Texas' oldest placement
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We Had a Bad Experience, Part IV

In the last Issue we discussed our obligation to our clients to monitor and change the process of hiring if it isnot what is best for the client. Just because our clients have hired people before, doesn't mean they know exactly what they are doing.

It must be reinforced that we want the process to be successful too. We know what we are doing because we do this every day and have since 1952. If a firm isn't sure of how they should go about interviewing and hiring they should ask. The most confident of business people ask other professionals when they don't know exactly how they should go about an unfamiliar endeavor. Our best clients are the ones that admit they are not sure of how they should go about hiring and trust our counsel on the process.

Reasonable Expectations

The other aspect of great expectations has to do with the reasonableness of position duties, responsibilities, experience, and money associated with the position to be filled. We often joke about clients who want twenty-five years of experience in someone 23 years old for $12,000 a year. Sounds ridiculous, but not too far off from some of the things we hear. Again, people are sincere when they give us extensive, exact parameters where high levels of experience and past performance are necessary. They are sincere in wanting lots of experience and expertise and seem to be serious when they want to pay $10,000 LESS than what the market will bear. Setting unreasonable expectations about a particular opening is one of the first steps toward a bad experience. Sticking to those specifications is the second step. We can't tell you how many times we have seen hiring companies become frustrated with the whole idea of hiring someone because they set unrealistic expectations in relation to the salary they are paying. This event leads to not only frustration but it causes most managers to blow other aspects of the search out of proportion. This happens because they begin to set down parameters of what kind of experience, etc., they want based on no realistic reference point. Since many times the employee that is being replaced is unsatisfactory, there is a tendency to want to hire a much better person. The hiring manager will react by setting parameters so high that he will be sure not to make the same mistake again. However, he will often do it without consideration of the reality of the salary he has to work with. We have even had employers start telling us what kind of candidate they would like by saying "We think it would be nice if we could get someone who..." They know it's a wish list to begin with.

Subjective

Hiring is a subjective thing. Sometimes in an effort to be efficient and continually upgrading a staff, a manager will just plain get unrealistic about what he wants. We have seen companies hire people whose abilities and experience are well beyond the function of the job. It is just as big a mistake to overhire as it is to underhire. The result is the same: You are looking to refill the position in six to nine months.

Our Role

Relying on a reputable, experienced placement firm will help in keeping experience, salary, etc., in line with reality of what kind of candidate is available and the reasonableness of the functions, etc. There is nothing wrong with leaving oneself open to a number of different levels of experience, salary, etc. We have seen companies thinking they need to pay more than a job function is worth. We have an obligation to encourage them not to overpay. Since we interview candidates and evaluate their experience and ability daily, we are in a position to know the exact value of a candidate or a particular position or function in a company. We save firms thousands of dollars by filling positions on the low end of the salary scale when we can. That's our business obligation too.

Unrealistic expectations of both our service and the value of a job or candidate within a firm lead to bad experiences. Trusting and relying on experienced placement professionals keep bad experiences from happening.

To be continued...

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