The audition: new trend in hiring.

• Author: Libes, Stewart

The classical approach to acquiring and filling the myriad of semi-professional and professional positions available in today's workplace no longer works. For employers, it is time-consuming, costly, and, in many instances, inaccurate and fraught with legal pitfalls.

The hiring process traditionally has been an interlinking series of multi-level, interdepartmental functions, including classified advertising, resume cataloging and review, initial candidate contact and screening, first interview, candidate testing, reference checking, verification of credentials, supplemental interviews, job offers, negotiations, and counteroffers. If the first-choice candidate accepts the job, the search may have been successful, economical, and efficient. If not, employers likely will find themselves reconsidering applicants near the top of the fist.

Once the offer is made and accepted, a different set of interlinking, multi-level, interdepartmental functions are set into motion. These may include physical examinations and drug testing, on-the-job training, mandatory probationary periods with functional performance reviews, and the 35-40% additional benefit-to-salary ratio employers are responsible for.

Meanwhile, there are no guarantees. After all the machinations of the process, a candidate still could be hired who is barely adequate or is something less than whoever was in place before the entire process was begun.

The traditional employment process has evolved into an intellectual test of wills. As many tests and interviews an applicant endures, as many different interviewers there are formulating opinions, and despite the final decision-maker who ultimately hires an individual to fill the position with the qualities, experience, and knowledge to make a particular department shine, the entire process is illusionary.

The companies and organizations that, through advertising and networking, search for and fill the thousands of positions that open on a daily basis have competent, professional, and highly trained human resources executives conducting the recruiting. Meanwhile, the candidates have resources of their own.

What with self-help books, resume-writing experts, interview coaches, job-pooling networks, and information sharing on the internet, it is much like the adversarial relationship that exists in the judicial system. The company is looking for the perfect candidate and searching for shortcomings. The applicant, on the other hand, is striving to put his or her best foot forward. No one really will know the outcome of the process until...