Andres is Senior Director, Global Executive Recruiting at Whole Foods Market. He describes his background:

I have some experience in being very customer-obsessed. Amazon and Whole Foods Market have that as one of their core leadership principles. I think there should not be a difference between treating your customers and your candidates with the same level of satisfaction. You should expect for them to feel the same experience as they go through a shopping experience or through a recruiting experience.

I did spend some time working at Disney. I learned that magic that you feel when you walk through the parks—that experience is contagious. If a company can lead with that, and it prompts candidates to rave about their experience, people will come to your company because of those sound bites.

How would you say your hiring approach stands out?

We look to interview fewer people but provide an amazing experience. So even if you don't get the job, you will tell seven or ten people over dinner, “Hey, I went to Whole Foods and this was my experience. I didn't even get the job but still, you should really apply.”

Our process has three components:

1. Can you do the job?
2. Would you love to do this? You said you could do it, but would you love to do this?
3. Can we work together?

Through each of those components we have ways of making that experience unique. For example, when I talk to someone about why Whole Foods Market, I ask, “Are you looking for a job, a career, or your true calling?” Some responses that I hear indicate that they're aligned with the person looking to become a part of something bigger than themselves—aligned with our mission to nourish people on the planet. On the other hand, if people focus very much on compensation, promotions, and status, then maybe we won't have mutual alignment.

Didn't you have a story where you were interviewing a candidate and when they entered their hotel room, you had their favorite music playing?

We borrowed the idea from Joie de Vivre, a boutique hotel chain that does that. We ask questions about the candidate, and one of them is about their favorite music. When they walk into their hotel room, it is playing. We partner with “the Guild,” a local hospitality start-up in Austin, to help us execute this concept. As you know, a lot of companies put together a show to try to impress a candidate. We're actually against that. We don't send a limousine to the airport; we tell people to take an Uber. I've picked up people directly at the airport in my car because I find that it's just a better experience to have a person connect with me and have them calm their nerves down a little bit. So, it's being authentic, genuine, and not going over the top.

How do you learn those personal preferences so that you can provide a customized experience?

Our leadership recruiting process takes about 60 days from the day when somebody applies to offering a role. I'm collecting information the whole time. If you work at it, you can put together a picture of someone from a combination of the résumé, application, and what you hear if you listen closely through casual conversations. Our recruiting coordinators are the folks in charge of helping to schedule flights and other tasks. They also are trained to note down details of the candidate.

So, when we are arranging a leadership visit, the candidate will fill out a form. In it we'll ask in an appropriate way about some little things that for them are maybe irrelevant but are meaningful for us. That's the basis for us to be able to create that experience.

Many leaders care that people interviewing at their company have a good experience, but maybe not that they have a great one. Do you have any stories to tell about how you've actually built motivation for doing more than what a hiring manager might have traditionally done at a company?

I think it's a business case that is built over time. What I can tell you, though, is not everyone is wired to create these great experiences. And I agree with you—good and great are different. We are very careful when hiring people in our recruiting teams who are wired to provide that amazing service, and who enjoy going to that level of greatness. Some of our coordinators have been so successful at this that sometimes I have to stop them because they want to do so much. They came from a wide variety of industries including education, hospitality, and customer-based retailers. You can teach recruiting and how to source, but you cannot teach how to provide an amazing experience, or how to smile in a genuine way.

Have you found that you need to do things in the candidate experience differently to make that experience more inclusive?

Yes, starting with not looking at the traditional data points to include someone within a process. We don't require degrees, and buzzwords don't mean anything. Our processes are set up to hire the best person. By default, when you have a process that focuses on hiring the best, you will hire a more diverse workforce. Do we have to improve it? Of course, we do. But I think the college-degree thing is a great example of focusing on things that may exclude people who could be great at the job. The attributes that make great leaders at Whole Foods are generosity, appreciation, love, emotional intelligence, purpose, resilience, servant leadership, being self-aware, and having integrity. Those cannot be taught; you either have them or you don't. Everything else can be taught.

How do you screen for people who are wired in the way that you want them to be, for those traits that you can't teach?

If I tell you, I'll have to charge you a lot! I mean, that's a million-dollar question. Look, it is really hard. It is because what you're trying to do is to look for what's underneath the surface. We can see knowledge and competency, but it's harder to see adaptability, positivity, and resilience. The best way to do it is by having a really good scientific structured questionnaire that studies your current top performers. And you extrapolate questions that you can ask your candidates and if they answer in a similar way, then they may be similar to your top performers. On a scale of one to ten with ten being high, how positive are you? After you conduct a study, maybe you will find that people who say eight are the ones who are like your top performers.

I don't think there is a company out there that has it figured out in terms of a scientific process. But fortunately, I have spent some time in the assessment world. I've tried to apply some of that in the way that we ask questions, so we can capture and understand people's emotional DNA as it relates to the things that are important to us.

Haven't you put something into place at Whole Foods Market that begins to create a thread that starts at hiring, and goes all the way through to talent performance management and employee experience?

Yes. We call it the Team Member Lifecycle where even when the employee or team member leaves the company, we want them to be an advocate and a fan. We want them to be great where they end up, and always be speaking positively about the company. Here are the areas of focus, and how we want people to think about us:

• Attract. “I know what Whole Foods stands for and I want to be part of it.”
• Hire and Onboard. “I feel welcomed and supported right from the start.”
• Engage and Reward. “I feel valued and motivated to achieve my very best.”
• Serve. “I am part of something bigger and get to serve a higher purpose.”
• Perform and Grow. “I have opportunities to stretch and reach my fullest potential.”
• Exit. “I loved my experience, and I'm exploring what's next.”

I could go on and on, but the idea here is to create genuine checkpoints with employees before, during, and after their time at Whole Foods Market, and continue to listen to them and engage with them. It pays big dividends.