The world of recruitment is evolving quickly. Artificial Intelligence tools are changing both how we select candidates and how they present themselves. This article builds on insights from interviewing hundreds of candidates throughout my career – mostly in old fashioned ways! It also discusses new methods of candidate selection and how they may develop further.
I’ve split the selection process into the review of Documents, Assessments, Interviews and Decisions. The lines between these stages are already blurring as new selection methods evolve. It will be interesting to look back in a few years and see how this has changed!
Documents
Our first step in candidate filtering should be efficient to allow a larger volume to be assessed. While hiring for software role once, I remember reading 5-10 CVs and phone interviewing at least one candidate every working day for months. Putting this effort in early is particularly important when you’re looking for someone with growth potential rather than proven skills, but it can also be necessary when you’re struggling to find any CVs which look appealing.
Historically, most job applications were in writing and many still are. These days, your LinkedIn page might substitute for a written CV / Resume. Selfie ‘Video CVs’ are starting to replace written profiles as a new video-savvy generation enters the job market. I believe this trend will continue and firms will expect candidates to record their pitch for specific roles. This helps to convey their interests and personality which are often disguised by formal written applications.
On-line forms are replacing written applications, as they help hiring companies identify candidates with the skills and experience they desire. This excludes those who can’t explain their suitability but may also dissuade candidates who are busy in their current roles.
AI is already being used to help filter candidates’ written profiles, letters and forms. I’m sure it will be assessing candidates’ videos too before long. But AI can also help candidates. You can already use AI to create a compelling CV based on a job advertisement and even produce a fake video selfie. These ‘cheats’ might be easier to spot today, but the technology will only get better.
Assessments
Online psychometric tests have been available for many years now. These seek to assess how a candidate would deal with challenges and work within a team. While the results can be misleading, they offer an easy way to assess candidates’ emotional intelligence.
‘Assessment Centres’ are common in graduate recruitment for larger organizations. They often involve group exercises which seek to identify which candidates are better at communicating, planning and leading activities.
Video assessments are increasingly popular, in which questions are randomly selected from a prepared list to provide more challenging stimuli for candidates to answer on-camera. This approach will benefit from future AI development and further reduce recruiters’ workload.
Online assessments provide recruiters with efficient ways to filter many applicants but are increasingly vulnerable to cheating using Artificial Intelligence. For candidates, the experience may be off-putting and encourages them to ‘game’ the system. Formal assessments are good at measuring the candidates’ ability to pass tests, but may miss other important aspects of their suitability.
Interviews
Once your candidates’ documents and assessments have been reviewed, it’s time to interview the best of them. In the past, I’ve done many of these by short phone calls, but video calling is now the default.
The key interview topics for any role are: Can they do the job? Do they really want the job? And would they fit in? We tend to spend most time judging their abilities, but their interests are equally important. Will they still be motivated several months later? And will they get on with the people they need to work with?
Use the Job Description as inspiration for interview questions. Ask them for their first steps in the role – how much guidance do they expect and what ideas will they bring? Consider which challenges the role is likely to face and turn these into questions: “What would you do if..?” “How would you improve..?”
Asking candidates about their experiences and interests can reveal more about their suitability than an impersonal assessment. A classic interview technique is to ask open questions then look for answers which indicate deeper knowledge, skills and experience. However, this risks a game of ‘buzzword bingo’ where candidates attempt to impress by name-checking facts and methods. So it’s worth asking how they’ve used these things in their own work, rather than what they might have read about them.
Is remote interviewing sufficient?
In the post-pandemic world, many roles involve predominantly remote working. So it is tempting to consider remote interviews sufficient. In my view, this is becoming less true as AI tools make it easier for candidates to cheat in remote interviews. It’s not hard to run a Voice AI on your phone next to your laptop and read its responses to your interviewer’s questions. And if you’re mostly testing candidates’ use of AI then do you need to hire a human at all?
In-person interviews
Once you’ve found a few candidates who talk well on a phone or video call, then I think it’s best to interview them in-person if possible. At this stage, it’s important to have more than one promising candidate. You’re wasting your time and everyone else’s if one person is clearly much more suitable than the others. But if there’s really only one decent contender and they’re already waiting on other offers, then just bring them fast and grill them as best you can.
Ideally, you should interview candidates where the role is based. If they are expected to work remotely, or you don’t have an office, it’s still worth trying to show them what their working pattern would be like. When and where (or if) will they be expected to meet in person? How much time will they spend in meetings and solo work?
Assessing communication skills
Every job requires communication skills, roughly summarised as reading, writing and speaking. Presentation skills are also key to many roles and may require stage presence and charisma! Visual communication is increasingly important to convey ideas quickly to an audience. Consider how your role will need to communicate with and persuade other people.
More experienced candidates will be expected to prepare a presentation on a subject relevant to the role. This makes it easier to compare different candidates’ approaches to solving problems. Ensure you make the question very clear and limit the word or page count (shorter is harder!). Try to verify which tools they used and how much is their own work. Setting the question too far in advance may be a better test of their use of online search and AI than their own ability to answer it.
In-Person Communication Challenges
I’m keen on asking candidates to explain their experiences visually and in writing. It’s too easy for them to exaggerate their contribution to a successful company / product / project etc and often hard for interviewers to verify this. Differing backgrounds also make it harder to compare individuals. Better to test candidates’ skills live in the room rather than their ability to tell anecdotes.
Whether your role involves creating marketing collateral, product documentation, software or drawings, we all need to read, analyse and improve written communication. Setting written in-person challenges is one way to assess this: “how would you improve this press release / product specification / software function?” In this age of AI, creating bland prose or idiomatic source code is trivial. But fixing poor writing or badly written software is a still a distinctive characteristic of talented humans. Watching candidates do this in-person without AI assistance tests their real abilities.
