Do Diligence

 In hiring, due diligence is a critical last step. Here, we talk about why it’s so important to do diligence... due diligence.

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We humans are pretty good at making decisions, for the most part. In fact, we’re better than we give ourselves credit for: our brains have enormous capacity for weighing the pros and cons of relative courses of action, often without us even being conscious that we’re doing so. It's impressive.

There’s one hitch, though; a trick that our brains pull on us. Every one of us. It’s called confirmation bias.

In simple terms, our brains like it when we make a decision. I mean, they really like it, and they take every opportunity to show us evidence that we’ve made the right one. (It’s probably a holdover from our cave-person days. When faced with a sabre-toothed tiger, the last thing the brain needs us to do is stand there dithering about whether it’s better to fight or take flight. Evolution rewards decisiveness.)

Think about the last time you decided to buy a certain kind of vehicle. I’d bet that you started to see a lot more of that specific make and model on the roads. That’s confirmation bias at work. Same for the heady days of a new relationship; we’re all aglow with the reasons this person is the right one for us, and we blissfully overlook any flaws there may be.

So what does this have to do with recruiting and hiring great people?

The interviews that lead to a job offer are not unlike a courtship. By the time we’ve narrowed the field from a large number of candidates to screen, to a smaller set of possible hires to interview, to a few select finalists, our brains are primed and ready to make a decision. Once we’ve decided which of the final candidates we want to hire, it often seems like that person can do no wrong. For every question we ask, their answer is letter perfect. We begin to picture them in the job, working alongside our current employees. It can feel like there’s literally no one who is better for this job, for us, than our chosen final candidate.

And that’s exactly when it’s most important to take a step back. To recognise confirmation bias as it’s happening to us.

Here’s a reality check. Depending who's survey results you choose to believe, as many as 85% of people confess to having at least some lies on their resume (and those are just the ones that admit it!).

Sure, in some of these cases, it’s probably more of a lie by omission. They’ve left something out of their resume, and avoided mentioning it in interviews, because it could potentially come back to bite them. In other cases, it’s likely more of an exaggeration than an all-out lie: they’ve stretched the truth just a wee bit about the things they say they’ve done and accomplished.

But a certain percentage of those resumes contain outright lies: blatant misrepresentations and factual untruths.

We live in an age of unprecedented risk and sensitivity around making the correct hiring decisions. The legal liability that could arise from cases like this is staggering, falling back on boards of directors, HR departments, executives, and recruiters alike, if it can be proven that due diligence wasn’t done. And that’s to say nothing of the reputational harm that can stick to a person or an organisation for years after the fact.

Here’s the irony: for purchases of all sizes in our own lives, we’re used to exercising due diligence. In fact, we demand it. How often do you buy something online – no matter how great or small the cost – without checking a few reviews first? If we don’t see any reviews at all, in this day and age, that’s a big red flag. We wouldn’t think about buying a vehicle, new or used, without talking to friends and family, and reading some reliability reports. Buying a house without having a property inspection done? Too risky for most people.

And yet, we’re often all too ready to hire someone based solely on the quality of their interviews, and our subjective– and human, therefore fallible – assessment of their skills, abilities, and their fit for our organisation. We do this, knowing that the cost of a bad hire can be astronomical.

So, to quote Ronald Reagan (perhaps apologetically): Trust, but verify.

Trust that your candidates are telling the truth on their resumes. Trust them in interviews, too. Trust your intuition, and your gut feel. Trust the members of your team when they tell you who they want to hire.

Trust. And then verify. Check references with an open mind. Conduct the criminal record check, and the visa verification. Verify, so you can maintain your trust.

Want to learn more about how we can help verify, so you can keep trusting? Get in touch with us today.