• 
• Training
• Consulting
• Resources
• Events
• About Us
• Store

• » Articles
• › The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
• › Newsletters

The Antidote for Bad Interviewers

By Kathy Barton, May 21, 2008

You've been working hard to put together a strong slate of candidates for a hard-to-fill position, and through networking and sheer force of personality have assembled three qualified individuals. They each have strengths and weaknesses, but they all have been successful in the past achieving the types of goals and completing the types of tasks that need to be done in this job. Your biggest concern: an unpredictable hiring manager. You're never sure just who is going to hit the mark with this manager because it doesn't follow any pattern that you can see. The manager tends to take immediate likes and dislikes to certain candidates for reasons not based on their backgrounds.

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

Interviewing, Newsletter

Related Articles:

What is Your Recruiting Strategy?

Is Your Recruiting Department behind the Eight Ball?

Adler's Wild and Crazy Economic Recovery Plan

You line up the interviews, saving the one that you think is almost a perfect fit for last, but you believe any of them could do a good job. Then you start getting the feedback from the manager: "I just didn't like him." "I don't think she would be a good fit." "I don't have a good gut feeling about him." Did you really miss the mark on all three candidates, or did your hiring manager just have a bad day?

Understanding what happened when a manager rejects your candidates is critical to improving your skills as a recruiter, and to building a partnership with your hiring managers. Never, ever accept this type of feedback from a hiring manager, especially when it applies to multiple candidates, and especially since you know the next thing out of the manager's mouth will be, "I want to see more candidates." How can you do a better job with the next slate when you don't understand why this group didn't make the grade? Schedule at least 30 minutes with the manager and have a conversation, professional to professional. Tell the manager that you are very disappointed that none of the candidates hit the mark because you invested a lot of time sourcing them, and that it is critical that you understand why if you are going to be successful the second time. Then drill down. In general, asking a manager for more details about what is essentially an emotional statement is not an effective way to get to the root of the problem. Try to avoid questions like "Why didn't you like him?" because you are unlikely to get much useful information.

Instead, offer some facts about the candidate's background, and see what response you get. "Okay, you told me you didn't like Bill, but Bill has been over 100% of quota for the past five years selling very similar products. He was chosen for Presidents Club and to mentor new hires. Isn't this the type of performance you are looking for?" Or: "You said you didn't think Sally would be a good fit, but she was chosen to work on cross-functional teams and won an award for team leadership, so she obviously has good team skills. What is your concern?"

The next step depends on the response. The manager will either agree with the fact but raise an objection in another area, or tell you they weren't aware of that accomplishment. Either way, respond with more facts. If they tell you they weren't aware of the accomplishment, say "Not only that, he was chosen as a representative from the sales team to give product feedback to marketing." If they raise objection in another area, counter it with facts. "Actually, Sally consistently received top scores in client satisfaction with her work." Continue to brief the manager with facts until they either give you a valid objection, agree to see the candidate again, or fall back on repeating their emotional objection. If the first, work with the manager to modify the performance profile so that you can ensure that the next slate of candidates meets that objective. If the second, schedule a follow-up interview. If the last, give the hiring manager an out. Say that you noticed when you interviewed Sally that she didn't make a great first impression – that it had been a while since she's interviewed for a job, and she was nervous, so you can understand why the manager might feel that way, but you think based on the strength of her background, the manager should really give her another chance.

This scenario is only possible if you have done an Evidence-based Interview, based on a Performance Profile. A Performance Profile will contain the critical things that the candidate needs to do to be successful in the job. An Evidence-based Interview looks at past accomplishments of comparable work (i.e., work that is similar to what needs to be done in the job). Most importantly, in an Evidence-based Interview, you are looking for facts. The more facts you get, and the more specific they are, the better. How many people were on the project team? What were their roles? What was the budget? What was the timeline? Did you have to report to senior management? What was your biggest obstacle? Did you or your team receive any recognition?

As you go through the interview, think about the most important success criteria for the job, and look for evidence that you can use to defend this candidate if for some reason the hiring manager does a poor interview rather than conducting an evidence-based assessment. If you can't find that evidence, then don't pass the candidate to the manager. If you do find the evidence, make sure you keep a record of it so that you are prepared to make a case for why you think the manager should seriously consider this candidate. Then use that information each time the manager rejects a candidate to discover if you missed a critical success factor, to change the manager's mind, or to coach the manager on how to be a better interviewer.

Some managers will never change. If, however, you go through this process after every rejection, the manager may begin to understand that purely emotional justifications for hiring decisions are not acceptable, and with your help, learn to do a better job of interviewing.