Candidate Evaluation: Beyond First Impressions
It is our nature to make judgments of other people based on first impressions, which is why we are always told to “make a good first impression.” Studies show that we tend to make up our minds on other people within seconds of our first encounter. This may not be the best evaluation tool we have.
It’s not that we shouldn’t listen to what our “sixth sense” is trying to tell us about other people. I find this sense can be well-developed by people that do recruiting on a full-time basis. They develop a sense and ability to make sound judgments quickly. It’s similar to Gretzky playing on the backyard rink for hour upon hour. The game finally “clicks” and he learns to act quickly and instinctively. Also, in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, he makes a strong case for the validity of rapid cognition, the immediate conclusions drawn in the blink of an eye, often by experts in a field. We seem to sense something immediately that more often than not is a valid judgment. We do, however, need to pay attention to other inputs when assessing candidates and not let our snap judgments dominate.
A useful approach to make an unbiased assessment is to establish a list of criteria, skills and characteristics that are the most desirable for that role. This would include job specific skills and abilities as well as characteristics relating to the fit within the company and/or department. Try to really focus this list to the top 10 or even top 5, that’s the hard part.
Here’s a list of categories from which to select the specific attributes critical to success in a particular position. Identify the specific needs prior to the candidate evaluation, and then record your evaluation against each one.
It’s also useful to rank the criteria according to what’s most important for the position and weight the evaluation based on the ranking. If you break the job down to a few key activities where you can state the percentage of time spent on each of these activities, that’s a pretty good method for evaluating the tangible skills you are trying to evaluate. Oh yes, and listen to your instincts as well.