Do you interview like a detective, or like a cheerleader?

As business starts picking up again, my clients are planning to do some hiring. I’ve signed 3 new recruiting assignments in the last month!

If you are in that boat, too, there’s one thing I want you to do before you even start your process.

Get your head straight before you hire

By the time we launch a hiring process, we’re usually overworked. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be hiring!

If the pain of not having someone on board is high enough, we can start thinking about shortcutting the hiring process.

Instead of thinking, “I’m not sure if this person can do this job. I want them to prove it to me.”

We start thinking, “I hope this person can do this job! I’m going to look for all the reasons why they are the right person!”

When that happens, we start to skip questions on the interview guide. We assume we know the answers. Or worse yet, we start colluding with the candidate to help them answer the way we want. “You’ve done a lot of this kind of design work, right?”

Be Columbo

Be skeptical. Investigate. Ask one more question.

When the candidate gives you a great example, ask for another one. When they tell you a story about a key accomplishment, ask them for another one.

Probe, dig deep. Make sure that they can do the job.

If you are getting ready to hire, I’ve listed out 9 other common hiring mistakes. Check them out!