A sales manager, a hiring manager, a recruiter, and a job applicant walk into a bar… Sounds familiar? Actually, these days it would have to be a coffee bar. But add whatever stereotyped recruiting behavior you choose to fill in the rest of the scenario, and the result might still be uncomfortably close to reality.

The difference is, this isn’t a joke. What follows is based on a real-life search committee I recently worked with, screening candidates for a leadership position. The characters in the story were all fine people, experienced and intelligent, and were successful in their careers. Unfortunately, in their tendency to jump to their own, often fanciful conclusions rather than stick to job-related facts, they represent a sad example of the human condition, recruiting-style.

The Sales Manager
When the sales manager asked to see a plan for growth, he was wowed by the applicant’s charts, graphs, and list of recommended resources. A closer examination showed that the plan seriously lacked substance. In short, the sales manager fell in love with a flashy, big-picture presentation.

A famous burger commercial once showed a "grandma" looking at a competitor's sandwich and repeatedly asking, "Where's the beef?" Well, in this case, the sales manager forgets to ask the same question. The candidate was all sizzle, and no meat.

The Turn-Around Manager
The turn-around manager was a legend in his own mind. He carefully examined "snippets" of information from the resume and made sweeping assumptions based on little or no objective data. One candidate, for example, spent the last six years managing staff in an administrative position. The turn-around manager examined this part of the resume, ignoring the second page, and announced: "This person only has staff experience! He could not possibly be successful in our position."

The turn-around manager considered himself to be a good judge of people, but he repeatedly looked for small details on which he could base big assumptions.

The HR Manager
Another candidate was asked how he made group presentations: from behind a podium; or in the middle of the room. After describing how he used a podium, the HR manager concluded, "Any one who stands behind a podium to talk is ineffective. Disqualify that candidate!"

Was the candidate a poor speaker? The HR manager believed no one could be effective unless they spoke extemporaneously from the middle of the group. His personal opinion (unencumbered with facts) was his reality.

The Professional Recruiter
The professional recruiter impressed everyone with magic questions like, "What was your greatest challenge and what did you learn from it?" and, "If you gathered 100 of your friends in a room, what would they say was your greatest strength and greatest weakness?" Groan!

Questions like these are, no doubt, interesting, but they constitute psychobabble. The recruiter is using questions that, he believes, could predict job success – but without any actual evidence that they are even relevant, much less effective. Sorry, close, but no cigar.

Wrong Answer; Now Go Home
In a way, these people’s behavior is not entirely their fault. When faced with too much data, such as dozens or hundreds of job applicants, our human nature often encourages us to adopt an elimination strategy. That is, instead of qualifying whether a person has the right job skills, we seek information that will allow us to disqualify a candidate for attending the wrong school, holding the wrong job title, citing the wrong experience, or even misspelling a word.

The turn-around manager, for example, considered himself to be a leadership expert. He zeroed in on one aspect of the applicant's resume and jumped to a silly conclusion: Applicants coming from staff positions could not possibly have leadership skills. He had no data to support this claim, and was merely reducing the range of choices by making negative inferences.

The HR manager made the same mistake. When a candidate responded to a question about giving presentations, the HR manager heard a magic word that triggered a misinformed opinion about public-speaking techniques.

Is this resume half full, or half empty?
The flip side of this process is that, when we personally like a candidate, we fill in the blanks and make positive assumptions based on little or no hard evidence.

When the sales manager, for example, looked at the applicant's proposed plan, his mind automatically filled in the blanks – although there were almost no supporting facts about what the applicant would actually do. Did the candidate have an example from his own experience about how to grow and organization? No. But the sales manager liked him so much that he unconsciously supplied the positive information he was looking for.

The professional recruiter was a bit harder to pin down. His “what kind of tree would you be” questions sounded deep and insightful, but they had only two possible responses: positive ones that gave the interviewers “warm-fuzzies,” or negative ones that gave them “cold-pricklies.” It was just a case of "guess the magic word" and either win the job or lose it. The questions had nothing to do with the skills needed to perform the job. Were they deep and insightful? For a therapist, perhaps. But they were shallow and myopic for a recruiter.

Examples and Inferences
Minimizing hiring mistakes based on resumes and interviews requires knowing one simple, yet obscure concept: An inference unsupported by facts is not the same as an example of job performance.

An inference is jumping to a conclusion based on a "clue." An example, on the other hand, is a clear-cut, historical illustration of job ability. Examples are substantially more accurate than inferences because they are observable demonstrations of job performance. However, inferences are often superficially more attractive, and interviewers and hiring managers are often misled by them.

Of course, we have to start by knowing exactly what kind of examples we’re looking for. Let's say that a candidate says she is highly critical. One employer might find that to be a good thing and another might not. Unconsciously making another inference, they each defined in their heads what the phrase meant. "Highly critical" could indicate a analytical skill, or it could mean a general tendency to find fault.

Successful Interviewing
Interviewers must be careful about translating candidates' words into job-related data. To do this, they should use structured interviews that require a candidate to explain situations, actions, and results. These are superior to the "get to know ya'" versions because the interviewer (hopefully) knows explicitly what to probe for and how to phrase questions that minimize error. But they are still highly dependent on the skill of the interviewer, and on the ability (or career experience) of the interviewee to provide trustworthy and reliable answers.

Giving the candidate a problem-solving test provides a good example of whether he or she could solve a job-related problem. But these, too, have to be done carefully. The problem must be clearly written; it must be time-bound; it must have a clear set of answers; and scores should directly relate to job performance. There is both an art and a science to doing this, and neither are easy to master. Cases studies and other types of pencil-and-paper exercises, however, do provide solid examples about the candidate's ability.

Interpersonal skills are much more difficult to measure using pencil and paper, for a variety of reasons. Some people are smart enough to fake it. Others have unrealistic opinions of their own ability. Interpersonal behavior also can change dramatically depending on the situation – and a job interview is a very stressful situation.

Examples of interpersonal ability almost always require some kind of one-on-one simulation. A situation is clearly outlined, a role-player is carefully trained, and a clear set of desirable responses is developed. Unlike the pencil-and-paper format, a simulation invites the candidate to show an example of his or her interpersonal skills. Decisions about team-membership, management, salesmanship, customer service, coaching, and so forth, are often substantially improved using simulations.

There are many methods available for identifying applicant skills. If you look closely at each, however, you’ll find that the most trustworthy and reliable ones measure examples of job-related behavior. The least trustworthy and reliable methods invite people to make inferences based on incomplete information.