Better Interviews Using "The Headhunter Rules"

Interviewing is really a simple game. It's the people and paper that make it complex.

If you think about it, there are five major elements present when you sit down to interview someone:

The candidate.

His or her resume.

You.

Your job description.

The clock.

Guess which are most important?? Go ahead; I'll give you a few minutes while I hum the theme from Jeopardy.

The first most important is the clock!

That's Headhunter Rule #1: life is a zero-sum game, meaning that if you use up all your available interview activity on people, questions or activities that don't help you get the job done right, you're out of time. And you don't get it back, ever.

For the headhunter that means he doesn't take home any pay. For you it means that when you hire, it will largely be a coin-toss as to whether you've found someone who can do the work! That coin toss is like a bet with tens of thousands of dollars - your payroll dollars for the time the person stays with you.

The second most important element of an interview is.... (drum roll) what you know about your own job!!

That's Headhunter Rule #2: if you're going to generate the right applicants, interview well and hire the best, you have to know the right things about your job. At the right level of detail to make it useful in an interview.

The problem most people make when they sit down to interview is that they have a general understanding (even managers and business owners) of what makes someone successful on the job.

So they interview in general, and the winner is usually the candidate with the most sincere personality, the best resume, or the most well-prepared answers. All of which are nice, but can be prepared for by any candidate with an 'Ace Your Interview' book...like an actor preparing a character for a movie role.

You may like them and hire them because they can interview well, and they can't do the work.

You're the next least important. In fact, with the right systems, you should be able to hand interviewing over to people who will do the job better than you. The people working around your new hire usually have more at stake, more knowledge of the job and the willingness to interview more ruthlessly than you.