Tag: job candidate

I was a supervisor in a manufacturing plant. When a colleague was promoted to manager in another department, he wanted me to work for him.

I hesitated. One, it would be a lateral move. Two, I had started at the bottom of my current department, and had the skills and experience to show for it. But I liked him, knew he would give me plenty of latitude as long as I got results, and decided adding a different functional area to my resume might make me a better candidate for promotion. 

So I thought for a few seconds, and said yes.

Then he told me I had to interview for the job: not with him, which itself would have been a waste of time since we had worked together for year, but with a team of shop-floor employees.

That seemed only a little less of a waste of time. While I was a huge supporter of employee empowerment, being interviewed by the people who would report to me seemed odd. For better or worse, especially since in the past I had worked with every person on the panel, I was a known quantity. 

To me, it was a case of you either want me, or don’t.  

“What could they possibly ask me?” I said. He shrugged.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s part of the process. So please do it.”

Since working for a Fortune 500 company meant I was no stranger to doing things for show, I grudgingly agreed. 

On the morning of the interview, one of my production lines had a major equipment breakdown. Then an employee injured himself. Then another crew had a mechanical problem, which I was able to help fix. But by the time I crawled out from under the equipment, it was nearly one o’clock. I was almost late to my “interview” and hadn’t had a chance to eat.

So I took my lunch with me.

When I sat down, I apologized for being a minute late, summarized my morning, and asked if they minded if I ate my lunch during the interview. I figured they would understand and maybe even appreciate that I was the kind of supervisor who put productivity first, and was happy to jump in. I didn’t know it at the time, but a study published in Journal of Business and Psychology backs up that assumption: 84 percent of respondents wanted a boss who helped them get things done, a boss with functional skills and task-oriented behaviors.

Clearly they weren’t part of the 84 percent, because I didn’t get the job.

Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten my lunch during the interview. (Or maybe I should have offered them half my sandwich, as Richard Branson once did for me.)

But that’s probably not the reason they didn’t choose me. I wanted the job, but I didn’t want the job. I was agreeable, but I wasn’t eager, especially because the whole “interview” thing felt pointless. Every question implicitly assessed how I would be to work for and whether their values, which appeared to be a relaxed work environment where results weren’t stressed, aligned with mine. (They didn’t.) 

Not that interviews conducted by people who will report to you can’t be effective. Soft skills are important, and research shows great bosses tend to score highly on those traits. But without a foundation of hard skills — without the ability to do the job, and the ability to help the people you lead not just do their jobs but steadily improve their capabilities — those soft skills can largely be wasted. 

As the researchers write, “If your boss could do your job, you’re more likely to be happy at work.”

This panel of employees? They didn’t assess whether I could do the job. They assessed whether I would “let them be them,” and not in a good way.

Whether rightly or wrongly, though, the interview felt like a waste of time, and that’s the real point of this story. 

Plenty of businesses hold multiple rounds of interviews: first with the person in charge of creating a short-list, then with a supervisor, then with other employees, and finally with the business owner.

While that sounds thorough and comprehensive, a multiple-round process can feel off-putting to the candidate. Similar interview questions — especially the dumber interview questions — tend to get asked. The same behavioral interview prompts get floated.

Eventually, the candidate starts to feel like a known quantity, one you either want or don’t want. 

At that point you stop getting their best, and you might end up missing out on what could have been a outstanding employee.

By all means, be thorough and comprehensive. But don’t create a process that works just for you. Create a process that also works for the candidate. Consider how the interview process can impact them, especially in how it feels.

Because your interviewing process should help you identify the best candidate, but that can only happen if it ensures the best candidate will be at their best in every stage of the experience.

The longer and more repetitive the process, the less likely that is to occur.

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