Interviewing

Over the last weeks I offered ten tips for having success when being interviewed. Well, this week and next here are ten tips from the other side of the table, when it is you doing the interviewing.

Tip 1: This matters, take it seriously.
If you run a team or business, the composition of staff is one of the most critical success factors. Furthermore, happy, confident teams have more fun and allow the boss to enjoy life more. When you select a newcomer, you have full control over a decision with important long-term consequences. It may be the decision you make this year with the most impact. By the way, you owe your best effort to the people who have applied as well.
So really focus on this choice, and apply time and resources to it. I have been amazed at how casually some selection processes are run. Have you ever experienced an interview when the interviewer seems to be scanning your CV for the first time as the interview starts? Or turns up late? Or takes calls or other interruptions? I have. I didn’t feel inclined to work for any other these people. That leads me to tip 2.

Tip 2: This is a two way process.
An interview is an opportunity to learn about some candidates, but it is also a chance for them to learn about you, your team and your company. Afterwards, you can choose to make an offer, but they then have a chance to accept or reject it. If they choose to reject it, you are quite likely to regret it, perhaps because you let the dream team member slip through your fingers, and at the least because you then face the extra burden of looking for someone else.
So give them space to ask questions. Offer up to them what they should expect if they get the job, in an honest way but certainly not in a way that understates the benefits. One of those benefits should be working for you, so conduct yourself in a way that shows you up in an authentic light. Apart from paying them the respect of your full attention, that also includes not patronising them or trying to humiliate them.
Be honest in this, since building up false expectations invariably backfires. But try to give a picture of what is expected, and if possible what the environment they would face in your team would be like. That leads me to tip 3.

Tip 3: Get help, especially from your team.
Interviewing is notoriously unreliable – some say worse than random selection. So improve your chances. Interview in pairs, and if possible offer two interviews so they see four different people overall. This reduces bias, gives candidates extra chances to overcome nerves, and allows time for note taking and reflecting during an interview. But the advantages of using existing team members to join you go far wider than that. It gives the candidate a much broader feel of how working in the team would be like. Candidates will ask questions to team members they would not ask you, and reveal more about themselves too. They may ask about you, and in this situation your team members are unlikely to paint you worse than the reality. It also creates ownership among your team for the new arrival, and they will work harder to integrate them. The first days for the new team member will be far easier for having familiar and friendly faces around.
This approach is such a winner, I’m amazed it is not used more often. I guess many bosses still like to maintain some hierarchical distance. Don’t be one of those.

Tip 4: Design a process and follow it.
Too often people conduct a set of interviews and then try to choose a winner based on general feelings. This might work, but the odds are less than if you do it properly, just like any other business project. I have a tried and trusted formula for this. First, I define about 6-8 criteria for judging, based on the balance of requirements. These could relate to experience or qualifications, but also team fit, and practical things like availability or cost. I always define one criterion as “wild card upside” to give me some flexibility to score feelings and qualities otherwise hard to reflect. I score each candidate out of five for each criterion, add up the scores and generally then don’t override the results. I use this when selecting a shortlist from CV’s and then again at interview. All interviewers use the same template and score independently (no chatting after an interview). Then reach a consensus at a meeting you chair, remembering to choose one or two runners up in case the winner rejects the job. This process does a lot to remove bias, and it also creates a better selection meeting, as the interviewers, including yourself, need to express why they prefer one candidate over another.

Tip 5: No short cuts.
Maybe this is the most important tip of all. Every time I have cheated my own process I have gone on to regret it, and indeed almost all my selection regrets have come when I have cheated the process. I have committed many sins. I have defined a job after choosing a candidate. I have chosen a candidate on recommendation only. I have interviewed only a single candidate (who not surprisingly I convinced myself was up to the job…and then wasn’t). I have made an offer when no candidate made the mark. Once I let my team run the process without me, at the time thinking this was a mature act. I’ve been swayed by emotion or gut feel and overridden what the scoring said. I have bowed to pressure from my boss.
Don’t do it. As tip 1 says, you will live with the consequence of this decision for a long time. Give yourself, and the candidates, the best chance to make it a good one.

Five more tips next time.