Inside Wisnio's hiring process: How we find and hire high-performers
At Wisnio, we develop and sell a SaaS platform that helps managers make better hiring decisions. It will be no great surprise that we believe in our product and use it for all our internal hiring.
Tõnis Arro
Co-founder, Wisnio and Executive Lab
Having 30 years of experience in the headhunting business, I’m well aware of the numerous hiring rituals companies of all sizes go through.
Sadly, most hiring decisions are based on conversations, sometimes called interviews, and gut feeling. If an assessment is used, it rarely impacts the hiring process or decision-making. The assessments are often used when the hiring decision is already made and used as a justification. After all, we have done everything we could.
Wisnio was built from the ground up to cut through the noise and make it possible to make hiring decisions free of bias and gut feeling and instead base them on a structured process, data, and science.
Job analysis is the starting point
All our hiring starts by analysing the position (called Position Mapping on the platform). This is the logical first step in any hiring process, yet if done at all, it is often done superficially.
Ben Horowitz has said that C-level hiring is the one thing that startups always get wrong. When founders start hiring for jobs they haven’t or couldn’t perform, they often think they will “talk to candidates and learn about these jobs.”
This not knowing often leads to like and feel decisions. In other words - they hire the person who impresses them the most or is the smoothest talker.
Ben Horowitz has said that C-level hiring is the one thing that startups always get wrong. When founders start hiring for jobs they haven’t or couldn’t perform, they often think they will “talk to candidates and learn about these jobs.”
The position map is not just any description of the person one wants to hire. It’s an agreement between all stakeholders. Take a look at this example:
I want someone who can get the work done. This person has to be a great leader, a team player, and good at cooperating with other departments and units. Not a big director, but someone who rolls up his sleeves and gets things done.
Generally, a highly motivated and trustworthy person. Definitely self-starting and independent. I don’t want anyone who needs daily guidance and orders: an independent person, a leader, and a doer.
I would assume the person has a degree in business or economics; I think we need someone who has worked in an international environment. And as we are a matrix organisation, this experience is absolutely necessary.
Also, as we use SAP, a person who has used the same software would be preferred. We are a values-based organisation, so compliance with our corporate values is a must.
Many managers describe the position similarly with no criteria or objectives the new employee has to achieve. Not rare are irrelevant demands like a college degree.
On the Wisnio platform, all position maps include:
- Key performance indicators - objectives the new employee has to achieve to be considered successful;
- Hard criteria - the required experiences, qualifications, and skills needed to achieve the key objectives that all candidates have to fulfil to be considered for the role;
- And differentiating competencies that help us help to distinguish superior performance from the average.
These data create a basis for the rest of the hiring process and are the foundation for everything that comes next, from finding suitable candidates to interviewing and finally making a hiring decision.
Example position requirements from a Hiring Template
Our competency dictionary is a synthesis of research results of all the competencies in all publicly available competency libraries. As we have the data of all our employees in our system, we also consider the current competency setting in our team.
After all, we want to hire a person for a job, but the job will be performed in a team, and a new hire might bring in some competencies that we need to strengthen the existing team.
Sourcing and screening
I am not very original here, saying that the primary platform for sourcing is Linkedin. However, the profiles are of different quality, and it is not always self-evident if the potential candidate has the required qualities (called threshold criteria in the position map) or not.
Therefore, there is a need for a screening interview, usually done over the phone, to decide if it makes sense to meet the prospect.
Talking to a prospect is not just calling someone and asking if they want to come work for us.
Talking to a prospect is not a straightforward process. It is more than just calling someone and asking if they want to come work for us. Lou Adler has written wisely about this call and the questions to ask.
The core recommendation is to initiate a call to discuss the future next steps to determine if the role you have in mind is interesting for them.
Usually, ~70% of people are ready to discuss, and many start thinking about a possible career move when they talk to a headhunter.
During the actual screening interview, our goal is twofold:
- We need to know if the prospect would consider moving;
- And if our potential offer is a suitable next challenge for this person.
