Show Me the Incentive And I'll Show You...

"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the result," is among my favorite Charlie Munger quotes.

How does this apply to interviewing? Unlike other parts of the talent pipeline, you often have people performing interviewing in a more-or-less "volunteer" capacity. They aren't an HR professional who is in charge of sourcing. They aren't the Hiring Manager who will be the candidate's boss. Interviewers therefore lack the financial and emotional incentives to truly give a world-class effort. 

If you doubt this, think of all of the horrific (and often darkly humorous) stories you've heard about bad interviewers. You've surely experienced some less-than-great behavior yourself as a candidate in your professional career. Sometimes the interviewer doesn't know any better. But often, they just don't care.

This is a big problem. As a quick reminder, your interviewing team is directly responsible for the following parts of your talent strategy:

1. They are your data gatherers. The best data come from interviews, and if you have interviewers who aren't properly incentivized (and trained), you won't get the data you need to make accurate hiring decisions.
2. They are your selling agents. Both in terms of their rapport with the candidate as well as the quality of their answers to the candidate, your interviewers can be the make-or-break difference in the emotional connection that a candidate does—or does not—form with your company. 
3. They are your brand ambassadors, for better or worse. Go on Glassdoor and read the horror stories that people write about. One bad experience with an interviewer can hurt your brand equity. And a great interview experience can have someone wanting to refer their network to come work here.

So how do we ensure we have trained and incentivized interviewers? How can we better celebrate and elevate their accomplishments? Here are some areas to focus on:

1. Make being an interviewer a "high status" position at your company. It should be celebrated, and it shouldn't be something that everyone just casually does. 
2. Relatedly, install a formal training and shadowing process to certify people as interviewers.
3. Recognize people regularly, in candidate roundtable discussions, and otherwise, for the positive contributions they are making as interviewers.
4. Keep interviewers in the loop as you make hire / no hire decisions on candidates. They put in time, and they want to know what happened with these people and why!
5. Consider if you can align other incentives—financially or culturally—to reward people for the time and effort that they are putting into interviewing. This is easier when someone owns equity in the company as they see the clear connection between their efforts building the company and long-term value. Additionally, consider making this part of someone's year end evaluations.

Ultimately, make sure that you "walk the walk" on having the right incentives, expectations, and support for your interviewing team to help realize a reality where interviewing is a skilled, prestigious contribution to building the future of your company. Don't forget to celebrate and applaud this important business function. Generally people are doing this to "pitch in" and it goes a long way to acknowledge the contributions of those that are doing so in a first-class way.