An employer has all the apparent advantages when interviewing a candidate for a key position.  The employer has the candidate’s resume, cover letter, references and has Googled the Web for whatever might turn up such as legal problems, memberships in clubs or organizations, newspaper articles, etc.  The employer is ready to talk and explore the possibility of hiring an important player in his business.

 Candidates fall into two catagories:  ‘Buy Me’ or ‘Sell Me.’ The difference is the ‘Buy Me’ candidate is anxious for you to give him or her a good hearing and the ‘Sell Me’ candidate is saying prove to me that your company is good enough for me to work here.  We’ve all been there across the table from both sorts.  Often the ‘Buy Me’ candidate is over eager and talks too much and the ‘Sell Me’ candidate sits there and, in effect, dares you to rise to his or her level. 

 The problem is that while it may be painful to have to endure the tactics of each type you would not have made the effort to find them, read their resumes and blocked out the interview time if you didn’t want to meet with them.  The cure is to get the interview to parity as soon as possible. 

 Parity is reached when you and the candidate are having a discussion about what interests you most and what prompted you to invite him or her to meet with you.  These discussions are never equal in terms of rank in your company.  But they become equal when you both, as professionals, are talking about manufacturing, sales or marketing, accounting or administration problems in concrete terms with real examples of situations and experiences.  This requires some candor on your part.  You have to admit to a problem or a goal that is becoming hard to reach and invite comment. 

 If the candidate is really qualified and understands what has just been offered the response will often be something like, “Yeah, that happened to us while I was as ABC company . . .” and the discussion becomes productive because now you are talking management, leadership and technology leading to solutions.  Even the ‘Sell me’ candidate may have a change of attitude because you have offered a platform from which he or she can describe their abilities and experiences.  If the ‘Sell Me’ candidate is someone you really want to hire you have also shown your confidence in your business and yourself.  The ’Buy Me’ candidate will also probably recognize the opportunity and focus on the issue and react the same way, “Yeah, that happened to us . . .”   

 Getting to parity takes work.  You must know all there is to know about the candidate before extending the interview invitation.  A good candidate is going to do his or her homework on you; you need to be able leverage your research to bring out his or her best.  If you were to hire this person that effort will pay big dividends over the years. 

 The first rule is to greet your host or hostess with a smile and a firm handshake.  Let it be known that you are glad to be there and are pleased to meet your interviewer.  There will be some small talk while the two of you adjust to one another; relax; keep smiling, chat about the weather, your trip to the office, etc.  Make it very apparent that you are easy to get along with and can handle yourself in social situations.  In other words you are displaying your self-confidence and building your case from the start.

 If the office is laid out in a typical manner, desk with two chairs placed facing it; with no seating area the choices are few.  Pick a chair that shows off your best side and sit.  But don’t do that quite yet; wait until you are invited to sit by your hostess or host and try to sit at about the same time.  However, if the office is laid out with a separate seating area you, as a guest, have a new challenge.  Your host has the option of selecting his or her chair first.  You are required to wait and receive an invitation to sit.  You may even be told which chair to sit in.  Roll with it, this is not your office.

 There are other challenges.  For example, you may be offered coffee or tea.  This seems to be a civilized gesture, what not accept it?  Well, you may spill it.  You may find out that your hands are more useful holding a notebook referring to or making notes.  On a first interview it is probably a good idea to avoid the risk and keep it simple.  Other challenges include your posture.  You may sit initially with a straight back and head held firmly high.  But as the meeting progresses and you relax you may tend to slouch or twist in your chair presenting an odd impression.  Hold the posture and look alert.

Interviews should be a discussion among peers about subjects of mutual interest and importance.  If you are the candidate it is you and your future and if you are the interviewer it is about the candidate and her or her fit within the company.  There is always a controversy about eye contact.  Eye contact is important; make eye contact.  But don’t wear out your welcome.  Look to the ceiling while thinking of an answer, briefly.  Glance around the room or out of the window to help emphasis a point.  Use your hands to describe something but don’t talk with them.  You are who you are and you might as well show it off so there are no mysteries when the goodbyes are said.

Meetings often go on for some time.  You may not have had a chance to go to the bathroom before it starts.  There is nothing more distracting than a full bladder.  Its discomfort tends to eclipse everything else including your ability to follow the conversation and contribute to the dialog.  So, the answer is to ask to go to the toilet before there is a chance of any discomfort.  In fact, the best solution to all of this is to go before entering the office.  Ask the receptionist where the facilities are and use them.

