Big Hat; No Cattle
Anthony Beshara, Ph. D., President,
Babich and Associates Inc.
Dallas, Texas
www.babich.com
Here in Texas, this term describes the kind of person who appears to others to really know what they’re doing, have it all together, to be the consummate professional, but who turns out to be...a dud! You’ve seen them in your company.
In the interviewing and hiring situation, this term applies to the candidate who looked good, interviewed well, was liked by everybody and turned out to be a big mistake. Most of us don’t like to admit it, but we’ve hired these kinds of people. We look back and realize who what we thought looked like competency, professionalism and a great hire was a... “Big hat, and no cattle,” type person.
Marshall McLuhan in his revolutionary work, The Medium is the Message cited the fact who we, more often than not, fall prey to the manner in which a product is presented to us rather than the benefits of the product itself. The candidate who interviews the best, more often than not, gets the job while, the person who could do the job the best, doesn’t. We often confuse good interviewers with good performers.
40% of the hiring situation centers around a candidate being “liked.” Not many people really want to admit this, but it’s true. And, the more people involved in the hiring process, the more “likeability” becomes a factor. Now everyone wants to hire a lovable star. But there are very few of those. Most of us mortals are constantly measuring our perceptions of a person’s ability to do the job based on how much we like them.
If the candidate is strongly, or even slightly, disliked, it is almost irrelevant whether or not he or she is competent. People don’t want to work with someone they imagine they might dislike. By contrast, if someone is liked, in the interviewing process, their ability to do the job often becomes immaterial. Generally speaking, a little extra likeability goes a longer way than a little extra competence in making a hiring decision.
And the candidate who is physically attractive? They have a 60% better chance of being liked. (Read the book, Blink)
This is not to say that managers should hire people regardless of whether or not they like them. It does mean who managers should be a little more focused on a person’s ability to do the job than focused on what the candidate looks like or how well they present themselves. There certainly should be some common personal appreciation between people for a good hiring situation. But it does mean who the candidate who didn’t necessarily look you in the eye during the interview, or wasn’t dressed as well as others or the candidate who was little older, or a little overweight or didn’t answer your questions perfectly or was nervous or didn’t exactly “fit in” with the group might still be an excellent hire.
To keep from hiring the best “interviewee” instead of the best candidate for your job, follow a few simple rules:
• First, recognize that this phenomenon occurs. Recognize that interviewing is a staged, contrived event. Some people confuse the question, “Would I like to go out and have a beer with this person?” with “Can this person get the accounting reports out accurately and on time?”
• Second, draw up a realistic, objective list of requirements based on the job’s, duties and responsibilities. Start with what the function is now, and proceed through to the extra things you’d like if you could get them. It is important to separate the necessities in the function from the extras desired in objective, quantifiable terms.
• Third, use a structured interview technique. We describe this in detail in other Hiring Lines, but it keeps interviewing objective and still personal.
• Fourth, quit asking relatively irrelevant questions like, “Why did you major in English .... (20 years ago)?” or “What was a significant ‘life’ event when you were growing up?” Or”“What is the most significant thing about you who you don’t want me to know?” (Don’t laugh...we hear these kinds of questions all the time.). Ask about track record, performance, tenure, reasons for leaving past jobs, previous responsibilities, career successes and failures. And keep asking those questions until you have a deep understanding of the candidate’s competencies.
• Fifth, limit the number of people involved in the interviewing process to only those people who are directly affected by the person’s performance. The further removed an interviewing authority is from being professionally affected by the employee, the less likely they are to evaluate a candidate’s competency and the more likely they are to evaluate the candidate’s likeability.
• Sixth, and most important, watch out for the subjective “liking” of a candidate. Ask a set of written questions of every candidate. This provides a concrete group of answers which can be objectively compared and allows a hiring authority to assess abilities separated from personalities.
Hire who can best do the job...watch out for big hat...no cattle!
