Over the years I’ve participated in thousands of searches for my client’s open positions, and as a result the one thing that I am absolutely certain of is that it takes a minimum of three viable finalist candidates - meaning, those who have made it through the selection process to the final step - to yield one successful hire. Don’t fall into the trap of having to choose between your one viable candidate and the option of letting the position go unfilled, because in this situation managers tend to factor in the pain of having to start from scratch on a candidate search, and subsequently tend to discount the pain that will occur if they hire someone who’s unqualified or a bad cultural fit.
To digress for just a moment - if you find yourself iffy on your final candidate, but are worried because you have no other candidates as options - DON’T hire the iffy candidate. Trust me on this one…it’s better to go without than to create a management problem for yourself by hiring someone you know is probably not the best person for the job.
Most entrepreneurs and managers don’t have a good handle on the sheer volume of work it takes to produce three to five viable finalists for an open position. To better understand the effort involved, let’s work backwards from the end result:
- Your goal: a minimum of three viable final candidates
- It typically takes at least three candidates who have come through the ”in-person interview” stage to yield a finalist. So, to get three finalists, you need at least nine people to go through Step 3.
- It typically takes three telephone interviews to yield a candidate who’s qualified, interested, and available in your role, and whom you will invite in for a Step 3 interview. So, to get nine Step 3 interviews, you need to conduct 27 Step 2 initial/telephone interviews.
- It typically takes five resumes to find one candidate who qualifies for a telephone interview. So, to get 27 Step 2 telephone interviews, you need to review approximately 135 resumes.
Finding 135 resumes to review…that’s the problem we’re trying to solve for here. For high-level or C-level roles, the ratios for the “Step 1 to Step 2″ transition is more like 2 to 1, meaning you need 44 resumes to start with. In either case, you have your work cut out for you.
