Is our company's hiring process too time-consuming?

Q: I'm a hiring manager and I like to ask candidates to:

-- Review our Web site and provide ideas for improvement prior to the interview.

-- Meet with a sales manager who can assess their knowledge of our market.

-- Do a presentation.

-- Participate in relevant pre-employment training to see how well they learn and interact with others.

This works for us, and it keeps our turnover very low. From a hiring manager's point of view, I think it's important to get multiple looks at a candidate and to give a candidate multiple looks at us. However, this takes quite a bit of time. What do you think?

NICK'S REPLY: I think what you're doing is very good. A candidate who is really interested in working for you will gladly invest time in your hiring process.

Often, the problem isn't that companies spend too much time interviewing, it's that they don't spend it profitably. I believe hiring a person is almost like marrying them. Before you tie the knot, you should talk and work together in more than one context, and you should meet one another's friends (or co-workers). That's how to decide whether you belong together. In other words, the courting process must be substantive.

I will offer two suggestions. First, tell candidates from the start what you expect and how you will proceed. Let them decide whether to invest the time. This tells you a lot about them. It also helps if you go out of your way to accommodate candidates' work schedules. That tells them about you.

Second, if you're going to ask candidates to do a presentation and meet people in other departments, help them prepare. Suggest resources, discuss your company's preferences and style and offer guidance, just as you would to your employees. To get the best out of candidates, I believe you have to work with them -- not just challenge them.

I like employers who interview intelligently. It seems to me you do a good job at this. My compliments. Thanks for sharing a manager's point of view.

THE HEADHUNTER TIP:

Will more education pay off?

What kind of education should you invest in to help you land the job you want? People routinely make the mistake of taking courses and getting degrees that they believe will help their careers. Usually this is based on how schools promote their offerings.

Here's the key: Go talk to the relevant employers and people who do the work you want to do. Ask them what sort of education they consider necessary, sufficient and useful. You might even ask what kind of education pays off best. Then pursue that education, not what the schools are peddling.

If you're going to school because you want to learn for learning's sake, that's wonderful. But if you're getting a degree to get ahead, the ultimate customer of the education industry isn't you -- it's the employer you go to work for. Ask which credentials matter to the employer.

Copyright 2009. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

Nick Corcodilos is author of "Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job" and the host of www.asktheheadhunter.com. He can be reached by e-mail at seattle@asktheheadhunter.com or at North Bridge Group, P.O. Box 600, Lebanon, NJ 08833. Sorry, no personal replies.