CareerBuilder has a new article – Top 4 Strategic Interview Styles – that provides some thoughtful approaches to interview strategies. However, I take umbrage with the opening sentence:
Interviews are the most important piece of the hiring process.
Wrong. Of far greater importance is knowing what traits lead to success in the position. This truth is even more evident when hiring salespeople.
If we were to pick one of these 4 interview styles, we would go with the “panel interview.” From the article (emphasis mine):
Panel interviewing method forces the candidate to react to a variety of questions and personalities, and will show if the candidate can handle a situation in which diversity is a factor. Be sure to pre-define a leader when doing panel interviews. If the candidate is obviously not the right fit, the leader should cut the interview short to save the team’s time. After the interview, team members will have differing opinions about the candidate. Engage in open debate about the pros and cons of each candidate shortly after the interview. Consensus may not be reached, but the open dialogue will help identify the best candidates.
Sales requires selling to many different personalities, handling stress and staying focused. The panel interview provides a real-world sales scenario in which you can see the candidate in action.
Of course, all of this interview strategizing is well placed as long as a process has been followed to get to this point. Over-reliance upon the interview leads to gut-level hiring decisions which are the catalysts to hiring mistakes.