When it comes to interviewing candidates for an open position, a lot of business owners don’t look forward to the task. There are countless meetings to schedule, dealing with no-shows, and having to come up with the right questions to really get a good feel for the candidate and their capabilities. Now, if you are lucky, you have someone on your team or in human resources who can handle a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to finding a new hire. Or perhaps you delegate the first steps to a recruiting agency. Regardless of who does the first steps, at some point you will want to interview the candidates yourself, especially if it’s a key team member or a position that you would work closely with on a day-to-day basis. So today, I want to share with you the one interview tip that will be a game changer when it comes to finding a new hire.
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Now, having a few people on a panel interview isn’t something new or innovative. It happens everyday. But what I am suggesting is that you have someone on the call who is there specifically to view the candidate through the lens of your own quirks and personality. And they can help identify candidates who will complement your work style, not mirror it. You have a certain way of doing things and reasoning behind it, but sometimes the best hire is someone who brings in a new perspective and a new way of doing things. Maybe you are a big-picture thinker and struggle with details. Hiring someone just like you would likely slow down your growth. But, during an interview, you might think that candidate is just perfect, because they think like you do! Instead, you might want to hire someone who can take your big-picture overview and make it into something tangible. Bringing in someone to help find that person through that lens will make a big difference.
Think about your life and who knows you best. Is it your spouse? Could it be somebody else who’s worked in your company for a long time? For me, that person is Theresa, who’s been a team member with us now for well over a decade. She knows me pretty well, good and bad. She started off as my assistant in the early 2000s and is now our COO. She can have a conversation with someone and know within a few minutes if that person would be a bad fit for the way that I work. She has told me before with certainty that a candidate would drive me crazy. Or, on the flip side, she has helped me find candidates who worked really well with my collaboration style, and those hires helped our business grow. So, if possible, I would suggest doing the same with your next hire and seeing what sort of insight you get from the process.
The end result will be worth the extra effort.