Are you turning off your best candidates?

In a recent post, I talked about the role that your online application system has in creating an impression about you and your organization, for good or ill. Now let’s assume that one or more people have emerged from that process, and you’re ready to hold an interview with them. What impression are you going to make?

Conversations with recent job seekers reveal some practices that create bad impressions of employers and work against really getting to know candidates. The proliferation of video conference interviews coupled with a litigation averse world too often manifests in tightly time-bound interviews in which a hiring team is reading the exact same questions, sometimes in a monotone, to all candidates. Probing and discussion to understand the unique credentials each person offers is minimal. Sure, you need consistency and fair treatment; but that needn’t mean the interviewing should be done robotically. Artificial intelligence tools could probably do that!

The video conference environment is already limiting as the candidate isn’t seeing you in person, isn’t seeing the office environment, and it’s harder to get a feel for organizational culture that way. When you add an interviewer – or worse – a panel, taking notes, keyboarding, multi-tasking, offering minimal eye contact – what is a candidate supposed to think?

And you really should care what they think! After all, interviews are a two-way street. If you really want thinking, creative, innovative professionals, you need to treat them as such. If they made it through your online application system, only to encounter a seemingly uninterested or even unfriendly interviewer, the best candidates may say “forget it.”

In addition to your interview demeanor, I urge you to think about the questions themselves. If you seek to hire professionals, do your questions reflect that? For example, building in questions that appear to be in search of “gotchas” like “if I call your references, are they going to say the same thing?” seems to suggest that you are questioning the candidate's honesty. This is not something that a true professional will feel good about. Alternatively, keeping it open ended and asking the candidate what they think others will say about them gives you a chance to hear more about the candidate’s relationships and how they handle things.

If you’ve got your canned list of questions that you’ve been asking for the last ten years, it’s time for a reboot. Given all the changes throughout the world in the way work is done, now is not the time to stick to “that’s the way I’ve always done it.” Of course, that was never a good approach for true professionals to use with other professionals. Your questions should reflect some indication that you understand the unique credentials that the candidate is bringing based on your reading of their already submitted documentation. Now, more than ever, it’s time to adapt your approach to really get to know your candidates and to help them get to know you. That’s really the only way you’re going to get the best ones. After all, it’s their choice too.

Adapt.Lead.Succeed

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