#Leadership : 4 Keys to a Killer Interview Process…One truth I’ve learned in that experience is: The Most Expensive Hire you Will ever Make is Hiring the Wrong Person.
Throughout my career, I’ve made both good hires and bad hires, and I have helped hundreds of clients find their key staff.
One truth I’ve learned in that experience is:
The most expensive hire you will ever make is hiring the wrong person.
Culture, momentum, growth, and morale are just a few of the casualties that come in the wake of a bad hire. In the vast majority of bad hires I’ve seen, there’s one common denominator: a rushed or short circuited interview process.
The old adage is truer to me now than ever: Hire slowly, and fire quickly.
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As I continue to learn how to hire thoroughly, I’ve run across four key components of a thorough and effective interview process.
- Use Video Questionnaires as Part of the Process
Simply reading typed out answers just doesn’t cut it anymore. For whatever reason, it’s easier to get a read on people when you’re hearing them talk and watching their body language. There’s no replacement for face to face interaction (see below), but a great way to filter who you should sit down with in person is by having candidates submit video questionnaires specific to the job you are filling. It might sound like a bad version of “The Bachelor,” but what you will learn in a five minute on-camera interaction will help you narrow your candidate pool in the initial stages of your search.
Do yourself, your clients, and your staff a favor, and make sure you invest in an intentional hiring process. It may take more time, money, and energy than you’d like, but it’s a decision that’s too important for cutting corners.
- Meet People In Person
Video questionnaires have become a big part of our search process, but I am not a fan of virtual interviews. Why? Not because I am old school or slow to adapt. It is because over 55% of our communication is nonverbal, as Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer in body language research, discovered.
In my work with churches, I tried building a more affordable search solution by cutting out face to face interviews. It sounded like a great idea, but turned out to be a miserable failure. Even though we used the same team, the same process, and had the same database, client satisfaction cratered from nearly 99% (with face to face interviews) to 65% (with virtual interviews).
Even though you can see facial expressions over video, you cannot perceive the 55% of nonverbal communication over video. There are certain qualities, skills, and weaknesses that can only be discovered when people interact face to face.
Yes, flights are expensive and time is precious. But the most expensive hire you’ll ever make is hiring the wrong person. Do yourself a favor and take the time to do in-person interviews.
Peter Drucker is credited as saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I believe this now more than ever.
- Include Your Team
Earlier in my career, I thought that doing 360 degree interviewing was an abdication of leadership and a sign of indecisiveness. I was so wrong.
Nowadays, my team has incredible weight and influence on the people we hire on. There are a couple reasons for that.
First, every department lead I have knows the needs of their team better than I do. We’re all on the same page in vision, mission, and values, and they’ll know who will make things run better and fill in the gaps we have as a company.
Secondly, they may be able to pick up on some good or bad traits a candidate has that I might miss.
Finally, including your team in the interview process will protect your culture better than anything else. Nobody will produce better hires for your company than the best hires you have made. Don’t overlook including your key team members in the hiring equation.
- Culture Over Competency
My friend Cliff Oxford wrote a great column some years back titled, What Do You Do With The Brilliant Jerk? I hired way too many of those over the years. I saw a rock star and hired them irrespective of whether or not they would fit our team. I’ve vowed not to make that mistake again. It’s never worth it.
Peter Drucker is credited as saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I believe this now more than ever. If you ask our team what our five year plan is, they would look at you like you were speaking a foreign language. But ask them what our culture is like, and they will rattle off our nine values and how they see them lived out at work. Culture is at the core of who we are, and that’s a huge reason for the success we’ve had.
When I hire new people, my first thought is “Do they fit our culture?” When I include others in the hiring process, it’s to protect culture. If they do, then I’ll take a look at things like skills and competency. If they don’t, it’s not even worth a look. The team is more effective when everyone is on the same culture page; and when the whole team works more effectively, the business thrives. Hire strategically. Hire competent workers. But in my experience, if the culture piece isn’t there, the rest is all for nothing.
You can teach skill, but you cannot teach cultural fit.
Do yourself, your clients, and your staff a favor, and make sure you invest in an intentional hiring process. It may take more time, money, and energy than you’d like, but it’s a decision that’s too important for cutting corners.
Forbes.com | March 9, 2016 | William Vanderbloemen
