Last year, I took in a presentation led by the head of talent acquisition at one of America’s largest spirits and wine companies. In the presentation, we were guided through the speaker’s experiences transforming the company’s global recruiting organization to place greater emphasis on improving the candidate experience.

He traveled around the world, visiting different offices and meeting with their recruiting staff at each location. As the head of talent acquisition, during each visit, he’d meet with recruiters in the lobby and ask, “What would we have to do during the interview day that would guarantee candidates would never return our phone calls?”

After posing such a question, he was often met with bewilderment, blank stares, and furrowed brows. Not surprisingly, ‘Is this guy serious?’ was written on most of the faces he confronted.

As it turns out, he was serious, and his question made perfect sense. You see, often in life it is easier to state what you don’t want, rather than what you do. It’s definition by elimination, and more often than not, it just comes easier. His approach was shrewd and guided the company’s recruiters to a complete deconstruction of what could go wrong from start of the interview process to its end. The list flowed: keep reading…