innovation
Revolutionizing the
Hiring Process
CULTURE AND EFFICIENCY PREVAIL WITH SPEED GROUP INTERVIEWS
By Lisa Kopochinski
For decades, the traditional process of interviewing for a po-sition
Santhosh Kumar/Shutterstock HRPATODAY.CA ❚ MAY/JUNE 2014 ❚ 55
has largely been structural and interrogative in nature.
The candidate sits opposite the interviewer (or panel of in-terviewers)
who generally fires off a list of questions while
writing notes. The candidate tries to sell themself as the best per-son
for the job in a meeting that can often take an hour or more.
Search Engine People (SEP) – a full-service digital market-ing
agency that provides inbound marketing services to more
than 1,000 clients worldwide
– opted to “buck the system”
and revolutionalize the hiring
process with a system it cre-ated
known as “speed group
interviews.”
“We were inundated with
resumes when we posted for
an entry-level or junior po-sition,”
said Allison McKay,
SEP’s director of human re-sources.
“The time it took to
review, phone screen and then
interview was not efficient nor
did it reflect our culture. We
took a step back and looked
Allison McKay, Director of
Human Resources, SEP
at ways we could make the process more efficient and decided on
a group interview format. From this brainstorming session, the
‘speed interview’ idea was born.”
The Pickering, Ont.-based firm (situated 30 minutes from
downtown Toronto) is in the midst of a massive hiring phase. The
company expects to grow from its current 100 employees to ap-proximately
350 employees over the next five years.
McKay says the speed format is geared more towards entry level
or junior positions. Once initial candidates were eliminated – due
to spelling or grammatical errors on their resumes – the remaining
individuals essentially had the same background, education and
experience. For instance, all had graduated from university or col-lege,
had work experience in a retail or office environment and an
interest in marketing.
“We knew we could spend hours interviewing candidates
one on one, or we could meet five at one time and have more
than one opinion in our decision-making process,” said McKay.
“Our ultimate goal was to find the best candidate that met our
requirements.”
GETTING TO THE POINT QUICKLY
The speed interview process is unique in that it involves behav-ioural
interviewing techniques in a more efficient and succinct
manner. McKay says it is easy for a candidate to ramble on to