Can you be too informal in an interview?

Over the years I have received surprising feedback from candidates when they call to de-brief about their interviews with one of my clients.  Recently I had a candidate tell me that he felt a meeting at a coffee shop seemed too much like a conversation and not an interview.  While we agreed that could be a positive thing as well, he simply did not walk away from the meeting with a positive outlook on the employer or the job opportunity.  Mostly recent news or sports talk dominated the conversation.

This is a topic I imagine could actually be debated vigorously from either side of the argument.  But I'm here to say today the old cliche of only having one chance to make a good first impression is the best advice I can give to any client.  This starts from the moment you begin having a discussion with a candidate.  From a brief phone call to schedule a meeting or that first email correspondence, please consider treating all candidates with a certain degree of formality to create an impression.

Here are three simple tips to create that formality without going overboard:

1) Put the interview agenda for a meeting on company letterhead.  I have seen this done seldom, but when I see it an indelible impression is left on my mind.  It is an opportunity to brand your company, send a strong message that you're taking the meeting(s) seriously, and that the candidate should too.  Also be sure to include titles of anyone the candidate may be meeting with during the interview.  Frankly just having an agenda is going to put you ahead of 50% of companies out there.  Putting it on company letterhead can immediately put you in the top 20%, if not even higher.  Seems pretty simple, doesn't it?

2) Provide some company history ahead of the interview.  I know that many companies have social media presence, robust websites, and other outlets where a candidate can find out about the organization.  But why not create a marketing piece where you can absolutely control the message and make certain it is what you want candidates to hear.

3) Provide any team members on the interview panel with the candidate's resume.  We always counsel candidates to bring extra hard copies of their resumes just in case, but in many regards that should never be necessary.  Whoever is coordinating the meetings with stakeholders should provide at the very least the resume of the candidate they will be interviewing.  In a perfect world they would also provide some background on any conversations that have occurred up to that point.  I can't tell you how many times candidates have come out of interviews telling me that the person that interviewed them didn't even know why they were interviewing the candidate in the first place.  Trust me, this does not instill a lot of confidence in a candidate.  And if you were serious about hiring that person, you may have just put it in jeopardy by having a bad meeting.

A personal experience that just happened to me today really hammered this blog topic home for me.  My youngest daughter had a tonsillectomy, and we were the first appointment of the morning for the surgeon.  We know him personally as I have had two surgeries performed by him, and my son has had one.  But he greeted us ahead of time in a snazzy bow tie and suit coat before changing into his surgical clothes.  I don't know why, but it gave me even more confidence that he came ready to go.  Instead of being informal, he was as formal as could be.  It was great!

Have you ever missed the boat on a chance to be formal and instead left an impression on a candidate that you weren't taking the process seriously?  If so, what would you have done differently to leave a better impression with the candidate?