Trouble Shooting Logic

Last time we looked at the logistics of the interview and the importance of taking notes.  In addition to taking notes, you must maintain control of the interview.  One of the things that can happen in an interview is the interviewer may ask a question that the applicant does not want to answer.  Often the applicant will attempt to change the topic.  If this happens the tendency of the interviewer is to “interrupt” the applicant to get things “back on track”.  However, each time the interviewer interrupts the applicant to respond it legitimizes the topic that the applicant has brought up.  As long as the interviewer continues to interrupt the applicant, the applicant maintains control of the conversation.

The interviewer can avoid this by listening intently to what the applicant says, without giving any verbal or non-verbal signals as to how the interviewer is reacting to the applicant’s statement.  An applicant will seldom talk more than thirty seconds if there is not some type of response from the interviewer.  By not interrupting and by giving no verbals or non-verbals, the interviewer is not relinquishing control of the conversation.

When the applicant has stopped talking, the interviewer takes control of the discussion by leading it in the direction he or she wants, as opposed to the direction the applicant was trying to establish.  One simple way to do this is to re-ask the original question.

Tip of the day:  If you don’t control the interview, you’re doing both you and the interviewee a disservice.

Except for true entry level positions where there are no pre-existing job skill requirements, at least two people should interview the candidate.  This poses the question, “Why?”  There are several reasons.

First, any individual interviewer may not pick up on key information during the interview.  Therefore, to ensure that adequate information about the applicant is obtained, a minimum of two people should interview the applicant.

Second, if honesty and integrity are key requirements, (When are they not key requirements?  Well, OK if we’re hiring a bank robber’s assistant they might not be essential!) a second interviewer will potentially discover inconsistencies in the applicant’s responses.  Because each interviewer has his or her own, unique style it is difficult for an applicant who is either trying to hide something or exaggerate something to have a totally consistent “story line” interviewer to interviewer.

Third, and this happens quite frequently, the first interviewer has broken the ice for the second interviewer.  Quite frequently the second interviewer will get information that the first didn’t, regardless of how efficient the first interview was.

For some positions, a hiring committee is appropriate.  Some interviews should be done by one or more hiring teams.  Higher positions with significant skill and knowledge requirements demand a more comprehensive interviewing process.  In addition, there is a general rule of thumb that states, “The higher the position, the more important it is to find a truly qualified candidate.  Therefore, more than one interviewing session is appropriate”.

In any event, the interviewers and interview teams should take notes.  It is important not only to ask good questions but also to document the answer.  For this reason notes should be taken during the interview, not after it.  If you wish you can tell the applicant up-front that notes will be taken so, “we don’t lose any of the information you are giving us.”

In addition to taking notes, it is essential that the interviewers maintain control of the interview.  We’ll look into that in our next post.

Tip of the day:  Do not ramble on about yourself.  Your job is to gather information about the applicant.  There is no need to tell him or her your life’s story.  Keep the focus of the interview on what the applicant has to offer.

The last several Posts have dealt with “general information” about the applicant.  Once you have that information, you should do one of two things:

1)  Determine that the candidate is not a fit to your organization and close the interview as quickly as you can to save both your and the applicant’s time, or

2)  Determine that the candidate is a general fit for the position in question and continue.

Assuming you get 2) above, you can now describe the position in detail.  (Remember: never describe the details of the position until after you determine the applicant is a potential fit to the job and to your organization!)  For the applicant to be successful in the job for which you are considering him or her, he or she must have the specific job skills required.  Your task is to find out if the applicant has the appropriate skills to make him or her successful.  If you hire someone that does not have the skill and knowledge to adequately do the job and he or she fails, it is just as much your failure as it is his or hers.

Typical questions to ask here are:

• Why do you think you will be successful in this job?
• If you were hiring someone for a position like this what specific qualities and for what skills and traits would you look?  (Contrast the answer you get here with the answers you got in the general section of the interview.  Any red flags?)
• What would you do when faced with (some typical job situation for the job you are interviewing for)?
• What two or three strengths do you have that make you uniquely qualified for this job?
• What would you do when faced with (Another typical job situation for the job you are interviewing for)?

