Know the ‘Price’ of an Interview !

One of the most basic concept of Yoga for a healthy and better life is to 'consume' healthy, clean and hygienic food and air.

There is no other natural way to intoxicate once's body other than the two input sources. Consuming adulterated food or breathing unhealthy polluted air impacts the entire body's ecosystem, its growth and development. With improper eating and breathing (smoking) habits, the body tend to be less immune and infects to sickness.

With that, what is the nose and mouth of an organisation?

It is the Talent Acquisition 

Onboard great talent and watch the organisation grow or hire poor talent and see the gradual fall. 

Bringing in the right talent is NOT an HR responsibility. HR is an enabler.

Hiring the right talent, the future of the organisation depends on the quality of skills the hiring panel possesses, the way the candidates are interviewed, assessed and how effectively the 'Interviewing Skills' are utilized

The MOST important leadership trait the organization must very closely and carefully watch upon is the 'efficient and effective' interviewing skills of the hiring panel. Next comes the communication. 

Every organisation that has a serious growth vision, should have 'Interviewing Skills' as the development path for all leaders, people managers, hiring panels and obviously the talent acquisition teams. This can be achieved by mentor-ship, workshops and training. 

Next, when do we enjoy the meal to the fullest? To enjoy a meal, one must have his/her stomach empty or at least some space. No matter how good the food may be, we cannot enjoy a meal if we are full. 

Prefer candidates with empty stomach (not literally), this means prefer those who have the domain expertise and fits into the requirement (60-80%) but must have the 'will more than the skills', have the curiosity to find answers, have the energy and enthusiasm, the passion to make themselves better. 

Such candidates, as they make themselves better bring the domino effect to the organisation exponential growth. 

Not finishing here, when was the last time you sent your young kid to get the groceries for the house? Maybe very rare or maybe never. The next 'Why' is, why do you think we prefer buying groceries for the house ourselves? 

In most of the cases, the answer may be - "because we know what exactly we need and how to choose. Kids may get home something different or maybe not the best quality."

You got me where I am going :) 

Choose the right interview panel. Every organisation MUST have an internal and an 'external pool' to the organisation hiring panel. I'll explain why.. 

Internal hiring panel may be considered where the internal interviewer panel possesses at least a +1 level of the domain expertise that the profile or a requirement requires. 

An External hiring panel may be considered where there is no internal panel pool that possesses a higher level of expertise. Organizations must not settle with an = or maybe at times illusion-ed +1 level of skillet internally in lieu of a right external assessment personnel as part of the interview panel.

Remember, the interview panel is the latch to the flood gates because they got the key to decide the future 'for' the organisation. 

An organisation must hire people who can challenge and can tell what must be done, how it would be done. We may simply hire cattle instead if we plan to hire and tell the people what and how to do their job.

Few basic traits that must cautiously observed during an interview:

• The energy and enthusiasm of the candidate
• The willingness to make things better, including self
• The curiosity to know what the candidate does not know
• How well the candidate describe his/her current role - detailed and simplified
• Un-learnability 
• Acceptance to critic, reaction to a second/different way of problem solving

Interviewing skills of the interview panel of an organization and the overall interview experience (selected or not, becomes secondary) is the best assessment of an organization from outside. With the quality of the interview, the aspiring candidates may get the experience in in advance about how the organization is, from the inside. 

I hope this article must have brought in some perspective, I would be keen to know your views.