You’re frustrated. The candidates that you hire aren’t performing up to expectations. You’re spending time and money and you don’t know exactly where the disconnect is.
Perhaps it’s time to look at your interview process. The formula for a successful interview is rooted in preparation. In fact, it’s what you do before you even meet the candidate that can be the difference maker in landing a quality hire. Here are three ways to improve your finance interview process.
Define Role Requirements
If you don’t take the time to carefully define what you want, how will you know it when you see it? Defining deliverables doesn’t mean dusting off old job postings and rewriting the list of role requirements. It means connecting with those most impacted by the hiring decision, getting their feedback and then settling on the “must haves.” By doing so, not only do you increase buy-in because people feel heard, but you don’t end up chasing a candidate who’s not a fit.
Create a Scorecard
Here’s the thing – it’s human nature to want to work with someone we like. But in reality, likeability doesn’t always translate into results. If we prioritize likeability over factors such as tenacity, motivation and grit, we can find ourselves with an unsuccessful hire. Creating a scorecard solves this problem. It allows us to compare candidates across a variety of factors in an objective fashion. Can someone be tenacious and still be likable? Of course. But the scorecard allows us to take our emotional response out of the process and focus on analysis.
Craft Questions Carefully
Your interview questions must be designed to ferret out core values, ethics and soft skills, not simply technical proficiency. Keep your questions open ended, ask for specific examples and try to get the candidate to clearly articulate the specific role he or she played in generating a successful outcome. While we always love an Excel whiz, an ability to build business partnerships or mesh with the natural working style of the team, are equally as important.
Want an asset who helps drive value? Then invest a bit of time beforehand into crafting a finance interview process that can create that outcome.
