Even though your hard work and skill have boosted you to be a top manager in medical or technological device manufacturing, when it comes to recruiting new talent for your department or organization, you are still on your own. Smaller companies often do not have a human resources department to assist in the hiring process, placing most or all of the responsibility for recruiting, reviewing, and interviewing potential candidates squarely on your shoulders, carefully balanced on top of your many other responsibilities.
You need to find a qualified applicant who believes in your company's vision, and also has the skills and experiences necessary to get safe, high quality products to market. You are not just hiring a project manager or a QC/QA director, but you are selecting an individual who can be trusted to fully understand regulations and navigate the approval system, knowing when and how to submit a product for 501k or Premarket Approval, among other regulations. Making the wrong hiring decision can be detrimental to your company and your own credibility. In 2007, after a spike in trial violations discovered by the FDA, Michael Maracarelli, director of the bioresearch monitoring division of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, expressed that during the PMA process "some individuals and some companies, whatever the motivation is - money, lack of time, sloppiness, lack of supervision - are going to skew the data a little bit."
Searching for ethical, talented, highly-skilled individuals to fill high-level positions is practically a full-time job, but while searching for the perfect candidate, you still must juggle your other assignments and responsibilities, especially at a smaller company or start-up. While large organizations have the luxury of an internal HR department to pre-screen potential candidates, most mid-size or small companies have limited resources and need the ingenuity of hiring managers or executives to screen, interview, and select candidates. Interviews take significant time, and when you have many qualified applicants or multiple positions to fill, it seems like the only way to get through the rush is to give up lunch, weekends at home, and even daily bathroom breaks at the office. However, a streamlined interview process can greatly reduce the stress on your valuable and limited time, and may even get you home in time to catch the evening news.
The secret is to strategically plan and execute your interviews, taking time to prepare for an interview in order to shorten and focus the time spent with candidates. Putting in the effort to prepare an effective interview will allow you to get the most valuable information from the candidate in the least amount of time, while still making the candidate feel important and excited about the opportunity available at your company.
Top 9 Strategies for Conducting Effective Executive Interviews
1. Know What You Want -
Create a ranked wish list of experiences/skills, both technical and those related to organizational structure and corporate culture. Clearly mark which abilities are non-negotiable requirements for the job versus those which are highly desired. When appropriate, speak with the individual currently in the position and employees who work with the incumbent, including peers, subordinates, and superiors. Knowing exactly what the company needs will let you tailor the search and reduce the number of interviews you will actually need to conduct.
2. Be Structured, Consistent, and Well Rehearsed -
Use a system for quantifying and analyzing interview information, and know your questions ahead of time. Designing an interview outline with the most important questions at the front of the interview and appropriate follow-up questions listed below each main topic will streamline the process and save you time. Within 15 minutes, you should be able to know if the candidate meets the requirements for technical expertise and ability to work within the organizational structure/culture. If the candidate doesn't make the cut, then there is no reason to go into more detailed interview questions. If you need an executive that is an expert at navigating the FDA approval process, but the interviewee can't convey a situation in which he or she was seeking PMA for a device, then why waste any more time chatting?
3. Remember that Actions Speak Louder than Words -
Asking behavior based interview questions allows you to get a feel for the past experiences of your candidate, at the same time that you are learning about how he or she handles situations and leads others. Ask about overcoming obstacles in obtaining a CE mark for a product, or how the candidate dealt with a difficult team member in the past. Obviously these questions will need to be tailored specifically to the job, and perhaps even the individual applicants, but the time spent in crafting these questions before hand will save time at the interview table.
4. Do Your Reading -
Before entering any interview, face to face or over the phone, be familiar with the candidate's experiences. Make notes in the margins of his or her resume or attach your thoughts on a post-it. By writing your thoughts ahead of time, you won't have to rely on your memory to tailor follow-up questions or find explanations for omissions or apparent discrepancies. For example, if Jane Doe has been named to multiple patents and helped to bring some of those products to market at her last MDM R&D firm, then you can tie those experiences to questions that can assess her teamwork philosophies and also her aptitude for navigating the product approval process.
This is also a time to look for red-flags. It is worth your time to find out sooner, rather than later, if your otherwise talented candidate has personality or ethical problems that could prove toxic to your company. Having Ms. Doe explain why she has worked for three companies in the last seven years may help you assess if her career decisions have been prudent and based on her intrinsic motivation to grow and succeed, or if she has a hard time working with other people and often needs to move somewhere new. Spending fifteen minutes carefully and thoughtfully reviewing an application before the interview will let you tailor questions to an individual, and may save you time in the long run.
5. Choose the Best Setting -
While you certainly don't need a corporate feng shui expert to design your interview space, selecting a room with bright, comfortable lighting will keep everyone more alert and make the interview more productive. Also, setting up the interview area so that you can see a clock without turning your head away from the interviewee will allow you to budget time during the process without appearing to be bored. Consider placing a clock on the wall directly behind the interview chair. Your interviewee will have no idea that you are keeping track of time, but you will be secure in the knowledge that you will conduct a quality interview and not lose your entire afternoon in the process.
6. Set the Mood and the Tone -
Take about two minutes to discuss non-work related topics and make the situation more comfortable. After establishing the friendly tone, you can take control of the meeting by transitioning to work topics. Explain what your job is and what your role is within the interviewing process, and then discuss a basic overview of the position. This will put your interview subject at ease, express how professional and experienced you are in interviewing, and set the tone for a productive and candid interview.
7. Be Upfront and Honest-
If there are any reasons that a candidate might want to reject the job, its in your best interest to tell them upfront. If the salary is non-negotiable, or the position requires a contract commitment, significant traveling, or spending time on the production floor, the candidate should know that as soon as possible. It is better for them to walk away from the interview than for both of you to waste your time.
8. Consider the Walk and Talk -
If the interview involves a tour of the facility or corporate campus, consider structuring the time so that certain questions can be asked while moving through the facility. Because of the semi-public nature of this portion of an interview, steer clear of any questions that might bring up information that a candidate would not want to share with the whole world, such as your candidate's experience with firing employees or working with exceptionally difficult peers.
9. Sell the Opportunity and Thank the Candidate -
If at the end of your interview, the candidate is not excited about the position or does not have a positive feeling about working for your company, you have wasted your time for no reason. Remember to talk about how interesting, exciting, and challenging the opportunity is and genuinely thank the candidate for taking time to speak with you. Open the floor for any of his or her questions about the company and answer them fully. When your interviewee walks out of the building, he or she should feel positive about the interview and the prospect of potentially working for your company.
Being prepared to interview qualified candidates, expressing the most important qualifications first, and budgeting your time throughout the interview will make you more relaxed about meeting all of your responsibilities and finding the right person for the job.