20 Candidates. 5 Openings. One Day. Here's How We Pulled It Off.

I once walked into a senior leadership meeting at a large industrial manufacturer and proposed something that made the room laugh.

I suggested we interview all 20 candidates in one day.

Not over several weeks. Not spread across multiple trips and scheduling nightmares. One day. One conference room. All the decision makers at the table at the same time.

They thought I was out of my mind.

I didn't care.

Here's the context. This company needed to hire five district sales managers across different regions. My team had sourced close to 20 qualified candidates. And I'd watched enough searches drag on for months — good candidates going cold, decision makers losing interest, momentum dying — that I knew the traditional approach wasn't going to work here.

So I organized it myself.

I built the schedule around everyone's availability. I coordinated every candidate, every hiring manager, every time slot. All of the decision makers gathered around the boardroom table together. Each candidate joined us virtually — we ran every interview on a large screen television via Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Each candidate got 15 minutes. Five minute breaks in between to regroup, take notes, and reset. We moved efficiently through all 20 candidates within a single eight hour day.

If a candidate was late or missed their slot, they went to the back of the line and interviewed at the end of the day. No exceptions.

I was there to manage the entire process.

One candidate had an issue — we handled it at the end of the day. Everyone else ran on schedule. By the time we finished, every decision maker had seen every candidate, had their notes, and had a clear opinion.

We filled all five roles. Offers went out. Five people started within two weeks.

The CEO loved it. He made HR implement it as standard practice going forward.

HR did not love me for that. But it worked.

Here's what I took away from that day: Time is the most precious thing in a hiring process. Candidates go cold. Managers get distracted. Momentum is everything. When you compress the timeline and get everyone in the room at once, you eliminate the noise and you make decisions.

Most companies don't need more time to hire. They need a better process.

Sometimes that means someone from the outside has to walk in and say something that makes the room laugh.

I'm okay with that.

Philip Lamb is Managing Partner of PRL International — a retained executive search firm with 30+ years of experience placing leadership talent in manufacturing, energy, aerospace, technology, and financial services.

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