How to Interview

So You Think You’re Making Your Hiring Decisions? Hiring managers may be surprised to find out that they often take the role of “auditor” rather than “decision maker” in hiring employees.  Many hiring managers audit a checklist to see if job candidates “match up” but they unwittingly end up relegating real hiring decisions to their competition; the applicant's last employer.

Here’s how some hiring managers evaluate a prospective employee: Ten years experience in a similar role at a competing firm we envy – check, Ivy League graduate – check, lives close by – check,  they seemed like a nice person in the interview – check; and hired. I challenge this thinking. A lot of middle managers and recruiters hire this way because it’s “safe” for them. However, it does little on its own to identify raw talent or to uncover the type of personalities that would best match what their company stands for vs. the competition.

So what if a candidate worked at Goldman Sachs and went to Harvard? So what if they had the exact role at a competitor for the last 10 years? These can be great accomplishments but, if managers make hiring decisions based on where someone previously worked or their tenure in the exact role, then they aren’t really the one making hiring decisions. Instead they are allowing the hiring manager from the candidate’s previous company to decide for them. Who’s to say the present hiring manager would have hired the candidate 10 years ago at that other company when the candidate didn’t have the 10 years experience?  Besides, there are plenty of people that got ahead in the past due to economic tailwinds and connections rather than from their own abilities. The point is, an interviewer must not lose their objectivity if they truly desire to uncover talent rather than just put cheeks in seats.

If you’re in a position to hire people, how do you know you’re doing a good job? Have you studied how to conduct interviews or is it something you just picked up along the way? Have you articulated the criteria you’re looking for? What assumptions led you to believe that your criterion is best for your organization?

I compiled a few tips that you may find useful in identifying talent.  For simplicity, I assume a hiring manager is not accidentally screening out qualified candidates due to limited resume keyword searches or due to outsourced recruiters with possibly different incentives than that of the company’s.

Interview Structure: Most professional interviews could use a dose of behavioral, functional, and case study interview styles. It’s important to not only hire for the role you’re trying to fill but to also inventory talent and skills for later use by the organization and to uncover the next generation of leadership. It can be good to encourage the candidate to evaluate the employer and vice a versa. Often interviewers want the prospect to “sell them” when it can be much more useful to search for an alignment of personal and organizational interests without the pretense.  Many prospects will try to “sell” the employer in today’s job market but they likely won’t stay around when a more aligned employment opportunity comes up in the future.

Sophisticated Questions: A lot of interviewers take only the resume to the interview and wing-it with their questions without a written agenda. Others have generic questions handed down to them by HR that were drafted by someone with no experience in the role being evaluated. These interviewers often fall back on canned questions such as, “What’s your weakness?” and thereby get canned responses. Here’s an example of how an astute interviewer can improve their questions and efficiency by asking one question and evaluating many deeper indications of talent:

What is the most common misperception your friends, family, or colleagues have about you? 

-Element of Truth: Typically there is an element of truth to how people are perceived. Often this question gets a candidate to unwittingly volunteer a more authentic response of a potential weakness.

-Think: Can the candidate creatively think of a response to a hard question quickly? Are they rattled when they don’t have an answer readily at hand? Are they in tune with their weaknesses?

-Articulate: Can the candidate put their response into a succinct framework that showcases their organizational abilities?

-Opportunity to Highlight: Has the candidate gone the extra mile to show how the misperception has been used to their advantage, or overcome, and how the experience has prepared them for the role being offered?

Ask it Again: Assuming the interviewer is well versed in Active Listening, the next level of interviewing uses sophisticated questions, in a series, related to core required attributes. For some reason, in verbal communication, the real picture seems to emerge after a few questions are asked.  The following example identifies a critical element of a job opening and has corresponding questions:

Identified Critical Skill for a Sales Role: The ability to determine how the customer vendor selection process is made and the ability to develop and communicate value propositions accordingly.

-Question 1: Once you uncover the need for your client, how do you supply your solution to meet their needs? (Price, product, speed, service, selection, etc)

-Question 2: Can you detail the elements of your solution and explain why they were selected? (Depth of knowledge, customer value creation)

-Question 3: If you were speaking with a new prospect right now, would you please list the four top reasons why they should work with you?  (Are the answers compelling and differentiated from competitors?)

-Question 4: On your last sale, how did the customer decide to go with you and who at their company was most directly responsible? (Depth of experience and communication)

Role Articulation: It’s my firm belief that if the employer can’t articulate how success on the job will be defined and rewarded for both achieving goals and exceeding them; then they haven’t done their job as the employer. Being successful in a role comes from more than a job description. It requires an alignment of expectations and the incentive to break past mediocrity into meritocracy. Similarly, a prospective employee needs to do their part by evaluating the opportunity and making sure they have a match in three critical areas:  1.) the right boss, 2.) the right job, and, 3.) the right company for them personally. A good interviewer will help encourage this part of the process.

Read and Forget the Resume: Hiring Managers would do well to show professional courtesy by studying the resume of the candidate prior to meeting with them.  Time in the interview should be spent purposely evaluating ability without overspending time on reviewing an already communicated career track.  A lot of interviewers go through a historical rehash of a person’s career whether the job was relevant to the open role or not. I’ve seen interviewers ask all kinds of operational questions for a sales position because that was the candidate’s last role so they thought they should talk about it.  So here’s the big tip, when done studying the resume; FORGET IT.  Take what you need and apply it to your agenda without getting caught up in an hour long biography. What abilities and skills are you trying to uncover in the next 60 minutes and how does the candidate measure up now and potentially in the future?

Personality Fit:  Are you really screening out people that don’t fit the culture? It’s quite common to recruit a key salesperson or key employee from a competitor and look past behavior alignment. A good practice is to articulate the values desired in a candidate and to have questions designed as a litmus test for identifying these espoused values.  For example, if interviewing a sales manager you might ask what they would do if their top salesperson consistently, after warnings, broke a value that is held dear to the hiring company.  You know if the interviewee would not suggest that they would eventually terminate this top salesperson, the company’s values may be in jeopardy of becoming mere platitudes if this person were hired. 

Check your Assumptions:  Do you screen out people that are really needed to diversify a myopic culture?  If you’re not paying attention, your subconscious mind will guide you to preconceived notions of people and you’ll naturally be drawn to what is familiar and comfortable for you. Even if you are in tune with your own biases, it’s so easy to get into a routine or formula of personality types that has worked out before. Be mindful of this. As someone who’s hired multiple cultures, personalities, and skills sets, I can tell you that you’re missing out if you try to put people in a box. Some of my best people were total surprises to me.  One vivid example was an awkward and kind of introverted person interviewing for a sales role. I had my hesitations but this person was very articulate about where and how they could succeed. It turned out; their authentic personality was the perfect match for the professional referral sources they called on who were tired of the flashy extrovert types. Breakthrough doesn’t usually come from what you expect or you probably would have done it already.

Set Expectations:  Setting expectations is critical. I think most would agree that if they took a job they were told would be a horrible experience but with a little more pay; they’d be inclined to stick-it-out since they accepted the trade-off. However, if you were told you’d have a great experience and really good compensation, and it turned out to a be horrible experience, you’d probably be placing a lot of blame as you became aware of your disappointment and would look for the first exit.  Accurately setting expectations places accountability on the person accepting the role and most people will live up to their word. It’s therefore better to under promise and over deliver when describing an open position.

So you can hire by audit and be safe but, if you really want to maximize the resources you put into every chair in your office, consider some of these tips. Talent is the one thing you can leverage in abundance without undue risk but, one must be masterful to first uncover it. 


For more tips on how to interview employees, click here.