How I Hire: I should have made them liked me more

Over the past few days I have been following the Linkedin Series “How I Hire”.  The blogs are written more than 80 of LinkedIn’s Influencers who are acknowledged as thought leaders and experts across industries. The blog posts provide a direct account of the key drivers in the hiring decisions by icons such as Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra, Sallie Krawcheck and many others.

Francesca Levy, Senior Editor at LinkedIn summarised the overwhelming drivers in the hiring decision by these icons as:
• Go with your gut -- or ignore it
• Level the playing field
• It’s not about getting the answer right
• Hire teams, not individuals
• Know what you’re looking for -- and name it

If you have not read any of the blog posts in the Linkedin Series “How I Hire” please take do so.  Ultimately the hiring decision comes down to gut feeling and likability. If the hiring manager’s gut feeling say you are not the ideal candidate you will not be hired. You have to see yourself as part of a large pool of talented individuals exposed to more or less the same high quality education and training. Even your experiences will be closely similar. It is extremely difficult for hiring managers to use unique identifiers to screen you purely on your core technical skills.

In 2009, I was in an initial pool of over 320 candidates globally for one of four roles available in an organisation. The hiring managers selected 27 of the candidates from the original pool based on skills, experiences, network and initial references.  From there a 90-minutes telephone interview was used to screen the 27 candidates.  Eight (8) candidates were selected and invited for an entire day of interviewing and meeting staff at various levels in the organisation.  From the pool of 8 candidates 4 individuals were hired.

I was in the final pool of 8. On the day of my face to face, it was made known upfront that there was very little to differentiate the talent and skills of eight (8) candidates. My day started with a rigorous security access procedure. From there it was off to my first session. This was with about 4 or 5 key managers where I were I was required to present journal publications, field questions on technical matters, experience and soft skills, share ideas on how I would response to conflicts and various situations.  This was an elaborate and exhausting 2 to 3 hours session.
In the first session I had the opportunity to wow the managers and they equally wowed me.  The managers’ background and experiences was extremely impressive. For example most of them spoke at least two languages and one in particular was fluent in about eight different languages. Among the group of managers most had at least three different degrees and professional accreditation.  Some the managers were former advisors to presidents and prime ministers and other government representatives in at least one country.

Even if I did not know the other 7 candidates in my pool the background, experiences and qualifications of the managers provided a good benchmark of talented team I would have the opportunity to join if hired.
In my cohort some of us knew each other. Think of it this way you have to know the field in which you are competing just Nike and Adidas, Apple and BlackBerry and Usain Bolt and the 7 other athletes in the 100M or 200M race.  In the pool of 8 candidates some of us had worked with similar organisations. In other cases we were part of the same industry associations, network or worked together on projects to establish industry standards.

After the first session I had a 15 to 30 minutes morning coffee break in the cafeteria with the newest staff in the division.  She shared her experience on how well she was adjusting to her new job and how she found the team to be professional and friendly. She also shared her experience regarding cost of living and accommodation.  Importantly even over coffee I was being evaluated and assessed on how well she think we could work together and with the other members of the team.

The next session was a 30 to 45-minutes meeting with 2 or 3 existing employees at the same level or capacity to the ones the organisation was trying to fill. During these meeting the employees shared with me how they employee functioned and managed tasks on a daily basis, some of the challenges, complexities and conflicts. They also shared specimens of work in progress and completed tasks, quality controls and other things. Next there was a 45 minutes meeting with one of the managers. Here the manager shared his or her values and expectations.

Lunch was with about 10 to 12 people.  At the lunch table was the executive responsible for the division, the head of the division, the key managers and most of the division’s existing staff plus 2 or 3 staff from other divisions in the organisation.  The lunch table provided a forum to demonstrate conversational and diplomatic skills, etiquette and above it provided an opportunity for me to continue to create a favourable impression.  I had no choice but to make people involved in the hiring process liked me, and with 10 to 12 people at the lunch table that can be a challenge.  Voice control, eye contact, body language and gestures are extremely important in such settings. Are you conversing with the person to you right or left or person sitting across from you or the entire group of 10 to 12 people?

Lunch was followed by a 60-meeting with the executive officer responsible for the division where he shared his values, philosophy and expectations. It was also an opportunity to give him a second chance to like me.  The next session was with an HR representative and a lawyer where we went over the terms of the employment contracts and other HR matters. The closing session was the head of the division and final opportunity to make him like me and get some feedback on how well my day went.

Sadly I never made them like me enough. Consider this for a moment. The organisation needed to fill 4 positions from a pool of 8 candidates. The process that I went through they had to do for all of 8 times. It was no cheap some us had to travel by air from different parts of the world and provided accommodation for at least one or two nights. The organisation knew it had to get right four candidates even though any of the 8 could have easily qualified based on skills. To make the process even more difficult all 8 candidates were easily likable and consequently, it came down to the gut feelings of the people I interacted with and the candidates who made themselves liked more.

If you have not read any of the blog posts in the Linkedin Series “How I Hire” I would like to encourage you to do so.

Mark McKenzie is a leading Subject Matter Expert in financial services regulation and supervision as well as a professional motivational speaker, corporate trainer and youth mentor.  He can be contacted by email mastbmckenzie@gmail.com or by telephone 647-406-4622. Read my blog  http://mastbmckenzie.blogspot.ca/ and always write me a comment and share. Follow me on Twitter @mackynacky. Connect with me on www.youtube.com, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.