Happy Wednesday to everyone tuning in to today’s episode of The Hirewell Update. I’m your host, Ryan Brown, Vice President of our Corporate Functions team, and this is my co host. I’m Emily Goor, Director on our Go To Market recruiting team. The Hirewell Update is a weekly show that covers the latest talent insights, monthly placement overviews, talent solutions, and the hottest jobs we’re working on.
All brought to you by us, your market experts here at Hirewell. We’re excited about this one in particular, because I think it’s been a while since we’ve really talked deeply about interview processes. And for this episode, we really want to dive into what it looks like from a people perspective and essentially asking the question, are there too many cooks in your interview process?
So deep dive on that. Em I’m going to let you take the floor here to kick us off, but where are we heading today? Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve spoken a lot in the last couple of years about how much interview processes have changed in comparison to pre COVID days. Interview processes have more steps now.
Yep. They have more steps. They have more stakeholders, right? More people on the interview team. And they usually, we’re not going to get into this so much today. I think we’ve talked about this in the past a bit on talent insights, but I would say like more than 90 percent of the interview processes we’re running with clients have some sort of like project or presentation or assignment of sorts now, which like wasn’t always the case pre COVID days.
And I think We’ve talked a lot about those changes over the years. The fact that there are more steps and more projects and more stakeholders in the interview processes. But I don’t think we’ve really talked in too much depth about one. Why we think these changes have occurred, like why more steps, why more people involved and two kind of honestly, what we think and what we sort of advise maybe is the appropriate length.
And number of people to be on your interview team. Exactly. I’m thinking about, I mean, you mentioned pre COVID, I don’t know how many times we’re going to say this today, so maybe we’ll make it into a game. Somebody count and leave it in the comments. How many times we mentioned? I’ll take a drink of my water every time.
There you go. It’s like, watch what happens live, but, work appropriate. Um, no, Andy Cohen, bummer. Exactly. But I do know like previous to COVID, you know, there was a certain schedule and process and standardization around what interviews look like. Post COVID, we were making decisions off of sometimes one interview.
So we went from one extreme to another and now we’re on another, you know, end of the extreme. So, right. Like the 2022 days, right. Where you’re like, yeah, let’s get butts in seat, get butts in seat. And now, like you said, I think the pendulum swung back. It definitely has. So I want to start with, the why. Firstly, companies are definitely trying to do more with less right now. Not a shock to hear that. That’s definitely what’s happening. And I think because companies are keeping their head counts more slim, than they have hiring feels a lot more significant, it feels like a bigger decision than maybe, you know, it did previously, and this can lead to companies having this sort of like
make or break mentality for every hire, which is a frustrating seat to sit in as somebody specializing in TA. And so they’re putting so much emphasis and so much pressure on each hire, which is ultimately leading to more rounds of interviews. Yeah. I think it feels like there’s such a hesitation to pull the trigger, even on good candidates, right?
Like you’re saying it’s so much emphasis on this one candidate is going to make or break. So we need to keep talking to them and we need them to talk to more people in more rounds. I’m sure it all, like you said, doing more with less, I feel like it also has to do with just the overall economic climate we’ve seen in the past few years, particularly in tech.
Like, I feel like we should point that out, right. Probably more specific to tech. I know a lot of SAS companies have just been through so many ups and downs of, like you said, the 2022, like higher, higher, higher, higher. And then all of a sudden it was like, everyone’s doing layoffs. So I think probably, you know, could have something to do with it too, is that they’re just companies aren’t taking hiring lightly.
Like I had a hiring manager say to me recently, they were like, I just feel so privileged to be in a position to actually be hiring that I really need to ensure that I’m making the right decision and need them to talk to more people and go through more rounds. And I don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that.
Right. It’s a great position to be in, to be at a growing company and you don’t want to take it for granted. But I’m just kind of pointing out that, I’ve literally heard that directly from a hiring manager’s mouth is like, I feel so privileged to hire. I need to really, really make sure that this is the right decision.
Sure. Yeah. And I think to add to that, I also think it has something to do with what we discussed on the show a few weeks ago, that they’re all on top of everything that you’ve just mentioned and we’ve talked about. There also feels like there’s this disinvestment in training and onboarding.
And so on top of what we’ve mentioned, companies are now looking for candidates that can just plug right into their company and hit the ground running. So sometimes, it does take more rounds of interviews to be able to properly vet that piece, right? Because we’re looking for some purple unicorns, right?
Whereas maybe before when companies were really investing in training and onboarding, we’re like, Oh, we can teach those things. Exactly. Yes. I mean, it always ties back together. Right. We’re like, we just talked about this a few weeks ago. I think now that we’ve discussed some of the reasons why interview processes, processes, I should say, have become lengthier.
I’d love to get into maybe some advice for companies around how many rounds we think are appropriate and maybe how many stakeholders or interviewers you should be including in the interview processes. For sure. Let’s get into it. A little bit of advisory work. Is that what we’re doing Em?
Always with the advisory first and foremost. We sure are. Let’s take it away. Let’s do it. I think obviously the appropriate length of an interview process is dependent on the role, right? This is not a one size fits all solution. So disclaimer, throwing that out there. I do think that Three rounds of interviews is a great starting point, and then you can either go up or down from there, depending again on the level of the role and complexity of things.
So for more entry level positions where you’re hiring more in someone’s attributes, less on experience, maybe two rounds can feel very appropriate to suss that out. And then for higher level roles, especially if we’re thinking executive level roles, that like four to six tends to be the sweet spot. Yeah, I think I, I agree with you that.
