When it comes to recruitment, we have all boxes ticked right? We have an efficient HR team to help us shortlist for specific roles and then it comes down to our experience and judgment to make the right call…not always!
Dennis is a General Manager in the hospitality industry with more than 22 years managerial experience. He used his HR department to help him shortlist an entire team for a new hotel property that he was at the helm of. His experience served him well for the selection process with one exception, his Sales Director, Rami!
Rami was responsible for 3 brands associated with this property and on paper he looked like a superstar. All his academic achievements met the desired requirements and to be fair, he had a variety of experience to offer as well but when it came down to his performance, something was severely lacking.
Let’s back track through the selection process. We know that Rami held the relevant educational qualifications and HR, based on the company’s recruitment criteria, were happy to shortlist him.
With any advertised role, as potential candidates, we tailor our shiniest achievements to the role we are applying for and then once we get to the interview, we are very conscious of our behaviour and answer all that is asked of us in alignment with our polished CV.
Now let’s look at it from the other side of the table, let’s say we are Dennis for the next few moments. We see our Sales Director on paper (Rami’s CV), we have grilled him and he has not folded and everything looks like this could be the one and an offer of employment is made.
Working behind the scenes prior to the opening and 6 months after the launch, Rami is not performing at all in fact, the person Dennis employed seems to be very different from the day the decision was made to hire him.
Is Dennis losing his touch? Not at all! What Dennis saw from the CV and what he gauged when interviewing Rami was perfectly in line with the company selection process and policy.
So what went wrong? Well, quite simply, Our Sales Director was conscious of his refined CV and his behaviour matched that on the day which allowed him to respond to the interview process in the way he did. However, when he started the job he resorted to being driven by his subconscious behaviour and in this case, there was disparity between the two.
In short, Dennis employed Rami based on his conscious behaviour and once employed, Rami was working to his subconscious behavior day to day which was not what the role required.
An expensive and non-productive phase for Dennis and his multi-brand property. By helping Dennis to determine the behavioural variations with Rami’s potential successors, the role is now being fulfilled to the original expectations of Dennis, the property owner and the management group.
