Texas' oldest placement
and recruitment firm

Locations: Dallas

Who Should Interview

Who?

This question would seem to have a simple answer. Employers with a need should interview! That's who. imple enough! We are continually amazed at how complicated and down right wasteful of time and energy interviewing can be. Interviewing candidates should be a simple process of an employer in need of an employee, recruiting, interviewing and hiring a qualified candidate. The process often becomes more important than the result of hiring the best candidate for the job.

The Progress Gets Complicated

So often the interviewing process becomes a marathon of meetings for the candidate. He meets with distant, rather disinterested people who end up having a vote or say in who gets the chance to perform in a job function that has nothing to do with them. The interviewing process becomes a popularity contest rather than an endeavor to hire the most qualified person. The more people involved in the process, the more likely a safe candidate will be hired. These successful candidates most often are hired on their ability to survive the interviewing process rather than on their ability to function and contribute to the work endeavor. The major reason for this is that most people have a tendency to be "nay" sayers anyhow. Most people don't like to risk being held accountable for voting for a candidate who, after becoming an employee fails. There is no risk in saying no. There is a risk in hiring a candidate. People who will not directly participate in the reward of the risk, i.e., performance of the candidate, should not be involved in the interviewing process. It is just too easy for those distant parties to say "no." The result of marathon interviewing is usually a safe relatively neutral employee who has a tendency to be more average than anything else. As a result you may end up with a good politician who offends no one but accomplishes very little in his work function.

Now there is nothing wrong with more than just the hiring manager interviewing candidates. But the problem comes when too many people get involved in the process. The idea is that if lots of people within the company interview the candidate they will less likely make a mistake. This is simply not true. Statistics show that complicated interviewing processes does not improve the success pattern or retention rate of qualified candidates. In fact, an interviewing process of more than two interviews above the hiring level will most likely eliminate qualified candidates... "too many chefs..."

The higher the position within a firm, the more people have a tendency to be involved. We have seen companies do everything from teams of consulting psychologists to hiring committees who vote on a group of finalists. The absurdities defy logical and good business sense.

The Rule of Thumb

The rule of thumb should be that managers who have the need should be doing the interviewing, even the initial interviewing. We know you would like someone else, especially the personnel office to do this, but it just doesn't work well that way. The personnel office is often just too far away from the hurt and need of the hiring manager to be effective. The reason is simply that in most companies, the personnel office has the responsibility of screening people out. Unless internal recruiters or personnel offices are constantly interviewing for certain positions, they normally will tend to find the "safest" candidates rather than the best ones.

Keep It Simple

Keeping the interviewing simple is the key to the process. Involving people from other departments in a hiring decision is not only a waste of time, but will hinder the process of finding the best candidate.

The level of the job and the type of position will dictate who should be involved in the process. Controllers or personnel professionals shouldn't be interviewing sales people, etc.

Who should interview? The people in a company that have the need. Short, simple fact. Keep it simple. What works best is limiting those involved to those that have the direct need.

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