We’re doing a lot of interviews these days, and not all of them are perfect matches. Sometimes we get an idea that the fit isn’t very good pretty early on in the interview.
The question came up recently: “Why bother to carry on when we already know we don’t want this person? Why not just cut our losses and get out?”
There’s a couple of reasons to carry on with an interview even after somebody has obviously demonstrated their unsuitability.
First, you might be wrong. It’s important to keep an open mind throughout the interview process, and part of that is checking all my instincts and judgments DURING the interview itself.
Second, you can probably use the practice. Asking questions and listening to answers is a craft, and anyone gets better with practice.
Finally, and most importantly, people have friends. Even if we don’t want to hire someone, we DO want them to walk away with the burning desire to work at FreshBooks — with the belief that this is the greatest place to work anywhere (this is, by the way, entirely true). We want them talking to their friends about this amazing company they interviewed at. Somebody we don’t want to hire might be friends with somebody we DO want to hire, but if they go away thinking we’re arrogant jerks who just kicked them out after twenty minutes, then their friend is unlikely to have a good impression of us.
So part of the job of an interview is to SELL FreshBooks to people — even people we know we don’t want to hire — as a great place to work. That’s part of what gets the word out about how awesome we are, and that word-getting-out is critical to attracting the kind of top-shelf development talent we’re looking for.
I was just talking with Mike about our recruitment strategy and we agreed that straight-up “Here’s who we are” sort of marketing is far and away the best way to go, and our experience so far is that this is what attracts the candidates we like best. It makes sense: we want people who want to work with people like us, and so the best way to find them is by letting as many people as we can know what we’re like. That means eschewing headhunters and recruitment firms and instead getting out and about, saying hi and meeting as many people as possible.
We love our team, we love our product and we love our customers. Not everyone is going to feel the same way as us, and that’s okay. But when you’re hiring you need to make it as easy as possible for people to figure out who you are and what you’re about, so that those who do think you’re the cool train can get on board. That means making sure that everyone who comes in walks away with an accurate impression of what working with you is like.
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6:33 pm
I think you are absolutely right - you want to make a good impression on all of the candidates you interview.
However, I think it is also important to note that sometimes interviewers do too much selling, and too little evaluation of the candidate. I have sat through interviews where the interviewer spent all of his time telling me how lucky I would be to land a job at this company, and didn’t really spend any time evaluating my skills. Oops. That didn’t make a great impression, either.
Of course, I’m sure that doesn’t happen at FreshBooks.
5:52 pm
Sometimes people will go for interviews and leave so excited about a new job possibility only to find out the company doesn’t think he or she would be a good fit. Other times, an employer will look forward to a potential new employee, but learn the feeling isn’t mutual. And of course there’s always the times when someone is fired for all of these reasons.
They’re all terrible feelings to have, but that’s kind of the only way things can be. Luckily, the mutual feelings outweigh all the other awkwardness.
Oh! And, see you Monday : )
8:54 am
@ Avonelle: “It is also important to note that sometimes interviewers do too much selling, and too little evaluation of the candidate. I have sat through interviews where the interviewer spent all of his time telling me how lucky I would be to land a job at this company, and didn’t really spend any time evaluating my skills.”
Hey, did we interview at the same company some time?
This is very true. The best sales pitch of all is asking good questions and conducting a fantastic interview.
10:31 pm
I think many organizations underestimate the impact the candidate experience can have on them. Identifying a poor fit can happen early on both sides of the table. Following through on an interview can bring a clear perspective to both parties, a positive takeaway to help understand what may be a better fit moving forward.
Many organizations thrive on user referrals to grow business or their teams. I know of people who will gladly share a positive experience with 2 or 3 people, but won’t hesitate to extend a negative experience to 20 or more!
Build a positive experience for candidates and you just may find they’ll come knocking on your door in the future to apply again, or buy!
5:42 pm
We generally schedule 3.5-4 hours of interviews and definitely have a process to “cut” interviews after 2 successive “epic fails” with 2 different interviewers.
I agree that bringing someone into the office and escorting them out after 20 minutes leaves a bad impression, but when a candidate is bombing horrendously, chances are pretty good they know it and I’ve seen some of these bombadiers express relief when we “let them off the hook” earlier rather than later. We also schedule our most senior (and time-strapped) people towards the end, for the 3-5% of cases where someone is cut after 2 or 3 slots, we’ve saved that time to be more productively used.
I don’t think that committing to a half-day of interviews and “sticking to that plan” no matter what is an optimal plan in itself.
