A client of mine is posting for a director-level position at a real estate development and property management firm. The company posted the job on their website, LinkedIn and Indeed.

In less than a week, they received more than 60 qualified applicants. They only need one person. This is the story of how they got there.

After the screening process, the HR manager had four candidates we were ready to interview and a few backups.

Scheduling the interviews

The department VP, another director in the department, the hiring manager and I made up the interview panel. As such, the HR manager blocked a half-day on all calendars for the interviews.

This is one of two common processes for scheduling panels. The other is for HR to coordinate the various needs of the candidates and the internal schedules so that they happen over a week or so.

Conversely, if they do not intend to do a panel interview, then interviews are scheduled with the various stakeholders over several days. Unfortunately, the schedules can be tricky to coordinate, so the interview process can take a long time to complete.

Further, it becomes challenging to compare candidates when multiple people have met with a candidate individually and at different times, often asking different questions. While there are pros to doing this — you can check the consistency of the candidate over multiple interviews, you can get the different perspectives garnered from different interview styles and you can usually get a little deeper in on the content knowledge — most of my clients prefer the bulk interviews with a panel simply because it is easier for them.

The HR manager contacted the top four, and all accepted — though one was traveling. They were able to arrange a Skype call, but if that had not happened, the HR manager would have called the next person on the list and tried to figure something out with the original candidate later at the team's convenience.

Normally, that would not be a fast process, so bottom line, if you are applying for a job and you get to the interview phase, try to be available when you are asked to be there or risk losing your spot.

Executing the interviews

All of the candidates except the carryover candidate from the previous posting were eliminated pretty quickly.

One candidate spoke too much. He literally had to catch his breath because he was talking for such a long time. Unless you are interviewing to be an auctioneer, this is not a good strategy.

The second candidate misrepresented her skills on her resume so when she was asked questions about specific examples, it became quite evident the work experience was inflated. The final candidate was what the client called "not a fit."

This is a general categorization that many of my clients use, much to my dismay. It is like saying someone does not "get it." In both cases, I work with the managers to articulate what it really means. In this case, the candidate was not a fit because he was used to working in an organization that had lots of structure, process and support.

My client is fast-paced with little process or support in place. Even though the candidate explained that he would like the fast-paced environment, because he had not worked in such an environment and had worked in the opposite type of organization for over 15 years, the team was not comfortable taking a chance that the person could adjust.

Stay tuned next when we discuss the offer process.