Now I’ve Seen it All

They say if you live long enough, you’ll see just about everything.

I must be ancient.

Because I’ve finally seen companies hiring people without an interview.

Yep, No interview required.

“You’re hired.”

And I’m not talking about at Joe Shmoe’s Car Wash. This is Amazon.

Yep, that Amazon. The one that virtually wrote the book on hiring people based on high standards.

It’s become so difficult to hire people for some roles, that they’ve tossed out the book.

If you can fog up a bathroom mirror, you can work at Amazon, not to mention The Gap, UPS, and Home Depot.

Here’s the piece in the Wall Street Journal.

The trend is clearly in motion. And not a surprise, considering the ultra-tight employment market.

But, I don’t recommend this to our viewers at home.

Even though these firms are bypassing interviews primarily for physical labor roles (i.e. Amazon and UPS delivery drivers), it’s a slippery slope. The article even says it’s starting to happen in nursing roles.

I can hear the conference room arguments:

“Well, we can’t find people. And that means we can’t keep up our growth rate.”
“Perhaps we should reduce our growth rate & slow things down a bit?”
“No, let’s drop our standards instead to make sure we can keep up with the demand.”

Growth is a choice, as is chasing growth at all costs.

Is growth really worth hiring people without even understanding what makes them tick? Or whether their DNA matches your company’s DNA?

Feels a bit short-sighted to me (And I’m in recruiting, obsessed with getting people into new roles.)

What these firms are ignoring is that employees, particularly the front line people who drive the blue or brown vans and deliver our goodies to us each day, ARE the brand. They’re the face of the company.

When they interact with the public hundreds of times a day, they affect brand loyalty. For better or worse.

Call me curmudgeonly, but I’d choose slightly slower growth and protecting my hard-won brand loyalty.

Jeff Hyman

Jeff Hyman launched his recruiting career at Heidrick & Struggles and Spencer Stuart, the preeminent global executive search firms. Today, he’s Chief Talent Officer at Chicago-based Strong Suit Executive Search. Along the way, Jeff created four companies, backed by $50 million in venture capital. He currently teaches the MBA course about recruiting at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and hosts the five-star Strong Suit Podcast. Jeff has been featured by Inc., Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, and other media outlets. He holds a master’s degree from Kellogg School of Management and a bachelor’s degree from The Wharton School.