Interview Stages

Matthew Ferguson

Hi everyone,

I'm interested to know people's views on the interview processes at their companies and what has been most effective for them in finding the balance between a swift process, but one that enables a full evaluation.

I've recently joined a company as Director of Customer Success and we are hiring 3 strategic account managers before the end of the year to manage our largest and most important clients, or partners as we call them.

The process for hiring was as below.

Interview Process
1. Director of Customer Success
2. VP Customer Success
3. Senior Account Manager and AVP Sales
4. SVP Revenue
5. Case Study Presentation (group)

But given the restrictions with calendars, there was often more than a week between each phase, meaning it felt long to me, at least based on experience at other companies. We're removing step 3 to streamline things but I was interested to hear what other Directors / VPs have as their hiring process for critical, strategic roles.

What number of phases of interviews do you have and have you changed it over the last year? Have you found any specific steps or tasks to be particularly effective? Do you find that there is a point at which the length of time in the process becomes problematic for the candidates?

Any feedback and input would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Fergie