Boomerangs — The No. 1 Solution for Reducing the Need to Hire ‘Stranger Candidates’

Most have never heard of “stranger candidates.” However, most firms hire almost exclusively from a group of candidates who they knew nothing about before they applied to your firm (aka strangers). Because strangers can easily fool you, I have found that this lack of deep knowledge about candidates is the No. 1 underlying reason why firms make so many weak hiring decisions. And, if you don’t believe that most hiring decisions involving strangers are weak, research shows that the average hiring failure rate is 46 percent. Yes, we do talk to candidates for a handful of hours, and we ask their references (who are also strangers to us) to rate them. However, the mere fact that they are strangers to us allows candidates to fool us with their puffed-up resumes and their rehearsed first impressions.