Job interview technique question

[Voyager]

@Learjeff

There’s a very easy way to do this, but it involves committing for a year to each candidate.

Hire them through a head-hunter as a contractor. If they work out, hire them at the end of the first year (and paying a fee according to the agreement with the headhunter shop). If they don’t, don’t renew the contract.

It’s a pretty good way of finding very productive employees, but it doesn’t come for free. It works best with a shop with a fair number of contractors on an ongoing basis. The easiest way to do that is during growth. Do all the growth by adding contractors, and slowly accumulate regular employees from the pool of contractors.

I wonder what the benefits are like for the contractors. Maybe get health insurance, I bet don’t get 401K matching. Plus this only works for a worker surplus condition. If anyone offered a contractor gig to someone in Silicon Valley today they’d get their offer shoved back in a picosecond.

One of the best things for a small company is a temporary business contraction, causing serious layoffs. It’s an easy way for the company to get rid of a large portion of the employees without much fear of repercussions, and to select the least productive ones to let go. (Otherwise, it’s rather difficult to let people go just because they’re not particularly productive.)

I’ve been through several of these phases in small companies. After the purge, the company is always remarkably productive. Of course, it’s rarely a good thing in itself to be forced into a contraction. If I were in a small company again, and had any say, I’d avoid a lot of this by using lots of contractors, and hiring the best of them.

What I’ve mostly seen is that projects get shut down and all except the very best within them get laid off. You can’t take the lower third off a project in process and shuffle in some new people without a major disruption to the project. Layoffs are a great way to get rid of the bottom 10%, but there often isn’t a lot of room between people in the middle 70%. This comes from my experience of a decade worth of ranking in performance reviews.

Productivity does increase because you got fewer people doing almost the same work, plus they may be scared. Too much of it and the best people start walking.

BTW, 30 years ago someone who was laid off had a blot on their record - not true today. Most people being interviewed and doing the interviewing have been laid off at least once, so there is a lot more empathy.

[runningdude]

@velomont

…

Has anyone out there participated in this type of process and, if so, how was it structured? I can’t seem to find anything useful about it on the web. I mentioned it to my manager and he thinks that it’s a good idea but he doesn’t have any idea of how it’s actually done either. I don’t want to set up a directionless, one hour conversation between three people and an outsider so I would appreciate any insight or advice as to how this is done professionally and effectively.

Thanks

I went to an interview once, and the owner gave me a tour of the office, and introduced me to a few key people. I didn’t get the job, but that is one way to spend part of an hour.