Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
The conversation that matters most
That first conversation is usually squeezed into 30 minutes, even though the hiring manager is the one who will make the decision and who will work with the person. It is where the manager should be asking the most important questions and pulling out the candidate's most important motivators.
For someone on a list of the best 50 people in the world, a hiring manager may meet them three or four times before they are fully in process. Companies that underestimate this conversation are underestimating who the candidate will work with.
A bespoke process
The process after it works like a decision tree and can go many different ways depending on what that conversation turns up. That makes recruiting bespoke and ad hoc, with similar stages but a next conversation chosen for each person. Without the pressure of the numbers game, it feels less scary to ask how to get this person here instead of whether they fit the job.
Why do early minutes weigh so heavily?
Solomon Asch showed in 1946 that the order of information changes impressions: traits listed first shaped how people judged a person more than traits listed last. This is called the primacy effect. A 1994 study by Thomas Dougherty, Daniel Turban, and John Callender found that interviewers' impressions in the first few minutes predicted their final ratings. The opening conversation sets the frame for everything after it.
How does a decision tree handle uncertainty?
Decision trees became a standard tool after Howard Raiffa and Robert Schlaifer published their decision analysis work in 1961. A tree lays out a choice, the possible outcomes, and a next choice for each outcome. The branches a person takes depend on what is learned along the way. A hiring process built this way can differ for every candidate while keeping the same kinds of stages.
More from Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