It is always an adventure finding a strange office building or plant for the first time for an important meeting.  Even if you have a GPS and know how to use it chance has a way of intervening.  So, leave yourself plenty of time for misadventures and misadventures sometimes involve getting dirty or stained.  You may, for example, brush up against someone at the coffee shop and spilled upon.  This happens and the best defense is to wear dark clothing.  A dark grey or blue suit will mask a number of colors from coffee to tea to Coca Cola and many others.

When it comes time to leave or end an interview stand up, shake hands and get a calling card from each person you spoke with. You will need the contact information for your thank you notes and as a research tool for when you are called in for another go around.  Remember!  The only goal of an interview is to be asked back.

The president of a high tech company is looking for a highly skilled and experienced marketing leader to take the company from a limited product line offering with domestic boundaries to a global presence.  The HR department may turn up six or 7 candidates to interview.  HR will have equipped the president with a resume and perhaps a preliminary report based on a telephone or face-to-face interview in the winnowing process. 

The president will probably throw out three or 4 of these and ask to see the remainder and ask for a full background check on each before their meetings. Armed with this information an interviewer really interested in a candidate may go further and make a few calls around the industry asking about the people he is going to meet and based on that information do some more digging with Google.  Now, properly researched the president should be equipped to give each candidate an honest review and have the tools at hand to probe the technical and personal while revealing enough about his or his personal side and the company to put the conversation on a peer to peer basis and become truly productive.

Every position opening starts with a description.  This is often a list of imaginary and unrealistic goals based on the target candidates’ extraordinary experience and education.  It is a place to start and it should be expected that it will change shape and the requirements will be altered as the process continues.  One of the things the inquisitive president will learn from the pre-interview digging is industry conditions and news from the world he is hoping to take the company to.  In fact, the information gleaned from this research may change the job description in mid-stream and the candidate selected initially may be so far off the mark that the recruiting process must be started again. 

The candidate has the same tools and motivations as the president he or she is going to meet.   The research for this meeting should include looking into the company the president runs and the president as well. 

A review of the company’s financials is a given.  Know these numbers.  Read the annual reports; look at the 10-K and see if in the notes there is something interesting or revealing.  Dig around and find out who you know who may know the company or the president, or both; one never knows what will turn up.  Also, read the news releases about the company one may discover some interesting items that bolster your value.  For example, if you found that the company suffered some losses in a joint venture with an electronics distributor in Brazil and you had some experience marketing similar products in South American this would be a topic to bring up in an interview.  Looking into the president’s personal background may reveal where he or she was educated, degrees earned and when.  It may also turn up news stories on his or her activities and hobbies, social causes or avocations.  All of this may come in handy and bring the conversation to a peer to peer level on social as well as professional.    

Using an example of hiring a vice president of sales and marketing the opportunities could include:

• A review of the organization plan of the sales department, its policies and procedures, selling process and its administration.
• A review of the marketing group’s organization and administration.
• An examination of the sales and marketing department salary structure and incentive formulas and their effectiveness laid against similar organizations in like industries.
• A look at the marketing plan to measure and analyze advertising reach, resonance and reaction over a five year period or the life of a specific campaign.
• Audits of vendors serving the department.
•  The creation of a hypothetical perfect profile of the new hire to meet the future needs of the business which would include education, professional and non-professional experience and interests, history of taking on similar tasks and succeeding and other points applicable to the situation.

From this exercise a job description can be created that becomes a road map for the executive once he or she takes charge.

Without taking the time and effort of a full review the potential is in place for a misstep or a complete breakdown of the action plan agreed to by the new hire leading to a large miss on reaching corporate and department goals.  The causes of such a systemic failure could include:

• A cultural mismatch in which the new executive is out of sync with the mores of the company and is unable to communicate effectively or simply becomes an impediment.
• A rushed background check which did not include collateral sources fails to uncover some civil or criminal incidents, opiate or alcohol dependency or personality traits which references and previous employers were either not asked about or omitted to mention for fear of repercussions.
• The disruption caused by the firing of the incumbent and the launch a new search would interrupt the workings of the department, slow the progress of desired changes and create distrust and disrespect among the employees toward company’s management.
• The loss of thousands of dollars on recruiting fees, relocation expenses and lost opportunities.

The chance to stop and take advantage of a management change by examining all of the facets of the business affected and more is not to be wasted.  Use the event to involve other departments and levels of management and support for input and to foster interdepartmental cooperation and increase focus on corporate goals.

Ford K. Sayre, Principal

Bay Search Group

P.O. Box 259

Barrington, RI 02806-0258

(401) 245-3100 (O)

(800) 637-5499

Skype: fordksayre

ford@baysearch.com

Bay Search Group is a member-owner of NPA, The Worldwide Recruiting Network, your connection to premier independent recruiting firms located throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas.