De-selection is the new golden ticket

It was fifty years ago this month that the original, and still the best (sorry Johnny Depp), screen version of Roald Dahl’s best selling book “Charlie & The Chocolate Factory” was released.

What I like about the story is that it is the ultimate interview process for the ultimate dream job (eat your heart out Alan Sugar), and at the heart of the process is “de-selection”.

All the lucky golden ticket winners (five of them in total) are told not to touch, meddle or generally do anything which will invalidate them winning what they believe is the great prize – a lifetime supply of chocolate, and one by one, they do exactly what they are told they shouldn’t.

But what they are really doing is “de-selecting” themselves from the process…Augustus Gloop – chocolate now instead of chocolate later; Violet Beauregarde – bubble gum over chocolate; Veruca Salt – squirrels over chocolate and Mike Teavee – television over chocolate. By the end only Charlie Bucket remains as the one child focussed still on the prize they all came for, and by way of reward he wins not just the chocolate, but the whole factory as well.  Not bad!

So what has this to do with business you may ask?

Getting great well matched employees is a huge challenge.

In your interviews do you “select” candidates, or do you let candidates “de-select” themselves? And if you do the former have you ever heard people saying to you in exit interviews when they leave the company six months later, “it wasn’t the job I thought it was going to be.”

Sound familiar? It’s often said that interviewing is a two way process, but so often it’s a one way street. As an interviewer in traditional 1-2-1 interviewing, you get to know everything about the candidate, but they get to know so little about the job, the employer, the organisation and, so importantly, the culture of the business you are asking them to be a part of.

Here’s a suggestion.

You’ve screened your candidates (and by the way you can build in de-selection in this process by asking them to do things that only dedicated people will do, such as sending you a two minute video clip of why they want the job – a lot of people straight away will de-select themselves at that stage) and now you’re hosting the first formal part of the interview process.

The idea…why not try a group session (this saves you time as well), and invert the 80:20 rule of interviewing so that you as the interviewer do most of the talking and tell them EVERYTHING and I mean everything about the job, the company, what it’s like to work in your business – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Paint it as it is, because in most cases your business isn’t perfect, and things do go wrong, but if a potential employee knows that upfront, they can decide whether this is for them or not, and when the bad stuff happens when they are working for you, they are prepared for it and they will stay and they’ll help make it better and stronger for you and for them, because they signed up for it knowingly.

And as you’re doing that group session, give people chance to opt out at any point and leave – coffee breaks for example – so you aren’t wasting their time and they are not wasting yours. Don’t be afraid – actively encourage it!

And when you get to the end of the session ask them whether they still want to be considered for the role and the next stage (usually a more traditional 1-2-1 interview). And some may drop out then too…and that’s ok!

I guarantee you people will drop out, and it will feel different, and maybe a little bit scary, but by the end of that group session the only people who will not have de-selected themselves will be the people with the right attitude, values and beliefs that are going to make them an ideal fit for your business.

And after that, you can select through a traditional 1-2-1 process, which of those great people you still have left, is the one which is most going to help grow and develop your business.

If you’re giving away the golden ticket of a dream job in your company, make sure you get yourself a Charlie Bucket on board – and do it through de-selection. It will be a scrumdiddlyumptious experience!