SUMMARY OF ARTICLE

With the changes in the scope of the business scenario, the demand for the talented
executives is increasing rapidly. As the uniformity of the job changes, the organizational and
the individual requirements also change. Misfit between the goals results in dissatisfaction,
followed by extensive firing and resignation. Given the changes in the industrial scenario, it
is tough to find any mathematical or objective solution for the hiring problem. However, a
systematic approach which requires discipline and time should be utilized to combat this
issue.
The growth is not always organic. Whenever the cross-border inorganic growth takes place,
the cross cultural problem becomes more prevalent. In these types of situations focus must be
on the soft skills of the executives, which are hard to document. Negotiation skills, crosscultural knowledge, bridge-building abilities are a few of these soft skills. These skills tend to
be more important when the organizational forms and job responsibilities transform
overnight. The executives should be flexible enough to handle dynamic roles. It is the
challenge of the employers to ensure that these soft skills are present in those they hire.
The growth of the industry depends largely on the level of hiring. Keeping the high growth
rate of the executive search industry in mind, the organizations should not commit any
mistakes. There are certain traps in which organizations get caught due to the subjectivity of
human nature. Due to the rebound effect, firings result in job openings. This reactive
approach may work in the short run by focusing on job requirements rather on personality
traits. The job requirements should not incorporate unrealistic job specifications as it shrinks
the pool of the right candidates. Without proper given contexts, the absolute observations can
prove to be wrong. Without determining the long-term aspirations of the candidates and their
organizational fit as well, hiring takes place on the face value. Organizations fail to recognize
the temporary camouflage of the candidates.
A similar mistake occurs in case of evaluating the references as well. Personal relationships
sometimes override organizational loyalty and the fear of legal consequences also results in
hiding the references. Hence, employers have to believe in strangers. Many-a-times the
employers are also driven by stereotyping bias. This can result in the rejection of an
appropriate candidate. Delegation of the critical activities to the subordinates may result in
poor hiring, either in terms of improperly defining the job description, or initial screening of
candidates by incapable executives. The interviewer must be well prepared with the proper
set of questions required to evaluate the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the candidate. An
unstructured interview format can result in rejection of the most suitable candidate. A perfect
mix of I.Q. and E.Q. must be evaluated for the requirement of any position. While hiring
someone for a critical position, it must be evaluated whether the person is emotionally and
socially suitable for the job or pretention is taking place. However, if pressure comes from
the top management, then improper hiring takes place irrespective of the interview methods
followed. It nevertheless hampers the strategic vision of the organization.

Evaluating people in absolute terms- The answers to absolute questions are opinions rendered
in a vacuum and should be understood as such. The problem is, they are taken as fact.
The Just like Me bias- And theres the halo effectletting one positive characteristic
outshine all others. But the most pervasive bias of all is the tendency to highly rate people
who are just like you.
Delegating gaffes- Such delegation would not be bad if the people creating the description
were properly briefed on the nature of the job opening and if top managers remained involved
in the hiring process along the way.
Political pressures- The last hiring trap is the most pervasive and daunting of them all.
Indeed, well into my second decade in the executive search profession, the most spectacular
hiring mistakes I have seen have been the result of well-meaning people who just happen to
have agendas.
The aforesaid problems can be overcome by investing in problem definition and
understanding the alternatives. Whenever any vacancy comes up in the organization, it must
evaluate various factors - should the recruitment drive should be outsourced, whether the
present and future job requirements are specific to the position, what is the alignment of the
requirement of the position with the strategic vision of the organization, defining the job
specifications and competencies. Once the consensus is built on the basis of the mentioned
points, homework needs to be done to materialize them. The source needs to be built, the
people with boundary-less mind-set need to be found, the stages of the interview need to be
finalized, the reference verification needs to be formalized, and finally the motive of the
candidate needs to be clear.
To overcome the above weaknesses, we need to come up with the strengths. They can be as
follows:
Getting Hiring Right- This would include a special systemic process with two major agendas,
i.e., investing in the problem definition and Doing the homework.
After generating a list of priorities, the search team needs to identify the positions critical
incidents, or commonly occurring situations that the new executive will confront and must
be able to master to be considered a strong performer. Critical incidents are often left out of
the hiring process, perhaps because it takes time to develop a list of them. But they are
enormously useful.
The problem-definition stage should also include a process to identify the jobs requirements
from a lateral point of view, or from the point of view of the new executives would-be
colleagues. So many jobs are moving targets, but even if a jobs requirements change
overnight, a new hire with the minimum requirements would likely be able to manage in the
short term. Long-term success, however, is determined by the heart of the job description: its
list of key competencies. Defining competencies in behavioral terms essentially imposes
clarity. But here, no list of competencies would be complete without an acknowledgment of

