Interviewing Ideas

How to improve your chances...

When I retired as a CEO, I thought I was done with interviewing. However, I find myself facing a round of interviews for the leader of an organization that I care very much about. This presents an opportunity to root around in my files and memories and brush up on what makes a good interview.

As an introvert, interviewing was never one of my favorite tasks. Over time, I became pretty good at reframing this conversation as an opportunity to learn about someone new and to continue the endless learning experience of trying to develop an understanding of a person in under sixty minutes.

I try not to think about the absurdity of the situation. From my side, trying to understand someone that may not even understand herself, trying to work around a person that is very much trying to be on her best behavior, is a bit unreasonable. It’s like speed dating when you know you have to decide whether to propose after the first date.

How do we get beyond the very real clash of goals here? The candidate wants the job offer. Deciding whether to take it comes later. How does he answer questions so he is in the best light possible? How does he sell his best features and hide weaknesses? How does he turn the interview around or turn it into relationship building to minimize the number of tough questions he has to answer?

As I pondered these things, I happened to come across a summary of First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman and I found a few good reminders that I could combine with some of my own lessons from the school of hard knocks.

“The interview should be focused on discovering whether the candidate’s recurring patterns of thought or behavior match the job…an employee faces thousands of situations every day to which he could respond any number of ways. How he consistently responds will be his performance.”

Most of us initially look closely at the resume for a summary of recurring patterns. I have always been uncomfortable with too much ‘job hopping’. If someone changes jobs every two years, how do I know they will stick with us for the long haul? Are they leaving because it takes most companies that long to identify performance issues? Likewise, we look at the resume for positive recurring patterns of success: a clear progression of career with a balanced view of achievements.

How do we dig deeper into a person’s recurring patterns of thought and behavior in the interview? Break the Rules says: “Ask open ended questions that offer potential directions and don’t telegraph the “right” direction. How closely do you think people should be supervised? What do you like most about selling? A person’s unaided response to an open-ended question is powerfully predictive.”

One of the open-ended questions I like to ask is: “Why this job?”. Let’s get right to the question of whether the candidate has done his homework and cares deeply about the right fit. It’s surprising how many people show up without preparation, even for pretty high-level positions. Knowledge, preparation, and discipline are often prerequisites for success.

I’m also looking for a long-term, two-way relationship. I don’t want someone looking for a job. I want someone that’s looking for THE job. If they haven’t dug into who we are and why we exist, they can’t know if our job will fit what they’re looking for. Will they just spit back a few things on the surface of the website, or are they digging deeper and connecting our values to their own?

“Ask ‘Tell me about a time when you…’ questions and listen for a specific example, giving credit only to top of mind response. If the past behavior was truly recurring, the person should be able to quickly give you a specific example with only one prompt…The top of mind response is better than one that requires two or three prompts, no matter how “right” the final answer is.”

I often ask: “What are your values? If you started a company, what words would you hang on the wall to set the tone?”. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people and very few can give a clear and concise answer to that question. Many people don’t really think about how to articulate what they believe is important in life.

If she can describe her values, then the natural follow up is: “Tell me about the last time you lived your value of [integrity]”. Back to Break the Rules, we can quickly see whether there is a specific top of mind response that demonstrates recurring behavior and authenticity. Bonus points if the candidate then respectfully turns the tables and asks for a recent example of how we live our values.

“Rapid learning is an important clue to a person’s talent. Ask the candidate what kinds of things she has been able to learn quickly and what kinds of activities come easily to her now. This will give you clues that help identify her unique, inherent abilities. Likewise, a person’s sources of satisfaction give clues to talent. Ask what kinds of situations give him strength, what he finds fulfilling, what his greatest personal satisfaction is.”

Ahh, now we are honing in on the nub. Everyone shows up with a set of innate strengths and weaknesses. How do we figure out what this candidate brings to our team?

While rapid learning is important, so is introspection. I often like to ask candidates to tell me a little bit about how they grew up. I want to know what her parents were like, what did they do, what was her upbringing like? When you left home, your parents gave you things. Some of them are good, and some of them are not-so-good. Have you thought about what those are and how you deal with them?

The Break the Rules approach is very good as well: Tell me what you love to do. Many people don’t know what their gifts are but you can explore them together by talking about what comes easy to them. In a detail oriented position, I like to know whether that person loves to have everything organized at home. If you can’t get your car in the garage, you may not be the right person for an accounting job.

We can always try the straightforward approach: “Tell me about three of your strengths and one weakness.” Does he know what he is gifted at? Will he be honest about his weakness or will you get a stock answer like “I work too hard”? Does he recognize that every strength can also be a weakness?

“There are some question/answer combinations that are powerful predictors of performance for a given role. “How do you feel when someone doubts what you say?” is one that works for sales and teachers. Great salespeople are selling themselves so it upsets them to be doubted, while average salespeople are not personally invested. Great teachers love to be doubted because they instinctively equate doubters with students while average teachers don’t like to be doubted at all.”

It might be easier than you think to come up with questions that are tailored to what you are looking for. An easy example is looking for humility: does the person refer to all successes using the first person singular while referring to failures in the third person? Does a servant leader give away credit for success and take personal responsibility for failures?