A Case Study in Poor Selection Processes

Brendt Evenden, $8$ March $2023$

Our case study involves a startup organisation that GistLens had the chance to work with. GistLens frequently works with startups, and this particular case was no different. The company was in need of hiring a new tech lead after their previous one decided to move on$.$ The challenge was that the startup had a small team and the departing tech lead had extensive knowledge of all the systems. Our role in the hiring process was to conduct technical screening to help the company find a suitable replacement and we were also part of the overall hiring panel. The actual screening process was pretty difficult. Like many organisations, this company considered the candidate's experience and conducted a technical assessment during the hiring process. The candidate who was eventually hired excelled in the technical assessment and impressed the panel during the interview. However, as this is a case study in what can go wrong when hiring a software developer, you can guess that it's likely that the result was not as successful as hoped.

After some time had passed, it became clear that the person the startup had hired was causing significant issues for the team. The team members who were being supervised by this person were unable to work effectively and eventually resigned. While the hired individual had technical skills, they seemed to lack the ability to lead and manage the team effectively. The startup's management team, which was focused on funding rounds and speaking with investors, did not pay sufficient attention to the team's dynamics, leading to a breakdown in the team and the situation spiralling out of control.

The team was nearly destroyed due to the ineffective leadership of the person who was hired. Fortunately, the company was able to catch the issue in time and remove the individual from the role, saving the development team from completely dissolving. While the damage had already been done, the company was able to recover and begin a new hiring process to fill the void. Upon reflection, it became clear that multiple things had gone wrong, including the fact that the individual should not have been allowed to remain in their role for as long as they did. This failure was likely due to a systemic issue within the company that allowed it to happen.

But how did this person get through the hiring process? What could have been done differently to prevent this from happening? It's rare for a company, especially one of that size, to survive such a detrimental event.

Upon reviewing, it became clear that the hiring process was lacking in cognitive ability testing, which could have helped uncover the individual's potential behaviours in the role. Interviews can be deceiving, as candidates often know how to present themselves in a way that aligns with what the interviewer wants to hear. Implementing psychometric testing can provide valuable insight into a candidate's true behaviours and help ensure a better fit for the role.

Q$.$ Suppose that you are working in HR department of Gistlens and responsible for hiring. Please define a $3-$step selection process $($regarding the all methods that are described in the chapter$)$ for Gistlens to prevent such problems to be occurred after hiring.