Hiring
16 articles · 1/2
The interview scorecard, done properly: three role-specific examples
Generic scorecards get filled in generically. These three are written for specific roles, with the criteria defined tightly enough that two interviewers would score the same candidate the same way.
How to run a structured interview loop
Structured interviewing is usually explained as asking everyone the same questions. That is the least important part of it, and doing only that changes almost nothing.
Screening questions that cut the pile in half
Two or three well-chosen questions remove most clearly unsuitable applications before a human reads anything. Most application forms ask none of them, then ask six of the wrong ones.
A job description that gets qualified applicants: six edits
Six changes that raise the qualified application rate without touching a single requirement, shown as before and after.
Debriefs that produce decisions, not opinions
The debrief is where a structured process usually collapses back into a conversation about who liked whom. Three rules prevent it.
Rejection emails: five templates by stage
Most rejections are either silence or a template so generic it reads as an insult. Five messages, one per stage, that take no longer to send.
Offer acceptance: seven practices that move the rate
A declined offer is the most expensive failure in hiring, and almost all of the causes are upstream of the offer itself.
Employee referral programmes: structure, rewards, and the maths
Referrals are usually the highest-quality channel and almost always the worst-resourced, because they arrive without an invoice to argue for them.
The intake meeting: nine things to agree before opening a role
Most slow hiring processes were slow before the role was published, because the recruiter and the hiring manager never agreed what they were looking for.
Multi-country hiring: one process across eight markets
Teams hiring across borders usually end up with either one process that fits nobody or eight processes nobody can report on. There is a third option.
High-volume hiring: 500 applicants in five days
High-volume hiring is not normal hiring with more people in it. The bottleneck moves from selection to throughput, and almost every practice has to change.
Reference checks: what to ask, and what you cannot
Most reference checks confirm employment dates and produce nothing else. Done differently they are cheap and genuinely informative — within limits that are worth knowing.
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