From a recruiter’s POV, the interviewing process aims to answer two main questions:

1. Would this person fit with our company’s culture and/or add to it? (i.e., do we like this person?)This is know at the Airport Test: if you were snowed in with this person in Newark/O’Hare/Heathrow for 12 hours, would you be able to tolerate them? It is a very subjective question and mainly based on gut feeling. Sometimes, a recruiter and a candidate hit it off right away and other times they just don’t get along. It’s important to get the opinion of several people who will actually work with this candidate (i.e. his future team) and not simply delegate this step to HR like many companies do.
2. Can this person do the job we are hiring them for?
   
   This is a difficult question to answer if the candidate didn’t previously hold a very similar position. It’s a challenge to ask questions or make the candidates perform tasks that will require them to use the skills required for the real job. Most Consulting firms use case studies, software developers ask technical questions or give coding brain teasers and some Law firms ask candidates to give a legal opinion on a real (but disguised) case.Will Price has a very interesting piece where he briefly describes the last step in the hiring process that led him to join his current VC firm:

   The last step in the hiring process, however, proved to be the most challenging and most rewarding. After having met all the partners, I received a call saying that things were looking good. There was one more step, however, that they wanted to me to pass. I remember thinking, okay…what now?

   The request…come in two days from now and present your thoughts on the future of the software industry to the full partnership. The guidance…don’t mess it up as things were looking good.

   When I was hiring an Account Manager at Cesium about 2.5 years ago I came across a resume that I found really intriguing although the candidate had no directly relevant experience. We were looking for someone to manage relationships with existing dealer accounts, grow their business and acquire new accounts. The position required good technical and industry knowledge and this candidate had none of these but something about his resume still made me bring him in for an interview. He passed the first question with flying colours. I really liked this guy and felt like he would be a great addition to our team. However, he didn’t know anything about mobile or VOIP technology. He was our 2nd salesperson and we had no training program in place. We also thought that we didn’t have the bandwidth to form people from scratch. Note to self: in my next company, I will invest very heavily in training - it’s not just a cliche that people are the most valuable asset.A few minutes after he left our office, I emailed him something along the lines of:

   I really enjoyed our chat and I like you but you need to prove that you can get comfortable with our business quickly and without much training. Please read everything you can find about the industry and latest trends. Come by the office in two days and present your findings to me and my partners.

   He agreed and put together a presentation that impressed us given the short time he had. We hired him on the spot and we never regretted our decision. He’s still with the company and doing a great job as far as I know.

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