I’m a big fan of ‘White Board Questions’ where you ask candidates to write and draw their answers in front of you (no Smart Phones or AI allowed!). This is a test of communication skills as much as knowledge and helps reveal how logically they think and how well they can explain their ideas.
Culture fit and stretch
People like jobs for the people they work with as much as the job they do. This means your new hire needs to ‘get along’ with their colleagues and vice versa.
‘Cultural Fit’ can be important, especially if it reflects differences in working styles which might affect team productivity. But adding to your culture is equally important – beware the ‘occupational cultures’ which might dominate a young company. If most of you are from the same profession or educational background this can lead to ‘Group Think’. Growing companies need to stretch their culture by hiring people who complement their own ways of thinking and doing things. Don’t let your company culture become stale and introverted!
It’s worth considering what working culture your candidate is familiar with and what they might prefer? Highly regulated environments can be stifling to some people, but reassuring to others. Likewise unstructured working might be unsettling or empowering depending on your preference and personality. Ask them what they like and don’t like about where they work and why?
Team interviews
Interview ‘panels’ with several people can be intimidating to some candidates. If the role requires them to be confident in a group of strangers, then this is fine. But if not, then consider whether you’re potentially putting off good candidates who could do the job.
In my experience, interviewing as a pair is very efficient as one of you can take notes and prepare the next question while the other is talking. Ideally you should involve interviewers who represent both potential colleagues and ‘customers’ within your organisation.
It’s often useful to introduce a candidate to the team they might be joining – but usually at the end of the interview session and only if you still think they’re still a contender. This can help assess the interpersonal dynamics – who would they get on well with, and which relationships might need support? It’s also useful to ask the team to prepare their own interview questions, which builds their engagement with the interview process and can make it easier to onboard a successful candidate.
Candidates’ questions
Finally, the interview candidate should also get a chance to ask some questions. This is where the department Director or CEO should be prepared to talk about the company’s strategy and explain how the role will support it. They may also need to sell the role to a talented candidate with other opportunities!
Decisions
When you’re almost sure who you want to hire, it’s always worth getting a second opinion. It’s important to involve your boss or the board and key team members. Getting references can also be helpful for clarifying your decision. Then you’ll need to make an offer and potentially negotiate before a candidate returns a signed contract.
References
Many previous employers will only provide a basic reference describing the role the candidate performed and dates they were employed. Their employees will often have clauses in their employment contracts preventing them from giving more detailed references about current or ex colleagues. This is done to minimise risks of liability for libel or defamation. The brief references permitted help verify experience but add little value.
It’s often better to ask a candidate’s ex-colleagues who have also moved on to roles in different organizations. This releases them from previous contractual obligations and encourages more open conversations. A written testimonial should describe the referee’s working relationship with the candidate, and perception of their personality and performance.
References are even more important for senior roles, and a call may be needed to ask more searching questions and judge how open the referee is prepared to be. Be aware that perceptions of leadership can be very subjective and may reflect the candidate’s friendships more than their ability to lead a diverse team. Ask about their working style and what they needed to perform well.
Too often, references can become an exercise in mutual backscratching and fail to provide genuinely honest and objective feedback. But they remain vital for confirming the selection of your preferred candidate.
Making an offer
Negotiating job offers can be problematic. Sometimes the candidate accepts your offer instantly and you wonder if you pitched too high a salary. Other times they don’t even reply, and you won’t know why. It’s always worth contacting them for feedback even if they’ve already signed your contract.
Existing employers can make compelling counter offers of salary and promotions, casting doubt on the candidate’s decision. The candidate may have even applied for your vacancy to get more recognition from their current employer.
If you do need to increase your offer, then consider what you want in return. Ambitious candidates may be prepared to work hard to prove they’re worth more, and they could be rewarded later. But think carefully about promising delayed salary increases and consider what you expect them to achieve first. Ideally your offer should reflect their value to the wider job market, not just your company. Consider how will this role’s responsibilities and rewards will compare with others in the team? Are you overpaying, or does everyone need a boost to reflect a change in the job market?
Share options
Startups face an extra complication with job offers – how should they factor in Employee Share Option Programmes? My experience with this was many years ago, but I believe it’s fair that ESOP offers reflect both salary and seniority, much in the same way as bonus programmes do.
Further investment rounds should raise the share price and would therefore reduce the exit value of subsequent share options offered. This may seem unfair to later hires, but it does reflect the reduced risk of joining the company later.
In the long term, you need to keep within your ESOP budget (as agreed with investors!) while ensuring your offers are competitive for similar roles elsewhere. ESOPS are important motivators for staff and help keep salaries at a sensible level which is important for managing cash burn rates.
The AI ‘Arms Race’
Artificial Intelligence offers hiring companies many ways to save the cost and time of recruitment while potentially improving candidate selection. But it will also help candidates to gain unfair advantage through using AI tools. This is resulting in a ‘Bot vs Bot’ scenario where human abilities become subsumed by increasingly sophisticated software. If your avatar is convincing, why not let it take the interview, or even your job!?
The result of this ‘Arms Race’ may be the replacement of many roles with AI, while people compete for the remaining jobs which AI has not yet automated. But my suspicion is that human insights will still be vital to check for AI hallucinations and ensure quality.
Whatever new technologies bring to recruitment, I think humans will keep a key role in assessing candidates as they try to make good hires in a world of full of plausible deceptions.
If you’d like to discuss how to select the best candidate, please get in touch!