10 Voodoo hiring techniques and why they fail

Voodoo hiring is a false method of interviewing the candidate and assessing their fit for the role, all while assuming that the hiring is easy. None of the 10 methods below are able to help you find the right fit for the role in your team, needless to note that those are the least objective methods of hiring.

Are you guilty of any of those? Spotting some similarities in your own interviewing experience? Well, the first stage to combat these wrongful methods is to be aware of them.

Taken from: Geoff Smart and Randy Street, “Who — The A method for hiring”:

The Art Critic

Forgers can pass off fake paintings as real ones to the time-pressed buyer, and people who want a job badly enough can fake an interview if it lasts only a few minutes. Gut instinct is terribly inaccurate when it comes to hiring someone.

The Sponge

A common approach among busy managers is to let everybody interview a candidate to get as much info as possible. Time efficiency is nill.

The Prosecutor

Managers aggressively question candidates, attempting to trip them up with trick questions and logic problems. You may find someone knowledgeable that way but knowledge and the ability to do the job are not the same things.

The Suitor

Suitors are more concerned with impressing candidates than assessing their capabilities. They spend all of their time in an interview talking and virtually no time listening.

The Trickster

The interviewers who use gimmicks to test for certain behaviors.

The Animal Lover

Asking what type of animal would you be – there is no scientific basis or relevance.

The Chatterbox

Although enjoyable, this method does nothing to help you make a good decision.

The Psychological and Personality Tester

These types of tests are not recommended as they are not predictive of success on the job.

The Aptitude Tester

They can help determine whether the candidate has the right aptitude for the job but they should never be the sole determinant in a hiring decision.

The Fortune Teller

Some interviewers like to ask their candidates to look into the future regarding the job at hand by asking hypothetical questions.