Recruiting to hire is the hardest task that any manager has. There are other tasks that require more emotional energy, but recruiting has the largest single impact over the longest time. If a manager hires the wrong people, the team will go to crap, productivity will sour, and the whole team will be eliminated. Yes, this is a worst-case scenario, but no manager wants to have 20% or even 10% of their team to be misfits or unproductive. The way to build up the team to prevent bad endings is through recruiting and hiring.
So why do managers encourage the use of trick questions and simple coding tests to evaluate candidates? Entire companies are proud to tell you that they hire based on these criteria. Stupid. They should know better.
How many utility covers are there in Seattle? How many gas stations are there in LA? why are utility covers round? What is the volume of water flowing in the Mississippi as it passes New Orleans? What is the length of a catenary chain hanging under the following conditions? Do you really have a job that requires the skills needed to answer these questions? If so, you must work in a library.
Write code to reverse a linked list in-place. Write code for itoa() (returns a character string given an integer). Give me ways to detect loops in linked lists. These are useful questions for an aspiring programmer, but the hiring manager needs far more information to make a good hiring decision. Unless the hiring manager runs a coding sweatshop, in which case, carry on.
None of these questions reveals sufficient substance about the candidate or their skills. There are many, better ways to get information about the candidate so that the hiring manager can make an informed choice. Consider.
0. Start with the job description and the resume (CV).
Work from the information on the candidate's resume (CV) and in the job description. (You do not have a job description? Go back and start again. You are not ready to hire.) Ask questions about what the candidate did regarding an entry on the resume, what problems they solved, and how they achieved success. Many candidates will respond with answers about the team or the project - repeat the question and emphasize that you want to know what the candidate personally did.
1. Read the resume in advance. Make notes. Plan your interview strategy. Be consistent.
2. Read the job description in advance. Understand what skills and experience are required for the role. If there is flexibility, understand the dimensions and the limits. If you are not sure, contact the hiring manager for clarification.
3. Understand the skill levels required for the position. The skill mastery for an entry-level position is not the same as for a senior-level position.
Give the candidate a chance to breathe and to think if they do not answer immediately. Or if their answer is terse. Just listen in silence, and the candidate should respond. If the silence goes on for too long, prompt the candidate with something benign such as "tell me more" or "please expand on that". Often the candidate will be reluctant to speculate, so you can invite speculation ("if you need to speculate, you can tell me your thoughts").
NB - some candidates will be limited by NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, or other confidentiality requirements. Ask if that is limiting their answer.
If you ask a challenging question beyond that required in the role or the level of the position, that can give you insight as to the growth potential of the candidate. A person willing to speculate may or may not succeed in your environment.
Some candidates will reply that a topic was so long ago that they do not recall details. While this is a valid response, I have found that people with long memories are often better able to apply a wide range of skills - skills that they have retained over time.
4. Divide the questions across the interview team.
5. Include an outlier on the interview team to help assess breadth of the candidate.
Everyone on the interview team should have a primary area on which to focus their questions. These areas can be defined based on the resume (demonstrated skills and training) and from the job description (required skills and training). The interviewer is not bound to precisely their primary area, but they should explore that primary assigned area in depth before they ask questions outside the primary area. This avoids the problem of everyone asking about the most recent job (or school) assignment. That only gives the hiring manager multiple copies of the same snapshot of the candidate; distributing the areas allows the hiring manager to see a broader picture of the candidate.
The hiring manager can defend the ultimate hiring decision by referring to the primary areas that were explored in the interview and relate those to the requirements in the job description. Some will argue that "fit with the team" is important, and we will cover that shortly.
6. The candidate should do most of the talking during the interview.
7. Beware of hiring for "fit". This can lead to unconscious bias.
simply, if the interviewer is doing too much talking, the interview is evaluating the wrong person. The interview is to evaluate the candidate, therefore the candidate should talk the most. That said, the interviewer is responsible to cover the topic areas of interest, so the interviewer must control or drive the interview. A talkative candidate may give insights to areas not of interest, and the interviewer must drive the conversation back to the important topics.
