An executive I know recently interviewed for and accepted a leadership role with a new company. As part of the interview process, the company required him to engage in multiple interviews and a series of leadership and management assessments. The human resources person who was his liaison with this company apologized for how much time the whole process took. His reply was telling: "Please don't apologize. I think this whole process is terrific. It communicates to me that you are serious about hiring the best leaders you can find for this company." Far from being put off by the demanding interview process, he was attracted by it. He subsequently took the job this company offered to him.

A-players are drawn to organizations with high standards. Design an interview process that digs into people's accomplishments, talents, and experiences. A-players prefer stringent interviews as long as the questions, assessments, and overall method are job related. They like to jump through these hoops because they look good doing it. It allows them to show off their skills and be recognized by a new group of people for their abilities. In this sense, a demanding interview process is a recruiting tool that attracts A-players.

When I worked as an executive recruiter, my clients were the chief executives and chief financial officers of some well-regarded companies. It always surprised me that such successful people were lousy interviewers. They were so busy that they reviewed resumes for 30 seconds before meeting a candidate. They asked their questions and formed an impression of the candidate. Later, they ran into one of their colleagues in the hall and asked that perennial post-interview question: "So, what did you think of that guy?" That was the extent of their interview process. These executives made decisions based solely on gut feel and first impressions, instead of following a systematic process to hire the right person.

I am going to describe a series of steps that you can include in your interview process, but whatever you do, have some kind of system for it. A defined interview process gives you the insight you need to make good hiring decisions. We get better at what we do repeatedly, so follow that same process every time you interview. You and your organization will become well versed in choosing good hires if you develop a systematic interview process—and stick to it.

One of the best things you can do to improve your interview process is to define your A-Player Profile (discussed in Chapter 2) before you conduct your first interview. If you want to stop settling for mediocre talent, then you must first clearly define superior performance. The A-Player Profile is the foundation of a great interview process. Take the time to create these Profiles for key positions and make sure that you and your people have bought into them. This will help you to say no to average performers and to recognize superior performers when you see them.

As I will discuss in Chapter 10, there are terrific personnel assessments out there that measure both the requirements of a job and a candidate's likelihood of being an A-player. If you capture and quantify your A-Player Profile using these tools, you can then compare job candidates to the Profile and see their strengths and weaknesses. These tools make interviewing more focused and effective. They help you to stay objective about people, weed out those who look good but lack substance, and focus on A-players you might otherwise have missed.

Once you have defined success for the position and created the benchmark just described, you can quickly construct an interview scorecard. This does not need to be anything fancy. One entrepreneur I know has a simple card printed up with the five characteristics his company looks for when hiring for a sales position. Every interviewer gives candidates a score from one to five for each characteristic, as well as an overall score using the same scale. This helps the interviewers focus on issues that connect with job performance, judge every candidate according to the same criteria, and compare their impressions of candidates with those of the other interviewers.

It's best to interview each serious candidate more than once and to conduct these interviews on at least two or three separate days. The interview is an artificial process designed to help you get to know a complete stranger quickly and in depth. You want to know whether people follow through on their commitments, communicate effectively via the phone and e-mail, and know how to get results. Meeting with them on different days will allow you to see if people write thank-you notes, show up on time for subsequent interviews, and remain enthusiastic about working for you. You can't begin to get all of this insight in just one day of interviews.

Goldman Sachs is legendary for having 20 to 30 people interview a candidate before he or she is hired. Before it was acquired by Macy's, May Department Stores interviewed every candidate for assistant buyer nine times, and many of these interviews included multiple interviewers. You make better hiring decisions when you involve multiple interviewers in the process. If you can, involve all the interviewers in the creation of the A-Player Profile. Involvement creates buy-in. If the interviewers participate in defining the requirements of the job, often they are more committed to making sure that the people they interview meet these requirements. Multiple interviewers provide you with multiple points of view. You want as many opinions as is feasible when you are making hiring decision.

In general, interviewing candidates with a partner is preferable to doing so alone. When the other person asks the candidate a question, you can listen intently to the answers. In addition, the right interview partner will focus on different issues than you do and, as a result, catch things about the candidate that you might miss.

Team up with people who approach issues differently than you do. If, for example, you are a people-oriented person and make quick, impulsive decisions, then partner with a cool, analytical type who has a data-driven decision-making style. That person's tendency to focus on facts, not personality, will balance well with your propensity to concentrate on personality and intangibles. Conversely, if you are an analytical type, then you'll want to team up with someone who has a strong ability to build rapport quickly with people. His or her personable approach will help to get the candidate talking and elicit more data for you to use in making your hiring decision.

In a team interview, not only do you get to listen to the candidate's responses to your partner's questions, you can ask correlated questions that probe for the candidate's real accomplishments. Follow-up questions like "Why did you do that?" or "What would have been another way to handle that?" are some of the most important queries in an interview. This tandem interview process sets you up to ask them effectively.

