Why Peer Interviews Miss the Mark
*DO NOT USE OR REMOVE*
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Transcript Text
Krissy Manzano: Hello. And thanks for joining another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable. I’ve got Chuck Brotman and Lizzie Wood with me today. And the question we are going to be talking about is, or the topic is why can peer interviews miss the mark during the interview process?
So Chuck, I’ll start with you to get your thoughts.
Chuck Brotman: I mean, the, the, the reasons they missed the mark can, can vary, but oftentimes it’s as simple as companies not really being thoughtful about why a peer to a potential hire is, is being brought into a process to begin with. So, first and foremost. Whoever you want to bring in your hiring process is really important that you’ve defined their, their role in the process and what competencies and behaviors that you want them to inspect and how they plan to go about doing it.
And if you’re inviting someone to, join an interview, simply to give someone insights into the process. The day in the life and oh, see what you think about them in the process. Are they a culture fit? If you’re giving someone vague guidance, you get you get out of the process what you put into it.
And if you’re approaching things in a unplanned, in sloppy way, you’re going to get sloppy results. And, a potential peer who may report to the same person who you. We’ll be hiring this candidate is obviously going to be a little cautious about challenging why they’re being brought in. Nobody wants to be insubordinate, right?
So it’s really important. These situations that you’re providing good guidance on what they should be assessing for you should be using an ATS to store responses. You should have questions to find in advance and you should have some. Definition for any interviewer of what a great response looks like versus a mediocre one.
So, I mean, it mostly comes down to that. Obviously, the company has some deeper issues politically. If you appear, for example, you may not be bought into the hiring altogether. I mean, there are things that can happen. Where they may actually be subverting your, your, your goals from representing the company.
Well, I don’t think that’s often the case with most companies, but that certainly can be an issue there as well. But I think fundamentally, when peer interviews missed the mark, they missed the mark because the process is not well defined, and the peer does not know what they’re assessing for. And even if you’re bringing someone in to mostly assess for values and culture fit or alignment, that still needs to be defined.
There still should be some thought into the questions that are being asked. There should be some training to make sure that they know how to mitigate bias in the way they’re assessing people and are not inadvertently looking for folks who simply demographically resemble them. But, but really, approaching it in the most objective way possible.
That’s in my, in my experience. It really comes down to that. But Lizzie, maybe you’ve seen different sides of this or might might might disagree altogether.
Lizzy Castro: Yeah, no, I think that peer interviews can be a good thing and a bad thing. I used to do peer interviews when I was in and I had some guidance into it, but I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into when I 1st did my, like, 3, let’s say, I think the biggest thing is why they go wrong. Piggybacking off of what Chuck said is there’s no training almost into how to run a peer interview.
Like, when you’re assessing these candidates, the peer interviews almost to see, okay, how are they going to act with a potential future coworker? Like, are they going to be still the way that they’re interviewing? Are they going to be different? Act a different way or they get a couple questions, so on and so forth. So I think if you give the peer a proper interview training, which can literally be 30 minutes, 45 minutes.
I think it can be a success. I think where it can go wrong is. The peer may sometimes reject someone based off a feeling like, oh, I feel like they’re not a good fit. Well, we can’t disqualify someone just based off of you feel like they’re not doing a good job. Like, we need to understand what questions are asked.
Did they seem like they were excited about talking about the culture? Like, did they ask questions about the quota? Did they want to see how our CRM works? And what do our sequences look like? Did they ask questions about data and life and KPIs? So I think that is where. It can be a pro, but also it can be a con to if they’re just not properly prepared for it.
Chuck Brotman: Yeah. Those are all good points. Also, too, I think sometimes. One of the reasons peer interviews can miss the mark is sometimes hiring leaders will bring in a peer to try to catch, to kind of catch a candidate off guard and to like find gotchas, right? Like, Hey, I’ve got some suspicions about X, like, see how they approach this.
And I think in general, like when you’re bringing in, a potential peer in the process, everything should always be transparent. You make the most rigorous assessments when you’re transparent, like it’s never a good idea if you’re bringing somebody in because. you want to, get somebody when they’re, when they’re, when their guard is down and ask questions surreptitiously, right?
Always be on the up and up, but, but make sure you’re putting thought into that. That’s how you run a properly rigorous process,
Lizzy Castro: And I think to just adding on to this, like, in my opinion, the peer interview is supposed to be a little bit more laid back. It’s supposed to be a time where the candidate can feel a little bit more comfortable. They’re no longer interviewing with someone who’s their potential boss. They’re meeting with someone that Usually is equivalent in some sort of age.
Usually you’re about to either make a lateral move or this is going to be a step up and you’re learning from someone who could potentially be your mentor. I remember when I was interviewing for an SDR role, my peer interview ended up being the person who was my mentor all through my training, and then they ended up getting promoted to an AE role, which was great.
