The Hiring Process

I often get requests from people with whom I have worked or done business, for pointers on hiring, and the process I use to build great teams. I appreciate the requests for insight, and try to help however I can. I often feel I am repeating the same information to many people. I thought it might be more efficient to write a post and put the process out there for those who wish to utilize it.

Paraphrasing Jim Collins: Job #1: Get the right people on the bus. This is the single most important thing a leader does. Not much, if anything, will have a greater impact on whether your team, and your organization, are successful or not. Luck or timing of the market and the world could have substantial impact, but as far as what you design, create, and implement, “Job #1” most significantly impacts your odds for success. “Luck is the residue of great design.”

Start with why; what is the goal?

The objective is both to find great people for the organization, and to find great organizations for candidates. Lots of companies and recruiters say this. Live it. Be as radically transparent with every candidate as possible. Ask the tough questions. Want tough questions to be asked of you, and your organization. Really get to know each candidate, and give them the clearest possible picture of the organization, and the role. If there are surprises on either side, after the hire, pull that thread, examine it, and use what you find to make the process better.

The Job Description

If you use a boring, canned job description that looks and sounds like every other similar role, you will likely get candidates as boring and as free of independent thought, as your job description. People try to fluff these up and make a boring role sound better than it is. That is not what I mean. Be truthful and open. If you write a job description that is exciting to a candidate, that is not accurate to the role you are hiring, you will likely attract and hire someone who ends up not liking it, will likely perform poorly, and whom you may blame for the poor performance. If you do this, look in the mirror. You are to blame. You are looking for candidates that are excited about what you need them to do, even if the role may be boring to you. Think about:

• What is missing from the people that do not perform well in the role, past or present?
• What needs to be in the job description to make it clear that you need someone who is great at those things?
• What would someone who “knocks it out of the park” in this role, look like?
• What could someone in this role deliver that would dramatically improve your team and your organization?
• What negative feedback has there been about the role; what are the challenges and/or things people do not like about the role?

Put that in the job description. You are looking for someone who both loves doing those things, and is great at doing those things.

Make it easy for people to apply. Looking for work is an electronic maze, fraught with lousy electronic filters, even the best candidates can get reduced to submitting and clicking on everything, trying to break through the wall somewhere. Recruiting filters are lousy. Maybe someday these will be good, but today many are skills focused and terrible. These filter out great candidates.

Resume Review

Shit-can the silicon-based resume scanners. Those may evolve to be great one day, but currently these are garbage. If you have a boring, looks like every else's job description, these engines are great at matching up your role with the boring, look's like they have done that boring role previously, resumes and candidates. Good luck with that! Instead, use your mind, and your knowledge, and look for “sparks”:

VAS: Values, Abilities, and Skills, in that order of importance.

• If the right values are not there and/or the right abilities are not present, forget it. Both are far more important than skills. The right Values and Abilities (VA) are mandatory—these must be there for the role.
• Skills (S) are gravy. Great to get these, but if the Values and Abilities (VA) are there, decide if the investment (time and cost) is worthwhile and if the business can weather the delay to develop the skills in a great hire. Skills can be taught and/or trained, values and abilities are part of how people are “wired”, and difficult to change.
• If you can get all 3—Values, Abilities, and Skills (VAS), great!
• Some recruiters grind the resumes through algorithms:

• What is on a resume? Values? Abilities? . . . or Skills?
• For what do the algorithms look?
• How many great candidates do they miss?
• Do not be lazy—this is your #1 job.

Look for interesting things on candidates resumes. What do I mean? There is no fixed set of rules here. Some suggestions of the types of things that sometimes catch my eye:

• Things that are unusual, in a positive way.
• Have they been in different industries or roles? Did they have the guts to try new things?
• Have they started a business? Even if it was not successful—did they have the guts to go for it? Successful business? Even better.
• Have they tried to turn a business or department around? Even if it was not successful—did they have the guts to try it?
• Have they delivered cool or unusual results in a role?
• Or is their resume the boring, straight down the line resume that the resume scanners love?
• Does it look like they care more about doing something new and exciting, or that they care about doing what they know and not risking “looking stupid”?

