Interviewing, References, Giving Feedback (Recruitment Part 3/3)
Disclaimer: Some regions and countries have specific laws around recruitment, including what has to be advertised, how it has to be advertised, and what the process needs to be. Most organizations will also have their own internal policies that you will need to adhere to. It's extremely important that you know the laws and policies that you need to adhere to and follow them before implementing any advice you read on the internet or in a book. So you've decided the sort of person your team needs, now it's time to get the recruitment process going and actually attract that person.
The Interview and Questions
Normally, an interview lasts about an hour, so ideally, your structure should be five minutes for introductions and five minutes to explain the job in a bit more detail. I go with a 'day in the life of approach' to really paint what the job is about. Then you should aim for about thirty to forty minutes of questions, which isn't a lot, and leave the remaining time for the candidate to ask questions and for the panel to clarify anything. I'd explain this structure to the candidate too, so they know what the structure is and when they can ask questions. Also, make sure to set your expectations for how you want them to answer the questions.
In terms of questions, you want to always follow the STAR method: "Tell us about a time you did x," and as mentioned earlier, the core of your questions should be aligned around the top-ranked skills you listed in the advertisement. In fact, if you've done a good job of articulating those skills, your questions are practically written for you. For any additional questions you are going to ask, I also recommend field testing them on staff, because you will find over the course of one or two interviews that some questions stink, don't elicit the answer you are looking for, or are worded in a confusing manner.
Make sure you ask all candidates the same questions out of fairness; you can ask additional follow-up questions that you don't have to ask of others, but the core has to be the same.
As mentioned in the disclaimer above. There are laws around recruitment that you need to know. One thing I will point out here is that there are interview questions that you are not legally allowed to ask someone. As a general rule, you can't ask them about anything that would be considered private and personal and could be used against them in the decision to hire; don't ask about mental illness; don't ask if they intend to have a baby; don't ask about their sexuality; don't ask about who they vote for; and don't ask about any illness or what they took their sick days for. Google what questions are illegal in your country before stepping into your first interview. It's the law; you should know it.
I recommend that you and every panelist write down the answers each candidate gives to be able to refer to them later. Trust me, the memory gets a little hazy after five interviews, and people's personal feelings about who they liked will cloud things, so it's always good to go back to the answers. You'll appreciate this even more if you are asked to give feedback or, god forbid, someone challenges the hiring decision.
Hopefully, at the end of the interview process, you will have someone you and your panelists agree should get the role. If it's unclear or there's a tie between two people, that's when you might consider another, less formal interview with some different panelists. If none of them met the mark, you can always go back into your 'maybe' or even your 'no' pile and see if any of them could be worth interviewing, and as I said before, you can always choose not to hire someone, wait a month or so, re-advertise, and hope that you'll get who you're looking for a second time around.
I cover references in the next section, but I do want to stress that it's not good form to call the references of a candidate you aren't certain you're going to hire. Sure, if you have two candidates that you can't choose between, it might be tempting to call both their references and see what they say, but for the unsuccessful candidate, that means their management is now informed as to the intentions of that staff member to leave, and then they don't have the job. That could lead to them losing their job in some parts of the world, or if their manager is an asshole (many are), that employee could be treated badly or invest less because they now know they want to leave.
#References References are the whose line is it anyway of hiring. The points don't matter, and the questions are definitely made up.
For one, every company does references differently, not to mention that a bad candidate might get a glowing reference from a manager to get rid of them; conversely, I've personally seen a manager sabotage a reference to keep them. It becomes really hard to trust the reference process when it has so many holes in it.
What I personally look for is consistency of message and any red flags, and by red flags, I mean things that cross a line and would be damaging to the team, such as abuse, inability to work with others, and law-breaking things like theft.
I'd caution you to take orange flags with a grain of salt. Some people are leaving jobs that aren't suiting them well or have bad management, so when you see things like "takes a lot of sick days", "doesn't engage with the team", or "was difficult to manage", really think hard about whether anything in the interview process aligns with that.
A good path for getting the whole picture of someone is to get a reference from their current manager and a key stakeholder; then you get a more rounded picture of the person, but that's not always possible.
Candidates may not always want to use their current manager as a reference. If you're reading this blog, you're probably somewhat aligned with me in believing that there are a lot of bad managers out there, and for the candidate, this is a loose scenario where they hold no power. So in this scenario, I would be more inclined to believe the candidate and work with them to seek out alternative references, like a previous manager and maybe that stakeholder I mentioned just before.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, there is very little you can do to avoid hiring a bad candidate. If you have interviewed someone and you feel like you want them on the team, I'm inclined to believe that you should trust that feeling over confusing references. As you get good at hiring (I've hired over thirty candidates in my time), you get better at getting a feel for people, and at the end of the day, your job is to mentor and coach. No one intends to be a bad employee, so I've found some of my most rewarding management moments have been growing staff into their potential.
Rejecting candidates and providing feedback
Normally, your HR partner will handle the mass rejection of anyone who didn't get an interview, but for those candidates who did make it to the interview stage, it is often your responsibility to give them the bad news.
If you have selected a candidate, it's considered best practice to wait until they have signed on the dotted line before rejecting your second pick, just in case that other candidate doesn't accept the role.
But for those who are definitely not getting the role, you need to contact them in a timely manner to inform them. Notice I said timely; you know how much it sucks to wait weeks just to hear you didn't get the job you wanted. They gave you their time and effort; respect them by calling them as soon as you can.
For any tough conversation, you need to plan what you are going to say, as often when we wing it, we risk saying something we really shouldn't, especially if we sense the other person might not be happy with the news.
Plan how you are going to both open and close the conversation. Plan what you are going to say, and you also need to plan what your feedback is going to be; however, I cannot stress this enough: feedback is optional. You need to ask them if they want to receive feedback on their interview. If they say no, that is fine, but you still need to have prepared it in advance.
Keep everything factual and away from wishy-washy statements, as people will seek to correct something they don't agree with. If they do try to add additional information or clarify something, thank them for that, but stick to your guns and reiterate that the role has already gone to another candidate.
At the end of the day, short, sharp, and to the point is the aim of the game here. Be polite; approach the situation with empathy and understanding, but don't let yourself say anything that could cause the candidate to feel like they lost the job unfairly.
Closing thoughts
Recruitment is a long and complicated process that does carry with it some legal ramifications if done poorly, not to mention the reputational and organizational consequences. You can't avoid a dud, and it's not something you can perfect, but by keeping things simple and consistent, you will do yourself a lot of favors.
The next article covers onboarding your newly hired staff member and everything that is required of you to make sure they hit the ground running as effectively as possible, but for now, I recommend you take a break if you've just ploughed through all three parts.
Feel free to reach out if you have a question, all my links are in my Linktree and if you want to show some extra gratitude you can buy me a coffee through my Linktree.