#Interview process

Hire based on shared core values

Besides the six to eight functional skills interviews each Airbnb candidate goes through, candidates undergo two Core Values Interviews. These interviews are conducted by employees not in the candidate's discipline, which removes any hiring bias. This is helpful as core values interviewers have veto power on all candidates, regardless of their skill level or whether they are applying to be an intern, an executive, or on the Board of Directors.

During these interviews, time is spent understanding a candidate's motivation to join Airbnb and how their life experiences reflect the company's values. For example, while Airbnb does not require candidates to have been a Host, they will look to see if they embody the 'Be a Host' value by asking questions like, "How do you welcome people into your house," or by noticing how candidates clean up after themselves at the end of the interview.

While it sometimes takes longer than six months to find a suitable candidate for a lead position, CEO Brian Chesky believes it is crucial to pay this short-term price if you believe in the long-term gain.

Follow this 5-step hiring process

The Apple Store hiring process can last more than one month and has a rigorous interview process where everything is graded. Quick tip: Always smile and always be friendly.

Step One: Weed out the wallflowers
In a group setting with the candidates, hiring managers, and employees all in a large room, start asking questions. The questions and their answers are not as important as in "seeing who speaks up, how well they project, and how confident they are in front of others."

Step Two: Find team players
Break up into smaller groups of about four to five people. Present candidates with a customer service situation and see how they respond. Again, the response is not as important as how they arrive at a solution. Keep the people who ask for help and interact well with the group. Get rid of the know-it-alls.

Step Three: Find the fearless, find the fans
Give each candidate five minutes to create an “About Me” page using Page. Not only do you find the true Apple enthusiasts but you also identify the fearless applicants who speak up because they don't know what they're doing. Keep both types. Get rid of the arrogant ones who try to cover up their insecurities.

Step Four: Determine who excels at service
Now put each candidate in front of a panel of managers, trainers, and sales employees. Continue the situational style questioning while asking some technical questions. While some technical knowledge is required, the goal is to determine who is most committed to providing The Ritz-Carlton level customer service.

Step Five: Choose the passionate ones
Confirm that you have the most passionate and fearless candidates that could have gone toe-to-toe with Steve Jobs. Some questions include 'What are you passionate about in life?' (Jobs' favorite) and 'Are you a nice person?' These not only reveal the character of candidates but force them to go home and really think about their fit for the position.

Select for character, competency, and chemistry

The wrong person working just ten hours a week can break down a culture and turn away customers for good. Chick-fil-A takes their time to find candidates by judging them on three tenets.

1. Character
   Would you want your children working for this person? Find out by asking behavioral-based questions. These questions should be focused around your core values and require candidates to provide specific examples or stories from their past experiences.
   See how to determine the right character.
2. Competency
   Does this person have the potential to be a leader and help the company grow? Skill set is not as important as the candidate's ability and desire to learn. Chick-fil-A has candidates shadow employees for a day and then evaluate them on whether they asked good questions or any at all.
   See how to measure competency.
3. Chemistry
   Is this someone you would want to socialize with outside of work? Candidates are on their best behavior during interviews, so test them to see how they do in more relaxed social settings. Chick-fil-A includes candidates in team meetings, takes them to team dinners, and also takes them to ball games.
   See how to measure chemistry.

Try to get the candidate to not take the job

Dee Ann Turner, former vice president of talent at Chick-fil-A, is completely transparent with candidates when it comes to telling them the good, and also the bad, about the company and its culture. As Chick-fil-A sees it, if a candidate can be talked out of the job in the interview, it's much better to know then rather than to know after you have invested in their training and development.

Thoroughly check references

Just verifying employment history is not enough. At Chick-fil-A a reference interview can easily take up to 45 minutes. They ask the reference for specific behavioral examples and look to verify the candidate's answers during the interview process.

As Dee Ann Turner, former vice president of talent, wrote: "More of my hiring decisions have been based on references than any other part of the process."

