The Myth of Intuition

Many of our clients who have struggled to build the right team are making a common mistake: they have been “going with their gut.” Far too often, managers and owners overestimate their ability and rely on their intuition to make the hiring decision after interviewing the candidate.

Have you ever fired someone only to think to yourself “but they looked so good in the interview…”?

The truth is, it is nearly impossible to identify a person’s core passions and personality strengths during an interview. Applicants always have their best foot forward — some hire professionals to coach and train them to look their best, while others do research to find out how to nail an interview. You may be looking at someone who is well prepared for this moment.

But you will likely not know who you really hired until the person is under stress, which generally occurs after the honeymoon period, weeks or months into the new job.

Many of today’s managers do not understand or have not been trained on the techniques and questions that uncover a candidate’s fit to the job. The result is a continuous cycle of hiring based on skills, then firing based on behaviors and values.

TIP: To end the costly and stressful loop of “hiring based on skills, then firing based on behaviors and values”, owners and hiring managers would be best served by changing their paradigm, and start “Hiring based on behaviors and values, and training for skills.”