We’ve all been there. Stuck in a meeting that runs late. Maybe you have to bail on a team lunch. Or you’re late to an event. Or worse, your telecommute is delayed! Doesn’t it feel that much worse when it’s because of an interview? An interview that statistically is not going to go well even as you try furiously to fill that critical gap on your team.

Almost all of the people you spend time with in the interview process you will never see again. It was in one of those moments recently, thinking through the time lost and bailing on another double booked commitment, that I realized.. I kinda hate interviewing!

Yes, it’s exciting and invigorating to get to talk to smart people with a lot of energy who can help you & your business. If every discussion was like that the above point would be moot. But the truth is that interviewing is a painful process filled mostly with discussions that are not with those people.

Of course you could get better at recruiting and analyzing your funnel. You can create better exercises to hone in on the right type of candidates with those critical “hard skills”. Although you’ll lose some people through that extra step too. You can customize and optimize and galvanize all you want but..the simple fact is to fill an important position you’re going to need to interview a lot of people. And most of them will not be a good fit.

So I’ve set a new challenge for myself in an effort to reenergize my commitment to a necessary byproduct of growth that truly drains me:

1.) Learn something new in every interview. Whether someone offers it or it has to be dug up I try to learn 1 new thing

2.) Get to an answer behind the answer. I try to get them to share something they weren’t planning to share. Any somewhat experienced interviewer knows when they’re getting a canned answer. Can you ask one more follow up or dig a little bit deeper to get to some added substance they might not have otherwise planned to share? And no, I am not trying to play a game of “gotcha” here. Juust peeling back the onion a bit.

Who likes interviewing? Not me. Probably very few. But this has helped me recently if you want to give it a whirl!