Overkill.....

I am staggered by many things, in fact, most things....but nothing bemuses me much more than unnecessary interview processes.

The process which always used to amuse me the most was Kent Police when they recruited forensic analysts.  To say it struck me as overkill is a complete understatement - suffice to say they had to hire half the office space in London just to cope with the masses invited for the initial assessment.  If successful in this task there were just another three hundred or so stages before a potential offer was made.  If you applied by age six you were potentially looking at starting work before retirement age along with the other ‘lucky’ applicants.

I am sure it was a thorough process (to say the very least) and to be fair, they did recruit some outstanding people, but was it really the best way to select candidates for a first role in forensics – or any role for that matter?  As you may just have gathered, I think it was way over the top and wasted the time of lots of people.  

However, recently I have seen an increase in never-ending processes for more senior people in both forensics and ED, including the dreaded panel interview.  Of course, for an important role you need to ensure you have found the person with the skills for the role blah, blah, blah.... but, surely, the key to the whole process is a frank discussion between hiring manager and jobseeker?

A jobseeker wants to work with people who really want to understand what they are all about and how they can contribute to the work that needs to be done.  This must mean that the main - and only genuinely significant - interview is a frank conversation between the hiring manager explaining the issues faced and the jobseeker explaining how they will successfully complete the work.

Anything else is purely padding, isn’t it?

Post-Interview Strategy

So, you didn’t get the job.

Sometimes this is a relief, of course, as it is often only when you meet the people who work for an organisation that you get the real feel of company culture.  I spend a lot of time in different forensics/edisclosure companies and although they carry out the same work as other organisations in the sector, that is often where the similarity ends.

Have you ever had that experience when you walk into a room and know that you just don’t fit in – oh...just me then!?  You know what I mean, the feeling Nick Clegg must have whenever he is invited to a gathering of politicians with convictions and policies.  Well, if you are not happy in an organisational culture then that organisation just isn’t going to make you happy and you won’t stay.

But at this interview you felt that the culture was right and the job was an incredibly exciting opportunity.  When you were told you had been unsuccessful what was your initial reaction:

• Burn down the building? 
• Machete attack on the misguided Hiring Manager? 

Understandable and we have all done both – just a little unfunny joke, of course - but long-term there are probably a few minor repercussions.

Instead, why not send the Hiring Manager an email expressing your disappointment at this result but emphasising your continuing interest in joining the Team if the opportunity arises.  Reinforce this action by sending the Manager a LinkedIn request and following them on twitter so that if a vacancy does occur in the Team you are likely to know about it!

I have seen numerous people who were initially unsuccessful at interview end up working for the company – on more than one occasion replacing the Hiring Manager!  It is all about reacting to disappointment in the way that makes ‘them’ realise that it was a mistake not to recruit you and making it easy to hire you next time. 

Essentially, this strategy is back to the basics I have mentioned in this blog so many times - make people like you and then you stand a much better chance of being offered the role.

Of course, if they have the nerve to reject you a second time it then starts getting personal,  but that never happens: does it??