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- Your Pre-Interview Checklist
You’re ready to hire, you know the kind of candidate you want, and you’re ready to post on job boards. Before you do, make sure you’ve completed these four steps to ensure you hire the right candidate efficiently, and your Glassdoor and Reddit reviews don’t plummet.
4 Pre-Interview Steps:
Create a candidate profile that breaks down your searchables and non-searchables. Whether you’re looking for candidates yourself or relaying to a recruiting team, ensure that your profile is clear for the best search results, and so that you’re not screening too many candidates.
It should look like this:
Set up your interview process and get the interview panelists’ buy-in. Decide on the number of steps in the interview process (this is going to vary, depending on the role. Download this guide to learn how to set yours up).
Go one step further and decide on a date that you will start your interviews - block it out for all first-round interviews, and confirm availability with candidates during their phone screens.
Why? Because when you start and finish the interview process with all candidates within 24-48 hours you’re not only allowing yourself at least two strong candidates to choose from, you’re treating your candidates with respect by not having anyone wait around for days (or weeks - I see you)!
Block out interview days. The best way to plan ahead and ensure a seamless interview process is to set clear expectations with candidates, and to have a strong plan yourself. What better way to do this than to plan out the days and blocks of time that you will be available? Your schedule is busy, and so is your team’s. Have each person on the interview panel reserve at least two days (not full days, just certain blocks of time) on their calendar and send invites to the recruiting and scheduling teams. When the recruiter is on their phone screens with candidates, they will either schedule them directly onto your calendar, or ask the candidate to tentatively block out their interview window.
Decide on a debrief cadence with your recruiting team and interviewing team. Set up your weekly cadence and decide on the best way to communicate throughout the interview process (slack, email, text, smoke signal). Make sure everyone is prepared to provide factual, helpful feedback and that they’ve been trained on interviewing best practices. Download this guide to ensure your team isn’t asking candidates questions that can impact you legally.
An interview process is designed to offer you insights into your candidates’ capabilities of doing the role you’re hiring for well. You need to be able to decide between the best talent you have available, not be forced into a decision. When you have one candidate meeting with the recruiter, and another in the final interview stage, you’re forced to either rush one candidate, or lose another.
Plan ahead, start your interview rounds within 24 hours apart, and you’ll be able to make a strong, clear decision, AND your candidates will be grateful for the buttoned-up process.
Happy hunting!
❤️ Ashley
That’s all for this week! Please share with your colleagues if you’re enjoying this newsletter ♻️
How to work with me:
Recruiting: contract or per-placement hiring. Reach me here.
Writing: Freelance writing for blogs and publications. Reach me here.
Recruiting and Interviewing guides are available here.
Are you seeking a new role? Binge my courses or work with me 1:1 to help you land your next role here.