4 ms·

does the entire team participate in the interview process and make a hire / no hire decision as a team? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I've heard people

does the entire team participate in the interview process and make a hire / no hire decision as a team? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I've heard people at Bloomberg in London complain about this in the past; people have said to me they've found good candidates but because one person on the team said no, it's a no hire, and they ended up hiring someone whose distinguishing feature is "nobody actively disliked them as a candidate". I guess it's a good thing if nobody has an individual veto; I understand in the case above anyone on the team could individually veto.

JoshuaRowe 6y ago
I think this is generally a good thing. Teams should make decisions together, but I could see the above point as a downside of that if taken to its max. I think that decisions should be made generally as a team, but there probably should be some extra emphasis on key decision makers that are the leaders of the team to allow them to make the perceived best decision even if one or perhaps more people give a no hire. If there is also some sort of tie, then someone has to be the tie-breaker.
b3kart 6y ago
Is this equivalent to hiring-by-comittee, as practiced by FAAN[A-Z]*G?
- JoshuaRowe 6y ago
  Not necessarily. I think sometimes those committees are composed of people who never will work with a perspective employee. That isn't bad, but I think a team should have its on sub-culture and be able to make decisions for itself most of the time. I really only have experience with smaller? teams 5 - 10 people.
  - janbernhart 6y ago
    The risk with that is, that you create a lot of island and switching between teams becomes difficult. Also, bias tends to crank up if it gets personal. (you literally see people judging sense of humor of the candidates, if they know they'll work with them closely). In general I think it's best to interview not knowing if the candidate will end up in your team/
danpalmer 6y ago
I think vetos only work when everyone is being a team player with them. Sure there are going to be cases where a candidate does something particularly offensive that might warrant an actual veto, but it's almost always better if the team come to a consensus together based on everyone's input.
- JoshuaRowe 6y ago
  I agree. There really needs to be a team first sort of culture to produce the best outcome of giving individual members more say. It is probably hard to ensure that always happens, but I think if you hire people who generally want the same things and work hard amoung other things, then you'll get there most of the time.
ygjb 6y ago
I think there is value in getting feedback from the team, but ultimately it should be the hiring managers decision (modulo input from HR to make sure that people aren't introducing discriminatory practices). In a previous role we followed this, and for most hires we waited until we found a candidate that had the right skills and the right fit, however there was one prominent candidate that several folks on the team rejected. This candidate didn't interview particularly well with me personally, but had stellar technical interviews with two people on the team, and came with impeccable references from two folks in the team she would be working with. Because of that I circled back with the folks who rejected her, and in chatting with them, discovered they felt she wasn't a good fit for the team, but would be able to do the work. I spoke to my HR folks, and my own manager, and we agreed to overrule the team and hire her. Straight up, best decision on hiring I have ever made.
x0x0 6y ago
The person who owns the results and has to clean up bad outcomes (ie fire someone) needs to have autonomy to make those choices. He or she would be silly to not take the team's thoughts into account: why have someone on an interview loop if you aren't going to listen to the results. But nonetheless, the manager owns the outcome and so owns the hire choice.
sethammons 6y ago
It is good when someone from the team is in the interview loop. Everyone? We’ve accomplished this in the past with group lunches. It is a pain to organize in larger companies. I agree, it is the hiring manager who should have the final say. We have one caveat: we have a “bar raiser” interviewer who is not on the team who ensures we are not just filling seats.

JoshuaRowe 6y ago

I think this is generally a good thing. Teams should make decisions together, but I could see the above point as a downside of that if taken to its max. I think that decisions should be made generally as a team, but there probably should be some extra emphasis on key decision makers that are the leaders of the team to allow them to make the perceived best decision even if one or perhaps more people give a no hire. If there is also some sort of tie, then someone has to be the tie-breaker.

b3kart 6y ago

Is this equivalent to hiring-by-comittee, as practiced by FAAN[A-Z]*G?

JoshuaRowe 6y ago
Not necessarily. I think sometimes those committees are composed of people who never will work with a perspective employee. That isn't bad, but I think a team should have its on sub-culture and be able to make decisions for itself most of the time. I really only have experience with smaller? teams 5 - 10 people.
- janbernhart 6y ago
  The risk with that is, that you create a lot of island and switching between teams becomes difficult. Also, bias tends to crank up if it gets personal. (you literally see people judging sense of humor of the candidates, if they know they'll work with them closely). In general I think it's best to interview not knowing if the candidate will end up in your team/

danpalmer 6y ago

I think vetos only work when everyone is being a team player with them. Sure there are going to be cases where a candidate does something particularly offensive that might warrant an actual veto, but it's almost always better if the team come to a consensus together based on everyone's input.

JoshuaRowe 6y ago
I agree. There really needs to be a team first sort of culture to produce the best outcome of giving individual members more say. It is probably hard to ensure that always happens, but I think if you hire people who generally want the same things and work hard amoung other things, then you'll get there most of the time.

ygjb 6y ago

I think there is value in getting feedback from the team, but ultimately it should be the hiring managers decision (modulo input from HR to make sure that people aren't introducing discriminatory practices). In a previous role we followed this, and for most hires we waited until we found a candidate that had the right skills and the right fit, however there was one prominent candidate that several folks on the team rejected. This candidate didn't interview particularly well with me personally, but had stellar technical interviews with two people on the team, and came with impeccable references from two folks in the team she would be working with. Because of that I circled back with the folks who rejected her, and in chatting with them, discovered they felt she wasn't a good fit for the team, but would be able to do the work. I spoke to my HR folks, and my own manager, and we agreed to overrule the team and hire her. Straight up, best decision on hiring I have ever made.

x0x0 6y ago

The person who owns the results and has to clean up bad outcomes (ie fire someone) needs to have autonomy to make those choices. He or she would be silly to not take the team's thoughts into account: why have someone on an interview loop if you aren't going to listen to the results. But nonetheless, the manager owns the outcome and so owns the hire choice.

sethammons 6y ago

It is good when someone from the team is in the interview loop. Everyone? We’ve accomplished this in the past with group lunches. It is a pain to organize in larger companies. I agree, it is the hiring manager who should have the final say. We have one caveat: we have a “bar raiser” interviewer who is not on the team who ensures we are not just filling seats.