Three is like a good starting point, right? Kind of that I’m median, if you will. I say for most roles, I do think three is a really good sweet spot. It doesn’t necessarily mean though, that the candidates only speaking to three people. Exactly. Just to clarify. It’s not like one person in the first round, that’s kind of where the second part comes in of how many employees we think should be included
on the interview team and these interview processes. Sorry to disappoint y’all. I don’t think there’s a perfect concrete answer here, but I will say I think that interview panels with too many people can get out of hand. One thousand percent. I think firstly, it just becomes, like, let’s just think logistically.
It is so hard to coordinate that many schedules. If you’re like, okay, we have five people on one panel, I’m even thinking about it with how busy you and I are right now. We’re barely free, the two of us at the same time, let alone trying to coordinate schedules with like five people. Exactly.
I mean, think about if you’re watching this right now, your company, how busy you are. Imagine trying to get an hour that you and four other people are free. So it’s so challenging. I think secondly, you’re honestly just kind of setting your company up to pass on great candidates. If your company is looking to hire a diverse group of employees, it’s highly, highly unlikely that five or however many people on a full interview panel are going to be in agreement.
Like it’s highly likely that they’re going to have differing opinions on a candidate. And you’re ultimately going to pass on candidates that could be a great addition to your team, perhaps just because like one of the five people on the panel didn’t think that candidate was the right fit.
Yeah, great point. And circling back to the scheduling logistical piece of things, not only is it challenging now, based off of insane schedules, but also so many organizations have gone back to work, whether it’s full time or hybrid. So the flexibility we once had for people to jump on a zoom call freely because they’re working from home is now gone.
So not only are we working with really challenging schedules in general, internally to coordinate those panels, but also from a candidate experience. If folks are on site, having time to work from home and or take a day off to do an interview. We’re just limiting things so significantly that it’s creating those additional challenges too.
Yeah, more than just so many logistical challenges. So many logistical things. You mentioned to, you know, diversity. And we talk a lot about hiring for diversity you’re a gal with this. I, I sure am. But having too many cooks in the kitchen, in my opinion, can really limit your ability to hire for diversity too.
I think when considering, and what I would suggest and what I do suggest with clients when they’re really putting an emphasis on diversity within their organizations is, truly considering if someone is going to be in your interview slate, asking yourself the question, does this person’s opinion truly make an impact on whether or not we’re going to hire someone?
If the answer is no, then I think we really need to evaluate why that person is a part of the process. And listen, I can understand if that sounds a little bit harsh, but I think it’s incredibly important to consider this and make a determination is that person’s thumbs up to hire for this role going to be a final decision on if we do or not.
And if the answer is no, you have to veto that person out of the interview team in general. Because it’s ultimately just not going to, I think, promote the type of hiring that we’re looking to do. Yeah, I agree with you. Like it can sound a little bit harsh, right. Or like this person’s opinion doesn’t matter.
I get it. It might sound a little bit harsh, but if you can really, really ask yourself, if this person were to veto a candidate, would I not hire them? If the answer is no, then like, Why do you have to involve them? And I think we’re not saying that it’s easy, right? I do think that sometimes there’s some politics that play and egos can get hurt if they’re left out of the interview process when somebody wanted to have a say.
But I think there’s ways to communicate to your team, like your employees. That their opinion is so valuable, but like you just need their energy and their focus and their expertise elsewhere at the company right now. Like you need to be focusing on X, Y, and Z project or you should be focusing on this at the company versus hiring for this role.
Right. And I think to add to that, we’re not saying that these folks will not be a part of the process in terms of hiring at all. There’s just a different place for them to be involved, such as initial onboarding meetings. So if you are struggling internally with some of those challenges that Emily’s just mentioned, there are ways to still navigate that without including someone in the
interview process of the hiring process. So that’s what we have to kind of think about from that perspective. I think that’s such a good point that there’s other ways to be included, even being like, Hey, I don’t have to be on the interview panel, but can you make sure you ask this person X question, or you know, if like, you’re going to be potentially collaborating with this hire, can you ask if they have experience with X?
Or, you know what I mean? Being able to maybe get your questions in there somehow, but not actually having to like sit in on the interview panel. I think that’s just like what it comes down to is, there are sometimes, right now are too many cooks in the kitchen and the interview process? Could not agree more.
Yeah, there’s a lot going on in different ways that, you know, we can streamline and make these processes more efficient. So if you’re struggling with this as an organization, Em and I are happy to chat about where we can create efficiencies and and how to not only create a better experience. for the candidate, which is very important from an employer brand perspective, from a long term retention perspective, but also thinking about operational efficiency internally for your company. Where is the best use of your time and making sure that the right people are part of the right steps of the process.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Love it. Yes. I know it’s like sometimes these topics become a little bit intertwined, but I do think it’s important to discuss, like you said, the pendulums kind of swung back and Interview processes are getting a little cray cray, a little out of hand.
So I’m glad we talked about this today. I agree Em. Yeah, let’s, let’s rein it back in folks. Let’s get to some more efficient processes, make it a good experience for everybody involved. Please. And thank you. We, we appreciate it as well as your partners. Yes, we do. We do. Well, that’s all I’ve got today.
I know another busy couple days ahead of us and then heading into the weekend. Have fun with the babies. Thank you. Have fun, relaxing, which I hope you do. I’ll try. I’ll try. . Well, that’s a wrap for this week’s episode of The HireWell Update. Thank you all so much for joining us. As a reminder, you can find all of our content at talentinsights.hirewell.com.
Or if you’d like to learn more about HireWell and our service offerings, check out our website. It’s www.hirewell.com. We’ll be back next Wednesday around noon central. We’ll see y’all then. Thanks everyone.
