One of my very favorite songs is called Down Together by the Refreshments. The refrain includes the lyrics, "Cars break down and people break down and other things break down too so let's go...down together".

I had the chance to have dinner with Chris Mursau last Tuesday night in Chicago and we were discussing the single, most important reason why companies continue to experience a 50% failure rate when it comes to hiring. His assessment: Communication Breakdown.

How does this manifest itself thousands of times a day in the US alone?

1. Hiring Managers understand what their priorities are in their role and they (rarely) include hiring talent to earn their bonus.  As a result they email someone in HR that says "write me a job description"
2. HR, not quite sure what to put in the job description, references similar jobs the company has filled in the past and creates it to get it off of their To Do list.
3. The job is posted on the Internet somewhere and the resumes that come in get screened by the HR associate who wasn't sure about the role in the first place.
4. The resumes that pass the initial muster of the HR associate are forwarded to the Hiring Manager who looks at a few and decides to interview some people (though they're not even sure what the HR team posted on the web)
5. The first candidate comes in and the Hiring Manager asks a couple of associates to interview the person too (though these associates don't have a clue what they're even supposed to be interviewing for).
6. The Hiring Manager narrows the pool down to 2 and then calls HR to ask them to decide who the best one is (again, without providing the HR team the definition of "best").

If this sounds remotely similar, you're not alone!

As you've likely read on this blog before, I believe there are 3 reasons why a new hire doesn't work out:

1. You failed to clearly define what you needed someone to do
2. You failed to clearly articulate to the new hire what you needed them to do to be successful
3. You failed to gain the agreement of the new hire on what it will take to be considered successful

I completely understand if you brush off my counsel but choosing to ignore this when even Chris agrees that it's true is a true sign of foolishness.