An acquaintance recently expressed frustration at being rejected for a job interview at the final hurdle.
He had been through five rounds of interviews and still hadn’t got the job. I sympathise, but I admire the company.
We should be vetting leaders of our communities with a similar rigour as we do when selecting the technology platform.
When we select a platform, we might create personas, use cases, a key list of requirements, invite vendors to spend hours completing RFPs to be invited to interview and potentially host a demo of their community. From there the vendor might face a security test, usability test, further negotiation and have to go into depth about what their platform can and can’t do.
Yet, I’ve seen many situations where an organisation will spend 2 to 3 hours interviewing a handful of candidates for 30 minutes and make a decision. That’s nuts.
It’s good to vet your community leaders properly. Listen not just to what they say in interviews but look at their current communities. See how they engage with members. Is the tone of voice and guidance about right? Do they specifically match the skillsets your strategy has indicated you need to take your community to the next level? Can they demonstrate that?
The problem isn’t usually wasting time through an endless intensive interview process, it’s not investing enough time in the recruitment process to find the right person.
