Welcome back to another #ThoughtFULLThursday. My name is Casey Hasten. I am an Executive Recruiter, Director of Recruiting with VIP and your #hiringguru. My goal each week is to bring you tips and tricks for building better teams.
This week I want to talk to you about trusting in your hiring process. I am the first to admit when I make a mistake and my goal in sharing what I learned is to help you not make the same mistake.
My interview process consists of multiple touches. I do this for a very important reason: people can show up differently on different days. A person can only put on a false front for so long and scheduling multiple interviews exposes any chinks in a facade.
Here are my preferred steps:
- Phone Interview
- FIT Assessment
- One-on-One In-Person Interview with me
- Partner One-On-One In-Person Interview
- Team Interview
- Culture Lunch with Team prior to offer being extended
This may seem like a lot to most of you, but culture is extremely important to me, even more so than skillset. We have witnessed firsthand the ill effects of hiring someone who can do the job, but does not integrate into the culture. AND THAT IS OKAY! Not everyone fits into every culture. You have to find what works for you. On the flipside though, we have to find who works for us.
In this particular example, I negated the culture lunch before I extended an offer and combined the one-on-ones and team interviews on one day. We conducted a reference prior to the interview with a personal friend of one of my team, which was very favorable, so I felt pretty good about taking this step. The assessment results lined up extremely well with our benchmark. The candidate was totally engaging when meeting with the team and partners. There was a little hesitation, but not enough at this point to halt the process.
Although there were many positives which allowed me to justify not following my process, there were a few red flags I chose to ignore against my better judgment. First, the candidate did not meet our minimum education requirements. The candidate told me they were one semester away from completing their Bachelor’s and was enrolled in classes already which I stretched and allowed. Second, this person had short tenure in each of their last roles which was not something I would normally consider, as I believe tenure is a strong indicator of culture fit. Finally, I mistook misplaced arrogance for confidence.
I think you see where this is going. I extended the offer prior to the culture lunch, but scheduled the culture lunch prior to the first day. An entirely different person showed up this time. First, this person was thirty minutes late to the lunch and made no apologies for this. This screamed disrespect to the team and already had future teammates on edge. We were business casual at this lunch, but the candidate’s attire was completely inappropriate. During lunch, the candidate did not ask the team any questions about themselves. Instead, this person talked about themselves constantly. The team was no longer on board with the new hire and I could see it was going to be a struggle to integrate into the team from day one.
Despite my better judgment, I decided to continue the process. Prior to the first day, I had a long conversation with my team where I asked them to give this person a chance and not have preconceived notions about how they would show up. They agreed to be open-minded and give this person a fair shot.
Day one seemed to progress well. Our new hire was open and engaged during training and asked good questions. Other team members who assisted with training also felt this person was intent on learning quickly. Again, a different person showed up.
Day two – disaster! Our new hire barely showed up for the first required meeting and was on their phone the entire time. There were back-to-back meetings scheduled and instead of staying in their seat for the next meeting, this person left the room and we could not find them. The team waited 15 minutes for them to show back up, again showing disrespect for others’ time. When they did show up, the new hire was completely disengaged and at one point, I asked what they thought about what was just said. It was said, “honestly, I wasn’t listening.” At this point, I dismissed the rest of the team to have a quick chat.
The response was they could not be their best self in our environment. Sales environments are tough; I get it. I try to prepare potential new hires as best I can for this during the interview process. After listening to the reasons why, I agreed. This was not the right place for this person.
I am not sure the response expected at that point, but I do not believe that was it. In hindsight, I think this person wanted to speak their mind and then for me to beg them to stay. Then everything would have been fine. I do not think it was expected I would agree and immediately go collect their things.
I am grateful this happened Day 2 and not Day 30. My mistake of not sticking to the process could have cost way more time and money. I want you to take away from this that even people who hire for a living can make a hiring mistake. The lesson is to recognize your mistake quickly and move on.
I do not plan to make this mistake again. In the future, I will stick to my guns on what I know works all the way around. Here is a quick funny….after this happened we interviewed another internal candidate. She was fantastic (three touches so far and always shows up the same) and one of my team wanted me to offer immediately. The rest of the team said, “NOOOOOO! Culture lunch first!” I agreed and we are working the rest of the process before moving to an offer. I am thankful my team recognizes the value of multiple interactions and wants to follow the process as well.
This was a tough post, but I hope, as always, it has been helpful. When you make a mistake, do not beat yourself up. Learn from it.
I will see you again next week for another #ThoughtFULLThursday.
