Actual Comments of Why Employees Leave
“My education and experience has been primarily in development and system design/architecture. The role I was hired into was solely management.”

The Solution
The outcome of this comment was fairly predictable. The best technical person is not necessarily a good fit for management.

What was missing in the interview process? The responsibility for this situation is two-fold. Did the candidate talk a good game and oversell his abilities and/or desires to manage? Secondly, we do not know how or if the position was explained to the “candidate during the interview. However, why didn’t the interviewers match the candidate’s education and experience with the position requirements? The No. 1 priority when hiring is the interview. And, the first step to successful interviewing is assessing the position and the organization. This will take some work on the employer’s part, but if it is well done, the employer can increase
employee retention and is only hiring for the position once rather than multiple times.

Tips for hiring employees with the right job skills:

• Define what makes a good fit for the job. Know the benchmark skills, abilities, and work styles of the best employees currently in the position. What are the 3 – 5 truly essential criteria – things that cannot easily be trained and/or are a legal requirement for the position?

• Use performance based interviewing techniques as they can add insight into how an applicant will perform on the job because responses are generally based on past performance. Subjective open-ended and yes/no questions or relying on gut instincts often provide vague responses.

• When talking with a candidate, clearly define the position and ask the person how his prior education and experience would fit into the requirements of the job.

• Ensure questions are asked to help determine if the candidate is a good fit for the organization’s culture. Many employers focus on the technical skills while completely ignoring what makes people successful within the culture of your organization.

What are your methods for hiring? Do your follow a formalized process? Do you even believe it’s important to have a process? If you don’t, you should.

(Turnover Tuesday is a blog post brought to you by Human Systems Development, a company that helps other companies reduce employee turnover by providing employee engagement surveys, employee onboarding surveys and the exit interviews in which these comments have been compiled from. The exit interviews these comments come from have been conducted in the workplace with ExitRight, HSD’s exit interviewing service. Since we value the privacy of our clients and the name of the commenting person in this post; we keep their names confidential. Return weekly for Turnover Tuesday, to increase employee retention in your organization).

About Deb Dwyer Deborah Dwyer is the founder and president of Human Systems Development. With over 30 years of combined experience in human resource management and survey research, Deborah’s extensive knowledge reaches beyond organizational research to include significant expertise in work climate improvement, retention, hiring and selection, employee orientation, performance management systems, recognition programs, and career development systems.