It’s not often that just one person in a company is responsible for making a hiring decision – and truth be told, you wouldn’t really want it that way, but that doesn’t make it any easier to be part of the team responsible for onboarding an important player. Here are some tips from industry veteran and Riviera Director, Jason Hann, on how to make your hiring team an effective one.
The first thing any hiring team needs to do is prioritize and make some key decisions:
- Who will have the ultimate decision on this hire and what is most important to them? This is as much about process as it is about power. Too often hiring teams get reduced to “hallway conversations” that can sway an opinion on a candidate one way or the other, Neither is good for hiring decision and the final decision maker can then get skewed feedback on the interview.
- The hierarchy of of the decision making process should mimic the involvement the team will have on a daily basis moving forward. For example, if it is a C-level decision maker and you are hiring for an Independent Contributor on a specific team, then the folks involved should interview based on this assumption. The C-level person makes the decision and the rest of the hiring team are advisors to this decision.
- The next important part is to understand what is the most important criteria for this hire. Let’s say that technical capability is most important to the hire. Of course, everyone should be interviewing for the “culture fit,” but that is secondary to technical aptitude. Each person involved in the advisory role must be testing for technical ability. This can get very granular or stay very general, but the ultimate decision rests on the head of the “Decision Maker.”
If you keep the process tight, keep the team as focused as possible and remember why you are hiring and why you have been included in the hiring team you are far more likely to make the best long-term decision.