So then I got to see, okay, I have literally one of the best. SDRs at the time being my peer and then my mentor. So it’s supposed to be more laid back. It’s supposed to be a fun thing, but I think if it’s too laid back and they’re not properly equipped and also they’re not, like Chuck said, bought into the product, bought into the company.
They don’t really, they’re not invested in the culture. I think that’s where they can just go completely south.
Chuck Brotman: right. I mean, it’s like, I think you could extend from that, right? It’s like a good learning for all interviewing is that everybody should aspire to make candidates feel comfortable. Chris, you talk about this. Everyone should aspire to make candidates feel comfortable. And you’re right. It appears. and, and tend to do that more often, but maybe this does beg the question, if you’re bringing them in for that, like what are, why are you running your initial interview, grilling them?
Right? Why are you not making people feel comfortable as if you were a peer, right? So all interviewing should be, should be, aimed to, understand talent to run the, the deepest, most thorough assessment to represent your company well and professionally. And part of doing that well is making people feel comfortable, and you shouldn’t lean on the peer to do that because you’re not capable or willing to do it yourself.
Right?
Lizzy Castro: Right. Yeah. I totally agree.
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. No, those are excellent points. I mean, Everyone you interview, you should look at these. Can this could be my hire? I could be around this person. You want them to have a good experience. And when people are comfortable, they will show you who they are right? At some point, the interview process. We’ve seen that a million times, right?
Like, there’s you don’t have to do all these tricks and mind games. Like, they will show you if you’re asking the right questions and you have, like, a defined process. But, I just think it’s, we’re so narrow and this this year specifically. Searches are narrow as far as, I want a, B and Z and X, Y, and Z and, the unicorn as well.
Right? And so you already have a much limited, like, smaller candidate pool. So make sure that before, like, you want to go in and grill them that you’re sure that they’re not your person, right? Because those days of grilling are really gone. You can still do it, but companies and. hiring might don’t have that leverage that they used to have.
And so that’s a whole nother topic for another time, but all that to say, be thoughtful about how you do it. Cause this can be something that’s very positive and successful. So that is all the time we have today, but thank you for joining the blueprint round table. Don’t forget to subscribe to our series on YouTube or blueprint expansion.
com and we will see you in the next episode. Thank you all.
Episode Summary
Hiring the right person and ensuring accountability across the board has never been more important. But the timing and choice of who interviews these candidates remains an open question. This leads us to this week’s topic about the C-suite: when should executives step in?
Join us this week as we share tips on when to bring in executives and how to leverage these stakeholders for maximum impact and efficiency.
*DO NOT USE OR REMOVE*
Transcript
Krissy Manzano: Hello. And thanks for joining another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable. I’ve got Chuck Brotman and Lizzie Wood with me today. And the question we are going to be talking about is, or the topic is why can peer interviews miss the mark during the interview process?
So Chuck, I’ll start with you to get your thoughts.
Chuck Brotman: I mean, the, the, the reasons they missed the mark can, can vary, but oftentimes it’s as simple as companies not really being thoughtful about why a peer to a potential hire is, is being brought into a process to begin with. So, first and foremost. Whoever you want to bring in your hiring process is really important that you’ve defined their, their role in the process and what competencies and behaviors that you want them to inspect and how they plan to go about doing it.
And if you’re inviting someone to, join an interview, simply to give someone insights into the process. The day in the life and oh, see what you think about them in the process. Are they a culture fit? If you’re giving someone vague guidance, you get you get out of the process what you put into it.
And if you’re approaching things in a unplanned, in sloppy way, you’re going to get sloppy results. And, a potential peer who may report to the same person who you. We’ll be hiring this candidate is obviously going to be a little cautious about challenging why they’re being brought in. Nobody wants to be insubordinate, right?
So it’s really important. These situations that you’re providing good guidance on what they should be assessing for you should be using an ATS to store responses. You should have questions to find in advance and you should have some. Definition for any interviewer of what a great response looks like versus a mediocre one.
So, I mean, it mostly comes down to that. Obviously, the company has some deeper issues politically. If you appear, for example, you may not be bought into the hiring altogether. I mean, there are things that can happen. Where they may actually be subverting your, your, your goals from representing the company.
Well, I don’t think that’s often the case with most companies, but that certainly can be an issue there as well. But I think fundamentally, when peer interviews missed the mark, they missed the mark because the process is not well defined, and the peer does not know what they’re assessing for. And even if you’re bringing someone in to mostly assess for values and culture fit or alignment, that still needs to be defined.
There still should be some thought into the questions that are being asked. There should be some training to make sure that they know how to mitigate bias in the way they’re assessing people and are not inadvertently looking for folks who simply demographically resemble them. But, but really, approaching it in the most objective way possible.
