If you’ve been involved in hiring people for any length of time, you know that things have changed. In cooler labour markets, companies had the luxury of time. Candidates were willing to participate in any number of steps in the hiring process, and they’d generally wait for as long as the process took. Now, companies must act with urgency, or risk losing their top choice candidates to other companies who move more quickly.
This doesn’t mean that the hiring process should be rushed or hasty. The decision to hire should never be taken lightly; the cost of a bad hire is too high, for everyone involved. It just means that in today’s market, companies who want their choice of candidates must make their internal hiring process as streamlined and efficient as possible.
Happily, this isn’t so complicated. It all begins with a sound strategy which makes three things clear: who’s involved, how the interviews take place, and how the decision is made.
The Players
There are two important questions to answer at the beginning of every recruitment: who needs to be involved, and who doesn’t? All too often, people are included in the hiring process just for the sake of another pair of ears and eyes (or, worse, to avoid offending someone who might feel left out). This ultimately leads to unnecessary and redundant steps in the process. Whether they’re managers, senior leaders, peers of or direct reports to the new employee, or Human Resources staff, anyone involved should have a true ownership stake in the decision.
Another decision to make at this stage is who will act as the primary point of contact. Ideally, all the candidates under consideration for hire should have a single person acting as a ‘relationship manager’. This results in an improved candidate experience, but there’s also benefit for the hiring company. One person consistently in touch with the candidates provides better visibility into any changes in their situation, meaning fewer unforeseen drop-offs. We work closely with our clients to be that point of contact with candidates, keeping on top of the process on our clients’ behalf.
The Interviews
Generally speaking, there should be as few interviews as possible to reach the desired result: gathering enough information to make the decision to either hire or pass. Mapping this out ahead of time is an important step, and one often overlooked. How many interviews are needed? Which interviews need to be one-on-one, and which might be group interviews? Could any interviews be just as effective held virtually? If individual interviews are needed, scheduling them as a series of back-to-back meetings can be more efficient for the interviewers, and also for the candidates who then only have to make one trip in.
The other consideration at this stage is the questioning strategy. There’s always some overlap in interview questions, naturally. If the same questions are asked in every interview, however, the process feels redundant to the candidate, and leaves the impression that none of the interviewers are speaking to each other. Plan ahead to decide what information you need from each candidate, what questions should be asked to elicit that information, and who’s best to capture and assess the answers to those questions. Each of those people, then, are responsible for sharing their feedback with the others in debrief meetings after the interviews.
The Decision
The decision to hire is, presumably, the objective of any hiring process. Strangely, this is the point at which many companies lose momentum and drag their heels. This is usually because the criteria for making the decision, and the person or people ultimately responsible for making it, haven’t been clearly outlined ahead of time.
In terms of the criteria, consider what factors are most critical to success in the role. Is technical proficiency on day one paramount, for example, or could some skills be trained and developed if a candidate is perceived to be a better fit with the rest of the team? If two candidates are seen as equal, what factors might be considered to resolve an ‘apples-to-apples’ dilemma?
An equally important consideration is who has the final say. Does one person have the unilateral authority to make the final decision to hire, or should there be a more democratic process with each person casting a vote? If there are strongly conflicting opinions among those involved, how will those be resolved?
Moving with greater efficiency and urgency means securing more of your top-choice candidates, and it doesn’t mean short cutting the hiring process or making hasty decisions. When the right strategy is developed ahead of time, and rolled out well, the process can be streamlined without compromising the quality of the decision.