Transportation and Logistics
Interviewing 101
How to create an in-depth process to hire the best candidate
By Carolyn LaWell
Smart Business | June 2009
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Hany Girgis, founder and CEO, SGIS
You’re not getting off the hook easily if you’re interviewing with Hany Girgis.
The founder and CEO of SGIS wants only A players sitting at his company’s desks, which means each potential employee receives a grilling.
Those lucky enough to land an interview must answer questions that cover a range of topics. And while the interviewee talks, the multiple SGIS employees asking the questions write down the answers to create a report for discussion after the interview.
“I don’t think interviewing is obvious,” says Girgis, whose 750-employee company provides IT, engineering and intelligence services for government agencies. “I think many people don’t know how to interview, and so that’s why we’ve created this process.”
Having a process in place that involves multiple employees is critical to attracting and hiring the type of employees you want, says Girgis, whose company posted 2008 revenue of $87 million.
Smart Business spoke with Girgis about how to make sure you’re hiring the right people.
Recruit employees. We have internal corporate recruiters who are responsible for going out and identifying potential candidates for our open positions. They’re doing a lot of scouring, so they’re actually calling into our competitors and trying to sell them at an opportunity here.
It’s pretty proactive. It’s not, ‘Put a posting and see what kind of resumes come in.’ We go out and try to find opportunities. The best employees out there aren’t necessarily always the ones who are looking, so being proactive is really part of their job.
I really encourage my people to talk to our competitors and find out what they’re doing, what they’re doing well, what they’re not doing so well. As part of that process, you interact with a lot of your competitors out in the field at networking events, and that’s really a great opportunity to recruit. If one of my people comes back and says, ‘Hey, I met this guy at so-and-so company and I think he would be really great for our company,’ that’s a really good recruiting opportunity.
Take the time to do a thorough interview. We have a long interview process. It’s basically a two- to three-hour interview with each person, and there’s usually at least two members of the team.
There’s a preset list of questions, and they’re really questions that are meant to dig out … some of these qualities [we’re looking for]. The key is to not have a short 30-minute personality-type interview but really ask questions that dig.
We go in and talk about their college experience and their extracurricular activities in college. What they thought of their prior managers, what their managers would say about them in prior jobs.
