Purpose: Learn about the new Polygraph for management hires

His heart dropped when he saw his boss from his current company walk into the interview room with his prospective new employer. In a flash, every exaggeration on his resume was known. All of the excitement of a new and better-paying position instantly vanished.

That meeting ended quickly with an exchange of courtesies and a kind rejection. The interviewer walked back to her office frustrated at the amount of time and effort she had invested into this candidate. She had been excited about his strong resume and test results and happier yet that the exhausting search process was nearly over. At the same time, she was glad to know now about his weaknesses. They certainly would have cost her company a great deal more time, money and frustration if she had hired him.

70% of Resumes Can't Be Trusted
Research shows that 70% of the resumes on your desk right now contain fabrications and exaggerations. And it's not just for that sales or middle management job. An executive search firm reported that after reviewing thousands of resumes the top three lies were the number of years in a position, personal accomplishments, and the size of the organizations they've managed. Look at the people you've already hired to staff your company. I'm not suggesting that you distrust them, but that same 70% applies to the resumes you looked at last year too.

It is no wonder that the 80/20 rule is in effect at your company and on your team. Despite all of the testing, analyzing, interviewing, screening, background checks and gut feels, you would still like someone more effective in 80% of the positions of your company. That is true for your upper management also. You'd like to see 80% of them hit the road and be replaced by people with abilities and values that mirror those of the 20% that produce 80% of the results.

Avoid The Costly Hiring Mistake You're About to Make
It's enough to make you cry, because you simply want someone who can handle the responsibilities of the job, and you'll gladly pay well for their services. To complicate the matter, when considering upper management and executive staff, a great deal of their responsibility is as a leader. You are no longer looking for a technical expert, whose abilities are easily graded; you are now in that horribly grey area called soft-skills. Can you truly evaluate leadership skills and a person's ability to operate effectively under stress from a resume, interviews and personality tests?

Look around you for the evidence.

What's worse is that despite the gross volume of different paper tests, interview techniques and evaluation tools, you are still making mistakes in your hiring decisions. Yet, these mistakes are easily identified in advance, but not by using the existing passive methods. The wrong hiring decisions cost you enormous amounts of money and frustration and resulting inefficiencies. Studies show that the cost of turnover is three times the annual salary of the replaced employee. However, if you could make more informed hiring decisions, especially when filling your higher-paid leadership positions; it will have the opposite effect. You begin to reap monetary and efficiency benefits in an upward spiral.

What is needed is an advanced evaluation tool. You verify that someone can swim by putting them into the pool. You verify that someone can lead by putting them into a real leadership scenario. Like the pool the characteristics of the leadership scenario don't have to match the job exactly. To swim, you need enough water over a long enough distance. To lead, you need a task, a team, real stress and real consequences like the kind found in the Leading Concept's Ranger TLC Experience.

Use This Polygraph to Identify the Real Leader
This leadership scenario is your new polygraph, and it's legal. It's like having the candidate's old boss sitting at your side pointing out exaggerations and lies. Putting your top management candidates into this leadership scenario and evaluating them gives you the ability, in conjunction with the other tools, to avoid costly mistakes and have trust and confidence in the people you do hire.

To learn more about how immersion team building and leadership training can help you visit: http://www.leadingconcepts.com

Copyright 2005 Brace E. Barber

Brace E. Barber works extensively with Leading Concepts, Inc. (http://www.leadingconcepts.com) in the field of immersion soft-skill training with a focus is on how to develop leaders, who are prepared for and can succeed under stressful circumstances. He is the author of the book No Excuse Leadership. (http://www.noexcuseleadership.com)