This month I’m going to show you how interview “styles” can affect your success when you are a manager in the hiring mode. While there are many other styles that aren’t mentioned here, note the impact that each of these has on the candidate involved in the process; it might be possible to help your colleagues modify their natural tendencies a bit to improve your outcome.

The ad responses are coming in for your open position, and Human Resources has lined up the top prospects for the ‘first pass” interview. You’ve got your sights set on a couple of interesting looking people, whose experience appears to match what you’re looking for. But you’ll need a few colleagues to join you in the process and provide their feedback. Your decision carries a lot of weight because you’re the hiring manager, but those other interview attendees must be more than an afterthought, because they will have a very direct effect on your recruitment process.

It’s when you assemble an internal team of interviewers that you realize just how important it is to get that mix right.

Criteria for a selection panel
Every company has a different approach to this. For one, it might be a very formal interview committee where the hiring manager takes the reins, ensuring that each of the selected members knows their role and the formal responsibilities assigned to them. In another, the hiring manager brings in three or four workmates to share in the interview process and get additional feedback. Regardless of how formal or informal the process is at your company, there will be some common elements to what you’re looking for when you bring together an interview team:

1. They must know the role: Each person participating in the interview must know enough about the open position to be able to answer candidate questions and to clearly see the fit between that person and the job. Often the best colleague is someone who will be working with the new hire in the future, as they’ll have something at stake.
2. They understand your selection criteria: You’ll share your key hiring requirements with the team so that they can bring appropriate questions to the table. Sometimes bringing a person onto your committee from another department can provide a different viewpoint—a possible advantage—but you must ensure they know enough about your need to uncover your half-dozen criteria.
3. They must be cooperative and flexible: If someone isn’t truly interested in being a part of the process, don’t force it. You’ll need someone who can commit the time and be flexible with their calendar in order to fit this additional responsibility into their day. They should want to participate.
4. They need to represent the company, and your department, positively: Not every team member needs to be a rah-rah company zealot, but the best interviewer is generally happy in his or her job. You’re looking for colleagues who can offer a positive view about the company culture, your department, and you as the prospective boss.

Interviewing styles and their impact
I’ve been watching (or participating in) interview teams for decades now. I’ve seen great interview committees that were a wonderful resource for their organizations, but I’ve also seen regrettable situations where good people and good companies fail to come together because of the wrong participant on the interview roster. When you select a team of interviewers, you’ll be choosing people with wildly different views of what an interview should look like. Here are some of the interviewing styles that I’ve made note of over the years, and a description of their strengths or weaknesses:

The “Fluff” Interviewer
The Fluff Interviewer is the equivalent of the “easy A” teacher from high school, who puts the candidate into a complete stupor by the very lack of anything substantial. This can be dangerous to the process as the following interviews may be much more intense—the rude shock of going between a fluff interview and a seriously probing interview can cause even the best candidate to stumble.

Fluff interviewers will often disregard your instructions about the interview process, believing that all they must do is to show up that morning and read over the candidate’s CV with them, asking about items they see on the paperwork. Questions like, “Oh, I see you went to UC Berkeley. Tell me about that…” do little to generate meaningful data to aid your hiring decision. When providing feedback later, they’ll comment on the person’s communication style or give you a thumbs up or thumbs down, much of it based on their self-valued but strictly personal opinion.

The Salesman
There are certain interviewers who show up with the idea that it is their job to sell the company and land the candidate. Sure, this is a tricky hiring market because talent is sometimes few and far between, so everyone does need to be thinking about bringing these recruits to the table for the employer. But the salesman type goes a step too far, coming across like they’re wearing a blazer and patent leather shoes at Joe’s Used Car Lot.

The nice part about the salesman style of interviewing is that they are generally willing to listen to your advice and counsel with regards to questions to ask. They can be friendly additions to an interview team, the kind of people who are just naturally effusive and fun to be around, so if you can get them to tone it down significantly, they are worth bringing on board. My suggestion is that you provide a salesman-type interviewer with your list of questions that you’d like him or her to go over with the candidate. They want to be helpful and will generally adapt.

The Grouch
What can I say about the Grouch interviewing style, except that the name says it all? This person may not be happy they have been added to the interview team. They may be having a bad day or a bad week, and they let it show with their interviewing style. All good interviews begin with a smile and a genuinely friendly welcome, and this interviewer bypasses that standard process and begins the day with a frown.

Sadly, I’ve seen more than one great company’s hiring process destroyed by this problem. When you bring on an interview committee team member, ensure that you’ve put people in who actually like their jobs and who have a high regard for the company (and your department). The grouch interviewer may ask some very good questions and bring back terrific detail that can aid your hiring decision. But that may not matter if you can’t recruit the people that he meets. His interviews signal that not all is not well at the company, and that they’d be working with people like this grouch on a daily basis.

There’s not much course-correction you can deliver to the grouch interviewer. They’re stuck in that mode and you’re not going to change them. Avoid at all costs!

The Inquisitor
The inquisitor is the interviewer who takes their role to the extreme. She believes that it’s her job to lay out a series of tough questions for the candidate that will accurately reflect the strengths and weaknesses of that person’s fit. While that is essentially correct, the inquisitor does not make the process easy or fun for the candidate. Using little eye contact and focusing on typing up responses while the candidate is responding, the inquisitor moves rapid-fire from one tough question to the next. Her process is totally exhausting to the candidate, who generally leaves that interview wringing wet, greatly agitated and in need of a break.

There’s a reason to include this person in your interview mix, if you can get her to tone down the inquisition a bit and focus more on making the candidate feel at ease. People with this interviewing style are generally good thinkers and committed to helping you. They’ll come up with an outstanding series of questions, but you’ll want to cut that list down by a third or more so that he or she can spend a bit more time making the candidate feel at ease.

The Right Style of Interview?
Each of these interviewing styles, with the exception of The Grouch, brings something of value to the table. The Fluff interview reminds us that the candidate needs a softball now and again, as it’s just too exhausting to be fielding those toughies rapid fire. The Salesman reminds us that yes, we do need to sell a bit with the best candidates. They are being pulled in a lot of directions, and it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of time dedicated to why yours is a great place to work.

Finally, add a bit of that Inquisitor’s focus on probing questions. Interviews won’t suffer due to a bit of tension and some tough questions, provided they are balanced with the occasional softball and some time to sit back and be “sold” on your job!

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David G. Jensen
Contributing Editor
Dave Jensen is CEO and Founder of CTI Executive Search. He can be reached at (928) 274-2266 or via davejensen@careertrax.com; www.careertrax.com.