Tip of the day:  Take the time to really understand the job skills the person requires for success.  Aim you questions at those skills.

Most people prepare for the interview.  They concentrate on their strengths in order to project the best possible image.  This is good.  The interviewer needs to learn about the applicant’s strengths.  In addition, however, all applicants have areas for improvement.  It is equally important to learn what these areas for improvement are in order to make a proper assessment of the applicant’s potential fit to the job.

Typical questions to ask here are:

• (Start with) What are your two or three biggest job accomplishments?  Why do you think they were so successful?
• In your past jobs what are your two of three biggest failures?  How did you deal with them?
• From your own point of view, what areas of job performance do you feel need the most improvement?  Why?
• If you were your own supervisor what areas of your job performance would you be most concerned about?  Why?  How would you address them?

Is “failure fosters failure” a truth?  Only if the failure repeats itself.  In a good, honest, open interview the discussion around the applicant’s prior failures can be very enlightening.  When a person knows what their areas for improvement are and has a plan to address them, you have a good topic to discuss.  More than any other part of the interview, the “past failures” discussion lets you really see into the interviewees approach to a job, and to life for that matter.

Tip of the day:  Don’t gloss over an applicant’s past failures.  Get them out in the light and discuss them.

A key attribute for any new hire (and for internal candidates applying for a new job) is integrity and honesty.  You need some good insights into the applicant’s approach to honesty in order to make an adequate assessment of his or her fit to the job and workplace.

Typical questions to ask here are:

• If one of your co-workers makes a mistake that will have NO long-term impact on operations and asks you to help cover it up what would you do?
• One of your co-workers lies to a customer about one of our products.  In your estimation the “lie” could result in the product being used in an unsafe way potentially causing someone severe injury.  What would you do?  How would you do it?
• If one of your co-workers makes a mistake that will have a long-term impact on operations and asks you to help cover it up what would you do?

The following pair of questions, properly handled, will tell you a lot:

• “Can you lie?”
• “What type of thing can you lie about?”

First off, ask, “CAN you lie?” not “DO you lie?”  Our attorneys say that asking “DO you lie?” might be construed by some courts as inappropriate, and therefore opening you up to the potential of a Liable situation.

With that said, ask, “Can you lie?” first.  If the applicant says, “No”, you’ve got a liar on your hands.  Assuming you get a, “Yes”, ask, “What type of things can you lie about?”  Probe a bit here.  Look for consistency in the applicant’s answers.  Ask the “same question” more than once and NOT back to back.  If you don’t get the same answer, a red flag has just gone up!

Another great pair of question is:

• “When we check your references what kinds of information are we likely to find?
• “When we check the in formation in the  public data bases about you what are we likely to find?

Based upon the answers to these questions, determine if there are any “discrepancies” in the applicant’s answers?  If there are confront them, nicely. (No screaming you’re a liar.  The first time you said X, now you say Y!)

Tip one of the day:  Always check references and search the public data bases before you offer anyone, even your mother, a job!

Tip two of the day:  As the interviewer have the poker face.  If an answer starts to raise that old red flag, don’t let on that it did.  Probe on.

If the job you need to fill requires the new hire to work closely with others, then the person hired for the job will require good to excellent interpersonal skills.  Before you make a job offer, you need to ask questions to determine how well the applicant works with others

Typical questions to ask here are:

• What types of people do you most like to work with?  Why?  Least like to work with?  Why?
• If the person who does the job just before yours starts to give you “bad” parts, what would you do?
• If some how an irate customer started taking out his or her frustration on you, what would you do?
• If your “boss” calls you into his or her office and asks you specific questions about a conflict between two of your co-workers what would you do?
• If you see that a co-worker you don’t like starts to make a “mistake” what would you do?
• Let’s say the person who does the job just after yours tells you that you are giving them “bad” parts.  Yet, you know FOR A FACT that the parts you are giving them are good, what would you do?

As “interpersonal skills” can be very job specific, modify the above questions to fit your needs.

