I recently had an eye-opening conversation with a new client that I have to share.
Pharmacist candidates kept telling me how great their interview experiences were with the same hiring manager. It didn’t matter if they knew they were getting the job or not — they gave high marks. We just started working together, so I made a few calls to learn more about her.
What caught my attention wasn’t just the consistently positive feedback. It was the results behind it. Her retention rates were consistently and significantly above average. Fewer early departures. Stronger team stability. Better long-term fit.
That combination made me curious. What was she doing differently?
So, in our next follow-up, I shared what I had learned about her and asked about her approach. Her reply was surprisingly simple: she starts every interview by flipping the traditional interview script.
Instead of opening with rapid-fire questions, she begins by giving candidates brief, meaningful context sharing why the role is open, what success really looks like, and the realities around schedule, location, and compensation.
Then she asks one powerfully simple question: “What questions do you have for me?”
What made this even more interesting is how this approach came to be.
She told me that early in her career, she was forced into a rigid, checklist-style interview structure. The process felt transactional. Candidates were guarded. The conversations were stiff. And despite “doing everything by the book,” the results were poor — misalignment, early turnover, and hires that looked good on paper but didn’t stick. She felt stressed heading into interviews anticipating that the process didn’t work.
Feeling anxious coming into one particular interview, she skipped ahead, gave the candidate quick context, and blurted, ‘what do you want to know’ before jumping into her prepared questions. What happened next surprised her. The candidate relaxed. She relaxed. The answers were more thoughtful and more honest. They were having a conversation.
That accidental shift became a repeatable practice. Over time, she realized that letting candidates lead with their questions wasn’t breaking the process — it was improving it. She found that it created comfort, lowered stress and built trust. Interviews felt like natural conversations rather than an interrogation.
Candidates were free to frame their answers around what truly matters in the role — rather than trying to tell her what they guessed she wanted to hear.
The result? Authentic conversations, mutual understanding, and stronger long-term alignment.
One candidate shared:
“This was the first interview where I felt like a person, not just a resume. I was able to relax and be myself.”
That kind of experience stays with candidates — whether they’re hired or not. It shapes your employer reputation. It influences referrals. And over time, it shows up in retention.
What this hiring manager reminded me of is something I see again and again with high-performing pharmacy teams: Retention doesn’t start on day one. It starts in the interview process.
Small shifts in how you structure interviews can lead to:
- Better candidate engagement
- More honest and useful answers
- Stronger perception of leadership and culture
- And, ultimately, higher retention
For pharmacy hiring managers, this isn’t just about who you hire. It’s about the experience you create — and what that experience signals about what it’s really like to work on your team.
I’d love to hear: what small changes have you made that improved your interview experience — and your retention?