We also use the screening call to understand if the prospect is moveable and if Wisnio might be the right destination for them to consider, and - last but not least - if the person is affordable in terms of their existing and expected compensation package.
As a last step of the screening interview, we usually open an account on the Wisnio platform for people who would like to move forward with the process. This enables candidates to get to know the platform and for us to measure initial team fit.
For this, we create a new team on the platform with the possible candidates and co-founders as the members:
First personal interview
After sourcing, we will end up with a list of people who have the requirements we are looking for and are interested in considering a position with us. With these people, the next step is a in-person meeting.
Ideally, we interview them together with Alo (our other co-founder). One of us will be the lead interviewer, and the other a silent observer who fills in the evaluations and asks questions to clarify the details he needs for decision-making later. We have written about the interviews elsewhere.
A simple rule for interviewing: ask what you need to complete the assessment. Don’t ask anything else. For example, the use of brain teasers is usually pure nonsense.
Unless you can evaluate the candidate in reference to this criteria without asking, the interview should cover all the criteria you have specified in the Position Map. The former could only be the case with some criteria and some candidates whom you personally know.
Therefore, the simple rule is: ask only what you need to complete the evaluation. Don’t ask anything else. For example, the use of brain teasers is usually pure nonsense.
As an example, suppose you have the following requirement in your position map:
Proven ability to do market research and develop a clear product positioning strategy.
To check, ask the candidate to describe how they have developed a product positioning strategy for an early-stage business or product line in the past.
Look for a detailed understanding of competitive analysis, pricing, messaging, and positioning strategies. Ask the candidate to describe how that strategy was used to define clear actions for sales, marketing, and product development.
For conducting the interview and evaluation, we use the included interactive Interview & Evaluation guide with the role and candidate-specific interview questions for every hiring project on the Wisnio platform.
Example competency based interview question from a Wisnio Hiring Template
Reference checks
After the first interview, we take a few days to decide if we want to continue with the candidate. In most cases, because the criteria are very clear, the decisions are easy.
If the first interview succeeds, we’ll move into reference checks. For us, this means talking with two former employers.
During the reference check, we follow the same rule as with the interview: it only makes sense to ask concrete questions about the candidate’s qualities, work-related accomplishments and development areas.
The latter is a door to explore any weaknesses that the usually positive respondent would otherwise be reluctant to reveal. It is not wise to ask the previous superior expert opinions or generalised evaluations.
During the background check, we follow the same rule as with the interview: it makes only sense to ask concrete questions about the candidate’s qualities, work-related accomplishments and development areas.
For example, questions similar to the following are unlikely to give you any actionable insights into the candidate:
- Would you recommend employing [candidate name]?
- How would you evaluate [candidate name] on a scale from 1 to 10?
I’ve had cases in my headhunter career where the client dismissed a candidate because no one gave them a perfect ten. Ratings are always subjective and depend heavily on the context. A candidate could fail at a similar position in one company and thrive in another simply because of the environment.
Fact-based questions similar to these are more likely to give you information that is useful and usable when deciding between two or more equally competent candidates:
- What were their responsibilities?
- What did they accomplish?
- Is there anything that could be improved in this person’s job performance?
- Would you employ this person again?
If any red flags surface, dig deeper, ask more questions, and follow through thoroughly with the candidate. You can always contact the reference again after you have talked to the candidate.
Final interview - you don’t need more than two!
If the background checks are positive, we will have another interview, which is more like a business discussion of the situation he/she will find themselves in after employment and potential moves and steps that are necessary to undertake.
The final interview might also include questions on any issues we discovered during the background check. It makes sense to dig into anything like this thoroughly.
During this discussion, we would also discuss the potential employment terms in more detail, and will typically make an offer the next day after the second interview. These are usually accepted.
Conclusions
You can have the best and most optimised process in the world, but when the work starts with the wrong assumptions, the rest of the process can’t help.
That is why getting the initial job analysis right is crucial. It sets up the rest of the hiring process and acts as a guide to ensure that the candidates we consider can do the work we expect.
Follow that up with behavioral interviewing and use scorecards for evaluations, and you are well on your way to making bias-free and data-based hiring decisions.