A Guideline for Interviewing: Getting to Know Candidates

by Laura Gassner Otting, President, Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group

(This article was originally published by www.NonprofitOyster.com, as part of their NonprofitOyster Pearls series.)

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A GUIDELINE FOR INTERVIEWING: GETTING TO KNOW CANDIDATES

Interviews are never, ever reflective of reality. Questions are asked, questions are answered, and everybody smiles at each other. Watching a typical interview is like watching a play, where the actors all nail their predetermined lines with precision and passion. Your assignment, as a member of the search committee or interview panel, is not to determine who interviews best or delivers their lines the sharpest, but who is best suited for the particular role in question at your organization. Doing so takes skill, patience, and an understanding of interviews that will facilitate real discussion among participants.

The type of interview that takes place and how it's conducted depends on a number of factors, including past practices, the current progress of the hiring process, interviewer availability, and candidate availability. Consistency, however, is vital to a smooth interview process, both from the candidate's perspective and for the organization. Before an interview is conducted, consider what interview method is appropriate given the job being filled and the players involved. But be sure to use the same method with all candidates whenever possible to ensure that you are comparing reactions to similar situations.

Telephone Interviews: Telephone interviews are not geared to take the place of face-to-face interviews, but instead serve as a screening opportunity whereby interviewers can save precious time and money by ruling candidates in or out in advance. Interviews usually take 10 or 15 minutes per call and serve to clarify questions on the resume and focus on the candidate's interest, general qualifications, and timeline. As a guide, most of this can be done by paying attention to the last few jobs or prior ten years.

Progressive Interviews: The progressive interview is a long, but structured, process in which candidates are interviewed in rounds. While progressive interviews offer the advantage of structure, they require a strong commitment from candidates, who are forced to make multiple trips, incur personal expenses and take many days off work. The process will leave you with candidates who are clearly interested in the position, hence their willingness to put up with the schedule and expend the necessary time, effort and dollars, but these processes can take weeks to complete, leaving interviewers confused about who said what. More importantly, you may lose good candidates if the process is too protracted.

Committee Interviews: The committee or panel interview is the process in which a single candidate is interviewed by several interviewers simultaneously. With planning, control, and flow, these interviews can be among the most effective formats, and since many candidates can be interviewed in one day, among the most efficient as well. Using a moderator, these interviews progress with planned, controlled pace and cover expected topics preordained by the committee, and bestow professionalism upon the organization. The flow of the panel interview should appear fluid, natural, and almost conversational. This allows your candidates the leeway to open up further than they might in a tighter setting. It is difficult to keep these interviews organized, and it takes scheduling discipline, but it saves the organization time and money, and allows the committee to make choices with the best memory of all candidates.

Susan Himmelfarb, Principal of The Himmelfarb Group, a Chicago-based firm specializing in search for non-profit and philanthropic organizations, agrees. "Panel interviews," she says, "are an excellent way of testing a candidate's fit with the hiring organization. They allow for some panel participants to be actively engaged in talking with a candidate while others sit back a little to observe the candidate in action. These kinds of interviews also provide a sound basis on which those involved in the hiring can compare notes about each candidate, and critical fodder for discussions about the various directions for the organization that may result from choosing one candidate versus another."

Individual Interviews: It may be necessary for the candidate to meet with individuals at points throughout the interview process. This individual may be the human resources director, for an explanation of benefits and HR policies, or the executive director or immediate supervisor for a vision of the job or organization. These interviews should not be used to determine "fit" with an organization, but rather to make a final decision between one or two candidates, or seal a deal with a finalist.

A Note on Subordinate Interviews: While it is a vastly unpopular statement to make, subordinates should never choose their new bosses. And, they must be told this ahead of time. Staff might be asked to participate in a committee interview, but should be excused when the conversation turns to salary and benefits expectations to avoid disruptions in morale. At other times, they should not be included at all. It is, simply put, entirely situation-dependent. Susan Himmelfarb cautions clients: "Including employees either as advisors or as part of the decision process can bring a great deal of strength to the process, but in other cases, can fan factionalism and gossip." She asks clients to consider employee expectations, senior staff's comfort level with subordinate involvement, and the ability of the organization to weather the uncertainty caused by the transition in staffing. "Only those responsible for a specific hiring decision can weigh these questions and make a decision based on their best assessment of the situation they find themselves working in," she explains.

An alternative is to set up a "get to know you" lunch during the candidate's interview day. This lunch gives the candidate an opportunity to tell his or her potential new team about qualifications, vision and background, and allows each team member to discuss their thoughts about the organization and their commitment and role within it.

GENERAL INTERVIEWING TIPS

Avoiding First Impressions: Work hard not to jump to conclusions. Use telephone interviews to help you suspend visual cues that lead to assumptions about candidates. Discuss pros and cons of candidates but don't rule anyone out until all the interviews have come to an end. Then, as you are able, try to reserve judgment until you have heard the results of secondary interviews, if appropriate, and reference checks.

First impressions can be difficult, if not impossible, to suspend. Ted Webb, co-founder of Ford Webb Associates, a nationally-retained executive search firm in Concord, Massachusetts, offers a trick of the trade used to turn a first impression into a savvy interview technique: "If the first impression is earnestly felt, turn it around and explain to the candidate, 'This is my impression, help me inform that impression. Is it correct, or am I mistaken?' If someone is defensive and antagonistic, that is good information in that you solidify your impression. If you are earnest and not provocative, you can do in one interview what you might otherwise need two to accomplish."

