“Hiring for Attitude,” written by Mark Murphy in 2012, delves into recruitment and hiring strategies that emphasize the importance of a candidate’s attitude over traditional qualifications. The book positions attitude as the key determinant of success and failure in organizations, and Murphy presents various methods, insights, and practical steps that can be undertaken to shift the hiring focus towards attitude.

Murphy argues that companies often experience high turnover rates and poor performance because they focus too heavily on skills rather than attitude. To underline this, he highlights that 89% of hiring failures are due to attitude, while only 11% stem from lack of skill.

Action Step:
Evaluate your current hiring process and identify areas that overly emphasize technical qualifications. Implement assessment tools that measure attitude and culture fit alongside technical skills.

Murphy emphasizes that “attitude” encompasses various traits such as optimism, accountability, and resilience. These traits align with the organizational culture and determine how employees navigate challenges.

Action Step:
Create a list of the top five attitudes essential for success within your company. Use this list as a baseline for interviewing and assessing candidates.

Murphy shares a strategy called the “Brown Shorts” method, inspired by Southwest Airlines’ hiring approach. This method entails identifying the attitudes that characterize your top performers, akin to how Southwest values a sense of humor and a team-oriented mindset.

Example:
Southwest Airlines found that humor and teamwork were critical to their culture and success, leading them to prioritize these traits in their hiring process.

Action Step:
Conduct interviews with top performers in your organization to pinpoint specific attitudes and behaviors that contribute to their success. Develop interview questions that elicit these traits.

The book advocates for behavioral interviewing as a means to uncover past behaviors that indicate attitude. Questions should aim to reveal real-life instances where the candidate demonstrated the desired traits.

Example:
Instead of asking hypothetical questions, probe into experiences like, “Tell me about a time when you had to overcome a significant setback at work.”

Action Step:
Draft a set of behavioral interview questions tailored to elicit responses that reflect the critical attitudes previously identified.

The use of tailored assessment tools to measure attitude and cultural fit is emphasized. Tools like personality tests and situational judgment tests can be leveraged to gauge these attributes effectively.

Example:
Companies like Zappos use creative and unconventional assessment techniques to understand if candidates align with their core values.

Action Step:
Integrate personality assessments and situational judgment tests into your hiring procedure, customizing these tools to measure the attitudes most relevant to your organization.

Murphy stresses the necessity of training interviewers to recognize and evaluate attitude correctly. This includes educating them on non-verbal cues and effective questioning techniques.

Example:
He illustrates how Ritz-Carlton invests in extensive interviewer training to ensure consistency and effectiveness in their hiring process.

Action Step:
Develop a training program for your hiring team focused on the importance of attitude, interpretation of behavioral cues, and the formulation of effective interview questions.

Consistency in evaluating candidates is crucial. Murphy recommends creating a scoring system that allows interviewers to rate candidates against the identified attitude benchmarks uniformly.

Example:
Google’s structured interview process includes standardized scoring rubrics to maintain objectivity and consistency.

Action Step:
Implement a uniform scoring system for interviews, with defined criteria for each critical attitude. Ensure all interviewers are trained to use this system consistently.

Murphy also touches on the human tendency towards cognitive biases, which can skew the evaluation process. Awareness and structured approaches can mitigate this risk.

Example:
Blind recruitment processes, which focus on anonymizing candidate information to reduce unconscious biases, can be highly effective.

Action Step:
Institute measures such as blind skill assessments or anonymized resume reviews to reduce cognitive biases during the selection process.

Post-hiring, it’s vital to nourish and integrate the desired attitudes through a structured onboarding process. Murphy suggests that onboarding should reinforce the cultural values and expectations from the outset.

Example:
Organizations like Netflix have onboarding programs that emphasize their cultural tenets and ensure new hires understand and embody these principles from day one.

Action Step:
Design an onboarding program that not only trains for job-specific skills but also immerses new hires in the company’s culture, values, and expected attitudes.

Murphy advises establishing feedback loops to continually refine the hiring process. Surveying new hires and monitoring their performance can provide insights into the effectiveness of your attitude-focused hiring.

Example:
Regular reviews and feedback from both the hiring team and the new employees helped a tech company align its hiring process more closely with its evolving culture.

Action Step:
Set up a system for regular feedback from new hires regarding the hiring and onboarding process, and use this information to make iterative improvements.

Mark Murphy’s “Hiring for Attitude” reshapes the conventional approach to recruitment by advocating the primacy of attitude over technical skills. Through practical examples, detailed methodologies, and actionable steps, the book provides a comprehensive guide for organizations aiming to improve their hiring strategies and ensure a better cultural fit with their hires. By shifting focus to attitudes and incorporating structured, consistent evaluation methods, companies can enhance their workforce’s overall performance and cohesion.