Employ Your Candidates Before You Hire Them

This article was written prior to the merger with Think Shift under its previous name, LogiStyle.

We recently hired a new marketing assistant, Emily Meath (please help us welcome Emily to our team), and in the hiring process we were pleasantly surprised at the breadth and depth of candidates that were available in this economy. Nonetheless, the task of weeding through over a hundred applications and selecting the best candidate was daunting. Having narrowed it down through phone interviews to a short list, we chose to use a technique that we thought was befitting our brand of provocative logic, and worthy of fodder for a Food for Thought article.

Our idea is to hire – as in pay – each of the short listed candidates to do a task – the same task – that needs done, but one that can be accomplished without much knowledge of the internal affairs of the company.

In our case, it had something to do with our website. But the idea is to focus the interviewing process on how they go about doing that job and, in the process, how they interact with the people in the company. Lest visions of the famed American TV show, The Apprentice, should enter your mind, we are not suggesting a mean-spirited, face-to-face competition, but rather an opportunity to independently evaluate the work of each of the candidates.

Our experience was informative:

We saw how they think; how they question status quo; how they ask for clarification when needed and make independent assumptions when appropriate; what process they use to get the job done; and how they evaluate the job they did. And all of this in a real environment with real issues pertinent to the company. We found ourselves hiring by seeing how they perform rather than on what they tell us of their performance. The reason we insisted on payment – albeit not quite at market rates – is to instill an obligation on their part for delivery of service. Needless to say, the choice of task is critical to the success of the idea. Give us a call if you would like to hear more about our experience.

Food for Thought is our way of sharing interesting concepts on corporate leadership and management with others who might find it useful. The thoughts offered are intended to be controversial and thought provoking. They are intended to help our readers intentionally realize their potential, what we call Potentionality.