Move the candidates whose resumes look interesting, to phone screen.

Phone Screen

Do the phone screens yourself. If “you do not have time” to do these yourself, then you do not have time to do your most important function. Fire yourself.

Reduce bias.

• On the phone, you “see” less of the candidate (how they dress, hair style, etc), so there is less opportunity for bias.
• Develop and use a phone screen questionnaire for each position.
• Use the same questionnaire for all the phone screen candidates for the same position.
• Follow-up questions, specific to a candidate's answers, are just fine.

At the beginning, put the candidate at ease, as much as possible. Knowing what the candidate is like when they are nervous, is not your goal. You want to know what they are “usually” like.

• Start with questions that the candidate will love talking about.
• What do they do for fun?
• What gets them excited? What makes them “tick”?
• Not only do these questions help put the candidate at ease, they also tell you a lot about who they are, what they enjoy, etc.

The core. Ask the tough questions, that reveal what the candidate is really like.

Wrap up the phone screen with:

• Question(s) that will draw out happy memories from the candidate.
• If you have done the phone screen well, it will likely have been a grueling process for the candidate. Do not let that be the last thing they remember about you and the organization.
• Ask if the candidate has any questions.
• Answer those questions with straightforward, clear, honest answers.

Those that do well on the phone screen, bring in for an in-person, panel interview. Do not share any of the phone screen information with the panel at this time. They know you liked the candidate enough to proceed to the panel interview. That is enough for now. You want each member of the panel to be as unbiased as possible for the panel, not to be influenced by what you heard during the phone screen.

Panel Interview

The Panel

Select people you trust to be radically transparent and brutally honest with you and the rest of the panel.

Select a panel with diverse personality types and perspectives.

• The goal of the panel interview is to get as complete and accurate a picture as possible of each candidate.
• You want the panel to have broad perspectives and interests to thoroughly probe areas of interest and interpret the responses.

Be scientific about it.

• Use PrinciplesYou.com assessments, or similar, to ensure your panel has breadth.
• Have broad archetypes on the panel.

Brief the team on the process, especially if there are new panel members.

Do a quick re-brief of the process before each interview, question review, candidate review, and vote.

The Panel Questionnaire

Build, and continuously improve, a panel interview questionnaire for the role.

Have lots of “tough scenario” questions: things you and/or members of the panel have encountered, but have yet to solve, or that were very difficult to solve.

• Technical problems, ethical conundrums, etc
• Can the candidate deal well with these scenarios?
• Do they bring unique or different perspective and ideas to the team?
• Do they ask things the current team did not consider?
• Do they ask good questions to thoroughly understand the challenge(s)?
• Do they “get it”?

Have sections that target particular aspects of VAS you seek, such as:

• Vision
• Leadership
• Problem Solving
• Grit & Pushing Through to Results, and Success
• Organizational Skills
• Flexibility / Adaptability

Assign the weakest person from the panel for each section, to read the questions for that section, so those strongest in that section can have complete focus on the candidate, his/her answers, body language, etc

Make sure each panel member understands each of the questions (s)he will be asking, prior to the panel.

The rest of the panel should not ask any questions until the end of the section, where the assigned person for the section should then ask if there are any follow-up questions. At which point other members of the panel may ask follow-up questions of the candidate, pertaining to that section. Put this step in the questionnaire, at the end of each section, so this step is remembered at the end of each section.

Mute / turn off all cell phones. Put this in the questionnaire, at the beginning, so it is not forgotten.

The Interview

Designate and inform a person, well prior to the interview, that is not part of the panel, they will give the candidate a tour of the facility and operations, when the candidate arrives. Let the “tour guide” know where to bring the candidate for the interview, when the tour is completed.

