Do You Know Who Your Best Interviewers Are?

Organizational hiring processes vary, but one common element across companies is the vast amount of time and resources expended on interviewing — often with disappointing results. Mike, the head of a very well-funded recruitment department for a global company, described to us a particularly grueling and extensive hiring process. Every year, the company receives 300,000 applicants for just 2,000 open positions. By the final stage, a candidate will have met with and been evaluated by an average of 20 different people within the organization. An enormous amount of resources goes into the coordination and execution of this process, not to mention the indirect cost of interviewers’ time. Yet, Mike confessed, of the 2,000 new hires each year, at least half prove to be poor fits and exit the organization prematurely. He was confident that better matches existed in his candidate pool but didn’t know a more effective way to identify them.

We wanted to know whether Mike could identify the interviewers who could distinguish good matches from poor ones and persuade even the most in-demand talent to join. So we asked him a simple question: Do you know who your best interviewers are?

Mike was embarrassed to admit that he had no idea. In fact, the question had barely crossed his mind — and he’s not alone. We’ve had very similar conversations with many executives across industries.

As simple a question as it is, very few organizations have considered who their best interviewers are, and as a result, they may be leaving money on the table by failing to optimally allocate or manage their interviewers. Such inefficiencies can mean higher turnover, a lower quality of hire, and a more expensive hiring process.

Finding Top Interviewers: Evidence From a Global Contact Center

Our recent research provides clear evidence that some people do indeed make better interviewers than others and offers a simple methodology for identifying them. (See “The Research.”)