Are you consistently losing your most promising candidates in the midst of interviews? If so, you should consider the length of your company’s interview process. If you are conducting more than three interviews per candidate, you may be unknowingly deterring them from seeking employment with your company. Simply put, candidates want to be wanted. If you aren’t making an offer by the third interview, they will likely move on and accept an offer from a company who sees their potential and isn’t hesitating to make a decision.

While you may feel that a couple of extra interviews are harmless, what you are telling job seekers is that you are indecisive, unorganized, or unprepared in your hiring practices (all of which are damaging to your company’s reputation and your chances of hiring quality applicants).

Here are a few ways that you can streamline the process so that you are not over interviewing your candidates:

 

  • Get anyone who should be involved in the hiring process onboard early on. Find out what questions they feel need to be addressed, what attributes they believe a candidate needs to have to be considered for the position and provide them with a schedule of when you will be conducting interviews so that they can make themselves available. The hiring process can quickly come to a halt if the managers and team members responsible for making hiring decisions aren’t all on the same page.
  • Along with getting the hiring team involved, it is also important that you establish a chain of command before interviews begin. Everyone on the team should be made aware of who has the final say on hiring decisions so that in the event of a disagreement, you can defer to the person with the most authority and move forward quickly.
  • Along with your fellow team members and managers, compile a list of questions for each stage of the interview process. Refer to that list to get the information that you need from the candidate, eliminating the need for further phone calls and meetings to request information that you forgot to inquire about.
  • Take notes during any interview that you conduct whether it is a quick phone screen or a lengthy panel interview. Not only will these notes be helpful as you are comparing candidates later on, but a record of their responses will ensure that you aren’t conducting extra interviews to ask questions that have already been answered.

All of these are simple ways that you can cut down the number of interviews that you are conducting. By instituting these changes, you can demonstrate your company’s organization, preparation, communication and ability to make decisions.