The knockout interview

Hasty hiring brings eventual firing.

These wise words should be the mantra for every organization hiring from today’s overcrowded job market. If your course’s hiring process consists of putting out a job posting, sifting through résumés and hiring the first person who doesn’t throw up a major red flag during an interview, then it’s time to adopt a renewed approach.

“Making poor hiring decisions will cost both your budget and your group’s unique culture,” says Dave Anderson, author of “How to Lead by The Book: Proverbs, Parables, and Principles to Tackle Your Toughest Business Challenges.” “It’s much better to be temporarily short-staffed than to lower your standards. Learn to use the interview process to knock out the candidates who aren’t the right fit for you, and you’ll end up with a new team member who will be an asset to your brand, your morale, your momentum and your productivity for a long time to come.”

A knockout interview eliminates candidates from consideration using smart, rigorous standards without wasting time, Anderson says. Knockout interviews help upgrade hiring from an inclusive process to an elimination process, thus saving your most valuable resource – time. To that end, knockout interviews are invaluable.

“The knockout interview begins before you ever meet a candidate face to face,” Anderson says. “In fact, your goal is to avoid face time with as many applicants as possible. As soon as you receive the first stack of résumés, you should look for reasons to cut individuals from consideration.”

Anderson acknowledges this method may seem ruthless and cutthroat. However, it’s prudent to identify undesirables before they’ve landed a position on your payroll.

Plus, from a financial standpoint, hiring hastily can be expensive. Think about it: If you have to let someone go, you’re facing numerous expenses, including administrative costs, possible severance pay and possible unemployment compensation. Then you’ll have to pay for attracting a new candidate and providing training for that person. And all the while, you might have to pay others overtime to complete essential tasks. When you’re more discriminating upfront, you’re a better steward of your organization’s resources.

“I used to think that I needed to talk to a lot of people to find a great job candidate,” Anderson says. “Frankly, it’s exhausting to speak to a lot of people if they are the wrong people. I now judge the strength of my organization’s interview process by how few folks we meet face to face.

“Ultimately, because of the knockout interview process, I am assured that the handful of people who make the cut are likely to possess the right stuff and add to my organization instead of costing it.”

If you would like to put the knockout interview to work for your own facility, here are five things to keep in mind.

Be true to the little things

However, your job as a leader isn’t to have a friendly chat – it’s to assess an applicant’s character and competency. Specifically, you should avoid:
•    Talking too much – you need to learn about the candidate, not vice versa
•    Having a time-wasting, good-old-boy, get-acquainted session
•    Conducting the interview as though it were a casual conversation
•    Degrading the interview into a sales pitch

“Ultimately, knockout interviews work because they force a candidate to show through her actions that she has initiative, that she really wants a job and that she would like to work for your organization in particular,” Anderson adds. “And since these techniques reveal whether a candidate is prepared or not, they’ll prevent your existing team members from having to bail out an unqualified newcomer. Knockout interviews give you, as a leader, the power to serve as a sentry for your organization and to protect and preserve its culture, values, and people.” GCI

Dottie DeHart is a writer based in Hickory, N.C.