Chapter 53. How to Design a Successful Interview Process for Hiring Top Talent
Most companies don’t have a serious, repeatable interviewing process for hiring.
Instead they wing it, bringing people in for interviews, asking a few questions, turning it into a fireside chat, and then hoping for the best. In my experience that’s not good enough.
At Standout Jobs (2007-2010) we hired some great people. I still consider them friends today, but more importantly they’ve all gone on to bigger and better things. And many of them still say that their experience at Standout Jobs was a fantastic one, even though the company wasn’t a success. They learned a lot, grew as people, and found teammates that they genuinely respect and appreciate. A few of the guys went on to work together in other projects and startups, and I’m sure some of them will re-connect in the future.
That feedback is a testament -in part- to the effort we put into hiring and interviewing people. I’ve seen a lot of different hiring strategies, from the nonchalant to the super intense (even more than our approach, which I’ve shared below.) I can’t say there’s one approach that works for every company, or that our approach is even “the right one” for you, but I do know that everyone we hired that went through the process was successful and stayed with us; those that we bent the rules for (often to expedite the hiring process) didn’t pan out quite as well. So for us, the interview process we implemented was a very good ...
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