Has this ever happened to you? You finally decide to buy the car of your dreams. It will be quite an upgrade, but your budget can handle it. You have the car make and model all picked out. You're making the transition from a car that has only a name to a car that has numbers — YES! You've been secretly drooling over it for years and now your time has come.

You go to the dealership and pick out the car. You don't (well, hardly) flinch at the sticker price and you go through the salesperson/buyer "ritual haggling dance" with a minimum of hassle. Why, this is wondrous!

Then, suddenly, the sales manager comes out of his office, sits down next to you and says, "I'm sorry, sir. But that car doesn't want to be owned by you. We've tried to convince the car you'd be a fine owner, but he's having none of it. He has someone else whom he'd like to go home with and there's no changing his mind."

People Are Wired Differently Than Cars

A ridiculous scenario, isn't it? But that is the way many hiring managers think about hiring. They think that hiring an employee is like buying a car. They decide what they need in the car (read, "employee"), how much they have to spend and when they want to buy it.

What most hiring managers haven't taken into account, however, is that the hiring process is a two-way street. A candidate may have a few offers, allowing him the luxury of having a choice. And for some reason, he may not want to be driven home by you, or take the job that you have. I call that "The Walk-Away Factor."

How to Drive Home with What (Whom) You Want

So, that being said, there is one way to ensure (as best as you possibly can) that your first choice of candidate will be excited about your company and accept your position. And, here it is… (drum roll, please):

SELL THE OPPORTUNITY!

That's right. Put on your best sales hat and be sure to tell your candidate:

• WHY your company and your job are better than the next guy's
• WHY your employees are happy and stay longer than the average
• WHY it would be a smart career move for the candidate to work for you

You get the point. Make sure you are saying the same things to the candidate as you say to your prospective customers. If you need to brush up on your sales presentation, do it!

And here's a strategy to help you do this during the interview:

Make sure you weight the time you spend selling the opportunity as heavily as the time you spend drilling down on the qualifications of the candidate.

(For saving precious time, you can have your HR department "pre-qualify" the candidate so you can spend extra time talking about the tremendous opportunity that exists in your company. Or, "pre-qualify" the candidate yourself on the phone before the in-person interview. If you are using a recruiter, the candidate should be pre-qualified already.)

If you do a good job selling, every candidate you interview will WANT your job when they walk out the door. In the end, the choice will be yours. And won't it feel nice to opt for the one who is as "fully loaded" as that car of your dreams?