Three months ago, the hiring committee all agreed on a specific candidate for the job. They used behavioral interview questions and had 2 separate interviews. Upon reflection, most of the hiring team now regrets hiring the candidate and wished they had gone w/ #2. What is a good way of reviewing the hiring decision and putting together a “lessons learned”?

My answer:

It’s relatively informal, mostly discussion. We look at the candidate’s qualifications, the job description, the interview notes, the reference checks and look for patterns. Many of the ‘patterns’ we see post hire were there pre-hire but because of candidate infatuation, urgency to fill, weak secondary candidates, etc, the committee(s) moved ahead with the hire.

What other information could you offer? How do you evaluate a failed fill?