Interview Innovation: Creating Competitive Advantages

The interview process is full of pitfalls and misconceptions that can undermine the company’s competitive advantages. This is not unavoidable but the homeostatic mechanisms that reinforce the status quo, and keep up existing comfort zones, need to be challenged in order for the recruitment process to create added value for the business. Plugging ‘square holes with square pegs’ may address the current issues facing the business but will unlikely give the necessary momentum, competencies, or commitment to change the patterns that reinforce them.

The following provides a short list of the typical recruitment process and explains the pitfalls that can befall them. A tool for evaluating the gap between the present and future strategic vision is provided below to help your team avoid these vulnerabilities.

A Generic Recruitment Model

Job Posting: Beginning with the posting of the job description, the company seeks to describe the responsibilities of the position in the current environment. Unfortunately, the candidate may be missing significant information about the company’s business model, culture, and strategic direction. Candidates that are looking for growth and advancement may pass up the opportunity in pursuit of your competitors.

The Application: Most recommendations are for candidates to change their resume based on the position applied. Unfortunately this suggestion is often followed half way with a few resume templates used to apply for a diverse set of unrelated jobs. This results in resumes being filtered out at the screening stage because desired ‘keywords’ are missing or too much interpretation is required.

Competencies: Another recommendation is for resumes and job descriptions to emphasize competencies. Unfortunately the list is often mismatched with the strategic direction of the candidates career goals and the company’s current commitment. The result is a cookie-cutter approach to evaluating candidates that fails to consider the candidate’s internal career growth. When the company is forced to adapt in response to a changing environment the leadership necessary to facilitate the transition may not be available.

Application Screening: The pace of the screening process increases with the rate of employee turnover. Research indicates that resumes are screened for only a few minutes before a decision is made thus increasing the risk of hiring, or rejecting, the wrong candidate. Additional screening biases create added filters on top of the ones mentioned earlier. A superficial, if not totally inadequate, understanding of the candidate’s background often results.

Interview Questions

Explain the Job Description: A recent trend sweeping Canada is to ask the candidate to explain their understanding of the job description before the company gives an explanation. This can produce an effective screening device for identifying candidates who have done exactly the same job, in the same type of business environment, and within the same type of business model; but – requires that the candidate is an expert in ‘all things company A’ but are not looking for advancement.

Are hiring managers able to explain what the candidate’s background and experience is without guidance?

The result will often create a list of candidates to follow-up with who have very little interest in growth, a key part for the business to create a sustaining competitive advantage. Opportunities to ‘sell the company’ to the candidate are often lost as the interview conversation becomes increasingly awkward and closer to an interrogation than a conversation that establishes chemistry. Although this strategy may work for companies that conduct business ‘the same way as everyone else,’ it will still likely alienate the candidate who is not yet an expert on your company.

Behavioural interviewing: A common trend is to use behavioural interviewing to help evaluate the candidate’s response to specific scenarios. These are considered useful for evaluating how the candidate would react and solve problems that may be unique to the company and/or its customers. Unfortunately this technique often emphasizes deficits and fails to explore out of the box thinking that is necessary for creating novel solutions.

The candidates challenge is more often to solve entrenched problems created by the company’s business model, culture, and are thus resistant to change. These problems are often beyond the candidates control and yet are used to evaluate how they would perform under given situations. Responses that challenge the status quo are often evaluated poorly.

Presentations: Another growing trend, particularly at executive levels or with startups, is to eventually ask the candidate to provide a presentation. The topic is usually relevant to the company’s present experience and is considered a useful way to evaluate if the candidate’s approach would fit the current culture. Unfortunately this approach more often celebrates presentations that reinforce existing norms and reject those that incorporate new ideas, strategies, processes, or innovations.

Innovative approaches are just as likely misunderstood which can create an unfavorable impression of the company. Business consultants also advise against such practices as the ideas presented are just as likely to be borrowed by the company without hiring the candidate.

Multiple Candidates: In an ideal scenario the company has the option to choose among several highly qualified candidates. The interview process will involve multiple steps that allow the company to evaluate the candidate for not only required qualifications but also for qualifications that are ‘nice to have.’ Unfortunately this can digress into conducting reference checks for multiple candidates which can create the impression of being indecisive. The candidate is thus given information that the role may ‘not be a good fit,’ warranting revaluation of other opportunities.

The on-boarding Process: Despite recent advocacy for an emphasis on leadership coaching, career development, employee empowerment, and cross functional collaboration the on-boarding process often emphasizes candidates who can ‘hit the ground running’ with little training required. The results can include an increasingly lackadaisical corporate culture and leadership development model that forfeits competitive leadership to other companies.

The common criticism that ‘leadership does nothing’ and the rest of the employees ‘are responsible for the company’s success’ is reinforced. Obviously this does nothing to improve employee morale, engagement, or retention.

Creating Momentum

The goal of the recruitment process is supposed to improve the company’s sustainable and competitive advantage.

This does not mean that positions should stay open indefinitely because the ‘perfect candidate’ cannot be found but instead means that the company recruitment and leadership development models need to be aligned.

If a position remains open for an extended time the question a candidate should ask is whether the environment supports career development or has the resources/ competencies necessary to respond to changes in the environment? If the answer is no the candidate may choose to consider opportunities with the competitor.

The process begins with asking the question ‘what is our competitive advantage and how can we support its development, growth, and ability to support change?’ If leadership innovation does not exist internally to develop, evaluate, and refine this process there are external resources available. But this competency should not be outsourced indefinitely. It needs to be cultivated, reinforced, and owned internally if the competency is to stay adaptive, effective, and sustainable over time.

The following spreadsheet can be used as a gap analysis and planning tool for strengthening the company strategic competitive advantage:

Conclusion

The ‘cookie cutter’ approach towards recruitment needs to end. This neither supports business model innovation or supports the company’s ability to pursue future and strategic competitive advantages. Each new iteration in the company’s recruitment model needs to take into consideration the following:

• How it is received by the candidate

The interview process goes both way. It involves impression management from both sides and is evaluated to determine if the opportunity and the candidate’s vision, values, and goals are aligned. The opportunity is built out of the company’s business model and influences what values, goals, and opportunities are likely to be reinforced and engaged in the future.

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Travis Barker, MPA GCPM

Consulting@innovatevancouver.org

Innovate Vancouver is a Technology and Business Innovation Consulting Service located in Vancouver, BC. Contact Innovate Vancouver to help with your new project.