In recent years we’ve seen a growing trend that could be called “Interview Inflation.” Specifically, the hiring process has become more and more time consuming for both candidates and enterprise personnel — hiring managers and HR professionals.
This might take the form of onerous assignments that must be completed by applicants, then reviewed by the hiring team. Or four, five, even six rounds of interviews. In some cases candidates are required to perform what would normally be paid work. This effort benefits the company, but only the successful applicant.
Having conducted hundreds of interviews for numerous roles over the years, I can state with certainty that this effort is unnecessary: interviewers know after 30 to 45 minutes with a candidate whether the person is a fit for the role and the organization. Often much less.
If you’re an HR professional reading this, here’s my ask: in true agile fashion, experiment with a return to basic behavioural interviews. You can manage the scope of your experiment by limiting the number of postings, the business areas involved, or the timebox to assess the impact.
This is a simple example of “Business Agility.” An application of agile practices and principles to a non-IT function. I encourage you to try it. Please contact us if you’d like a free consultation about putting this into practice.