Part 3 of 4 in the Hiring Right series
Don’t let biases stand in your way. Most of us who have done interviewing have learned about biases. The tricky biases are the unconscious biases. One effective way to navigate this challenge is not to interview alone. However, you don’t need an army of 14 interviewers. A well-structured interview process would include 2-5 interviewers. Remember, the more critical the role, the more interviewers needed, but if you find you are needing more than 5 interviewers in your process, likely another issue is occurring, such as a breakdown in trust amongst the interviewers.
Once you have decided to interview as part of a panel or with a recruiter, ensure consistency in understanding job requirements and expected responses from candidates across all interview stages. Consistency promotes fairness and objectivity. Clarify your conflictive understanding of what you are interviewing for, and then divide up the responsibilities. You should trust that each interviewer will assess the candidate to your standards. If it’s a recruiter doing a pre-screen, they will often ferret out hard skills and experience (resume review). If you trust your recruiter you don’t need to do this again.
But what if you have never used this recruiter before, or worse, you have and you still don’t trust them? Spend time in advance agreeing what they will be doing. Seek the recruiter’s understanding of the skills you are looking for. If they struggle to answer basic questions, how can you expect them to probe into your candidates appropriately?
Sometimes lack the background needed to do a hard probe. Remember, they are skilled recruiters and don’t often have the experience in the role you are hiring. That’s okay! Leverage their strengths. Can you trust them to validate a candidate’s working experience, reasons for leaving a job, job hopping or gaps in employment? A good recruiter should be able to identify that the candidate has met the basic requirements of the role. If you are receiving candidates who are not meeting the basic requirements, revisit your calibration with the recruiter. At the same time, you, as a manager, should know what truly sets someone up for success in your organization.
If another person on the interview panel doesn’t align with your interviewing expectations, scrutinize their fit. Consider whether they can effectively contribute to evaluating candidates for the specific role you’re trying to fill. If they cannot, they might not be the right fit for the panel.
As a leader, you might want someone on the team who can learn how to interview like you. In such cases, conduct joint interviews with that person. Assign them specific questions, but be present during the interview. You can probe where necessary or gently guide the conversation. If the person has never interviewed before, do not have them interview alone until you are confident in their feedback. If you put them in that position, it’s your job to make sure they have all the tools and skills necessary to succeed.
Yes, doing all this preparation before you hire takes a long time, but the effort put up front into hiring the right person, will pay off.
You’re almost there. Check out these Interview Tips & Tricks for Managers.
Incase you missed them, check out these other articles in the Hiring Right series
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