That’s in my, in my experience. It really comes down to that. But Lizzie, maybe you’ve seen different sides of this or might might might disagree altogether.
Lizzy Castro: Yeah, no, I think that peer interviews can be a good thing and a bad thing. I used to do peer interviews when I was in and I had some guidance into it, but I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into when I 1st did my, like, 3, let’s say, I think the biggest thing is why they go wrong. Piggybacking off of what Chuck said is there’s no training almost into how to run a peer interview.
Like, when you’re assessing these candidates, the peer interviews almost to see, okay, how are they going to act with a potential future coworker? Like, are they going to be still the way that they’re interviewing? Are they going to be different? Act a different way or they get a couple questions, so on and so forth. So I think if you give the peer a proper interview training, which can literally be 30 minutes, 45 minutes.
I think it can be a success. I think where it can go wrong is. The peer may sometimes reject someone based off a feeling like, oh, I feel like they’re not a good fit. Well, we can’t disqualify someone just based off of you feel like they’re not doing a good job. Like, we need to understand what questions are asked.
Did they seem like they were excited about talking about the culture? Like, did they ask questions about the quota? Did they want to see how our CRM works? And what do our sequences look like? Did they ask questions about data and life and KPIs? So I think that is where. It can be a pro, but also it can be a con to if they’re just not properly prepared for it.
Chuck Brotman: Yeah. Those are all good points. Also, too, I think sometimes. One of the reasons peer interviews can miss the mark is sometimes hiring leaders will bring in a peer to try to catch, to kind of catch a candidate off guard and to like find gotchas, right? Like, Hey, I’ve got some suspicions about X, like, see how they approach this.
And I think in general, like when you’re bringing in, a potential peer in the process, everything should always be transparent. You make the most rigorous assessments when you’re transparent, like it’s never a good idea if you’re bringing somebody in because. you want to, get somebody when they’re, when they’re, when their guard is down and ask questions surreptitiously, right?
Always be on the up and up, but, but make sure you’re putting thought into that. That’s how you run a properly rigorous process,
Lizzy Castro: And I think to just adding on to this, like, in my opinion, the peer interview is supposed to be a little bit more laid back. It’s supposed to be a time where the candidate can feel a little bit more comfortable. They’re no longer interviewing with someone who’s their potential boss. They’re meeting with someone that Usually is equivalent in some sort of age.
Usually you’re about to either make a lateral move or this is going to be a step up and you’re learning from someone who could potentially be your mentor. I remember when I was interviewing for an SDR role, my peer interview ended up being the person who was my mentor all through my training, and then they ended up getting promoted to an AE role, which was great.
So then I got to see, okay, I have literally one of the best. SDRs at the time being my peer and then my mentor. So it’s supposed to be more laid back. It’s supposed to be a fun thing, but I think if it’s too laid back and they’re not properly equipped and also they’re not, like Chuck said, bought into the product, bought into the company.
They don’t really, they’re not invested in the culture. I think that’s where they can just go completely south.
Chuck Brotman: right. I mean, it’s like, I think you could extend from that, right? It’s like a good learning for all interviewing is that everybody should aspire to make candidates feel comfortable. Chris, you talk about this. Everyone should aspire to make candidates feel comfortable. And you’re right. It appears. and, and tend to do that more often, but maybe this does beg the question, if you’re bringing them in for that, like what are, why are you running your initial interview, grilling them?
Right? Why are you not making people feel comfortable as if you were a peer, right? So all interviewing should be, should be, aimed to, understand talent to run the, the deepest, most thorough assessment to represent your company well and professionally. And part of doing that well is making people feel comfortable, and you shouldn’t lean on the peer to do that because you’re not capable or willing to do it yourself.
Right?
Lizzy Castro: Right. Yeah. I totally agree.
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. No, those are excellent points. I mean, Everyone you interview, you should look at these. Can this could be my hire? I could be around this person. You want them to have a good experience. And when people are comfortable, they will show you who they are right? At some point, the interview process. We’ve seen that a million times, right?
Like, there’s you don’t have to do all these tricks and mind games. Like, they will show you if you’re asking the right questions and you have, like, a defined process. But, I just think it’s, we’re so narrow and this this year specifically. Searches are narrow as far as, I want a, B and Z and X, Y, and Z and, the unicorn as well.
Right? And so you already have a much limited, like, smaller candidate pool. So make sure that before, like, you want to go in and grill them that you’re sure that they’re not your person, right? Because those days of grilling are really gone. You can still do it, but companies and. hiring might don’t have that leverage that they used to have.
And so that’s a whole nother topic for another time, but all that to say, be thoughtful about how you do it. Cause this can be something that’s very positive and successful. So that is all the time we have today, but thank you for joining the blueprint round table. Don’t forget to subscribe to our series on YouTube or blueprint expansion.
com and we will see you in the next episode. Thank you all.
