Let’s admit it (I have no problem in doing so) that we all have been charmed and fooled

by interview charmers.

You are on look out for a good candidate for your organization.

Here comes the person, with fabulous academic credentials and floors you in the

interviews.

Answers all your questions with right knowledge, shows all the enthusiasm and

commitment to the job on hand.

You are elated and your company makes an offer to the star interviewee.

The anticipation ends and on an auspicious day, your star interviewee joins.

Few days honeymooning and to your utter dis-belief, the star interviewer turns out to

be a total misfit for the job.

The person does not want to do the job for which (s)he was hired. Even (s)he may

request you to change conditions of the engagement.

Does this situation sound familiar? I at least encountered this situation and cursed

myself for being completely out-smarted by few interviewees.

This situation forces you to do 2 things, either you somehow find some job for the

person which affects your productivity, or ask the person to leave which creates a sad

situation for the selected candidate as well as you and your organization.

The root-cause of the problem is our over reliance on interviews as a reliable

indicator of a person’s suitability for a job. Unfortunately, it is not.

So what’s the way out?

In Adaptive US, we have devised few techniques which have helped us to avoid interview

charmers. For technical folks, there is NO interview.

Just a practical test which lasts for 4 hours and the person is asked to complete a

short actual programming assignment.

We have heard interesting responses from few candidates; my specs have gone for repair

and will come back once it is repaired. The candidate never returned.

Few brave ones, who said they have considerable experience in programming, sweat and

leave after a couple of hours in front of the system.

The problem in hand is simple and a person with half the experience should have made

80% progress.

This has really helped us to hire engineers who actually can deliver in a reasonable

short time.

We are yet to find suitable techniques for sales or management roles.

If you have figured out some, do share the same for benefit of all.