Let’s admit it (I have no problem in doing so) that we all have been charmed and fooled
by interview charmers.
You are on look out for a good candidate for your organization.
Here comes the person, with fabulous academic credentials and floors you in the
interviews.
Answers all your questions with right knowledge, shows all the enthusiasm and
commitment to the job on hand.
You are elated and your company makes an offer to the star interviewee.
The anticipation ends and on an auspicious day, your star interviewee joins.
Few days honeymooning and to your utter dis-belief, the star interviewer turns out to
be a total misfit for the job.
The person does not want to do the job for which (s)he was hired. Even (s)he may
request you to change conditions of the engagement.
Does this situation sound familiar? I at least encountered this situation and cursed
myself for being completely out-smarted by few interviewees.
This situation forces you to do 2 things, either you somehow find some job for the
person which affects your productivity, or ask the person to leave which creates a sad
situation for the selected candidate as well as you and your organization.
The root-cause of the problem is our over reliance on interviews as a reliable
indicator of a person’s suitability for a job. Unfortunately, it is not.
So what’s the way out?
In Adaptive US, we have devised few techniques which have helped us to avoid interview
charmers. For technical folks, there is NO interview.
Just a practical test which lasts for 4 hours and the person is asked to complete a
short actual programming assignment.
We have heard interesting responses from few candidates; my specs have gone for repair
and will come back once it is repaired. The candidate never returned.
Few brave ones, who said they have considerable experience in programming, sweat and
leave after a couple of hours in front of the system.
The problem in hand is simple and a person with half the experience should have made
80% progress.
This has really helped us to hire engineers who actually can deliver in a reasonable
short time.
We are yet to find suitable techniques for sales or management roles.
If you have figured out some, do share the same for benefit of all.