• Inform reception who the “tour guide” is for the candidate, prior to the candidate's arrival.
• Make sure any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is ready and available for the candidate for the tour.
• Once the tour is complete, have this “tour guide” bring the candidate to the interview room, where the panel should already be assembled, and waiting, with the panel questionnaires, and ready to go.
• Welcome the candidate when (s)he arrives at the panel interview room.

Ask the candidate to be seated.

Ask the candidate what (s)he thought of the tour. Anything (s)he liked? Did not like? Any improvement opportunities they saw? Or ideas on how to make things better?

Put the candidate at ease as much as possible. This is subservient to things like asking the tough questions--you are still going to ask tough questions.

You want to know what they are really like, not what they are like when they are nervous or scared.

Ask if they need something to drink, bio break, before you get started.

Mute / turn off all cell phones.

Go around the room and let each panel member introduce themselves.

Give a safety briefing: what to do if any alarms should go off, etc during the interview.

Ask if they have any questions before you get started.

Repeat the drink / break check at the end of each section.

Use the short time before breaks end, to be more informal with the candidate. Ask how their weekend went, what was the last fun thing they did, help put them at ease as much as possible. The interview and questions are tough enough, without adding to it.

After completing all sections, finish by asking if the candidate has any questions.

• Answer all questions from the candidate, openly and honestly. Be as transparent as possible. You want a team member that fits and wants to be there.
• Want tough questions from the candidate.
• After all the questions are answered:
• Thank the candidate for his/her time, and for answering all of the tough questions.
• Explain to the candidate, especially if they seem bewildered, that the purpose is to get a comprehensive picture of each candidate, and that almost never does a candidate do well on every question. That this is expected and ok. That the goal is to understand each candidate, what they know, what they do not know, what they like, etc.
• Escort the candidate out.

Bring the “tour guide” back to the panel interview room.

• Have him/her describe what happened on the tour, what questions the candidate asked, energy or excitement levels, etc.
• Just listen. No debate. No discussion.

Thank and dismiss the “tour guide”.

Remind the panel of the "Absorption" process, and dismiss the panel.

Absorption

Do not discuss anything about the candidate with anyone, until the candidate review. This impacts how you feel and think about the candidate. Do not do it. The candidate review should not occur until at least overnight, and preferably for at least 24 hours from the end of the interview. This goes for the whole panel. Allow each panel member's mind to process what they heard and saw, without any other input. Other input could bias thinking, before each person's mind has a chance to process his/her observations. Let what each person observed, “sink in”. Meditate & sleep at least once during this period.

The Debrief

Hear what each member has to say, starting with the lowest influence / rank, finishing with the highest influence / rank

In this order, have each panel member provide all of the feedback from their questionnaire, before proceeding to the next panel member to do the same.

No debate, no interruptions during this part.

• Let each person get all of their thoughts and perspective out on the table without any interruptions, and without any debate.
• This continues, without debate or interruptions, until all this feedback, from all panel members is out in the open.

This order, and process, is to minimize the risk of more influential folks swaying the opinions and perspective of less influential folks, before each can voice his/her opinions.

Mitigate things like group think as much as possible and get it all out in the open for consideration and discussion.

You want to eliminate, or if not possible, minimize influence during this phase, and get as many unique, raw perspectives as possible into the review for discussion.

Be radically transparent and brutally honest.

Once all of this, from all panel members, has been voiced, proceed to the discussion.

The Discussion

Pull on threads where different people saw something different. Or where the same person saw differences across multiple responses.

Logically reason through to the best possible picture of what the candidate is really like, using all the different perspectives. Discussion and debate happens here.

Use these threads to mitigate personal and professional biases and get as clear a picture of the candidate as possible.

• What are they great at?
• What do they love doing?
• From what would the organization greatly benefit doing?
• Do you “Hear the Click”? - when these three things match-up?