A director of sales was frustrated by the fact that her boss was always more impressed with certain sales candidates than she was. She interviewed these people when they first came into the office and did not find them to be all that remarkable. Then other sales managers interviewed each candidate. Finally, the candidate met with her superior, the senior vice president, at the end of the day. By that time, the interviewees really knew how to sell themselves and wowed her boss. Why?

It turned out that that the other sales managers were spending too much time talking about the company and not enough time asking good questions. Instead of digging into people's past sales accomplishments, these interviewers were educating job candidates about the company and its industry. Being salespeople, the candidates used this information to hone their personal sales pitches. To remedy this situation, the company moved to a team interview approach. It controlled the questions that were asked and the amount of information that was provided to job candidates early in the interview process. This helped to reduce its hiring mistakes.

There is a time and place in the recruitment process for educating people about your organization, but make sure not to overdo it early in the interview process. Make job candidates do their homework. Don't do it for them.

Open-ended questions always trump closed-ended questions in the interview process. Take a look at these two sample interview questions and ask yourself how effective they are. In this case, the hiring manager wants to probe into a candidate's leadership skills.

"Tell me about a time when you had to lead your team in a new direction." Candidates will have to provide you with one or more challenges that they faced and the specific steps they took with their team to meet them. It will be clear to you if they fudge their answer and if the experience is genuine.

"Do you consider yourself to be a leader?" This question lets candidates off the hook by allowing them to give a one-word (or at least very limited) answer. You have learned nothing.

Unlike mutual funds, people's past performance is the best indicator of their future results. A simple but powerful approach to interviewing is to use open-ended questions to get people talking about their accomplishments at every stage of their life and career. If you ask the questions correctly, you will obtain an accurate picture of what they've achieved up to this point. Then you can decide if they are likely to realize the results you want from your next hire.

Even when you ask open-ended questions about people's accomplishments, you often receive rehearsed answers. Don't just accept these responses and move on. Always ask one or more follow-up questions.

Dr. Kurt Einstein was an executive recruiter who conducted research on interviewing techniques. One of Einstein's key points was that follow-up questions force job candidates to reveal if there is any substance behind their initial programmed responses. If candidates can describe in living detail how they accomplished something, they are likely telling the truth. If they provide broad-brush generalities in response to repeated follow-up questions, they are probably embellishing their achievements or overemphasizing their role in some way.

Using follow-up questions makes your job as an interviewer easier, since there are as many follow-up questions as there are accomplishments to discuss. You can simply ask about specific accomplishments and then follow up with "Tell me more" and "Why so?" and run a very effective interview. In addition, you can ask questions such as:

This tactic puts less pressure on you to come up with a lot of "creative" interview questions. Instead, you spend your time listening. If you follow this simple approach, you will conduct a strong interview every time.

Most people who conduct job interviews are scared of silence. If more than three seconds go by in which no one speaks, they rush in to fill the void. Don't do that. Ask a good question; ask a follow-up question; then close your mouth and force the candidate to talk. I once worked with an investment banker who was very effective at getting job candidates (and everyone else) to provide him with the information he wanted. He would ask a question and then sit silently for 30 seconds or longer until the other person spoke. In a job interview, as in life, you learn when you listen, not when you talk.

Try to take fairly thorough notes during an interview. You won't be able to write down every word, but do record key replies and phrases in the candidate's own words. When you go back to review your notes, these verbatim quotes will jog your memory better than your own version of their statements.

I emphasize the importance of a post-interview review to evaluate job candidates. Meet with the other interviewers to discuss your observations as soon as possible after you complete an interview. When you team interview, it's usually pretty easy to take a few minutes afterward to compare notes with your partner. Make sure to go through this process with all the other interviewers as well. One interviewer will almost always catch an important point that everyone else missed. Taking the time to hold this session will reduce your chances of making hiring mistakes.

We tend to like people who remind us of ourselves. If you are hiring your successor and you personally are a terrific fit for your current role, then go ahead and hire your clone. However, most positions require people with skill sets that are complementary, not identical, to your own. When interviewing, focus on what the job requires, not just on whether you feel a natural affinity for the person.

Brad Smart points out in his book Topgrading that when job candidates know you are going to speak with their former supervisors when you check their references, they have a greater incentive to be truthful in an interview.^[10] Tell candidates up front that you will call all their past employers and want to speak with their direct supervisors. Have them provide you with their names and contact information and give you written permission to make these contacts. Ask them directly what you are likely to hear from their past bosses about their performance. If you are willing to be this candid, candidates are more likely to be open with you about their past failures or shortcomings.

An executive I know recently interviewed for a new position. He flew in for a series of weekend interviews with this company, and his wife joined him to look at houses in the area. On Sunday morning, the couple had breakfast with the senior vice president to whom he would report—along with her husband, her three sons, another company employee, and that employee's spouse. This senior executive was trying to impress this candidate and entice him to take this new position. She was also seeing how he acted and reacted in a social versus a professional setting.

