The other day a friend of mine was asking me for advice on hiring people for his business. Now, I don’t claim to be an HR professional or a recruiting machine, but I have hired a number of people in my day.
What have I learned?
- astute (but ultimately poor) candidates can put on a good show
- professional/educational experience tells no more than 50% of the story
- even poor candidates come with good recommendations
What’s my solution for sifting through the fog? A little bit of Priemerization! Here are three techniques I’ve had a good amount of success with, that will no doubt reinforce or debunk the feelings you have towards a candidate.
1. Request an audition
Hiring a sales rep? Get them to sell something to you. Hiring a software developer? Have them solve a logic problem. Hiring a creative designer? Get them to go through a consultation with you. The key is, go beyond their resume and have them put their experience into practice for you to see first hand.
One technique that worked really well when I was hiring presales reps was having them deliver a 15 min presentation to me and my team. I gave them the topic in advance. Set the context. Made sure that the topic was relevant to our business and their potential role. Made sure all the content they needed could be readily found online. Seeing how the candidates prepared for the task, how poised and confident they were during the exercise, and how they handled themselves after being asked tough questions from the audience, spoke volumes of potential.
I saw some candidates who had otherwise been stellar up until that point, completely blow this step! Saved me much grief down the road.
2. Get stuck at the airport
One of the most important aspects to consider when hiring a candidate is cultural fit. At the outset of my masters, my supervisor said to me; “David, what we’re about to embark on here is a bit of a short term marriage.” She was right.
Let’s face it, most of us spend more time with the people we work with than our actual families. That means that in addition to a candidate being able to deliver the professional goods, you need to generally “like” being around them. Can you see yourself working with this person? Do the people that will work with this person daily like him/her?
In addition to having multiple people from your team or company meet with the candidate, one true litmus test is asking yourself this question:
How would you feel if you were stuck for 10 hours with this person, in a departure lounge at O’Hare, in the middle of a snow storm?
If most of the interviewers are cool with this prospect, you may have a good cultural fit. (as a side note, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who built his whole company around culture, has a similar approach most likely stolen from me!)
3. “Put a gun to your head”
After spending time with a candidate and having your colleagues do the same, you will inevitably circle back to discuss your thoughts. This is where the typical interview process can sometimes break down and make it difficult for the hiring manager to make a decision.
“Well, I don’t know…they have a lot of experience in [A,B, &C ] and I like the fact that they did [X, Y, & Z] really well, but one thing that still bothers me is….yada yada yada…”
Fail! Want to know how to decide? Get everyone who interviewed the candidate together and first ask them this:
“Gun to your head…no explanations! I only want to hear ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Would you hire this person?”
If they’re a sales person, would you trust your top prospect to them? Yes or no.
If they’re a developer, would you trust your biggest project to them? Yes or no.
You’d be amazed at the ease with which you can reconcile complex thoughts when you have a virtual gun pointed at your head and you are forced to give a binary answer! Explanations can then follow but by then everyone’s gut (and most likely correct) reaction has been surfaced.
Professional and educational experience is important when considering a candidate, but they don’t always give you the complete picture. Follow these three techniques and I guarantee by the end of the interview process you’ll be much more confident in the decision you make!
Priemerization 