8 steps to (interviewing) heaven
When I receive mandates for a search, clients often remind me of urgency and completion by a certain time. All well understood and expected. The fast time frame, however, is often not adhered to, sliding into a “hurry up and wait” cadence. Why is that, given such urgency and need?
I have observed that many MNCs do not have a robust interviewing process in place for senior hires in CA or GR. This not only slows the process, but for savvy candidates, allows insight that their potential new employer may not be a good choice. For those who hire, here are eight points that can make the interviewing process more manageable, predictable, and fun.
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- What will this role likely be in a couple of years? No guarantees, (and we all carve our own internal career path), but the good jobs must have breadth and be challenging. The job will change a few months after starting and HR and management need to ponder such vistas.
- Keep the job description cliché-free. Think more of the qualifications–what are the “must haves”, what strengths must this person possess and how will they fit into the culture, the region and the management? A job description is a wish list, and as there is no perfect person, there is no perfect job.
- Decide unequivocally who shall be involved in the interviewing process, and why. Minimise outliers who pop up halfway through the process, stating they have a stake in the hire. Get it all sorted out and agreed upon beforehand, and make 100 per cent sure the interviewing “team” is aligned on those “must haves” in that well-written job description. I had a candidate the other day tell me that in her interview with the HRD and CEO, neither agreed on the most important points for the role; one said message alignment, the other said regulatory and CSR, and she sat and watched the debate, as if a tennis spectator.
- Once agreed, have an interview template for each interviewer. Many fancy themselves on their visceral insight, but are instead flabby interviewers. They often try to “read” someone in 10 minutes (sometimes never reviewing the CV until the candidate is in front of them), ask trick questions (“If you were an animal, what would you be?”) or start the interview chronologically from college, looking for a fumble. And the other type of interviewer are the ones we all want; well-prepared, can sell the job, have insight to share and know what to ask. Amen. Have a template that everyone can use, and grade people on afterwards.
- Thus, if someone has a good track record of hiring winners, let them do more, and incentivise them monetarily. If they make bad hiring choices, move them out of the process (and if it is the boss, you have issues).
- Keep to an interviewing schedule. Corporate travel often precludes face to face meetings, and can slow down interviewing for weeks or longer. But finding and hiring people is a top priority, nothing less, and must be treated as such, not a cavalier “I have 10 minutes to talk, and am running 35 minutes behind”.
As a candidate, would you work for a company that pushes back interviews for months, and when the time is agreed upon, the interviewer is late and does not know your background? What signal does that send? I know only too well how difficult it can be to get people together, but if both sides are willing, it can be done sooner than not.
- Give feedback. Why interview if you never tell anyone what you think, or give a pithy “OK”. Make sure the interviewers know how what the job calls for, and use that template to assess both the person’s strength, character, motivation and savvy. Evangelicals should interview, not the lackadaisical, regardless of title or prestige.
I almost always get immediate feedback from candidates, and in turn they ask what the client feedback is. Many times, I have to spin a white lie, as the interviewers are too busy to talk to me, from the MD onward. Honestly.
I recently finished a search, and was blessed to have the client (group MD) give me feedback on each candidate immediately. That is part of their corporate culture, but almost never happens with such rapidity. But it should.
- Move quickly with guns ablaze when you find someone with the right strengths, motivations, cultural and functional fit for the role. Throw as much as you can to get them to join: not just money or perks, but a vision of how your company–with them on board–will change the world. It is a romance, full of emotional highs and lows. Every time someone exits an interview, it is always “How did you feel?” Every single time.. Think about it.
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Any company that can get most of the above bullet points is ahead of the curve for enticing and hiring talent.
