Hiring Has Become a Professional Version of the Hunger Games

Streamlining your hiring process will position you for success in this market. Other than being ghosted, there is nothing that turns candidates off more than arbitrarily long hiring cycles.?

Here's how it typically works:

Candidates are being asked to complete lengthy applications and in some cases various personality/professional assessments before they even get on the phone with an interviewer. Once they make it past these initial rounds, they are required to speak with seemingly every person at the company... including the janitor. All the while having to sneak around, skip work, etc to avoid being fired by their current employer. Scheduling these during the hybrid/remote realities can take literally weeks in some cases. Just when the candidate thinks it's finally over, they are asked to speak with one more person for "additional color" - and of course, that is the most difficult interview to get scheduled...another week or two lost. If it gets to the offer stage, and the candidate hasn't been scooped up by a competitor, the poor soul is then asked to complete another massive application just to get an offer letter.?

We encourage everyone whom we work with to streamline and accelerate their hiring processes. This will drastically increase the likelihood of finding and onboarding the very best talent...quickly.?

Here's what we suggest:

1. Identify the critical values, abilities, and skills that you are looking for in a candidate (Ray Dalio has a brilliant framework for this which I'll cover in a later post). Values are non-negotiable, however, you should use the 80/20 rule on abilities/skills. What are the "must-haves" that are critical to the role (e.g. the 80%)? and what are the "nice to haves" that are the icing on the cake? The perfect candidate doesn't exist, but there are plenty of "rising stars" who possess the "must-have" traits you are seeking. You need to hone in on exactly what this is.?
2. Assign the best person on your team to interview/test on those "must-haves" for the role (e.g. your best leader should be the leadership interviewer, your most technical person should be a subject matter interviewer, and so on). Your interview process should have direction and a purpose.
3. Ask the interviewers to "block off" times in their calendars for the duration which is dedicated to interviewing candidates. This massively streamlines scheduling. This is also a big selling point with candidates because they know when they need to be available for interviews.
4. Following each interview or batch of interviews, have a specific process to review feedback that comes out of the interviews and to get to a quick decision on whether or not to move forward. If you do it right most candidates will either be "yes's" or "no's" and any "maybe's" can be quickly vetted/discussed.
5. Make a decision...and rinse/repeat.
6. Get rid of the "window dressing" and arduous requirements. Do all candidates need to take those expensive tests? Does your online application need to be 100 pages long with an endless array of mandatory fields? Does it make sense to give candidates a 'project' to complete on their own time/dime? Does the person in the other department whom you like but will have zero interaction with the candidate need to be on the interview team?

Baking rigor, purpose, and efficiency into your hiring process is incredibly effective and positions you to hire the best available talent. Expectations are managed and understood all around and, if adhered to, you will see incredible results.

If you have comments or questions about this information please add me on Linkedin and shoot me a message or comment below!?