As we go through the interview process with close to a dozen clients a week, I noticed three important processes many clients could improve on.

Tip 1: Interview multiple candidates at the same time.

This seems natural, but you will be surprised to see that many clients prefer to save themselves time by just interviewing one person at a time.

Yes, this saves time in the short run, but it is not the best way to recruit. And just like every shortcut, in the long run, it does not work most of the time. Because if this candidate leaves the interview process for any reason: another job offer, or just cold feet, the Hiring Manager is back to square one.

Tip 2: Give Assessments Early.

You do not want to go through two to three interviews with a candidate you really like for a Programmer role only to find out their code is not up to your standards. That is why we encourage clients to test their candidates through a coding assessment or a functional test (think SAP, Salesforce, Workday, or Netsuite functional roles) to give their assessments early on the first or second interviews.

This way, you are not moving a candidate along that is not skilled enough for the role. Just saves everyone time.

Tip 3: Skip the Reference Check Stage

This tip is controversial because the vast majority of companies do the Reference Check. However, let’s go deeper into the subject: have you ever had anyone fail a reference check? We never had. In all of our history. The main test is if the candidate can produce viable references that can speak highly of them, but in our experience, everyone can pass this test.

Everyone can find three people that liked them throughout five to thirty years of work experience. Especially in the corporate environment where most people are friendly with each other.

This step takes 1-5 business days. Sometimes even longer and prolongs the process even though everyone knows that the person will pass this step with no issues. I advise you to skip this step and move straight to an offer. This will get your candidate an offer earlier and gives you a better chance of retaining them.

I know most of my readers work in the corporate environment, so its not up to them, but maybe one day it will be, so I wanted to share this to keep it in the back of your mind 🙂