Hiring. Selecting the right candidate

After being nominated to a selection panel for appointing Director-level officers (at senior levels in government) and several research fellows for a newly-established research institute, I arrived at the venue to realise that 80 candidates would be interviewed by a panel of 10 members in two days. We were given the short list but not the full biodata since it was too many pages to be replicated for distribution.

The first candidate was a senior researcher aged 50, with many years of experience in a university department as its Dean. With no formal introductions or welcome, a panel member asked the candidate a fundamental question in an area that was of interest to the institution. I was completely taken aback as this was a question normally posed to a graduate student. The candidate himself was taken by surprise.

But before he could complete the answer, the member who asked the question sprang another one. The dialogue between these two continued for a few minutes with no participation from the others. There were no questions to assess the suitability of the candidate’s experience and expertise to lead a research team, raise finances, deal with setting priorities, resolve conflicts, and so on.

Then came a second candidate who was a young researcher. Same questions were put forth to him as well. A third candidate with a different background for a different position, and the same questions were again extended with a few interchanged words. No one was making notes nor scoring the candidates.

This was not an isolated incident that I was unfortunately a part of. This style of interviewing continues, especially in public sector institutions, costing them heavily for poor and improper selection of expertise to guide and lead institutions. There is no set process nor due diligence. We interview perspective candidates who we think can be good members of our teams or institutions. We need to go after expertise and do proper assessments.

When I was a student at University of Cambridge, one of my professors told me that he is going to Germany to interview a candidate. I thought it was for a German institution, but he said that it was to get the student to join his own team at Cambridge.

I was totally surprised; a senior professor going to another country to interview a candidate because the candidate was busy with his thesis? This was unthinkable for me, coming from India. The professor later went on to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine along with this team, and established one of the most progressive institutions in Cambridge. Lesson here: go after expertise if you want to progress.

When I joined the United Nations, one of the important training programmes that all senior managers needed to undertake was week-long training in professional interviewing. It opened my eyes to the need to assess the candidate not only for technical ability but also personality, ability to work in teams, outlook, management skills, and a range of others.

Training included simple psycho analyses, strategy building and delivering in difficult situations. We were not allowed to sit on an interview panel unless we went through this training.

Training to interview for prospective selection committee members is specifically needed for all government and public sector departments in India. It is for the betterment of the institution, as well as respecting the quality of individuals we assess. Building a team and an institution requires both courtesy and commonsense.

The writer works on environment and biodiversity law and policy.

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