This is a person you are potentially bringing on to help, or hurt, your team. If you do this poorly, you may have to fire this person. This will be your failure, your fault.

• Be thorough now.
• Ask the tough questions.
• Ask the difficult questions.
• Hold nothing back.
• The consequences of being wrong are far worse.
• The cost of being wrong is way too expensive.

This is where the hiring manager can reveal information from the phone screen, if it helps resolve these threads/questions, and give a better / higher probability picture of the candidate. This should be targeted and specific to a thread, as there was only one observer of the phone screen part of the process.

Do not assume because the candidate applied, they understand what the job entails and that they would love it. Reason through it, based on the observations, and make sure you are confident this is true.

When everyone agrees we understand the candidate as best as possible, and there are no more threads that need to be pulled, proceed to the vote.

The Vote

Lowest influence to highest influence, same reason as above

• thumbs-up
• thumbs-down
• or “fence sit”

If there are any thumbs-downs, do not hire the person.

Be wary if there are a lot of “fence sitters”, as this indicates the picture of what the candidate is really like, may not be clear.

If there are no thumbs-downs, and no additional candidates still to interview and/or consider, the hiring manager, before dismissing the panel:

• Considers the weight of each of the votes, and makes the final decision.
• Informs the panel of the decision.
• Thanks the panel for all of their time, feedback, and input on the decision.

The Post Mortem

90 days after the hire starts, bring the panel back together, with the new hire, if (s)he is a good hire and thus is to be retained after 90 days.

Do introductions again, so the new hire remembers those that were on the panel, with which (s)he may not have interacted with, since the interview.

Provide a brief explanation of the goal of the hiring process, and the goal of this review, to the new hire. Ask if they have any questions or feedback, from his/her experience through the process.

How does the current picture of the hire, compare with the picture of the candidate during the hiring process?

What did we miss?

How can we improve the questionnaires (phone screen & panel interview)?

• Are there tweaks to improve the questions to get an even better understanding of candidates?
• Are there questions that need to be added, or improved, to close the gap between what the hire is like, and what the hire, as a candidate, seemed to be like?
• Questions that address any important unknowns discovered in the candidate discussions? Or discovered once hired?
• What questions helped get to good understanding of this candidate? Many candidates?
• What questions did not help understand this candidate? or any candidate?
• Remove questions that have consistently not revealed anything about the candidates across a large sample of candidates. Do this very carefully. Make sure you use a large sample, across a large interval of time, before deciding to eliminate a question as not of value.
• Add follow up questions that have worked well, and are good for most or all candidates, into the questionnaire, so these are consistently asked of all future candidates.

How can we improve the process?

• What part(s) of the process revealed key Values, Abilities, and/or Skills (VAS)?

• How did the panel composition work? Were there VAS, personality type, and/or perspective gaps on the panel that need to be addressed? If so:
• How do we address these?
• How do we make sure these gaps do not happen again on future panels, for any relevant position(s)?

Welcome the new hire. Thank, and dismiss, the new hire and the panel.

Credit Where Credit is Due

And it is definitely due. Thanks to all the great people I have encountered during my career, for all the great advice, knowledge that was shared, and experiences that helped craft and revise this process throughout my career. The ideas, processes, and thoughts here, come from many different leaders, at all levels, some by title, but most by virtue of their great character and insights, many different companies, and experiences, and all deserve credit for different parts. I have been fortunate to have come across and worked with many great thinkers, leaders, and people in my career. Thank you all, for all of it.

Special thanks to those who, through their writings, teachings, and/or personal interactions have most influenced my perspective, and the evolution of this interview process. They deserve the credit:

Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard / The HP Way

Jim Collins

Kimball Electronics

Ray Dalio / Bridgewater Associates

And of course, all of those team members, throughout my career that participated in the process, including the many “lucky souls” that experienced the process from “both sides” during their journeys. Thank you all. I hope all of you are happy, healthy, and still crushing it!