I recently had the pleasure of experiencing and observing the interview process of one of the largest used car dealerships in the U.S. Company A, as I will refer to them, is recognized within the automotive industry for both its culture and the value it places on its employees. As other car dealerships have suffered financially in this unstable economy, Company A has experienced continued growth. Continued growth means recruiting talented personnel.
While Company A’s ongoing goal is to ensure that their practices and company culture remain consistent from one location to another, I feel that their interview process needs a new model. I watched employee candidates, 4 of them, walk away with bewildered looks on their faces upon completion of their interviews.
Company A’s interview process appears to be in two parts. The first deals with what Company A terms the “assessment”. However, the assessment doesn’t deal with job related skills or qualifications. The assessment deals with whether the applicant has ever been convicted of any crime and / or ever engaged in criminal activity (from age 18 on). The completion of the assessment is mandatory for employment and failure to provide complete or truthful responses are grounds for rejecting the application. (Before 1998, FCRA prohibited criminal record investigations from going back more than seven years unless the applicant would earn over $75,000 annually. While the 1998 amendment removed this time limitation, typically criminal record checks are limited to the past seven years.)
As I move on with this blog please note that Company A has no formal Human Resources Department on site. The hiring function is handled by the administrative assistant who initially greets you and sets you up for the assessment.
Post the completion of the assessment, two company representatives meet with the candidate to review the assessment responses. They introduce themselves by their first names only and don’t provide any indication as to their respective roles within Company A. Obviously this is confusing to the candidate. After the first representative reviews the assessment responses, with the other representative acting as a witness, the candidate is asked to sign off on the hard copy. Taking into consideration the rise in employment-related lawsuits under the theory of “negligent hiring” the need for such “assessment” by the employer is necessary. However, Company A and its representatives could handle it with a bit more professionalism and sensitivity.
The candidate is also asked to authorize a pre-employment background check including criminal background check, employment verification, social security verification, driving record, etc. Again, highly sensitive information handed off to who-knows-who with little regard for the candidate’s privacy concerns.
The candidate then meets with a third representative who again provides a first name only and no indication of his role within the company. This representative reviews the job position that the applicant is applying for, asks the candidate a single interview question, and the interview is over.
What happened? Was this the interview? One question does not an interview make. To be effective the interviewer must focus the interview on obtaining information about the applicants’ ability to perform the job. In order to do this, it is important that the interviewer know beforehand the specific requirements of the job for which the applicant has applied.
If the purpose of this initial meeting was to obtain the background information on the candidate only, then the candidate should be advised of such prior to the meeting.
In closing, there were several confused applicants that walked out of Company A’s building that day. It is with great sincerity that I hope Company A takes constructive criticism regarding its interview process well.
(I wrote this post approximately 5 days ago. Today I spoke with a business colleague who has a very close relative that experienced the same interview process at Company A.)
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