The Interview

By Mel Rappleyea

We will address four types from the employers prospective :

1)     Phone interview

2)     Skype or video interview

3)     Face to Face local

4)     Flying the candidate in

You just spent a small fortune on your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) your Human Resources Information System ( HRIS) your Job Boards (Zip Recruiter, INDEED, LinkedIn, etc.) your internal recruiter, your external headhunter, your time, the hiring managers time and now you are following up on the resumes for your open position.

Here is where turnover begins.

Whenever I do exit interviews, two things that exiting employees always bring up are their on boarding experience and their interview experience. It’s amazing how these two encounters can affect an employee’s psyche, years later.

The Phone Interview

Be timely when you call the candidate. A 11am interview starts at 11am not 11:15. Be respectful of the candidate’s time. If you are tragically held up ,then text or email the candidate if a delay is happening.

Have the resume in front of you. Don’t guess at the background or rely on the old “Tell me about yourself” question.

Reduce background noise. The other person most likely will be on a cell phone. Ask them to turn down the TV or find a quite space. I know, that is common sense, but sometimes very intelligent people lack common phone etiquette sense.

Don’t place the candidate on hold.

Ask the “Knock out” questions first. As an example, Willingness to travel, relocation. basic core competency questions. There is no need to interview a candidate in Austin,Texas that won’t relocate to your office in Memphis, if that is a "must have".

Thoroughly vette the candidate. You do not want to pass the candidate to the hiring manager to have her say “I spoke to your candidate. He has no Geo Tech background. He is a structural Engineer. I seriously had a so-called recruiter of 12 years’ experience send my VP of Operations a person that was in no way imaginable, a qualified candidate. I asked the recruiter “What did you talk about for an hour with the Candidate?”. She handed me a sheet of the biggest baloney questions I had ever seen. Hypothetical questions, soft skills questions…gibberish. No wonder their turnover was 80% , Behavioral based questions and qualifying questions ONLY on an interview, Ask me a hypothetical question I will give you a hypothetical answer.

As you end the interview tell the applicant where she can find the company web site. If you have a poor rating on Glass Door or Vault be prepared to openly discuss this. Millennials especially, treat things like Yelp, Glass Door and Vault as Gospel.

Call the candidate back immediately if they are no longer in consideration. Be professional. Don’t leave people hanging. Todays rejected candidate maybe next year’s superstar. They will remember your unprofessionalism. 

If the process hits a snag or delay be honest. Call them back and tell them the next steps have been delayed.

I am amazed at the recruiter that says to me “I spoke to the candidate three weeks ago and called them back and now they are no longer available?” . So I ask. Did you tell them the CFO wife had a child and that we pushed back two weeks? …errrrrrr no. A good recruiter manages their talent.

Skype or video interview

Don’t fly people in and try them on like an Armani suit. It’s expensive. It is a major irritant for the applicant to fly in, stay at a hotel and then be asked very basic qualifying questions that should have been asked at the phone interview, It shows a lack of organization on the companies part.

The video interview is a great tool. Inexpensive.

Follow the same rules as above on the phone interview.

Reduce distractions. Place a "Interview in progress" on the door. TURN YOUR CELL PHONES OFF!

Face to Face local

Think on this. Think on it real hard.

This is what separates a TRUE recruiter from an administrative drone.

Pretend you, as the recruiter are a real Estate agent.

You are inviting the candidate into your home to show it off. Be proud. SELL IT.

Too many recruiters take the stand of “well, you are lucky to be interviewing with us” approach.

You think when the NBA, NFL or MLB invites free agents to their facility saying “Well, they are lucky to be talking to the Cleveland Browns” Ain’t NOBODY lucky to be talking to the Cleveland Browns! But to attract top talent and turn their franchise around, every free agent is treated like GOLD!

Well you say, we are elite, the New England Patriots of business. They are lucky to interview here. No, top teams attract top talent because they can sell their organization and respect the free agents time.

Look at it this way. An applicant making $80k a year burns a personal day to interview.

One PTO burnt day equals around $300 before taxes and benefits.

Candidate had to pay for gas, tolls and possible parking

So candidate is investing about $335 give or take in a possible 1 to 2 hour interview.

The very least you can do is be on time. Make sure everyone interviewing is on time and prepared.

Don’t keep bringing the poor guy or girl back two and three times. He is now $900 invested in the process and probably interviewing with others.

Validate the applicants parking, make life easy on them.

If the interview process crosses the lunch hour, for goodness sake......... feed the applicant.

Coordinate.

