Rachel, how do I pick the best job candidates?

Dear Rachel,
This may sound like a dumb question, but how do you hire someone? I’m new at this, and frankly I don’t really know how to evaluate a candidate. I’m supposed to be hiring a junior trainee type but truthfully they all seem qualified. They have the right degrees and they seem smart. How do I pick the right person? Sign me Stuck in First Gear

Dear Stuck,
Here’s the short answer. You don’t pick the right person. You make the best choice, and hope you made the right one.

Hiring is not a science. It’s more like an art, and a lot of it is gut, with maybe some voodoo thrown in.

This is especially so when you are hiring for junior positions. Here you are not basing your decision on what the person can do but how quickly the person will learn, how ably they’ll adapt to your work environment and –most important—whether they’re really going to be interested in the work.

Truth is, a lot of young people going for their first real job out of school are clueless. They may think they like something because they took a course in it, only to find out the subject bores them silly once they have a job doing it five days a week from morning to evening.

Too, keep in mind that within a year a lot of them will move on, either because they found a job more to their liking or chose to go back to school or said the hell with work and flew off to Europe for an extended vacation. That happens a lot.

How much does your agency want to invest in training someone who’ll be gone within a year? Zero, I’d guess.

Your first aim should be to weed out the people you don’t think will be around in a year.

Then you want to weed out the people who are just interested in landing a job—any job—and will take the first thing that comes along. They may actually stick around for a year but not be worth all that much on the job.

Three simple tests for weeding out the weakest candidates

Here are three tests that I’ve found never fail to weed out the least-promising candidates.

Test No. 1: Ask them what they want to be doing in five years.

Yes, it’s a dumb question, but it’s surprising good at smoking out those candidates who are floating in space, for lack of a better term.

The bright ones will have surprisingly well-thought-out answers. The rest will stare at the nearest wall and mumble. Knock the mumblers off your list.

Test No. 2: Ask them why they want to work for your agency.

The smart candidates will have bothered to Google your agency’s website to learn something about what you do. They rest will not have bothered, and you’ll know which is which the moment they begin talking.

Test No. 3: Put them through the great flake challenge.

Email them on any pretext. Ask for their grade point average or the courses they took in their senior year. See who gets back to you right away with the requested information.

Some will, but a surprising number will take a day or two, and some will not respond at all.

These are the flakes. Obviously, knock them off your list.

So say you had 10 candidates to start. By now should be down to around three.

Here’s where you let your gut do your thinking for you. Pick the one you feel best about and offer him or her the job.

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