Exploratory Meeting-Road to Hell or Heaven

On the face of fierce competition, fire-fighting and short-term business objective has received to priority in large number of next generation companies today in the marketplace. This new and emerging trend has witnessed several new development. Exploratory meetings are considered to be one of such new and rapidly accepted phenomena in the next generation companies today.

According to many hiring managers, it is a process through which a prospective candidate is given a broad idea about the organization, its plan, programme, policies, roles, responsibilities etc and on the other hand to know expectation of the candidate, his/her future plan etc such that a role fitment can be made with the vacant position. This practice is currently being carried out from two front. In many cases, the process is initiated by the concerned hiring manager of the company and in some other cases it is being done with the instruction of respective line manager or reporting officer of the vacant position. However this process has several long-term serious implication for the company at a large. The following few line elaborates few such dimensions.

Exchange of Information:- If information dissemination is the overall objective of such meeting, that can be achieved by
i. Designing and developing a good Website through which all necessary information related to the company can be communicated to a prospective candidate.
ii. Designing and developing an well structured job specification, role description, ket result area, key performance indicator, key competencies etc. many leading companies across the globe has achieved very good success in this process.

Mr.Simpson, Global Head-Human Resources in a most admired high technology company believes that in today's virtual world, a company can communicate its plan, programme and policies to a prospective job seeker by developing a very good website. Moreover an well structured job specification gives a detailed idea about the expectation of the company from a prospective employee. He further added that a good initiative in the above two area can eventually fulfil the need of communication to a great extent. However if sufficient attention are not paid in the above area, companies will encounter serious issues in due course of time despite having exploratory meeting and such meeting will achieve very little.

Hidden Agenda of Hiring Manager:- Mr.Phil Morrison, Vice President-International Human Resources of another leading high technology company is of the opinion that in ideal scenario hiring managers are suppose to short-list candidates at his/her end on the basis of profile received from the open market. The concerned hiring managers are suppose to go through the entire profile in detail and read between the lines to match the profile with the respective vacant position. This job hiring managers are supposed to perform under very high work pressure and tough deadline. Therefore the process demands very high level of intellectual and emotional maturity besides several other competencies. However in reality the hiring manager who does not have adequate competency, seriously suffers from "fear of failure" syndrome. In many cases they are seriously exposed when they forward an irrelevant profile to the line manager. Under similar circumstances, the concerned hiring manager loses confidence of line manager and eventually suffer from the fear of losing the job.

In order to safeguard themselves from such in-competency syndrome, hiring managers indulge themselves in many "Short-cut" approach such as exploratory meeting. This is done before forwarding the profile to the concerned reporting officer or line manager with an objective of revalidating the assumption of hiring manager about the prospective candidate. A hiring manager may pull out any individual of the company to interview the prospective candidate. In many cases it was that even candidates for the position of Vice President level are interviewed by relatively junior level Managers. In case candidates are found to be suitable in the exploratory meeting they are approved for next level of interview. Therefore the process exposes serious in-competency syndrome of the concerned hiring manager-added Mr. Morrison

Focus of Line Manager:- Concerned with the complex needs of the business and fast changing market condition, company's senior executives are pressed for time and therefore managing time has become the name of the game. Given the pressures on them from their boards and from market forces, most executives are focusing their attention on the business in the near term and don't have a great deal of time to spend on long term goals such as spending sufficient time with a prospective candidate to know the person as an individual, his/her aspirations, experience on complex emerging issues, and fitment with the vacant role etc. Because of the meeting and travel schedules most executives keep today, it is increasingly becoming hard for them to prioritise interview schedules and in absence of such focus question is how they select best talent from the market.

Commenting on this process, Mr.Simpson, said that in such circumstances, concerned reporting officer/line manager delegates the job of interview to the relatively junior level employees since they believes that, this practice will save their valuable time without realizing that effective recruitment and selection should not be about the luck of the draw. Systematic planning and preparation will increase the likelihood of taking on the right person.