How do we do it in practice? If the first interview is a bomb, we have that person inform the third interviewer. When the third interviewer shows up to relieve the second, they ask any arbitrary innocuous-sounding question (”Hey, my car’s in the shop getting new tires; can you drop me off over there after work?”) Whatever the 2nd interviewer answers is really the answer to “Should we continue?” and we act appropriately. “No, my daughter has a ballet recital tonight” and the candidate is thanked for their time and escorted out. “Yeah, no problem” means that the second interview went OK and that we should continue.
3:42 pm
Wow, that’s quite a process. But there’s definitely some smarts to taking maximum advantage of someone while they’re at your office.
Epic fail is a GREAT term.
1:54 pm
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9:04 pm
Sounds like you need a better screening process rather than wasting everyone’s time. Your process sounds rather cocky as you are expecting world-class talent and a perfect fit. There are tens of thousands of openings right now at Microsoft, Google, Ebay and Amazon etc, if you have the skills. Bill Gates is literally begging yearly to congress to let more in. You are forgetting that FreshBooks is just a .com company also. My background is I am a leading dev at one of the shops I mentioned above.
10:31 am
Hey smokeybear
I’m not sure what gave you the impression that I forgot that FreshBooks isn’t a ginormous company with tens of thousands of openings, but I assure you, it’s something I not only remember, but give thanks for every day.
Yeah, I expect world-class talent. Yeah, I’m looking for a perfect fit. Why wouldn’t I? Why would I want to work at a company that DOESN’T require world-class talent?
Interviews are part of the screening process — if we only interviewed candidates who were perfect, we’d uh, well, I’m not sure, but that would be weird. The whole point of holding the interview is because some subset of candidates aren’t perfect and we need to identify those. I’m just saying that having identified that somebody isn’t perfect for us doesn’t mean just chucking them aside — everyone deserves respectful and fair treatment, especially since it’s in our best interest to do so.
Maybe things are different at Microsoft. I wouldn’t know. Do you feel like you’re wasting everyone’s time when you interview somebody and they turn out to not be a fit? Or do you just hire everyone who comes in the door?
9:59 pm
This whole ‘fit’ idea for developers is a problem. So, it very likely more of a company culture or corporate image thing or a resume filtering problem. Good devs are not the most personable or charasmatic bunch. Or even attractive.
I’ll use myself as an example and rant. I am your typical male dev that Microsoft or Google hires. . Early 30s, went to a good university to study Comp Sci for too long. I am not a model. I dress sloppy and am chubby. My communication skills suck but I do “clean up” well enough for an interview or if I had to be “put in front of a customer”. I likely wouldnt fit in at Freshbooks. I am just a boring dude from Ohio. I worked in Insurance for ahwile. Its hard for me to get laid. But I know a lot about software. I can ship high quality software without ego on time and am dependable.
I have interviewed candidates (along with my manager) and there were some guys - we thought were nerds and not as cool as us. I interviewed at Software Architects (now called SARK) in Ohio was a good gig. That place was literally like a frat house with all the people there were thin, rich, and attractive. I didn’t get it. I was the nerd. I’ve been on both sides of the fence.
Every dev candidate likely has the same buzzwords such as Java and .Net. Microsoft has the problem that some *really* talented devs do not know C++ (its over 20 years old). So, you don’t want to filter just on that. But at the same time, knowing C++ does not make you a great C# coder. This ‘fit’ problem comes in to play.. Do you hire young and cheap and fresh-faced fun guy right out of school or do you hire an older chubby guy like myself who might have picked up bad habits but has seen more real problems.. Both have their sets of issues. Most people want to get the shiny puppy because you can teach him more tricks, but the older dog could be a better friend and work out better longer term.. already house-broken.
To answer your question: round up everybody like on american idol or do more phone screening. I have been in such cattle calls for Lencrafters and other consulting gigs.. Met with the hring interview for 45 mins. Call the next set of candidates back for round 2. It should be obvious who the strong hires are or if none is found then.. try cattle call #2.
Please remember aslo that people can change when you worjk with them and soem people are not good at first impresssions. Esp. some devs as we dont get out much. Sorry I might have been harsh in my last reply. I have some chips on my shoulders when I as SDE are doing the long hours and PMs are drivign around in the Beemer’s and bossing me around.
10:02 pm
and sorry for typos. Long day at the office.:)
9:19 am
Hey smokeybear, glad you were able to get that off your chest. Thanks for the suggestion — I don’t think a “cattle call” approach would work for us but different problems require different solutions.