All Thumbs up and No Hire

[Image credit: Fool.com.au]

The idea of writing this blog post came from a recent discussion I had around a tricky question like: “Is it ok to reject a candidate who has gone through a full interview loop and gotten HIRE decisions from all(or most) of the interviewers?” The Short answer is “Yes!”. However, this response certainly warrants a longer explanation on what might potentially trigger this kind of contradictory outcome. Full Disclaimer: this is my opinion (and from the experiences in companies and teams I have worked in the past). I would love to hear about other viewpoints via comments on this post!

The Debrief Session

In most companies, this is when and where the story unfolds. For those not familiar with this exercise, this is the discussion that happens between the Interviewers and HR once an interview loop has been completed. Various aspects of the Candidate gets discussed as a group, including the Leveling/Calibration. it’s especially important to do a thorough job during this evaluation stage that happens after the interviews. After all, what’s the point of conducting a great interview if you don’t invest in a discerning debrief with all the interviewers afterward?

This is the exercise where objectivity kicks in full-on, and individual biases are removed completely. Sometimes, even if the hiring manager feels very positive about a candidate, the debrief discussion might discover other biases that might have influenced a positive decision, or find contrary evidence that might lead to an overall No-hire decision. Now that we have spoken about what a Debrief exercise is, it’s time to touch on the topic of why someone who has gotten ‘Hire’ decisions from individual interviewers might not actually get hired at the end of the process. Below are some of the reasons — I can think of — that could trigger such an outcome.

Potential Triggers

• Level Disparity: This is by far the biggest reason why a Candidate with a majority of ‘Hire’ decisions from individual interviewers might be rejected. Apart from talking about various aspects of the Candidate, during the debrief session the Interviewers also need to align on what ‘Level’ the candidate should be hired into. Every company typically has a stack of ‘Levels’. These might be formally defined in mature companies (like Level 7, Principal, Director, etc), and informally set in smaller companies. Calibrating a candidate against these levels — and placing them at the right level — is as crucial as the HIRE/NO HIRE decision itself. Why is that? Because a person might have operated at a different level(or Job title) in his/her previous company. But that might not mean they could be considered for a similar title/scope in the current role being recruited for.
• Bringing in someone at a Level much higher than what they are ‘worth’ might hinder their growth moving forward.
• The new hire might not be able to match the expectations set for the role or grow fast enough to fill the potential gap.
• Finally, it is unfair to the existing employees if someone is hired at a higher level — and fatter package — even though they might end up operating at similar levels.

In order to avoid this kind of imbalance, it is always a good idea to discuss leveling along with reference-points of current employees in the same discipline. Meaning, compare the candidate being interviewed — and stack them — against existing employees in the same organization. With that all being said, you might wonder “Why couldn’t this have been caught during the interview process itself?” This could easily happen because the interviewers might not have received the instruction to gauge the Candidates potential against a specific career ladder level(as an oversight, or on purpose).

In this context, I’d like to call out one of the best practices that is apparently followed at Amazon. According to the company known for its super-tight interview exercises, two important questions their Bar Raisers ask to keep the post-interview calibration very effective are: “What does Amazon miss out on if we don’t hire this person?” and ‘What about this person makes you want to work with them?” And if you ask these questions within your debrief, and no one is willing to fight for this candidate or champion for him/her then we clearly have an “All good, but don't need” situation.

However, if some participants of the debrief feel strongly about bringing this person in, then the alternative question to ask next would be “What Level do we see appropriate for this person?” Once the right level is assessed, the Recruiter can always go back to the candidate to explain this and figure out if a Candidate is willing to take the role still, within the level at which it is being offered.

• Lack of Adaptability: This is a difficult point to explain, but I will give it a try. While a candidate might be good at what they do at their current level, sometimes the company hiring — in its current state of evolution — might need the role to do a lot more than what it is typically known for in the Industry. If the Candidate does not demonstrate the potential — or expressed disinterest — to do that kind of work, then they might not be a good fit for the role despite being good at what they are currently doing. For the sake of example, let’s assume that you are hiring for a Head of Product or Head of Engineering. If a candidate comes off as a solid manager/leader but does not have the ability to roll up the sleeves and get his/her hands dirty with code/specs (which your startup might require them to do in the early days), then that person will end up being a bad hire. So better not to bring in a person like that and cause a negative impact.
• Culture MisFit: A Company’s Organizational Culture is not just about how you present yourself or operate. It spans various dimensions including Pace of Work, Competition/Collaboration, Risk Tolerance, Emotional Atmosphere, Work/Life Balance, Goal Time Frame Orientation, Ethics, etc. With that being said, what surprises me these days is how most companies have started having a dedicated ‘Culture fit’ round in their interview loops. In my more than two decades of interviewing experience — across companies of various sizes and nature — the best practice around this has been to assess the compatibility of a candidate against your company’s culture throughout the interview process — right from the screening round to the final leveling discussion. Not just assign the task to one person to check(which might be a bit tricky), but to get a communal opinion. So, if you are taking this approach, then a discovery around the candidate’s inability to adapt to your company’s culture might happen only during a debrief session as a group. In the end, as the saying goes — It’s important to “Hire for Culture, Not Expertise”. And so, even though a candidate might have gotten ‘HIRE” decisions in multiple rounds, but seems like someone who would stand out (in an odd way), it is better to make the tough decision of saying No.
• Mismatched Motivation Levels: Sometimes while a candidate might check all the boxes when it comes to role-specific skills (and might get a hire decision), they might not have the motivational ‘energy’ that is expected by the company at its current stage of growth. For example, you might be an early-stage startup trying to change the way the industry you are targeting works. And as a result, you might expect everyone to be a cross-domain thinker, be charged up about figuring out new innovative ideas, push each other, and frequently think out-of-the-box, etc. But the candidate is an off-the-shelf type of person, who can execute well — on whats been dropped on their plate — but doesn’t have the fire inside them to go beyond, then it means there is a mismatch you’d rather avoid.