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Speed Dating Plus American Idol Equals a Brilliant Hiring Technique

This article is more than 10 years old.

For years as a CEO, I absolutely hated the interviewing process for hiring. I felt that the entire hiring technique was inherently flawed. We would post a job description and candidates would respond with a resume that was tailored to fit the position we had described. When the candidate came in for their interview we could often quickly sense a bad fit within the first few minutes, only to then feel obligated to continue the interview for the next thirty minutes out of courtesy and a desire not to be rude. When a candidate came in for the interview and passed that initial first impression, we found they often had a tendency to give the answers they thought we wanted to hear, rather than being able to engage in a genuine interaction about their strengths. The entire process simply felt flawed. 

As the number of openings in the company multiplied, we realized that it was time for us to start thinking outside the box regarding hiring. A brainstorming session led to what could possibly be considered a stroke of genius: What if we did “speed interviewing” – similar to “speed dating” – but without the need to buy anyone dinner? 

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if we had candidates come in and do a two- or three-minute pitch about themselves? Realizing that we would need more than one executive to get a gut check on the candidate, we decided to structure our speed interviewing in the fashion of American Idol, with a panel of executives sitting on one side of the table and the candidate standing on the other, giving us their pitch. We didn’t prep the candidate on what they should say during their limited time, other than to suggest they express who they are and why they would be a good addition to our team.

Knowing that three minutes with someone wouldn’t give us everything we needed to make an informed decision, we also set up a system that allowed us to do our homework on each candidate prior to his or her speed interview. To facilitate this, we used the Wonderlic online testing system, in which candidates would go and upload their resume, take an IQ test, and take a comprehensive personality profile evaluation prior to their interview. The executives would then be given copies of the 38-page personality analysis and the test scores, along with a resume to review prior to each speed interviewing session. With these documents in hand, we were armed and ready to listen to their pitch. At that point we took the advice given by Steve Jobs of Apple Computers and we went with our gut.

Steve Jobs (Photo credit: acaben)

“You can't know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person?”  - Steve Jobs

The next thing we realized was that we needed to stop advertising specific job positions and start advertising for anyone with talent that fit the value profile of the type of employees we would hire; things like integrity, hard-working, a willingness to go the extra mile, etc. We learned that by posting specific positions, we were sometimes discouraging people who didn’t feel they were the exact fit from applying while promoting a profile that candidates would tailor their skills to in order to appear to be the perfect fit. We changed our approach entirely and went to the method of asking people to apply to the company in general, but allow us to determine the position their talents were best suited for.  The results we saw by taking down the walls of the defined positions were phenomenal, and the talented individuals who ended up applying, regardless of their backgrounds, led us to hiring some amazing people who would have otherwise never set foot in an interview. 

For instance, we had a welder who ended up becoming a top account manager; a sprinkler installer who excelled as an IT tech; a mink farmer who thrived in sales; and people with finance and accounting backgrounds who were some of our best operations supervisors. The list goes on. Each of these individuals thrived in their positions, yet none of them came in anticipating that those areas were the right fit for their natural talents. It was incredible to see how successful the company became as it stopped targeting positions and started targeting talented people with values. 

Over the last few years we implemented our approach, and as necessitated by our tremendous growth as a company, we held literally thousands of speed interviews.  As we became better at recognizing talent immediately, we were even able to shorten the initial interview from three minutes down to sixty seconds. We would hold hundreds of interviews each week and we hired literally hundreds of great people for every level of position in the company using this method. The time we invested in interviewing was incredibly small for the number of positions we were able to fill.  The level of talent identified through this process was outstanding, putting to shame previous methods we had tried. Not to mention the fact that the retention rate of these new hires was equally fantastic.

I realize that our technique is completely out-of-the-box and highly unusual, but I could not be more sincere when I say it was the most successful technique for hiring I have ever witnessed in all my years as a CEO (which are more years and wrinkles than I care to admit). Perhaps it was the fact that we tore down stereotypes of who should apply and for what position; or perhaps it was the comprehensive Wonderlic testing we performed in advance. Maybe giving candidates only a few minutes to talk brought out a more authentic view of each candidate’s personality; or maybe it was the fact that seeing so many people each week for interviews the executive team grew more trusting of their gut instincts on who to hire. I can’t pinpoint exactly what aspect of this approach led to our tremendous success in hiring the best talent; I can only tell you that it did.

~Amy (for my daily blogs go to www.amyreesanderson.com/blog)