In the wrap-up meetings, interviewers will casually say things like "I liked the candidate". This is not a dating site; the hiring manager is not choosing a sports team. It is easy for human beings to like others who are most like them, people who have had shared experiences or who have common likes. this can lead quickly down a path to EEO hell (equal employment opportunity). Hiring for "fit" is interesting, but it must be relegated to a low priority in the hiring decision. It may break a tie between candidates who are similar on many other criteria - and, even then, should be used carefully and as a last resort. Now, some people are hard to deal with or are unclear in their communications. A candidate who has left seven prior positions after 12-18 months with a story about "stupid management" will probably leave your position after 12-18 months with a new story about the hiring manager's stupidity, but there may be critical skills or environment differences that would allow that person to succeed in your organization. Do not hire such a candidate blindly, but neither should the hiring manager shun them. If the team consistently hires for "fit", not only can the hiring manager run afoul of EEO requirements, but the hiring manager can end up with group-think and a shortage of creativity across the team, leading to a fatal lack of diverse ideas.
8. When the interviewer finds themselves leaning toward a decision, shift the questions to try to disprove the emerging decision.
9. Stretch the candidate.
As mentioned earlier, include someone outside the nominal boundaries of the job description and the resume. The hiring manager may be surprised to find that the candidate has broader skills than represented on paper. this breadth may be a valuable addition to the team.
10. There is no such thing as an "OK" candidate or an interviewer being "on the fence" (undecided). The hiring manager must treat "OK" and "undecided" as no-hire.
All candidates should receive equal and fair treatment. To support a hiring recommendation, each interviewer owns their decision and they should each test that decision. If I start to "like" a candidate, I may start asking easy questions, which makes it easy to hire them. To increase confidence in your hiring recommendation, challenge yourself when you start to lean toward a decision.
Interviewers are human and will tend toward "good news" - or, at least, will avoid bad news. It is tempting to say "OK" or "on the fence" rather than to say "no". A "no" could harm someone's career or deny them a job that they need. No one wants to be the bad guy.
11. Hold an debrief meeting shortly after the interview (same day is ideal but next-day is more common).
12. Each interviewer must state clearly their results and recommendation.
Thus, each interviewer must state a clear hire/no-hire recommendation and back it up with particulars. The interviewers do not need to agree and they The hiring manager is responsible to collect the input and use it to determine a hiring decision. The hiring manager may disagree with the collective recommendation, sometimes for reasons that must be kept private, but all interviewers should speak and each must make a clear recommendation. there should be no silent interviewers. If someone is silent, you did not need to include them and you wasted the time of the interviewer and the candidate.
13. Collect and keep records.
Candidates will return. sometimes a candidate will find a position that does not fit and they will return quickly to the hiring pool. the hiring manager can review the records to determine how aggressively to pursue the candidate - or let them continue to look elsewhere. NB - some interview process, perhaps abbreviated, is always appropriate, so a prior interview is not to be treated as a sure-hire ticket. Situations change and requirements change, so a refresh interview is necessary unless the interval since the last interview is extremely short.
finally, we live in a litigious world. Keep critical records for a reasonable time. The hiring manager does not need to keep all records for all time, but a summary document should be retained for a few years. It is not sufficient to keep the records with "HR". To protect themselves, the hiring managers should keep a confidential file for their own use. In the worst case, the hiring manager may be sued as an individual (e.g., the corporation will simply say "here is a list of all the training we gave the hiring manager and we let the hiring manager have the final decision - go sue the hiring manager and leave us out of it"). when sued as an individual, the corporation may not provide access to all the files; the corporation may routinely delete the necessary files. In the end, the hiring manager must protect themselves.
Hiring can be great. Although the process may be onerous, the hiring manager will find talented people to add to the team for every more success. Just be sure to interview wisely.
Photo: sourdough bread takes time and effort to make, but the results are worth it.
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