Accountability factor:- Mr.Joysen John, Senior Vice President-Human Resources, in a fortune five hundred technology company is of the opinion that accountability factor is a very big issue here. A subordinate/ peer group executive will not be accountable finally for the ultimate day-to-day operation level performance of the proposed employee. At best s/he can be made responsible for short-listing a good candidate. Hence a subordinate or peer group executive might not be very much keen to prefer "Merit" in the so-called exploratory meeting. Instead s/he may focus on his/her hidden interest, such as identifying and preferring a candidate who can take care of the vested political interest of his/her colleague, and if that happens, "Mediocrity" syndrome will get top priority instead of "Merit" factor. He further added that, it is an well known fact that more the accountability for ultimate performance, more preference goes to "Merit" factor and vis-versa. Therefore a reporting officer is most likely to prefer "Merit" factor in an interview since s/he is ultimately answerable for the operational level performance of the individual.

Mr.Albert, senior Sales and Marketing Professional in a highly reputed fortune five hundred company is of the opinion that, he has tried out the concept of exploratory meeting in his past to recruit few guys in his department. However he found that many candidates having superficial competencies are forwarded to him, but on the contrary candidates having superior competencies are rejected due to one or other reason. On further investigation, he discovered that though only presentation and communication skills were suppose to be evaluated during the process of exploratory meeting, but in actual practice due to the overlap of several competencies, the ultimate purpose could not be achieved.

Scientific Validity: - Mr.Phil Morrison, once again commenting on the issue asked, has anyone conducted any valid scientific study at the industry level in order to evaluate the effectiveness of such interview by relatively junior level employees? If yes, who has conducted such study? Where it was conducted and what are the observations? However if no such valid scientific studies were conducted and companies are adopting certain practices without having any valid scientific foundation, it could be highly dangerous not only for the prospective employees, but also for the long term interest of the company.

Mr. Joysen John believes that this process has serious negative implication since all of us have a frame of reference that is a product of our past experiences, assumptions, values and beliefs. These factors influences the way in which information is gathered, distilled and what conclusions are made. Similarly how the executive receives information, what information is noticed, how it is interpreted and how it is then acted on are subject to a range of internal distortions. Moreover perceptual filtering process enables all of us to deal with the complexity of our environment. Our "Perceptual schemas", affect how we interact with the environment, what we notice, how we interpret data and how we retain information. Therefore in an interview, a manager or senior manager who is yet to occupy the position of Vice President, in every possibility might undergo a range of internal distortions while interviewing and receiving information from a Vice President level candidate. However an executive already occupying the same position or who has already occupied the same position long back might not undergo similar distortions.

Mr. Robin, Vice President-Corporate Planning in a fortune five hundred company, appeared for an interview, few weeks back in next generation company for a similar position. However as part of the first step, he was called for an exploratory meeting and it was conducted by a relatively junior level manager. However during the meeting Mr.Robin felt that it was becoming extremely difficult for him to explain various dimensions of his current role to the concerned interviewer, since the interviewer has never experienced a senior position in his past and currently he is responsible for a relatively junior level role in his organization. Therefore though Mr.Robin was called for evaluating his communication and presentation skill, but at the end both side has wasted their valuable time. According to Robin, the concerned manager will have to develop him a lot before he understands the various dimensions of senior level position. Robin further added that unless the person becomes personally responsible for such senior position, perhaps there will be serious distortion of information.

Hallo Effect:- Commenting further on this issue Mr. Simpson said that in an interview forum, it becomes extremely difficult to differentiate presentation and communication skill from other essential competencies. In many circumstances one specific competency dominates others or overlaps with each other. Under the circumstances even very good intention of evaluating presentation and communication skill might not achieve its ultimate objective and in turn distort the entire process. According to many psychologist, an individual often exhibit their best behaviour in an interview forum and therefore while interviewing a person one might be influenced by one of their attributes and ignore their other weaknesses. An attractive looking candidate may be judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. In this process, many a times the best available candidate might be rejected at the initial stage itself and inferior candidate might get preference.

The key to effective recruitment is preparation. It is a process of collecting relevant data in a systematic manner, analysing the same and arriving into a conclusion. However in case this process is not followed with the right spirit, the entire objective of the recruitment process may not achieve it goal. "Throw and see what sticks" policy adopted by many leading company may become highly expensive in the long run for the organization. Top management of today's marketplace must appreciate this critical dimension of recruitment to ensure long term sustainable future of the company.