Dear Hiring: Suck less.
A modest proposal (well . . . a series of them) that benefits all parties in the hellscape that is this job market.
A topic that I see come up over and over again in message boards and on LinkedIn is just how broken today’s hiring process is. If you are somehow unaware of this, then I genuinely congratulate you, dear reader, on managing to avoid all need or mention of the job market for the better part of a decade.
From the applicant’s side, hiring teams never respond (even with form rejection messages) to the well-crafted and personalized resumes and cover letters that everyone has been told to create for each job. From the hiring side, there is a constant deluge of applications that are not at all relevant to the role. Teams fall behind even when they sincerely want to hand review everything.
This has created a kind of arms race. Applicants use AI tools to create their materials, and hiring teams use AI tools to review them. I have even heard stories of two AI avatars showing up to screening interviews, which immediately makes me think of those Alexa vs Siri videos.
Add to those frustrations the reality that even if you do get past the resume review, you face an often labyrinthine interview process where the end can shift or disappear entirely. Theories abound that this is caused by a practice called “phantom” or “ghost” job posting, where companies post and interview for jobs they have no intention of filling.
The companies that have taken an active interest in making their hiring process simple, human, and ethical have become known quantities in the job market. Their Glassdoor ratings are off the charts and people beg for referrals. I know because I have both worked at and built teams for some of these companies. A conscious recruiting process pays off in droves.
Bring Solutions, Not Just Problems
I am coming at this as a leader (and sometimes applicant) in the business world. Like many other leaders, I am sometimes a hiring manager, which means I have at least some say in how hiring practices go. If I am willing to do extra work and spend a bit of political capital, I can make things better and I am breaking with convention to give my ask at an awkward 1/3rd-ish through the post:
Do the extra work. Spend the political capital. Make things better. For everyone.
So . . . what do you say? Are you willing to join me in tackling what feels like a completely systemic problem? LFG!!!
For the record, I do know that on a global scale, there is only so much we can do. We cannot force LinkedIn to not suck. We cannot single-handedly make an entire industry of recruiters and HR professionals change their hiring practices.
Although if you happen to be an HR professional and, or, recruiter and you are reading this, please, for the love of all that is holy, reach out to me. I am not mad at you. You are doing what you can, and I know you are just as frustrated as the rest of us. Let us work together to fix this.
But even if we cannot fix the entire ecosystem, there is a lot we can do inside our own organizations.
Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
When you are scoping out your hiring process, take a step back and ask yourself: how many people really need to be involved in making this decision? And the corollary, how many interviews do we actually need?
I get it. Everyone wants a say. Your CEO. Your team leads. Every stakeholder who has ever or will ever share a meeting with this role. They all want to make sure the applicant can both do the job and fit in with the company.
The problem is that when a horde of decision makers all have a vote, at least two things are guaranteed to happen:
First, the process becomes convoluted and confusing. It slows to a crawl for applicants, who get interview fatigue. Great applicants who have the experience that you are looking for are far more likely to simply move on if they feel like you are jerking them around. Wouldn’t you?
Second, internal folks start getting attached to “their choice” and get upset if you do not pick them. Office politics might be human nature, but it is not a great way to make thoughtful decisions and isn’t doing your new hire (or yourself!) any favours.
So why not trim down the hiring committee?
Keep it lean and focused. Include enough people with relevant insight to give feedback and ensure a comprehensive review, but not so many that the process drags out forever.
My own preference is a maximum of three interviews:
The initial screen. I will often do this myself as hiring manager. I give an overview of the role, make sure expectations are aligned, and screen for the true must-haves.
The team interview. This can focus on cultural fit, technical depth, or both. It can be a single member of their future team or a panel, depending on the situation. The applicant gets a sense of their coworkers-to-be and vice versa.
The outside opinion. This might be someone in the C-suite, a key stakeholder, or another leader. It is a final vibe check and a chance to spot anything the core group might have missed.
That is it. No five (or . . . ugh . . . 10!) stage panel gauntlet required.
Free Labour With Extra Steps
I could not forgive myself if we did not talk about the “practical exercises” that have also been growing more and more ubiquitous over the last several years.
Raise your hand if you have gone through a hiring process, done the big exercise, and then been turned away. Later you find out through the grapevine that your exercise was used by the company anyway.
Most of us who have been around for a minute or two have a story like this. If you go through enough application processes, it will eventually happen to you as well. I could write an entire article about this alone and how to handle it (And maybe I will someday. Imaginary personal assistant, add it to the list!).
For now, let us stick with what we can control on the company side.
The TL;DR: Simply do not do this. Any of it. Free labour = Bad.
Do not assign projects that could in any way be used to further the goals of your company. If you absolutely must check an applicant’s ability to do something, ask them to do an exercise that tests only that skill.
Give them a handful of clearly fake tickets to respond to. Ask them to walk you through an abstract problem or scenario. Have them talk through how they would structure a plan, instead of actually building the full thing. Have them give an extemporaneous talk with a “direct report” who just did something REALLY bad (or really good!).
Do not ask them to present a roadmap for a “fake department” that just happens to share all of the same needs and metrics as your real one. Don’t ask them to create a capacity forecast given “sample data”. And no, you absolutely should not ask them “what their 30, 60, 90” day plans are for the team once they start. Geez.
Now if there ARE some work product-related projects that you really would like to see them complete, there are ethical solutions! There are companies that pay applicants for their time once they reach the practical stage. They narrow their candidate pool to one or two people, then show equal respect for the candidates’ time and knowledge by paying a fair amount for the project that lines up with the salary band.
You would be shocked how quickly word gets around. Companies that treat candidates with that level of respect and ethics are absolutely talked about in hushed, reverent tones.
So What Else?
There is so much more we can do to make the hiring experience better. Under the “misc” category, I would throw out a few more basics:
Publish all salaries up front. Whatever reason you think you have for not posting the range, it will cause problems later. Transparency is always key.
Be responsive. Every applicant tracking system on the market has built in and customizable templates. Take an hour, set them up, and use them to let people know when they are not moving forward. And do it quickly! Nobody needs a notice 2 months later that they didn’t get the job. They already figured that out on their own.
Scope your roles well. We have all seen the memes: “Entry level role, 5 years of experience, and a PhD in a similar field required. 20 dollars an hour.” Try not to become that meme.
At the end of the day, hiring is an exercise in trust. Trust in yourself, in your co-workers, and in the person you are inviting into your company. There are things you can do to minimize risk, but you are always going to be flipping a coin to some extent.
Given that reality, why torture yourself and your candidates with a terrible experience?
Dispense with the fucking around and get to the finding out. You are going to be so much happier, and, like I said earlier, your reputation will thank you.