What Candidates Tell Me: Simple Hiring Errors and How to Correct Them, part two

You have invested a lot of time and money bringing the best candidates in to interview. Make a great impression by avoiding some common errors. *

Would you rather have them say, “They seem ready to make me an offer after only one interview day, but I am not sure I am ready to commit,” OR “They have offered to have me meet more people, but I don’t think I need to?”

TIP: Offer opportunities to speak with others. Hiring managers that exclude others from interviewing generally do so for two reasons: 1) Pressing business needs require a rapid decision. And to a lesser degree, 2) they want to maintain tight control over the hiring process. Making good hiring decisions and attracting senior candidates takes time. In order to wait for an outstanding candidate, you must have a strong interim business plan. This provides leverage and a greater sense of security. You will recruit better talent, and put yourself in a stronger negotiating position when you decide to make an offer.

Some managers have difficulty giving up control of their interview process. If you are conscious of this tendency, you have probably begun to address it already. Remember, if you are a competent leader, your people will represent you and your organization well. If you feel they create a poor impression, you have a bigger issue to solve before bringing new hires on board.

Would you rather have them say, “I think they are going to make me an offer, but I am not sure if I want the job.” OR “I am interviewing with a number of firms, but this is my first choice if they make the right offer?”

TIP: I believe that no offer should be made without a commitment to accept it. I realize this cannot be the case in every circumstance, but it should be the standard that we try to achieve. You should try to understand your candidate’s true interest level. You want to avoid extending an offer, sitting back and waiting for an acceptance, then getting rejected. Checking your candidate’s interest will help you close the deal, and, if not, will at least give you useful feedback that you can use in subsequent interviews.

Would you rather have them say, “She thought I was interviewing for a manager job, when I am a director already,” OR “They have not told me the level yet, but I am willing to make an investment in the company, if the compensation and responsibilities are appropriate?”

TIP: Get the level right, or don’t commit. Many candidates fall on the line between two levels. You may also find yourself interviewing someone without having fully prepared for a meeting. In either case, do not discuss the title, and keep an open mind. Presenting the wrong level will surely turn off good candidates.You should also discuss the appropriate title with your recruiter. Generally, we are good at discussing information and impressions about a prospective employer. When it comes to talking with a candidate that does not fit neatly, we need strong, clear guidance from clients to avoid miscommunication.

Part three of this article next week……

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*This article contains actual statements made during post-interview debriefings

Each time one of my candidates goes on an interview, I receive feedback about a client organization, their job opening, and the personal impression they create. I generally hear good things about my clients, but I am sometimes surprised to hear that they make a few very basic errors.

Most hiring managers think of interviewing as a chance to gather information about a new potential hire. They also recognize that they represent their organizations, and want to create a great impression with candidates. If you avoid some obvious pitfalls and follow some basic steps, you will maximize your potential to outdo your competition, and hire the best candidates.

When a recruiter debriefs people that you have interviewed, would you rather have them say, “They didn’t even have my resume and had to scramble to find a copy.” OR “The interviewer asked a lot of direct questions about my background?”

If you have read this far, you are unlikely to make the basic mistake of failing to prepare for an interview. If you simply take five minutes, or even three, you will put yourself in the right frame of mind. Make sure you have a resume, if you have received one. Take a look at it. It’s that simple.

Would you rather have them say, “He barely asked me any questions; he seemed to just want to talk about his organization,” OR “I feel like they have enough information to evaluate whether I am a cultural fit?”

TIP: Ask at least a few well-thought out questions. The biggest mistake candidates make is to over talk an interview. Make sure you do not make this mistake as an interviewer. Prepare some specific questions beforehand, or just have your boilerplate ready. When you interview politely, but incisively, you will leave your candidates with the impression that you are competent and thorough.

Would you rather have them say, “It sounded really great, but I need to check with my friends to see what their reputation is in the marketplace,” OR “They definitely told me about some challenges they are facing, and I think I can help?”

TIP: Provide realistic information, including drawbacks at your company. Certainly don’t dwell on the negative, but tell your candidates that you understand and are dealing with issues that your organization faces. Every company has warts. Painting too rosy a picture will diminish your credibility, and send your candidates away looking for answers. On the other hand, framed properly, obstacles may present interesting challenges for your best candidates to tackle.

Part two of this article next week……

Contact Jason Sanders

*This article contains actual statements made during post-interview debriefings

Passive Job Seeking?

Far too many people take a passive approach to job search, even when they are actively looking for a new position. Specifically, I mean job seekers may apply to specific positions, but many times do not do enough to create their own action.

The Ladders, a website devoted to job seekers, has a very useful article about creating your own position. The author offers some good ideas about how to think about a job search. You should avoid thinking about your search as an application process, and start thinking about it as a sales process.

The Ladders article stops short of discussing how you begin. Yes, change your perception, but then what. I believe you need to create a theme for your candidacy. You can find an excellent article about this step at Marketing Headhunter, Robert DeNiro on Interviewing.

Your next steps will be to set up your sales process, and execute. That, however is for a future post.

Contact Jason Sanders

Beyond the Best Interview Question Ever

I was asked whether a group of interviewers should all use “the best interview question,” if they were interviewing the same candidate on the same day.

I would recommend against such a course of action. This specific line of questioning is an excellent tool. Using it multiple times with the same candidate, however, will not get your all the information you want, and may create a poor impression with the candidate.

