Interview for swift culling

Recruiters are hired to get people in the door, but the decision to hire is always in the hands of business managers. Managers often have little more to review about their candidate than a single page resume, maybe a cover letter, and what they can find on social media. When a candidate passes those preliminary checks, a manager must decide what sort of interview to begin with. Phone interview? Written assessment? In-person interview? Each of these methods gleans more insight about the candidate at a rising cost to the manager. A single position can have ten or more candidates before an optimal candidate is found. How does a manager handle this heavy burden on her time and focus? Knock out the candidates quick.

While the knock-out policy applies to the earliest recruiting efforts, it becomes even more important as managers become involved. When a manager reviews resumes, then, she must show no compromise in applying her company’s standards. Misspelled words indicate a lack of seriousness or attention to detail and should be rejected. Written assessments should be difficult to pass and be set at the standards required for the position. The interview should be most difficult of all, with questions probing for weakness in character, inconsistencies in experience vs. the resume, and genuine interest in the vision and mission of the company.

The people of a company have unrivaled power to bring a business rising success or an ignonimous end. Employees of sterling character, top-notch skill and strong leadership ability can raise the moral and performance expectations of their peers, train and equip new hires, and share a common and attractive vision. Employees of questionnable character, poor skill or defective leadership ability degrade the performance of their peers and their moral standards, selfishly hoard or hide their skill from new hires, and have an absent or weak vision and purpose. While leadership and skill can be slowly and intentionally developed through training and wise leadership, character is usually too engrained. Employees who do not meet the character requirements of the business are unlikely to do so given more time, training, or effort. Managers should do their best to never hire such employees in the first place, and this requires an interview strategy that will identify character defects as early in the process as possible and to, more often than not, turn down an employee at the first sign of trouble. This approach may seem harsh, but a business will not only save tens of thousands of dollars in the hiring process and income given to an ineffective employee; it will also protect the performance and moral compass of its existing employees.

Next Friday I interview a candidate for our team. If we choose to hire this candidate, I will be responsible to train the candidate in all the responsibilities of my role. I’ve noticed that the exciting opportunity to have another team member could put me into a lenient mindset. After all, wouldn’t it be nice to share the load? I’m less likely to search for flaws and more likely to make excuses when I think only about the work this new person will accomplish and overlook the influence they will have on the team. To reduce the urge to hire them regardless of their character or skill I can take two actions. First, I will speak with another of the interviewers from our team to clarify the key characteristics we’re looking for in this candidate. Armed with a clear knowledge of the standards we judge our candidate by will help me to keep them uppermost when I’m interviewing the candidate and when I make my recommendation. Second, I will prepare beforehand two or three questions that probe deeply into the candidate’s character and skill. My part of this interview is tailored specifically to assess skills, but we have an hour and a half for this portion and many of the skills necessary for my role are closely tied to character because of the highly interactive and flexible nature of my work.

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