Interviews are not all about getting the job. It is about building relationships to see if you want to work with this person/team for the long-run. You do not want to 'win' every single interview because your values may not be aligned. Working for a company with different values than you is not fun. You want great mutual understanding and trust, even if that means they screen you out or you screen them out. It's not personal. These are huge decisions for you and prospective employers. Be honest, vulnerable, concise, thoughtful, and get to know your interviewers well. These meetings should arm you to make a decisive decision should they make you an offer.

Sometimes we are too myopic trying to emulate the success of others. We look for a model proven by someone completely different than us.

Each of my successful clients interview people differently, some radically so.

I write this sitting at Coeur d’Alene Coffee, a local cafe known for friendliness. They know everyone’s name and consequently people always smile when they enter and they have a loyal contingent. Employees need the same personalized attention to feel known, to feel cared for, understood, and to feel safe.

This is not tawdry advice. Consider every toxic environment you have seen; did people feel known, understood, cared for, and safe?

Many (uninformed) people think recruiters succeed by poaching, or persuading, people to leave their jobs for another. This could not be further from the truth.

Our busy economy blesses and curses us with zero unemployment of qualified candidates. Everyone (good) has more work than they know what to do with and the challenge of finding the right team members has become the new key to delivering great solutions, in any field.

How then should you recruit in this kind of market, differently than a recession market where candidates find you? More than ever your brand, process, and effort will define success in hiring the best people.

Do you consider your hiring process as key to your competitive advantage?

If not, you are failing to compete at a fundamental level.

Companies are their people. The quality of your company and solutions is determined by your people. Your ability to acquire the best people directly impacts your customers and market stature.

A good hiring process is a rigorous and disciplined affair. Recording the interviewing team’s opinions of the candidate, derived from a consistent set of questions, is key to evaluating your interviewing prowess, or lack thereof. Immediately recording opinions, before debriefing and persuasion, is important. With objective ranking of candidates you can determine the quality of your interviewers.

We have interviewed thousands of candidates. Here is our concise advice for extracting the most value from interviews, not in order of importance.

• Don’t blindly follow an interviewing model or hiring formula. Think carefully about the culture you are perpetuating with the very beginning of the interview process and be intentional about each step. Map out your process and test its effectiveness.

• Ask for questions to three simple questions along with their application. Tailor those three questions to highlight the exceptional candidate you are looking for….

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Employee satisfaction in their work relies on three factors, per the excellent book ‘3 Signs of a Miserable Job’ by Patrick Lencioni.

1. Relevance. How do they help improve other’s lives? These people may be customers, coworkers, or their boss. People feel fulfilled when their work has an appreciable positive impact on other people’s lives. The more you can connect their efforts to positive impact, the better. Having a culture of gratitude for their work is an important first step in relevance….