By Steven B. McKinney

McKinney Consulting Inc.

Being an optimistic kind of guy it is hard to talk about negative things, but sometimes it is necessary to move forward.  As we begin a new year in just a manner of weeks now is the time to re-look at why some new hires fail.  A recent survey finds that 46% of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months.

Kennedy Information Inc. reports in their latest magazine ERN about a recent survey taken on new hire failures. This study was conducted by Leadership IQ, a global leadership training and research company.  There were recently results released from this three-year study of 5,247 hiring managers from 312 public, private, business and healthcare organizations.  The combined hiring managers surveyed hired more than 20,000 employees during this three-year period.  So in my opinion the sampling pool was reasonably large enough to take serious the results.  At the least we should hear them out and then draw our own conclusions.

Before I let you know the results consider this, traditionally, you would think that failures would come from the lack of technical skills to do the job. Wrong, it is not in the top 4. Or, that the employee just did not have enough experience/knowledge to take their assignments to the next level. Wrong again. Some times I hear that an employee “…just does not get it.” 

Recently, there was a scenario where the employee had been in the position for over four years and now the company had decided that he was not fit for the position.  To me four years is an awful long time for an employer to come to the conclusion that an employee did not have what it takes to do the job.  What happened at the annual reviews, feedback, correction, dialogue?  I think that there is something else here, at a minimum a failure to communicate.  It’s not the employee's fault; it’s the employer’s mistake.   

Ok, I will not keep you in suspense any longer on the main reasons why new hires fail. Actually, interpersonal skills were the main reason for failures.  This area is too often overlooked in the interviewing and hiring process.  We are guilty of spending more time on the technical and educational requirements of the position rather than exploring the interpersonal relationship requirements.

“The study found that 26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept feedback, 23% because they’re unable to understand and manage emotions, 17% because they lack the necessary motivation to excel, 15% because they have the wrong temperament for the job, and only 11% because they lack key skills.”

The failure of new hires should not be a surprise because hiring managers’ focus very little on the emotional aspect of the candidate.  More time is spent on evaluating the technical skills of the candidate.  “82% of corporate hiring managers reported that in hindsight, their interview process with these new employees elicited subtle clues that they would be headed for trouble.” 

Unfortunately, the average hiring manager gets very little hiring experience.  Only when there is a vacancy and time is crucial do they get the opportunity to hire.  Also, candidate first impressions are important but often are wrong.  Studying a resume and interviewing a candidate for an hour is a daunting task to make such an important decision.  Too often hiring managers are left to make a decision based upon appearance, speech and perceived personality of a candidate.  Professionals use one form or another of skills and abilities assessment along with proper fit criteria to make their judgments.

A good hiring manager is aware of the six basic types of interview questioning and uses a mixture of these to properly assess potential candidates.  These six are:

1) Structured interview – An interview that uses a set of standardized questions asked of all job applicants.

2) Situational interview – A structural interview composed of questions about how applicants might handle specific job situations.

3) Behavioral Description Interview – Interview in which applicants give specific examples of how they have performed or handled problems in the past.

4) Nondirective interview – An interview that uses general questions, from which other questions are developed.

5) Stress Interview – This type is designed to create anxiety and put pressure on the applicant to see how the person responds.

6) Panel Interview – Usually, applicants are interviewed by one interviewer at a time. But when an interviewee must see several people, many of the interviews are redundant and therefore unnecessarily time consuming.  In a panel interview, several interviewers interview the candidate at the same time.  All the interviewers hear the same responses. 

“The typical interview process fixates on ensuring that new hires are technically competent,” says Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ.  “But coachability, emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament are much more predictive of a new hire’s success or failure.  Do technical skills really matter if the employee isn’t open to improving, alienates their coworkers, lacks drive and has the wrong personality for the job?”

Upon completing the interviews Leadership IQ compiled the top five reasons whey new hires fail.

Coachability (26%):  The ability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers and others.

Emotional Intelligence (23%):  The ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions, and accurately assess other’s emotions.

Motivation (17%):  Sufficient drive to achieve one’s full potential and excel in the job.

Temperament (15%):  Attitude and personality suited to the particular job and work environment.

Technical Competence (11%):  Functional or technical skills required to do the job.

Some hiring mangers did better than others. Those that focused on behavioral elements in addition to the technical aspect of a candidate faired better.  Murphy says, “But the majority of managers lack both the training to accurately read and assess candidates, and the confidence to act even when their assessments are correct.”

If hiring managers’ focus more on the behavioral aspect of a candidate they will make better hires.  Hiring failures can be reduced as this survey has suggested.  The cost of hiring failures is in the millions of dollars.  The loss of time, revenue, market share, search fees, team morale plus other costs add up to a significant hit to the bottom line of any company small or large.

Steven B. McKinney is the founder and president of McKinney Consulting Inc., Korea's most trusted executive search firm.  McKinney Consulting offers a comprehensive range of personalized, professional resource services to a wide cross-section of companies operating in Korea and Asia.  Mr. McKinney is a globally established commentator on international management.  He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it