A well know airline company (now defunct) had a friend of mine(Frieda)interview, she went from office to office. Huge facility. Many floors. Each interviewer was instructed to walk the applicant to the next interviewer. The CIO got a urgent call at the end of his interview. “ I am sorry Frieda , I have to go to the server room off site ASAP. Your 3pm interview is with Dan in Marketing. Go to the elevators, 8th floor. Make a right, sharp left follow all the way down the hall and then make a right at the picture of the 747 and Dan’s office is behind the row of cubicles on your left” ..”It’s easy” . Yeah, easy for him he had worked there for 15 years. Frieda shook the CIO’s hand and walked to the elevator. One problem. A security elevator. Her pass would not get her to the 8th floor. So, she asked several people who instructed her to go back down to the first floor to security. Problem two, it was a twin tower building. CIO forgot to tell Frieda to take second set of elevators. After much confusion Frieda missed her 3pm interview and was late to the 4pm interview. Mister and Ms. recruiter, always escort your candidates. Don’t leave it up to others. If you cannot escort, at least check up on the progress.

Flying the candidate in

Now I’m going to hit you with my strong feelings on how the best talent gets a sour taste.

If you fly a candidate in, they better be a finalist.

Coordinate everything for them.

Pretend you are the University of Alabama and this is a BLUE-CHIP star player you want bad.

Arrange the applicants flight, times, hotel and transportation.

Always pay for the flight

Always DIRECT BILL the hotel

Don’t look CHEAP and have the candidate get Uber or a taxi. Many affordable chauffer systems out there. How nice to pick up your bags and see the company logo/sign with your name on it as you come down the escalator. Its not FRUGAL using a taxi. It comes off as a missed detail and CHEAP.

At Kodak, I had a deal with a local chauffeur service, No mucking around with receipts and AP. I got them at a great rate. Also, you would be absolutely amazed at what the candidates tell the limo driver. I had one driver tell me the applicant said he would take the job but the interview process with Sony was longer and he would leave us in a heartbeat if Sony called weeks or a month later. Mmmmmmmm good to know. Beats spending $2000 on a personality test.

Have Lunch and if applicable Dinner with the candidate.

I once had a company bring my friend in for an interview. Uber brought him in from the airport. The interviews lasted from 8am till almost 6pm. At lunch, he had no car to get him to a food establishment, the recruiter did not cover the lunch. My friend then ate dinner alone that night as a cab dropped him at the hotel.

RECRUITER!!!! The dinner meal after the interview is the BEST time for you to debrief the candidate. They are more relaxed; the feedback is fresh. The information you will glean at that time will be stellar.

At dinner, I had a CFO candidate, who was worn out from the days interviews, tell me more at dinner than we had gleaned in a month of interviews. He also told me, as he was very relaxed, that my Marketing VP noticed he had a white ring around where his wedding ring would have gone. The VP then proceeded to ask the highly illegal statement/question of…” I notice you are not wearing you’re ring , you divorced recently?" a BIG affirmative and very sensitive issue for the candidate. Coaching session on what is legal and illegal to ask was held the next day.

If you anticipate making the offer and the candidate has a spouse or partner. Fly the spouse/partner up too. Nothing is worse than expending a lot of energy and money on a search to hear “My wife really doesn’t like Austin, Texas much”. Really? Five months of this and we are at a first Vette question of ..."is relocation an issue?"

Reimburse the candidate for expenses immediately.

Follow up. Follow up. Follow up.

If the candidate is not your first choice, keep them WARM as I say. The top candidate may bow out.

Silence is unprofessional.

One exit interview I read said it all , “I should have known the company had a communication issue from my interview process, I had a bad gut feeling from the time I accepted” said the three-year employee. That process tainted him for three years!

TOOT MY HORN

So, CEO’s and Boards ask me all the time "How it is you can out recruit much bigger name companies, with higher pay and better benefits on a regular basis?"

Simple:

Respect. You see those 28,000 people on my LinkedIn profile, 5,000 on Face Book and 30,000 social media following . I interviewed many of them. Many of them did not get the job the first time. Maybe they got it a second. Maybe not at all. My biggest fan on my articles, speaking engagements and social media is a guy I interviewed in Atlanta but did not hire, Over the years he has steadily supplied me with excellent world class talent. He is a gold mine of sourcing tremendous talent.I treat everyone with respect.

Another Sports analogy:

Treat EVERY applicant like they are Labron James, Tom Brady or Aaron Judge. Respect their time. Respect and honor their interest in your organization.

I see all these new silly titles like, Talent Manager and Talent Scout.  So why do you treat people like widgets?

Why can I out recruit most recruiters? Why are the recruiters I have trained over the years stellar performers with extremely low turnover and the ability to find talent that others over look?

Respect. When you treat the applicant like a precious Commodity and not a pain to recruit its amazing what you can accomplish in reducing turn, costs and adding MASSIVE value to the company……………because after all a company is only as great as the people in the organization!

Mel Rappleyea HR Czar www.mrhrczar.com