Lots of Hiring Misfires? Consider an ‘Extended Interview’

Tam Harbert -- Expert Business Source, 1/29/2007 6:36:00 AM

Every business owner has at least one horror story about a bad hire, and Kathy Gornik, co-founder and president of Thiel Audio Products Co., is no exception. Gornik, however, took an unusual step to avoid future hiring mistakes, implementing what she calls a “paid extended interview” – a type of on-the-job tryout for top candidates.

Gornik was motivated to revisit her hiring practices after investing more than $100,000 to relocate, train and, ultimately, sever a new sales executive after only three months on the job. “He was less knowledgeable than he represented himself as being,” says Gornik. “That’s not necessarily a problem because we are open to on-the-job training, but he showed no motivation or interest in learning what was necessary.”

Thiel, a maker of high-performance speakers based in Lexington, Ky., relies on highly skilled – and often, highly compensated – employees to design, develop and build the company’s sophisticated audio products. Hiring the right person is critical because of the small staff (30 employees) and the investment required to train them properly. “We might spend six to 12 months training them, and if they quit after a year it’s a net loss for us,” says Gornik.

Enter the “paid extended interview.” After Gornik and key staff members interview applicants and decide on the top candidate, she brings the candidate in to work for a week. That way, she and colleagues experience how the person actually performs. “A person cannot maintain the interview posture over a week,” she explains.

The approach has prevented some ill-advised hires. One candidate for a customer service position seemed well qualified, offering a long record in customer service and a stable employment history. But the extended interview revealed a problem that did not surface in preliminary meetings. “By the third day, one of our staff members was practically in tears,” reporting that the candidate seemed uninterested in the customers and showed no passion for the job, says Gornik. “[The staff member] thought he was a psychological black hole.” He was not hired.

Scheduling an extended interview can, of course, be problematic if the candidate is currently employed. Motivated candidates have been willing to take vacation days in order to do the tryout with Thiel, says Gornik, adding that some candidates also like the opportunity to try the job on for size before committing to it.

For long-distance candidates, Gornik’s interview tryouts can be even lengthier – up to several weeks. In fact, the candidate she brought in to replace her short-lived sales executive worked 90 days before she made the job offer permanent and told him it was safe to put his house on the market.

Gornik’s early horror story ended up having a silver lining. She agreed to let the second candidate talk to the departed sales exec about why the job didn’t work out for him. “The guy agreed that he wasn’t the right guy for the job,” she says, “and told the candidate that we were a company with the highest integrity.”

Tam Harbert is a freelance writer based in Rockville, Md.

Additional resources:

The Safe Hiring Manual: A guide for “keeping criminals, terrorists and imposters out of your workplace” from Employment Screening Resources, a company that specializes in background investigations.

Hiring and Recruitment: A list of articles and other resources from Yahoo! Small Business.