Limit the number of interviews, and keep them short

Google believes that if you research a candidate thoroughly and ask the right questions, there is no need to have an interview last longer than 30 minutes. A shorter interview limits the time for small talk, removes meaningless questions, and "forces people, including (especially!) you, into a substantive discussion."

While candidates can interview several times during the recruitment process, Google put a limit on the number of interviews for each candidate. After analyzing the data, Google discovered that after one interview, hiring staff were ready to make a decision about 75% of the time. By interview four, the confidence to make a decision rose to 85%. After that, the ability to make a decision plateaued. Google then rounded the number up, limiting the number of interviews to five—a nice prime number.

Hire by committee

Managers at Google can say 'no' to any candidate, but if they find someone that they want to hire, they need the candidate to be approved by a committee first. This is to offset any over eagerness the hiring manager may have to just fill the position with a warm body, rather than find the right person for the role and the company's culture.

The committee is made up of five people from a variety of levels and departments. Together they review a 'candidate packet.' This 50+ page document is developed by the hiring manager and includes:

• A one-page summary with the key facts of the candidate
• The candidate's resume in its original format with any typos or bad formatting in place
• The interview questions and responses with the best and worst responses highlighted
• Additional information including compensation history, reference information, awards, and writing or coding examples

The comittee makes a decision by consensus, not by majority vote. They either vote to hire, not hire, or to request more information. After they make their final decision, they also provide feedback to hiring managers on how they can improve their interview skills and offer training or shadowing sessions.

Use structured interviewing

To avoid unconscious biases, Google uses the same interview questions and same grading scale for each role to ensure hiring decisions are based on consistent, predetermined qualifications. Structured interviews have increased Google's ability to indicate who will do well at the job, shortened the interview process, and has left both candidates and interviewers happier.

Structured interviewing process:

• Use vetted, high-quality behavioral and hypothetical questions that are challenging and relevant to the role. Avoid brain teasers.
• Record comprehensive feedback of candidate answers so hiring committees can easily review responses.
• Score the candidate using standardized guidelines to ensure reviewers are aligned in knowing what is good, mediocre, and poor responses. See Google's grading rubric.

Create an interview process that emphasizes culture fit and talent

Step 1: Hold a pre-screen interview with a recruiter to review the Netflix Culture Deck (30 minutes).

Step 2: Set up a phone interview with a hiring manager (45-60 minutes).

Step 3: Give a take home project where candidates will need to show their work on how they arrived at a solution (6-8 hours).

Step 4-10: Hold one day of seven interviews (6-8 hours). This includes four technical interviews with whiteboard challenges and problem solving exercises, an HR interview, and two conversations with directors that will focus on culture fit.

Step 11: Hiring managers make the final decision and extend an offer. Candidates that are not chosen have to wait 6-12 months to reapply.

Take your time to find the right person

The Ritz-Carlton has interviewed 14 people for a dishwashing position and taken 9 months to find the right housekeeper. Yes, there are short-term pains but all data and staff agree that it's better than bringing on the wrong person.

Develop a holistic approach to interviewing

The Ritz-Carlton interviews candidates multiple times, and not just with Human Resources and potential team members, but across all departments. Engineers interview chefs, and fitness instructors interview housekeepers, all to make sure candidates are a culture fit.

Use group interviews to find the most compassionate candidates

Southwest hires for empathy by looking at the interaction candidates have with each other during group interviews. Each candidate is asked to prepare a five-minute presentation about themselves. As the presentations are shared, Southwest will not just listen to the speaker but watch the audience to see who is "enthusiastically cheering on and supporting their potential coworker" and who is using the time to think about their own presentation. Only candidates that unselfishly show their support for their peers go to the next round.

Evaluate the character of a candidate by asking behavioral questions

At Southwest, the character of a candidate is valued much more than their skillset. Even when interviewing pilots, highly qualified candidates have been dismissed for being rude to receptionists. For that reason, Southwest interviews focus on finding individuals who care about others, who want to be a part of a team, and who genuinely want to help the team succeed.