the personal and interpersonal factors required for success. Every job description should
include those few emotional intelligence competencies critical to getting the work done.
Doing the Homework- It makes far more sense, however, to drum up people who are likely to
know of several high-quality candidates at once. As you set out, dont look for the candidates
themselves; look for people who know strong candidates.
A second strategy for generating candidates involves adopting a boundary less mind-set.
An open, creative attitude is, frankly, exceedingly rare among executives in the midst of the
hiring process. The whole thing feels so difficult and risky to begin with, their gut tells them
it is better to stick close to the rules. In the best-case scenario, structured interviews should be
conducted by more than one person in the organization. In fact, the strategy of having several
people evaluate candidates provides powerful checks and balances within the systemwith
one important caveat: multiple interviews are meaningful only if they are truly independent.
How many people should interview each candidate? Our experience suggests that a second
evaluation reduces the possibility of hiring error from 50% to 10%, while a third evaluation
practically guarantees a good decision. Companies that rely on long-term employment as a
competitive advantage should increase the number of interviews accordingly.
How, after all, do you overcome the superficiality built into the game? One answer is to
speak with someone you know and trust who actually knows the candidate, if that is possible.
The person may not be the candidates boss or one of his colleagues, but perhaps they served
together on a non-profit board. Of course, you must also speak with the candidates formal
references, but make every effort to do so in person.
Has the candidate faced similar challenges in his current or past positions? How has he
performed during them? The reference interview is also your main opportunity to probe for
an accurate assessment of a candidates emotional and social competencies. Remember that
the candidates themselves are on their best behaviour during interviews, making such
competencies hard to judge first-hand.
Indeed, many of the best candidates get away when the focus of the hiring process shifts from
evaluation to recruitment. The reason: the job is sold to them poorly, or not at all. The most
important part of selling a job understands the main motivesand the primary fearsof the
candidate. For example, some people are motivated by money, others want challenge, and
still others are eager to work with a great group of colleagues.
The Courage to Hire Wisely
Finally, nothing convinces more than conviction. If you want a candidate, go out of your
way. The hiring process needs courage and discipline, given the pressures of time and
conventionnot to mention organizational politicsit is easy to fall into any number of
traps.

CRITICAL REVIEW
This article Hiring without Firing by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz explained the importance of
HR activities regarding the success of the hiring process. Claudio presents a clear depiction
of the problems faced by the organizations during the hiring process. He is keen to state that
the inclination towards objectivity poses a challenge before the organizational strategy. He
also defined the traps in the way of hiring, keeping the eyes in history and present
simultaneously. We opine that the author aptly organized his research results to reach a
conclusion.
The author relies on his experience as researcher and consultant for 13 years to justify the
hiring problems faced by any organization. The credibility of his findings are based on the
given real life scenarios regarding the ten deadly traps. He starts with the reactive approach
and throughout the article he has given emphasis on that particular approach only. We opine
that the problem may also arise if the proactive measures are taken. He has talked about
camouflaging of behavior and the personal motive of the candidates, but he hasnt given any
clear way to combat the problem. The remaining problems are well dealt with as the
underlying solutions are also provided. While discussing the political pressures, the author
does not mention anything about handling the pressure given by the trade unions and the
quotas posed by government.

The author also contended the two broad ways to overcome hiring problems. While
discussing about investing in problem definition, he focused on the in house-outsource
tradeoff, and competency mapping. But he hasnt given any clear idea about the strategic
move to be taken during an inorganic growth scenario. In the doing the homework section,
he clearly showed the ways to generate the effective recruitment pool and hiring. There also
he has been subjective regarding the motive of the candidate. We opine that these are few
areas where we are unable to find our answer.

The article is well written for organizations who struggle to achieve profitability in the
absence of proper hiring mechanisms in the organizational system. Although the article does
not define the research methodology, the parameters used, and the time frame, the challenges
have been brought forward explicitly stating that it requires innovation in terms of the
recruitment policy design and implementation.

We believe that the author has been able to justify the ways the organization can reap the
benefits of becoming a professional in the recruitment function. By reading the article we can
conclude that the recruitment function should be implemented holistically in organizations
which may result in better employee performance and revenue generation hence ultimately
leading to organizational excellence.