More Resources
Podcasts
Blogs
Frequently Asked Questions
Hiring Companies
How do you charge for your services?
We offer multiple services, depending on the needs of our clients. Please reach out to us for more information, and see our GTM recruiting services page for more details.
Do you recruit outside of the US and Canada?
What roles do you recruit?
- Customer Success: Standard, Senior, and Principal Customer Success Managers, Onboarding Specialists, Implementation Managers, Community, Customer Support, & Solutions Architects
- Marketing: Growth & Demand Generation Marketing, ABM, Events, and Content / SEO Marketing
- Sales: Sales Development, SMB, Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise, and Strategic Account Executives
- Account Management
- Revenue Operations and Enablement: Marketing, CS, and Sales Operations
- Solutions Engineering and Post-Sales Solutions Architects
- GTM Leadership: Front-line, second-line, VP, and SVP / C Level placements (CRO, CMO, COO)
I've worked with so many headhunters and recruiting firms. What makes you different?
Put simply, we aspire to be as proficient in articulating your business value prop as your internal employees. Exceptional talent does not want to speak with “head-hunters;” instead, they want to connect with educated ambassadors of your business and your brand about meaningful career opportunities.
We go deep on your business and into talent markets to foster connections that other recruiting firms tend to miss. And we work with our hiring clients to ensure excellence in their hiring process. Please reach out to us for more information!
Is SaaS experience important when hiring?
Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!
Job Seekers
I don’t see any roles for me. What Should I do?
Blueprint runs a monthly Transferable Skills Workshop to help early talent and career switchers find opportunity in the market and prepare to interview. It’s currently offered at no cost. Interested? Please reach out to us.
How do I negotiate fair compensation ?
The Blueprint team always shares compensation range information with candidates before initial screening calls. Beyond this, we encourage you to consult with review sites and other data sources to educate on the market for the roles you’ve held. Want to discuss? Reach out to us.
Is it still important to send 'Thank You' notes?
Interviewing should always be treated as a two-way street, and a candidate should never feel obligated to show gratitude and follow up first.
That said, if you believe a given opportunity aligns to your role and company interests, we recommend sending interviewers a follow-up email after every step in the process. This gives you a chance to recap your learnings & enthusiasms briefly and authentically. It also helps you stay top of mind with interviewing companies.
Check out the roundtable discussion our leadership team recently held on the topic of post-interview thank-you notes.
What are some additional basic tips for candidates?
Make sure you prep before every interview, particularly by reviewing the company website, recent new articles, and the LinkedIn profiles of relevant interviewers and company leaders.
Consider business casual attire - ask your recruiter for any additional guidance. Try to make sure that you are able to sit front and center facing your camera - test it with friends prior to running an interview. If you need to take a call by phone, it’s best to let your recruiter or the hiring manager know in advance, and offer them an option to reschedule if they prefer.
Lastly, prepare some questions in advance based on your research, but do everything you can to stay in the conversation. The more you can listen and be in the moment, the better you’ll execute and be able to vet the opportunity for yourself.
Have more questions? Contact us!
Why did you launch Blueprint?
Despite so much innovation in HR tech and recruiting, hiring remains broken. As former operators with decades of experience hiring GTM talent, we wanted to start our own business dedicated to helping B2B tech companies across a range of industries do a better job at attracting and sourcing tremendous (and diverse) talent.
How do you charge for your services?
We have multiple services packages, depending on the needs of our clients. Please reach out to us for more information, and see our sales recruitment services page for a breakdown of our packages.
Do you recruit outside of the US and Canada?
What roles do you recruit?
- Customer Success: Standard, Senior, and Principal Customer Success Managers, Onboarding Specialists, Implementation Managers, Community, Customer Support, & Solutions Architects
- Marketing: Growth & Demand Generation Marketing, ABM, Events, and Content / SEO Marketing
- Sales: Sales Development, SMB, Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise, and Strategic Account Executives
- Account Management
- Revenue Operations and Enablement: Marketing, CS, and Sales Operations
- Solutions Engineering and Post-Sales Solutions Architects
- GTM Leadership: Front-line, second-line, VP, and SVP / C Level placements (CRO, CMO, COO)
I've worked with so many headhunters and recruiting firms. What makes you different?
Put simply, we aspire to be as proficient in articulating your business value prop as your internal employees. Exceptional talent does not want to speak with “head-hunters;” instead, they want to connect with educated ambassadors of your business and your brand about meaningful career opportunities.
We go deep on your business and into talent markets to foster connections that other recruiting firms tend to miss. And we work with our hiring clients to ensure excellence in their hiring process. Please reach out to us for more information!
Is SaaS experience important when hiring?
Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!