If you have the time and capability, I would suggest a coordinated approach to an interview day, directing each executive to pursue a different line of questioning. This will give you more information and create the impression that you have a team that communicates and executes effectively.

Some suggestions for topics:

1. A case study. This does not need to be formalized like you might expect of a recent MBA grad, but it may be theoretical. You could take one of your own client problems, for example, to test critical thinking in a real life setting.

2. Allow the candidate to ask you questions. The types of questions he asks will tell you about his values.

3. A casual conversation, or fit interview. A discussion of topics outside of work will give you information you can use to attract the candidate, and you will begin to get a feeling for how he interacts on a more personal level.

4. Standard career progression. This is very basic but I use it very often as an orienting interview. I simply start from a candidate's degree and work forward. I look for the person's career trajectory and extrapolate what his next step might be. I find this very useful as a recruiter, since it provides me a lot of information that my clients will ask about.

Contact Jason Sanders

Wachovia and what to do with all those excess candidates.

Most hiring companies make the fundamental mistake of managing their pipeline poorly. The inability to reject candidates, and to provide a reason leads to many problems with the recruiting process. One solution is to appoint a person specifically tasked to handle this problem. I suggested one solution in the my article, “The Candidate Advocate.”

Poor candidate management creates a negative impression of your company in the marketplace. If you handle someone’s candidacy poorly, they are less likely to apply to your company again, or buy its products or services. A job applicant requires as good, or better customer service than you would provide a valued client. Any contact you have with a potential customer should be turned to your advantage whenever possible.

Wachovia Bank posts 600 to 800 jobs per week, and averages 10,000 job applicants, declining almost 90% of those.1 This puts Wachovia in the precarious situation of potentially creating 9,000 bad impressions.

Wachovia, however, has introduced a system to deliver rapid feedback to applicants, along with a suggestion that may be helpful in their job search. In her article, “Too Many Candidates?” Leslie Stevens argues that the bank uses this system to create a good impression of their recruiters.

I would go one step further and say that they create a good impression of the bank, overall. This puts Wachovia in the enviable position of making lemons from lemonade. They use rejected job applicants as a way to access new clients for their bank.


Contact Jason Sanders



1 Leslie Stevens, “Too Many Candidates?” ERE.net, September 1, 2008.

Telecommuting

Many bosses worry about their employees living away from their workplace. CNN.com just printed another article touting the fears of bosses about their virtual employees.

In the consulting business, working remotely has simply become a fact of life. Consultants expect their teams at client sites most days of the week. Most firms have put structures in place to ensure the sooth operation of this system.

Here are just a few:

• A strong technological infrastructure
  
• Clearly defined work expectations and goals
  
• Culture building time together
  
• An ability to let go.
  

Let’s face it. Telecommuting is not going away. We need to find a way to manage it most effectively, and imitating business consultants may be a good way to start.

Contact Jason Sanders

The Best Interview Question Ever, part two

If you choose this question as a starting point, you create a theme for an entire interview. If there is time, you should dig more deeply by asking questions that qualify your candidates’ response. In the case of a consulting project, some of these questions might be:

What were the dimensions of the project? How was it sold? How long did it last?

What was the makeup of the delivery team?

What was your role in the assignment?

What was the overall business impact of the assignment? This is a critical question to assess your candidates’ understanding of the connection between their work and the goals of their clients.

Why were you chosen for this assignment?

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Which elements of the project did you enjoy, and which didn’t you enjoy?

How did you grow as a person during the course of the assignment?

What did you learn from your client, and what did you teach your client?


When you begin with a strong open-ended question, you lead with a very powerful analytical tool. You can gather a lot of information in a short period of time. You also create an anchor, around which to base a longer interview.

This question makes it easy to structure your interview by introducing a theme for the meeting. Preparing interview questions is always a good idea, but even without an organized approach, you now have something to refer back to. If your candidate begins to wander away from the topic, you will be able to steer the conversation, and learn about the candidate’s ability to stay focused at the same time.

The questions you ask are less important than how you listen to the answers. You may find, for example, that a person needs a lot of prompting. This may mean that they have not accomplished much, or it may mean that they are introverted, or maybe they have not interviewed in years and are a bit rusty. Your evaluation must be flexible according to the circumstances, and other bits of information you gather.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you may find that your interviewee cannot stop talking about their work. Most hiring managers respond poorly to people who talk excessively, and with good reason. While overtalking may make a person sound prideful, the opposite is usually the case. It also shows an inability to rapidly synthesize information, and in the worst cases, may be rude to the interviewer.

This question provides you with a firm grounding to begin, and to guide an interview. You should challenge a person, but also make them comfortable enough to reveal themselves. Your questions, and your style give candidates an impression of what it will be like to work for you. Take advantage of every opportunity to leave a good impression.

Using this question puts you in position to gather information and to ask smart follow up questions. It serves as a kind of interviewing cheat sheet, which helps you get around some of the preparatory work, like reading a resume. Don’t misunderstand me; reading a candidate’s resume is extremely important. If you are caught off guard, however, you can refer back to this question without tipping your hand.

In order to make a good hire, you need to check many different aspects of a candidate’s background, skills, personality, cultural fit and drive. You will need to use different approaches to get all the information that you want. Somewhere in the process, though, you ought to ask this question. You may get more than you expected.

Contact Jason Sanders