When looking for the right senior executive hire, the interview process should be a whole lot more than just an hour-long meeting that’s limited to a vague, standardized list of interview questions. The interview, when done right, is actually a meticulously refined set of steps, and it’s a process that we at Lantern Partners have crafted down to a fine art.
From the very beginning of the Lantern Partners senior executive recruitment process, we work to apply as many measurable metrics as possible. It’s important to connect with candidates, but we want to go even deeper than that to do the absolute best work for our clients.
Both customization and specificity are critical to our interview process: If we ask in the interview for pertinent position-related specifics that are specially chosen for each individual job, we’ll get back those specifics from the candidates and help find the best fit for our client. We ask for the details and provide them to our clients.
We focus with open-ended questions about position-related competencies and those specific instances in candidates’ careers where they have had experiences with those competencies, along with the outcomes of those experiences. During interviews with both Lantern Partners and the client, candidates’ competencies are objectively scored.
We also administer to the candidates an online management assessment, which provides us with even more details about the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates.
Additionally, we understand that we (and our client, by extension) are being interviewed by the candidate as well, and the interview process is about “mutual selling.” Not only are we working hard to find the right fit for the client, but we’re also working to find out if the position is right for the candidate. We go to great lengths to gauge the candidates’ interest and enthusiasm for the position, as we’re looking for long-term success in the future for both our client and the selected hire, rather than simply a quick fix to fill a job vacancy.
