Equip your leaders to land top talent.

To win the war for talent, your leaders must be fully invested in driving the hiring process from screening candidates to leading interview teams. When hiring managers place the wrong people in roles, employees are left to languish doing work that’s a poor behavioral or cognitive fit. But when you train your hiring managers to use people data in the hiring process, they’re able to use the resulting strategic insights to make smart and objective hiring decisions. 

This activity requires taking a methodical and analytical approach, and includes the following four steps:

• Assemble the interview team.

• Collect objective data about candidates.

• Prioritize which candidates to interview.

• Conduct candidate interviews.

1. Assemble the interview team.

Think of the interview team members as empowered representatives of your organization, each tasked with evaluating a unique aspect of the applicant’s candidacy. You want a diverse team that’s composed of the hiring manager, people who work closely with this role, maybe someone who currently does the role, and someone who can interview the applicant about culture fit.

The hiring manager should create an interview plan that clearly identifies the topics each interview team member should cover to reduce redundancy. This map can be as simple as a Word or Google doc. The goal is to make the interview process as streamlined and organized as possible. The quality of the candidate’s interview experience will greatly influence their decision to accept or reject your offer should you choose to make one.

Recommended Action: Identify and prepare the interview team.

2. Collect objective data about candidates.

Most organizations ask candidates to supply a resume and work history. But to make the best hire, you need to go beyond that minimum requirement. The data you need to collect from each candidate is:

• Knowledge

• Skills

• Education

• Behavioral profile

• Cognitive ability

• Values

As discussed previously, measurement options for collecting this people data range from simple questionnaires to robust platform solutions. Choose the collection method that’s the right fit for your needs.

Recommended Action: Collect objective people data about candidates for a given job.

3. Prioritize which candidates to interview.

After you’ve collected your data, rank candidates based on how well they fit the job requirements and your company culture. If a candidate has the required experience but lacks behavioral or cognitive fit, don’t bring them in for an interview. Your goal is to prioritize candidates who are a fit on multiple dimensions.

Ranking is objective in nature and helps you avoid wasting precious time with candidates who are a poor fit for the role. When you add people data insights to your hiring process you can narrow a broad candidate pool down to two or three final round candidates, each having a strong likelihood of being your next great team member. 

If you don’t look at the whole picture, you might unintentionally bring bias into the process, i.e. inviting someone in based on a fancy internship not everyone could afford to take part in. In this way, using people data to create your interview shortlist levels the playing field.

Recommended Action: Prioritize which candidates to interview.

4. Conduct candidate interviews.

In this step, candidate data and job fit can help guide what questions you choose to ask. For example, if the job requires frequent interaction with people inside and outside of the organization, but the candidate’s behavioral profile indicates that communication isn’t a natural strength, asking the right questions can provide clarity.

For example, use the slider in the interactive below to learn how you might evaluate a candidate’s response to the following question:

Tell me about a time when the majority of your day was spent talking to other people.

In addition to ensuring this type of behavioral fit between the candidate and the job, you need to interview the candidate to determine candidate cultural fit as well.

When you go into an interview with a baseline understanding of how the candidate thinks and works, as well as a specific line of questions designed to evaluate any gaps between the candidate and job requirements, it results in a more productive conversation.

Recommended Action: Prioritize which candidates to interview.

5. Determine candidate cultural fit.

Determining candidate cultural fit includes communicating your organizational culture to candidates during the selection process and evaluating candidates based on cultural fit.

One of the key things to evaluate when considering whether to add a new person to your organization is the impact on your company culture. World class companies have designed the culture they need to execute their business strategy. This is why you need to determine if an incoming candidate will fit within your already excellent culture and/or add something unique that helps grow your culture in the direction your business is headed. You can’t just go with your gut feeling—there must be a purposeful and explicit evaluation of the candidate’s fit to the organizational culture.

Key elements of this activity include:

• Ensure candidate fit with the organization.

• Set candidate expectations regarding culture.

6. Ensure candidate fit with the organization.

Many organizations claim they evaluate candidates for cultural fit, but usually this is done subjectively and informally. This happens when your cultural norms aren’t adequately documented and communicated. 

You already designed and documented your organizational culture. Now you can use that information to evaluate candidates for cultural fit.

Arm every member of the interview team with a simple rubric (based on your documented culture of values, principles, and rewarded behaviors) to evaluate each candidate during the onsite interview.

For example, if your documented culture is composed of four primary values or principles, interviewers should ask specific questions to determine how well the candidate embodies each one—then give them a score from 1-5. 

To take it one step further, you can add a person on the interview team whose sole purpose is to evaluate culture fit at the deepest level. This would include having the culture interviewer provide specific examples supporting the numeric scores for each of the four primary values. These scores should be considered alongside the other scores on the interview team’s scorecard to drive the final hiring decision.

Recommended Action: Ensure the candidate’s fit with your culture.

7. Set candidate expectations regarding culture.

A top-tier candidate has options when it comes to their next career move. Assuming the candidate has multiple job opportunities to consider, the attractiveness of your culture may become the final deciding factor. So, the evaluation of culture fit is a two-way street for both the candidate and the organization.

If the candidate appears to be a strong culture fit, emphasize your culture as a key selling point so the candidate is excited about the alignment. The goal of clearly communicating your culture out loud during the interview is to help candidates envision themselves in your organization.

The final stages of the selection process also provide the opportunity to set an expectation that upholding your company’s culture is expected and rewarded. By setting this expectation up front, it will enhance your ability to monitor your culture and maintain the culture you created to support your business strategy.

Recommended Action: Communicate your culture to a candidate and set expectations around maintaining your culture.