How to Design a Better Hiring Process

The traditional interview process needs to be improved. To find talented people, generate inspired work, and stay with the company for a long time we need to rethink the selection process. Certain questions like "what are your strengths and weaknesses", " challenge at work and how you overcame them" have become too predictable and need to be dropped from the interview process.

Behavioral questions may be useful to test a person's ability to relay biographical information but they do not reveal information about a person's competencies.

Create a process so that the candidate is faced with unconventional scenarios to gather useful insights into the candidates' critical thinking abilities, tech-savviness, and inter-personal skills. Certain recommendations are given here

Questions:

The process varies from one person to another as no two persons' are the same. Structure the questions around the skills required for each job and allow them to demonstrate their skills. You may consider questions in three categories

• Test for preparation: Ask questions for which it is easy to research. Even a simple google search should be able to provide the answer.
• Test for critical thinking: Ask open-ended questions designed to start a conversation and spark creativity in a candidate.
• test for listening and communication skills: Format some questions like directions. Ask the candidate to demonstrate a certain skill set of passion to test his communication skill.

Allow candidates to choose topics for discussion themselves to see whether they can deliver. If they choose some topics they don't know much about, you come o know that they do not care enough about the job they have not prepared for.

Technical skills

Has the candidate evaluated by an employee who is an expert in the skill set he is being interviewed for? Ask role-specific questions to gauge if they have a genuine interest in the work they would be doing. Depending on the candidates and flow of the interview, one may ask less direct questions about their interests. one may create scenarios to test the skills in action and how they collaborate with the team.

Writing samples

You may give the candidate a writing test to chek his quality of writing without any outside assistance. This also indicates his communication skills, especially under time pressure. review the sample writing if they can think critically, and demonstrate thoughtfulness overall.

Games

To test the candidates' capability with other colleagues daily, one may arrange for a team exercise/ board games that challenge players to work towards a team goal. This will help in understanding how the candidate interacts with team members. it is important to make sure the candidate can engage with a diverse group of employees and feel comfortable. 

Quantify what's working and what's not

These factors require experimentation and fine-tuning. After each round of interviews, evaluate the success of the process and identify what has worked and what needs to be modified. Ultimately it is the quality of the hires that matters. No business can afford bad hires. 

It is important to design an interview process that provides a clear assessment of candidate's skills, aptitude and potential for a cultural fit. the above framework is one of the ways for doing so.

How to Design a Better Hiring Process

by Alex Haimann HBR June 26, 2020