At Vista, we know taking the time to hire the right people for your firm is important. Just like recruiting, hiring is also a process. Firms that are successful in their hiring process tend to attract quality candidates, whereas firms that aren’t as successful spend a lot of their time hiring the wrong people over and over again. Where I see a lot of these firms stumble is in the interview process. They haven’t taken the time needed to define what their interview process should look like. Missing this critical step, for many firms, is the difference between success and failure.
Geoff Smart and Randy Street’s book WHO suggests conducting a series of four interviews that build on each other. If used correctly, these interviews should provide the facts you need to determine if a candidate is the right fit based on the mission, competencies, and outcomes you determine are critical for success in the role. As Vista’s recruitment coordinator, I employ a custom combination of these interviews when I help firms find top talent.
The series of four interviews consists of:
While this series of four interviews is IDEAL, we understand not all firms have the capability or manpower to conduct the entire series. However, understanding the purpose of each of these types of interviews will help you to design a custom interview process that works best for you and your firm’s needs. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at each of the four interviews.
At Vista, we call this the phone screen. Once you have a candidate you would like to contact (based on a resume or a referral), the phone screen is your initial contact with the prospective new team member. A phone screen should last no more than thirty minutes. The goal of this interview is to save time by eliminating people who are inappropriate for the position as quickly as possible.
Since this is the first time you are speaking with a candidate, you want to know how well they can communicate. Are they personable? Are they thoughtful when answering your questions? Are they polite? These are things you can screen for right off the bat! Since the phone screen is quick, there is no need to dive into their resume just yet. The person’s work history won’t matter if they are unable to communicate well. It’s also important you ask a series of questions to see if the person would be a good fit culturally with your firm. We recommend following a common set of questions every time you screen someone. Here are a few examples of questions to ask on a phone screen:
The career goals question, in particular, is VERY powerful because it allows the candidate to tell you about their goals and passions before you taint the conversation with your own comments. It’s easy for an interviewer to do a lot of talking during an interview. Sometimes you may feel the need to sell your firm before the candidate even has a chance to talk. Remember, your candidate should be the one doing most of the talking. You should be listening for strengths that match the job at hand and red flags that DO NOT.
The question about how they believe their former bosses would rate them is a fun one! This usually gets the candidate thinking. You are letting them know upfront you will be contacting their references. After the phone screen, reflect on the highlights of the conversation. Do this person’s strengths match what we want this role to accomplish? Are their weaknesses manageable? Are you excited to hear more from this potential new team member based on the thirty minutes or less you just spent with them? If the answer to any of these questions is NO, screen them out and move on.
If a candidate makes it to this interview, then you have determined you want to know more about them after their phone screen. Before we get into what this interview does, you must first decide if the interview will take place in-person or virtually using a platform like Zoom or Teams. If you are using a web platform like Zoom or Microsoft Teams to conduct your interview, it is IMPERATIVE you get the camera location correct!
The candidate wants to see your face, not your office! Also, if you have more than one person in your office interviewing the candidate, you each need your own computer to conduct the interview. Using the same computer for two people often creates chaos and confusion.
Dr. Brad Smart and Dr. Geoff Smart coined the term Topgrading in their book detailing the techniques of conducting a topgrading interview. In this book, they explain how using data and looking at patterns of behavior can help hiring managers make predictions about how someone is likely to perform in the future. The Topgrading interview takes a candidate’s resume and goes chronologically through it, job by job, asking a variety of questions such as:
The topgrading interview will take longer than the phone screen. You want to get the full picture of the candidate’s work history. You will likely have to interrupt the candidate to keep the interview on track. You can do so politely and build rapport in doing so. You will want to understand why a person left a job. Were they pushed out or hired by someone else based on a referral? Consider yourself a biographer. You want the details and the overall idea of how the candidate performs professionally. After all, you are putting the facts together to make the best decision for your firm.
While the topgrading interview is very comprehensive, Dr. Smart recommends going a step further, if needed, and conducting a more focused interview. These focused interviews allow you to invite other team members to get involved and dig a bit deeper into one or several of a candidate’s previous jobs, focusing on a particular outcome or strength discovered through the topgrading interview.
By this point in the interviewing process, you will have a good idea of who you want for the job. This focused interview is the icing on the cake, per se. Use this interview, whether it be in-person or via Zoom/Teams, to follow up on what you heard in the topgrading interview. Say things like, “Tell me more about your time at XYZ. What did you learn most from your tenure there? How was your performance evaluated there?” Focused interviews also give you one last gauge on the cultural fit of the candidate.
Side Note: You have already established the mission, competencies, and outcomes associated with the position you are hiring for, right? Each of these interviews should be screening a candidate based on what your firm has already decided are the important roles and responsibilities for the job. At Vista, we like to call this a job’s scorecard. Scorecards are a MUST and succeed because they focus on outcomes – what a person needs to accomplish in a specific role. Let’s be clear: This is not a job description. This is a comprehensive list of outcomes ranked in order of importance for success at your firm. If you don’t have a clear scorecard for the position you are looking for, I suggest you create one. Not only will this help you define what success looks like for any given role in your organization, it will also help your hiring managers and recruiters understand the kind of team member you are looking for.
After three interviews, you probably know who you want to hire. You’ve taken the critical steps needed to ensure the data you have gathered matches up with your scorecard and your firm’s culture. Now is the time to call the candidate’s references. DON’T SKIP THE REFERENCES! Refer back to your notes in the topgrading interview. Choose the boss, colleagues, and personal references you’d like to reach out to wisely.
If you want to know more about how a candidate works with others, call a colleague, not the boss. If you are worried about how the candidate takes criticism, call the supervisor. Ask your potential new team member to set up the reference call. I know this may sound strange, but Dr. Smart notes you will have twice the chance of getting to talk to a reference if you ask the candidate to set up the phone call. Be listening for enthusiasm. A-team players are exciting to talk about. The absence of enthusiasm is a definite red flag. Some questions to ask the reference might be:
Just like any process, the interviewing can take time and effort. But…you want the right person, don’t you? These interviews can help guide you to make the best decision. Picking the right candidate now saves your firm time and money down the road. That’s why approaching the interview process thoughtfully and intentionally is a major contributor to your firm’s overall success. Don’t underestimate the power of implementing a right-fit interview process for your firm. Happy interviewing!
