The world’s longest job interview: a presidential election

As an HR professional who has two degrees in political science, I can’t help but combine both sides of my life into each election. It’s politics; it’s recruiting. It’s both.

So when thinking about who you will vote for, consider it like you would if you were interviewing a potential CEO. Your responsibility, as an HR leader, is to help find someone who will benefit the company as a whole–not the person you like as a person the most. Consider the following questions.

Job Analysis

Before you hire for any executive position, you’re going to do a job analysis. What skills are necessary to fill this job? For instance, think about the core responsibilities of a United States President.

• Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. This candidate will need to understand the current military status of the country and work with senior military leaders. This person must be able to gain the respect of senior leaders and the troops in general in order to be successful. An understanding of military history and ability to see long term consequences is a must.
• Chief executive of the United States. This is the CEO role. The president is responsible for the executive branch, which has about 3 million employees, not including military personel. The president needs to understand everything a CEO of a major corporation understands including budgeting, negotiation, and current employment law. Key to success in this area is the president’s ability to hire. Walmart, which has over 2 million employees, has one mission: to sell things. The federal government has far more diverse responsibilities. The president needs to make solid hiring decision to bring in experts to head up each division of the executive branch of government. 
• Chief diplomat. Schmoozing with foreign leaders is a key role of the president. While the Vice President often gets stuck with things like foreign dignitary funeral duties, the president is the face of the country. The president needs to know how to negotiate when necessary and how to hold our ground when necessary. While often people mistake this role as one of being “likable,” likeability has little to do with it. It’s about achieving results. 
• Legislative leader. The president doesn’t originate legislation. While the president can have a legislative agenda, the duty to create laws lies with congress, including budgeting. 

What would you look for in the backgrounds of the candidates? Who has skills to do these things? How do you know they do? If you just say “I know they do!” but can’t justify it, then take a step back.

If you were to interview the candidates for this role, what would you ask? Reporters tend to ask questions that will make for clickable headlines, but those may not be the questions you would ask of a CEO candidate.

Perhaps you’d ask questions like this:

• What is your vision for the company–err, country–for the next 10 years? One mistake people make when voting is focusing only on short-term things. Candidates tend to focus on the short term, too, because the term is only four years. But the country will go on after this term is up. Looking at long-term goals is better than the short term.
• The United States budget is out of control, and we have a lot of debt. What is your plan for bringing that under control? The primary goal of a CEO is to return value to the shareholders. Consider the citizenship of the country as the shareholders. What will this candidate do to be fiscally responsible?
• What are your priorities? What is your plan for achieving them? As with any CEO role, the president has many areas to focus on. What will this candidate focus on? How will this candidate approach the problem?
• Give an example of a crisis you’ve successfully handled. Running a country can be running from one crisis to another. A successful president knows how to handle these things.
• The NLRB has a large impact on our business. What will your goals be for this agency? This is probably the federal agency with the most impact on business. Is this candidate going to do things to make it better or worse for your business?

Interview questions like these clear up in your mind what is best for the country. Ignoring these and other questions in this category gets you a candidate who doesn’t know how to lead.

Check those references

Reference checks for low-level employees are of limited value. They can give you the names of three people who will sing their praises. CEOs, on the other hand, deserve an in-depth look at their history, and they can’t just present you with three references. It’s easy to find negative and positive references for presidential candidates. Talk with both.

For instance, you don’t want to hire someone with high staff turnover. How did this candidate negotiate deals? What is their record of the areas they say they will focus on? Speaking with people who have first-hand experience will give you invaluable insight.

Make sure you talk with those who actually have firsthand experience, though. Ideally, you want to find people who won’t directly benefit from either candidate’s election. (You’d never trust the reference for a CEO candidate if you knew that the candidate had offered this person a plum position if hired.)

Approaching the presidential election like a job interview is a dream that, apparently, only I have. Wouldn’t it be great if we could approach it this way instead of with name-calling, advertising, and screaming fits on social media?

But even though the nation as a whole won’t do this, you should. It will help you vote for the person who you think is most likely to do a good job.