work samples, job-knowledge testing and peer ratings of performance.

None of those 3 elements can be properly evaluated in a job interview or from a resume.

Now you may argue that your job opening requires social skills and the only way to evaluate those is through an interview.  But think about that for a minute.  You are going to meet someone and in a span of an hour learn more than you would from peer ratings of past job performance?  Doubtful.

Most of us think we are good at interviewing as a predictor of future employee performance, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  What we should do is adopt the practices followed by a winning football team:

• Review past work samples – a football team reviews video tape of the player…what work samples can you review of your applicants?

• Job-knowledge testing – great teams simulate game situations for prospective players to assess their knowledge and skills…apply the practice to your business.

• Peer ratings – football teams interview teammates and opponents of prospective players to find out what peers think of their performance.  You should do the same.  Peers will tell you much more than references or past supervisors ever will.

The job market has never been more packed with candidates.  If you are hiring now (and many of you will be soon as the economy improves), let your competitor hire the “friendly person” who “loves working with people.”  Instead, you focus on job tests, work sample and peer reviews to hire your new employees.  Do that and watch your new hire success rates soar.