Picture this scenario:

You have just advertised for a position you are hiring for your team. Sitting on your desk in front of you is a stack of over a hundred Resumes you have received over the last week in response to the position you have advertised.

As you look at the stack of Resumes, you let out a sigh and think to yourself: “Do I have to go through ALL of these Resumes????

Then you decide that you will quickly skim through the Resumes and pick out those that catch your attention.

And so you take the stack of Resumes and you let your eyes quickly glide down the first Resume. It doesn’t look good to you. You put it aside on your desk and you designate that stack as the “no-go??? stack.

You do the same for the second Resume. This one catches your eye. It looks good. It is well written. It is nicely formatted, and it seems to contain all the keywords you are looking for, and yes, the top right hand corner of the Resume shows a beautiful looking photograph of the candidate. You decide to put it aside in another stack you have designated as the “Interview??? stack.

Then you go on to the third Resume. And then the fourth. You do this for the rest of the stack of Resumes, sorting the entire stack of Resumes into the “Interview??? or the “no-go??? stacks.

Finally after 45 minutes of agony scanning through the Resumes, you are done. You heave a sigh of relief. Now you have two smaller stacks of Resumes – one designated as “Interview??? and the other as “No-go???.

Fortunately, you have only 10 Resumes in the “Interview??? stack and you decide you will meet up with all ten candidates in the “Interview??? stack, and then decide which among the ten you will hire.

And so over the next couple of days, the ten candidates are contacted and the interviews arranged.

As you meet with each of the ten candidates, one of them comes across as articulate, warm, friendly, intelligent, and yes, good looking. She was able to answer all of the questions you posed. Her answers sounded very intelligent and she seemed like someone you would be happy to have on your team.

Character references are checked and everyone seems to speak very highly of her. She certainly looks like the perfect candidate for your team.

One week after the interviews, you decide to offer this candidate the job. She accepts your offer without hesitation. You are ecstatic. You can’t wait for her to come on board and join your team. Somehow you just feel that she will be a fantastic addition to your team.

Fast forward six months.

You sit at your desk and wonder how on earth you ended up with a monster on your team.

She’s always on the defensive. She’s always putting the blame on the other team members each time something goes wrong. On the other hand, she takes the credit for everything that goes well. She screams at her team mates. She throws her weight around and takes advantage of the weaker members on the team. She refuses to learn. She refuses to be coached. She wants things done her way and her way only. She believes she is right all the time and everyone else is a moron. She’s simply a nightmare to work with.

All the other team members are up to their eyeballs with her. Morale is severely impacted and team performance is on a steep downhill slide. Projects are getting delayed and customers are furious. The other team members are coming to you every few days to register their displeasure with you, some even threatening to quit the team if nothing is done about the situation.

You now have a serious challenge on your hands.

So if you were this Manager, what would you do to avoid a similar hiring disaster?

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