For most people, looking good in business casual clothes actually takes more thought and effort than looking good in a suit. In the same way, it can be more work for people to create a favorable impression in a social setting than in a professional one. Get people out of your office or conference room and into a restaurant, company party, or sports event. Observe how the candidates interact with everyone. When people get comfortable, their game faces come off—and you get more insight into who they really are. While these are laid-back events, you should have a game plan for these situations. Have people on your team engage with candidates, ask them questions, and become acquainted with them. The person you get to know in this setting is the person you are actually hiring.

Many executives enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and the recruiting process is all about capturing A-players. However, don't get so caught up in this excitement that you oversell the opportunity you have to offer. Several executives I know are as explicit about explaining a position's drawbacks to applicants as they are about explaining its strengths. These drawbacks can include:

Be honest about these and similar issues. You want people to self-select out of the recruiting process if they are not willing to pay the cost required to be successful. Unfortunately, there will be people who are not able or willing to take themselves out of contention. You have to screen these people out yourself. A-players, however, often have a realistic grasp of the pluses and minuses of a job and still accept it. These are the people you want to hire.

Live-fire interview exercises centered on job-related skills can help to determine whether candidates will be successful in a particular role. These exercises provide candidates with the opportunity to display their skills in real time during the interview process. These simulations do not need to be complicated, but they should focus on skills that are relevant to the position. See how people think, communicate, and respond under pressure. Then incorporate this data into the hiring decision.

Some case studies that describe how clients have used these exercises to inform their hiring decisions are presented next.

Another great way to see job candidates in action is to take them along with you during the course of your business day. Observe how they handle the tasks and interpersonal communication that are a part of your everyday experience. This extended time together gives you valuable insight into how people will operate after they are hired.

When Tom McKendry (executive tailor for Tom James Company, introduced in Chapter 5) is considering a new person for a sales position, he will take a serious candidate along with him on client visits for two full days. He instructs the candidate to ask his clients whatever he or she wants about Tom James and the products and service it provides. This approach:

A medical products sales manager I know actually sends final candidates out on sales calls by themselves before he hires them. He arranges to have them call on doctors he knows well. Each potential salesperson makes a presentation and tries to close a sale, or at least move the sales process forward. After each appointment, the manager calls the doctor and asks for feedback. If he hears that a candidate was overly nervous, lacked confidence, or was unable to lead the doctor to make a buying decision, that counts negatively against the person.

This is an admittedly high-intensity hiring test that not every company would or should use. But consider this: if you avoid hiring just one bad salesperson through this kind of process, how much money, aggravation, and lost opportunity have you saved?

Vita Burdi, vice president at DJ's Home Improvements (introduced in Chapter 6), has taken the interview process to the next level by conducting what she calls a "paid interview." When Vita likes a candidate, she often asks the person to work for a few (paid) hours doing tasks similar to the ones he or she would be hired to do. Vita feels that in the matter of an hour or two, she and her managers can determine if these people are worth hiring. Do they jump in enthusiastically? Do they catch on quickly? Do they communicate well? Can they multitask? Instead of just relying on a standard interview to answer these questions, Vita allows people to prove their skills to her.

Be careful on this one. Talk with an employment attorney to make sure that your implementation of this exercise doesn't create any liability for your company.

A company that I work with requires final candidates for sales positions to create an action plan for their first 90 days on the job before they are hired. At this point in the interview process, the candidates know a lot about the company, its products, and its customers—as much as they will their first day on the job. Why not see if they can take this information and create a realistic, results-oriented business plan? The vice president of sales reviews the plans with these questions in mind:

You want to hire employees who have a career mentality rather than a nine-to-five mind-set. The best people have a passion for their work that goes beyond a paycheck. One way to measure something as intangible as passion in job candidates is to assess the amount of preparation they do for an interview.

Let's say that two candidates show up for an interview for a medical products sales position. One person has done some cursory research on the company using Google. The other candidate arrives with a detailed action plan to grow a new sales territory. This includes a map indicating the location of every doctor's office within a 30-mile radius of his home that could be a prospect. Which candidate seems more passionate about the role?

This is a true story, by the way. The candidate who came up with the MapQuest™-based plan had been trying to break into the medical products industry for years. He was passionate about the job and wanted it badly. This motivation showed up in his preparation. He got the job and is proving himself to be an A-player.

As Michael Vaughan, vice president of sales at TicketLeap, says, "I don't like hearing the question 'What do you do?' from a job candidate. I want to hire people who have taken the time to figure that out before they speak with me." Today, anyone with nominal initiative can research your company and come to an interview prepared to ask good questions. If you don't see at least that level of preparation, you have to question his or her passion for what you do.