More on Interviewing

Here are five more tips to help your recruiting.

Tip 6: Use CV’s and References sparingly. At the start of a recruitment process, you often have no choice but to pre-select based on CV’s, since you hope for a lot of applicants. Hopefully, you have defined the requirements of the position carefully, and already worked out your criteria (tip 4). In your position description, avoid what the Dutch call the five legged sheep, in other words a set of requirements that no one can match, at least no one would want to at the pathetic salary you are offering. You want plenty of qualified applicants, and you want to interview as many of them as you can. Maybe you can define an intermediate step, such as a short telephone interview, to help your short listing, or, more often, require candidates to submit not just a CV but also a statement of why they feel they would be a good selection, sometimes called a motivation letter. I also put the motivation letter as more important than the CV, and used the CV only for confirming the basic suitability. It does depend on the role, but defining a requirement of fifteen years experience in the field is going to exclude a lot of talent.
Once you have done your pre-selection, and then your interviews and ranking, only then look at references. For me, apart from the simple confirmation that people are not lying through their teeth, a reference has limited value. I only tended to call a referee when I had a specific concern from the interview. I remember one candidate who seemed very motivated, qualified and suitable, save for a rather humourless demeanour. A reference helped confirm that the person did know how to have fun. If you do call a referee, always ask specific and pointed questions, and ask for examples. Otherwise it is too easy to offer platitudes to support a friend (or someone you are trying to shift from your own payroll).

Tip 7: Question Deeply. There is a whole science now about the questions that work in interviews, and if you are going to interview frequently, it is worth getting trained in the best techniques. One thing the techniques have in common is that they use real examples and explore them deeply. A set of clever questions can easily be mugged up. Questions like “are you assertive?” just beg a positive answer. Instead, ask something like “can you think of a time at work where you had to demonstrate assertiveness?” When the candidate comes up with such an example, ask lots of follow up questions about the situation, about options they considered, about the outcomes achieved, and especially about the candidate’s own actions. That way you will gain any real evidence for the qualities you seek.

Tip 8: Case studies work. Even better than digging into past experiences is to try to model a real experience. Nowadays, many companies use elaborate assessment centres to really explore how candidates behave under pressured but realistic conditions. An interview cannot match that sophistication, but you can at least try a little case study. I used a description of a situation that was just a half page of A4, which I would send to candidates a few days before their interview (long enough to digest it but not long enough to research it thoroughly). Then I would ask some questions about the situation at the interview, focusing more on approach than solutions. It was amazing how often candidates showed up a fatal lack of customer focus or similar flaws under this simple examination.

These three tips work as a group really, and the common message is to model reality as closely as possible. I recently was part of a team selecting a musical director for a choir. The CV’s told us almost nothing compared with the interviews, and the interviews told us nothing compared with the auditions. Of course, we needed an efficient way to whittle down the candidates as it was not practical to audition everyone. In different situations, you will have more scope to model reality. In any case avoid the mistake of a process over-reliant on CV’s. That leads to bland selection based on qualifications and experience alone, which is a very poor guide to quality, motivation, and many other key attributes.

Tip 9: Shut Up. True (tip 2) this is a two way process, so do answer their questions and give some introduction so the candidates get a feel for what they might be letting themselves in for. But during the questioning, the less you talk the more you will learn. Simple, even single word questions such as “Why?” or “How?” will work far more effectively than long speeches. Even silence works well, once you have asked a question. Wait for an answer, even if the wait becomes a little uncomfortable. This tip is obvious, yet it is amazing how many of us struggle to put it into practice. We like the comfort of sound, and for many of us our own sound is the most comforting of all. If you are interviewing as a pair, ask your partner to judge how much airtime you are taking, and then adjust it downwards. Charlie Stayt has become a decent presenter on BBC Breakfast, but his interviews often fail because his questions ramble on for so long. He is a trained expert, while probably you are not. This is a practical tip that we can all work on and reap benefits from.

Tip 10: Trust your gut, at least partly. Yes, we all have many biases, that is why we involve our team and design a clear process. But in the end, this is our choice, a choice we will have to live with. There is such a thing as gut feel, and it does have a place in our lives, for human relations are as much art as science. Be aware of as many of your biases as possible. Do avoid making judgements before or during interviews. Do score diligently, and generally follow what the scores tell you. But also leave a little bit of room for your heart as well. If you try to become a machine, always asking identical questions and always noting down every answer, you take away some of your human power in finding compatibility. If, during an interview, you find yourself really wanting to ask something, then for goodness sake ask it! Make sure your ranking criteria give you some space for less defined qualities, and then be ready to trust yourself, not recklessly but at least a bit. Many of my best recruiting decisions came when I let my heart into the process.

I came to find recruiting one of the most satisfying parts of my work. Interviewing is only a part of this, but it can be an important and pleasurable part if handled well. I hope these tips give you some extra confidence and incentive.