Keep in mind that even if the job is an individual effort some interpersonal skills are required.  Before the interview you should know the level of interpersonal skills required and plan your questions accordingly.

Conclusion:  If the job calls for Mother Theresa and you hire Attila the Hun, you’re the one who messed up!

Often problem-solving skills are required for a specific job.  In order to assess problem solving skills you will need to ask a variety of questions.  Some will relate to past job situations.  Others will be more hypothetical in nature.

Typical questions to ask here are:

• When things go “wrong” or get “off track” with your last job what do you do?
• If things are going better than expected on the job what do you do?
• What were some of the biggest challenges in your past jobs?  How did you overcome them?
• Let’s say you are driving alone in a big snowstorm.  You absolutely, positively have to get to your destination.  You stop for gas.  The windows are getting iced-up.  You scrape the ice off.  To do this you open the passenger’s door.  When you go to close the door it will not latch.  What do you do?  (This is a “key” question.  Most people start answering this question by coming up with adaptive actions.  Shoot down as “impossible” in the situation each adaptive action the person identifies.  If the person does not start to address WHY the door won’t latch after 3 to 5 adaptive actions, you may not have a problem solving super-star on your hands.  A “true” super-star problem solver will immediately look for the cause of the door not latching.)
• Let’s say you are making parts on a 5-station machine.  One of the stations starts to make what you believe are “bad” parts.  What do you do?  Why?

Tip of the day:  The better your questions, the better the information you have about the applicant and thus the better your assessment of fit / no fit.

When this is the case you must assess the applicant’s priority setting skills.  As is the case with most areas of job performance, the applicant’s past performance is a good indicator of their future success.  In this area of the interview some good hypothetical questions along with questions about past performance should give you the information you need to make an adequate assessment.

Typical questions to ask here are:

• When things go “wrong” or get “off track” on the job what do you do?
• In your last job how did you deal with conflicting priorities?
• Let’s say you are given three jobs to do.  All three need to be done by 5:00 PM today.  It is now 3:00 PM.  To your dismay, you find that each job will take a minimum of one hour to complete.  What would you do?  Why?
• You agree to do a task for a co-worker.  Five minutes later your boss asks you to something.  You can do only one of the tasks.  Which one do you do?  Why?  How would you handle the one you didn’t do?

The better your questions, the better your assessment.

Tip of the day:  Prepare your questions in advance!

You need that “someone special” for a job that just came open.  The job you need to fill requires the successful applicant to have good interpersonal skills, good problem solving skills and to have the ability to work alone in the bottom of a cold, dark, damp hole.

So you post an ad in your local “help wanted” blog.  Part of the ad states, “This job requires good interpersonal skills, good problem solving skills and the ability to work alone in the bottom of a cold, dark, damp hole.”  Then you start to interview applicants.  You ask each applicant, “What are your job strengths?”  Would you believe it?  ALL 37 of the people you interview answer, “I have good interpersonal skills, good problem solving skills and I love to work alone in the bottom of a cold, dark, damp hole.”  Are you lucky to find 37 “special” people or did you “tell” them how to answer in advance?  Bet you know the answer now!

Never describe the specific attributes the job requires to the applicant until you have the information you require to make a quality evaluation.  If the person you are interviewing truly wants the job, he or she will present themselves in the very best light relative to the job.  For you to make an accurate assessment of the person relative to the job you need to know what they offer, not just what they want you to know.

If the interviewee has no clue that the job requires good interpersonal skills, good problem solving skills and the ability to work alone in the bottom of a cold, dark, damp hole and you ask, “What are your job strengths?”  And then follow it up with, “What type of workspace suits you best?”  You will know right away you got the “right someone special” if you get the composite answer, “I have good interpersonal skills, good problem solving skills and I love to work alone in the bottom of a cold, dark, damp hole!”

In the next few posts we’ll look at questions you can ask to get good information relative to the specific skills a job requires.

Tip of the day:  Good information relative to how compatible an applicant is with the job requirements will help ensure you put the right person in the right job.