Try collaboration in your hiring process

In today’s business world we work in cross-functional, matrix teams or organizations. In other words, to achieve individual targets, you have to collaborate with other colleagues in different functions.

Is your hiring approach also cross-functional? Does your hiring process possess cross-functional interviews? Imagine what cross-functional interviews could add to the quality of your hiring process.  

Let me first describe what collaboration (the cross-functional interview) in hiring process means ; It is a selective interview or assessment of any candidate, done by the most important stakeholders (cross functional) that frequently collaborate with the role you are hiring. These stakeholders may add great value to the decision-making quality of your hiring.

However, It is a bit tricky, there are some lessons learned that I would like to share…

1. It may sound unnecessary or time-taking to some recruiters and hiring managers, however, the advantages shine out when you focus on the outcome. In most hiring processes the hiring manager of the role makes the decision with the approach of taking a very limited risk or no risk. Lesser the risk you would take, longer the time to close the role, because you always want to hire the super-hero thus you more likely make interviews over interviews to find that superman or batman, and also your stakeholders could seek the same super-hero. To avoid the spinning, my suggestion is,  define the decision criteria with them and the recruiter, and try to participate in the cross-functional interviews. After some interviews, you will understand your stakeholders better and they will do the same, which means calibration.
2. Before each hiring process, determine your stakeholders that will have the interviews and ask them to make the interviews, because this will take their time, time is invaluable. You should also engage them why it is important to have their view of the candidate. Always show your gratitude for taking their time.
3. Try not to mention your own view of the candidate to the stakeholders so that they won’t be influenced.
4. Try to anticipate any conflicts that could arise from your stakeholders because of different ways of doing business.  Involving at least 2 stakeholders to have different views could help you isolate and understand the conflicts. Do not afraid of the conflicts, they are helpful, just focus on solid reasons that will lead you to take a decision, and tell your stakeholders that you are having their feedback. Remember, they are not the approver, you are the hiring manager, the decision maker.
5. Try to involve cross-functional interviews for the roles that really use most of their time for interacting (meeting, influencing, enabling, supporting) with other functions. Some example roles are Hr Business Partners, Hr Talent Managers, Recruiters, Supply Chain Executives, Finance Controllers, Projects Managers, Business Analysts, all Senior Level Managers, Leaders
6. To be simple and fast I strongly suggest panel interview technique for cross-functional interviews so your candidate could be assessed by your stakeholders at the same time. (To make your candidate comfortable, mention to your candidate that he/she will have such a panel interview)

Hope this post is helpful.

for LinkedIn version : Try collaboration in your hiring process