One-page profile can help owners select partners

As the manager of a growing business, constantly trying to ‘upsize” my talent pool, I routinely interview job applicants, channel partners and service providers.

I needed to develop a simple, consistent tool to assist me to formulate interview questions, rank candidates, make go/no-go decisions and provide documentation. Here’s what I use.

The first step is developing attributes. I needed to determine which attributes made my existing employees, channel partners and service providers most successful.

Historic experience gave me a feel why certain partners performed successfully. I borrowed a prioritizing grid from ‘Matched Pairs’ methodology to develop the key attributes to assess.

• • List the key attributes.
• • Score each attribute independently.
• • Tally the attributes’ scores.
• • Stack the attributes in ascending order.
• • Replace the bottom five attributes with others that might better fit needs.

Step 2 is the interview process. What I routinely needed were good, open-ended questions that probed the key attributes of those I was assessing. (I will use the example of seeking additional international distributor channel partners.) Some examples of questions:

• • Why do you want this product line? What will you do to improve our performance?
• • Tell me about a new project that was completed in the last year. What would you do differently if you were to tackle this project again?
• • If I called the principals of your leading product line, what would they tell me about your company’s performance the past 12 months?
• • Which of the products your company distributes are most successful? Why?
• • Which of the products your company distributes are least successful? Why?

At a minimum, I repeat the top five open-ended questions to each candidate, take copious notes and ask the remaining questions as time permits. I leave 25 percent of the allotted time at the end of the interview for their questions or presentation. I always provide them my business card for any follow-up they wish to make.

Step 3 is to complete the competency profile. After the interview, I immediately document my initial impressions, assessing strengths, weaknesses, desires, key attributes and fit. Using a five-point (max) rating with a 15-point weighting, I score each profile within an hour of the interview.

I make my go/no-go decision on each candidate quickly, and don’t accept anyone falling below a 3.5 overall average. I also use this opportunity to generate additional questions and issues to probe for follow up or second interviews. If I am interviewing as the non-primary supervisor I copy the results to the responsible manager.