Make Candidates Comfortable: Each session should begin with the search committee chair or interview panel leader welcoming the candidates, introducing herself with a brief bio and explanation of her role as a partner with the organization and then asking each of the others in the room to do the same. Look for ways to reduce the candidate's anxiety by smiling and using active listening techniques. The seating layout for the interview should make the candidate feel like a part of the group; avoid placing the candidate on one side of the table with all of the interviewers on the other.

The First Question: Ask the candidates to talk for about five minutes about themselves, their current position and their interest in this position. This should be a good launching pad for the interview. If you feel the candidates are going on too long, redirect them with a more specific question about their background and move into the interview from there. Spend a couple of minutes removing any confusion about facts on the candidates' resume so that all present can continue without misunderstanding of responsibilities and roles.

Discuss Candidates' Past Performance: Ask each candidate to walk you through his/her career and discuss what s/he accomplished in each of his/her roles. Ask for both the successes and the failures. Push further if you feel you are not getting enough details about how an achievement was reached or a failure remedied. Having every panel member ask a question is not as important as having the key points covered and having every panel member hear the answers. Remember, your goal is to gather as much information as possible on which to base your decision.

Information about what a candidate would do if given the job is less helpful, in general, than information about what the candidate has done in the past when faced with a similarly complex task. "For example," states Susan Himmelfarb, "we often ask candidates to describe in some specificity work they've done that is similar to some of the challenges of the position in question. We will ask a CEO candidate to talk about a tricky leadership or management situation, describing how she or he handled the situation, the outcome, and lessons they learned in the process." Similarly, an interviewer might ask a fundraiser how he turned around a disgruntled funder, or ask a communications director how he handled a major public relations crisis.

Give Candidates Time to Ask Questions: Reserve 15-20 minutes at the end of the interview for the candidate to ask his/her questions. These questions will inform the candidate about your organization, its partners and their abilities to work well together. They will also give you some insight to the candidate's intellectual curiosity and depth. Be honest in your answers – giving the candidate a candid picture of the challenges of your organization will allow them to honestly assess their own interest and abilities – but don't paint an overly intimidating picture of any dirty laundry the organization may have.

Ted Webb explains that the admission of dirty laundry has to be built into the process carefully. "Issues facing organizations are not unique," he explains. "Every organization, and every good leader, will have been faced with these issues in the past and will not be shocked or surprised if they hear you describe yours in a manner that is open, honest and accepted." Further, he explains, "the understanding of and willingness to address unfortunate circumstances is rare and can be one of the very most seductive recruiting method you have."

Give Interesting Topics a Fair Hearing: Have a general idea about what questions to ask before you walk into an interview, but don't get trapped by any specific question list. If you feel that you are winding down an interesting and pertinent path, don't turn away too quickly. Additional questions may be answered in second interviews and reference checks.

Learn a Little about Each Candidate as a Person: Unless you spend some time talking to candidates about themselves, it is difficult to assess their fit within your organization, or how enjoyable it would be to work with them on a daily basis. Susan Jernigan, Partner at the North Carolina-based executive search firm Sockwell & Associates, likes "to get a pretty good handle on how people balance their lives. I ask them what they do in their free time, or what they would do if they had more free time." Jernigan never worries about specific answers, "only if there doesn't appear to be one."

Next Steps: As the interview concludes, the search committee chair or interview leader should explain the next steps in the process: that the organization will be meeting other candidates and then deciding on a smaller number of candidates whose references will be checked and with whom second interviews will be scheduled. They should be told approximately when they will learn if they have reached the next phase. If you decide that the candidate is right for your organization, you want him/her to accept your offer without reservations. Always treat the candidate with dignity.

Illegal Questions: Any questions – even in the context of legitimate, job-related concerns – touching on a candidate's race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, age or disabilities may be construed as discriminatory, are illegal, and must be avoided. However, not all difficult questions are illegal ones. Sometimes near the end of an interview, Susan Jernigan "usually asks the candidate, 'Is their anything in your past that is going to jump up and bite us? If so, let's talk about it now so that no one is surprised.' "

1. For entrepreneurial positions: Describe a situation in which you created something, with your own energy, direction and ideas, and what became of it. Provide some examples of systems that have improved or were strengthened under your watch, and describe how you did it. Are these systems still in place?
2. For management positions: What is your experience managing people and budgets? Have you operated in an environment with similar complexity as our organization as we've described it? What challenges and strengths have you experienced in current or previous similar environments? How would your bosses, staff, peers characterize them? Do you have experience successfully managing an organization about to experience significant growth? How was that accomplished?
3. For support positions: Tell me about a time when you successfully changed your supervisor's mind. What kind of direction do you need, and how do you ask for help? What would you consider to be the areas in which you have grown most during the past five years?
4. For development positions: Relative to our current funding sources, where can you further diversify our funding base, and where can you help solidify it? What are the most important things on which to focus during a fundraising campaign? Tell us about your experiences in these areas. What have been your most significant accomplishments in these areas? What have been your biggest mistakes? What have you learned?
5. For program positions: What types of programs have you created/run in the past? How have you assessed program success or failure and how have you changed programs accordingly?

Laura Gassner Otting is founder and president of Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, a niche consulting firm dedicated to strengthening the capacity of nonprofits and their staff, and specializes in helping nonprofit organizations nationwide with their hiring processes.

Increasing the capacity of nonprofits and their staff.