posted 17 years ago
I pondered some more on this last night.
Too many places use interviews as the end-all, be-all of the selection process. Once the candidate gets in the door at some businesses they're in for good.
I personally favor businesses that use an iterative process for new hires. Most good employers I've worked at give six month reviews for new hires, most everyone else is only reviewed annually. Even for employers who don't want to go through the pain of firing an employee can still start giving disincentives to bad hires. Don't give raises, don't move them beyond junior, withhold some kind of reward they were supposed to receive if they perform well. Make it clear that they need to improve their performance. If they don't, then go ahead and release them after a year.
You can attempt to do contract-to-hire, unfortunately I think this shrinks your candidate pool. Anyone really competent is not going to want to do contract-to-hire. You might occassionally get that odd desperate person who is actually good and can't pass up the job, but for the most part your limiting your search. I am not bashing people who do contract-to-hire, they are not inherently bad. I will say that I have refused to talk to recruiters or consider jobs that were contract-to-hire. I don't need that position, so why would I enter into circumstances where if things go wrong (company is downsizing, poor management, etc.) I might be out of a job? Why would I give up benefits and security to go do the same thing?
Employers need to realize that a good interview does not mean you have a good candidate. Their resume might look good and they might interview well, and you might still have a real dog. Performance is key. I think in some cases employers don't want to admit they've hired a bad employee because it makes them look like they can't conduct an interview. The problem is that perspective assumes that an interview should be a perfect process.