I’ve worked with hundreds of companies and hiring managers and most do have a process but it only goes so deep.
Some tips to enhance your interview process:
- Hiring manager should be first or second to interview: whether by phone or first one in on the interview. This way if it is not a fit, you don’t waste the rest of the teams time. If the hiring manager is a no on the candidate, you can end the process sooner.
- Eliminate too many repeat questions: I see this all the time, 5 people interview a person and all 5 ask similar or the same questions. Have a spreadsheet that outlines the main bullets each interviewer should cover from technical skills to cultural fit. Then when you have a debrief meeting each person can speak to what they learned about the candidate relative to their specific questions and rank them accordingly.
- Write your questions down ahead of time and make them behavioral: It should only take 3-5 questions for a 45 minute interview. Have questions start with “tell me about a time”, “give me an example of” and have both a technical and behavioral question. IE, tell me about a project you worked on with a lot of issues and what parts of that project would not have been completed if it wasn’t for your involvement. Make sure you spend a lot of time in the follow up questions, this is where the details will be revealed
- Interview Debrief: If they met with 3-5 people, set up an interview debrief meeting. Don’t talk about it in the hall or in passing. Get all the interviewers on the phone to discuss why or why not the candidate is a fit.
