Right man for the job?

Have you ever looked on in horror as your brand new senior project manager flounders in a meeting, or misjudges the audience and sends the client out the door in a huff? Ever felt that creeping unease as the high flyer poached from your competitor is starting to be shunned by your whole senior management team?

Face it, hiring the wrong person for a senior role is a big risk, and one to which construction is prone because of a dangerous cocktail of circumstances: a sustained boom has left a management skills gap, recruiters tend to focus on technical ability over softer skills, and word spreads fast about a person’s reputation, even though reputations may be as much fiction as fact.

The risk can be severe in smaller firms, where the pressure is on to fill the vacancy fast, and where everybody in the management team has vital, client-facing roles.

When interviewing for that senior post, we’ve got to move beyond the usual mix of gut-instinct and wishful thinking, according to business psychologist Charles Woodruffe, who vets potential candidates in sectors outside construction.

He says the blowback from a hasty or misjudged appointment is serious and widespread, affecting not only a firm’s morale, but its bottom line, too. “It’s a downward spiral,” Woodruffe says. “The person doesn’t have other people’s confidence and they lose confidence in themselves. Mistakes get noticed and successes don’t. Small problems turn into big ones.”

The situation is also hard on staff further down the line. “They have to cover for them and they start thinking, why the hell am I doing this? It’s a demoralising experience for everybody.”

So why does it happen in the first place? Sometimes it’s because recruiters give insufficient thought to defining the post they’re trying to fill. Maybe what they really need is a seasoned charmer who can handle difficult client relationships, but in an interview they’re wowed by a candidate’s skill in technical problem solving, failing to notice – or choosing to ignore – his or her blunt manner.

It’s also because smaller firms don’t know how to fully assess a candidate. Woodruffe says there are tools available, such as detailed interviews and psychometric testing, designed to give a more accurate picture of the person in question. Some may sell themselves superbly in interviews, but lack critical thinking ability.

There are also tests to probe the “darker side” of a candidate’s personality, predicting where positive attributes like confidence, charm and independence might tip over, under stress, into negatives like arrogance, manipulation and aloofness.

But what if the inappropriate candidate has already signed on the dotted line? Woodruffe has consulted in such situations and says it’s not too late even then to limit the damage.

The first step may be coaching, to try and make the “wrong” person “right”. But he stresses you shouldn’t rule out the possibility that maybe the organisation has something to learn.

“We might not be taking the side of the firm,” he says. “Maybe their culture is just intolerant and it may be actually very difficult to find anyone who meets its demands.”

Clearly, though, getting the right fit first must be a priority for an industry like construction, where personal “chemistry” is key.