One-on-one interviews are treated more like conversations and can last as long as two hours. Interviewers ask open-ended behavioral questions to best judge the candidate's character:

• Tell me how you recently used your sense of humor in a work environment.
• Tell me how you have used humor to defuse a difficult situation.
• Describe a time when you went above and beyond to help a co-worker succeed.

Find people that don't take themselves seriously

To maintain a culture that nourishes joy, pride, and fun, Southwest is very selective when hiring. Their hiring process has been crafted to find and hire only people that do not take themselves seriously.

• Make recruitment ads that reflect your fun culture. One ad showed a drawing of a dinosaur that had been colored outside the lines by a student with a caption that read: "Brian shows an early aptitude for working at Southwest Airlines." Another featured the co-founder and former CEO dressed in an Elvis suit with a tagline that read: "Work in a place where Elvis has been spotted...Send your resume Attention Elvis."
• Expect more from resumes. "Really tuned-in applicants have sent in applications filled out in crayon, delivered in cereal boxes, mounted on top of pizzas, packaged with confetti and noisemakers, and even done up as labels on bottles of Wild Turkey (Herb's favorite liquor)."
• Test applicants to see how serious they take themselves. In Southwest's group interviews, even pilots are tested on their ability to loosen up and have fun. Pilots have been asked to change out of their suit pants and into Bermuda shorts while still wearing their suit coats and dress shoes. The candidates who declined were asked to leave.

Southwest's Recruitment Ad

Southwest Airlines Recipe for Success

Expect more from your applicants, and have them expect more from you

With over 30,000 applications submitted annually, Zappos expects applicants to prove they are Zappos material. In order to weed out halfhearted candidates, Zappos purposely adds friction to their application process by:

• Adding extra clicks to get to their online application and job requirements
• Placing an emphasis the applicants need to be well versed in the company's values before applying
• Requiring candidates to submit a personalized video cover letter.

Anyone who does not make the cut is contacted by a Zappos leader who then offers advice on what applicants can do to improve the way they interview.

Require all new hires to go through the same training and then offer them money to quit

Zappos believes that onboarding is a fundamental experience that forges interdepartmental relationships around a common experience. That is why everyone hired at Zappos, from software engineers to executives, goes through the same onboarding process that the call center team goes through.

This 4-week development course covers the Zappos history, vision, philosophy, and culture. It also includes 2 weeks of answering customer phone calls.

Once training is complete, each new employee is offered $4,000 to quit. This final test is to ensure that everyone is there for the right reasons and not just for a paycheck. This offer is good for up until 3 weeks after new hires start their official jobs, with only about 2% of them taking the offer.

Protect your culture throughout the entire interview process

To see if candidates truly align with their core values, Zappos developed the Zappos Family Core Values Interview Assessment Guide. This assessment breaks down each core value into several key questions to determine how well the candidate will play with others. Each answer is ranked on a scale of 1 to 5. Questions include:

• What co-worker behaviors drive you crazy? How do you handle it when someone is doing it?
• If you had to change one thing about your interview process so far with the Zappos Family, what would you change?
• On a scale of 1-10, how weird are you? Why or why not?
• When was the last time you broke the rules/policy to get the job done?
• Do you ever socialize with people from work outside the office? What do you think about people that do?

Download the Zappos Family Core Values Interview Assessment Guide (PDF)

Evaluate candidates beyond the interview

Zappos doesn't just leave it up to the interview to determine if a candidate is a good fit. They also gain insight from anyone who spoke to the candidate during the day.

Applicants often fly into Las Vegas for their full-day of interviews and are picked up by Zappos shuttle drivers. The drivers are asked to evaluate applicants on how well they demonstrated the Zappos values.

Even at the end of a full day of interviews, applicants are then taken out for a night on the town, giving the entire team an opportunity to get to know the candidates as well.