Monthly Archives: March 2006

Value of Accountability

“If you are not a psychologist, how do you interview a person for values?” I asked. This conversation started with a post a couple of days ago, but now, I am sitting with Norman, who is working on precisely this issue.

“We have used those profile things before, but I find as soon as I get someone to take the test, the entire hiring decision gets based on it. The hiring manager is always scared to go against the test. I would love to know how to interview someone for their value system,” said Norman.

“First, you have to play to your strength as a manager, someone who knows the difference between positive behavior and negative behavior. What value would you like to interview for?”

“How about, taking responsibility for your own performance, owning up to your mistakes. I guess the value is accountability,” replied Norman.

“You have already completed the first step,” I said. “When you described the value of accountability, you gave an example of a behavior, owning up to your own mistakes. That is the first step in interviewing for a value, translating it into a behavior. Once it is a behavior we can interview for it. Here is how it sounds.

“Tell me about a time, in your position, working on a project, where a mistake was made. How was the mistake discovered? What impact did the mistake have on the project? How was the mistake explained to the customer (or the manager)? How was the mistake rectified? What was learned from the mistake?

“All of the questions will lead you directly to the value of accountability, yet they are asked from a management perspective (rather than a psychological perspective). Play to your strength as a manager.” -TF

Interviewing for Fit

From the Ask Tom mailbag.

Question

When you talked about interviewing for “fit” with our company culture, you said that we should interview for behaviors. I understand what you mean, but I don’t know what the questions sound like.

Response

Creating the interview questions for candidate traits like fit, values and attitude just takes a couple of steps. First, we have to translate the warm fuzzy into a behavior. Let’s start with “fit,” since that is the one you asked about.

Ask yourself the question, “How does a person who fits our culture behave?”

I work with a company that has a real sense of urgency in everything they do. People show up to work early, they start projects early, they return phone calls quickly, they turn paperwork around fast. It is a real culture of “gitter done.” People without that sense of urgency don’t last long at this company. It is an important area to interview for.

So, step two is to ask the person about those critical behaviors. Here is how it sounds.

Tell me about the working hours at the XYZ company? In your position, what time did you arrive for work? In your position, what was the most productive time for you?

In your position, what kind of customer interaction did you have? How many phone calls per day did you receive? How did you handle that phone call volume? When you could not answer a question in the first phone call, what was your system to make sure you returned the call later with the answer?

In your position, tell me about your paper workload. What kind of paperwork did you handle? How quickly did it pass across your desk and on to the next step? What was your system for handling that paperwork?

Remember that the purpose of these questions has to do with behaviors that “fit” the culture. I am not looking for the correct way to run an “in” basket. I am looking for momentum, energy and action, because those are important to “fit” in our culture.

Tomorrow, we will look at questions that interview for “values.” -TF

Interview for Fuzzy

1 Reply

From the Ask Tom mailbag.

A week or so ago, I received an interesting cross communiquÃ© from Joshua Herzig-Marx, who was compiling some thoughts about hiring. In his article he was discussing the sometimes misguided tendencies of hiring managers to consider fuzzy ideas like

How well will the candidate fit with our existing team?

Does the candidate share our organizationâ€™s values?

Will the candidate bring the right attitude?

And I got to thinking. These ideas are actually good ideas, fuzzy as they may be. Here is the rub. How can the hiring manager, who is not a psychologist, evaluate the candidate on fit, values and attitude?

Actually, I observe many companies who spend lots of dollars on psychometric testing to learn the answers to these elusive questions. These are not unimportant. (I love double negatives, drove my English teacher crazy).

You have to get down to behaviors. You are not a psychologist, but you can spot positive behavior and negative behavior in the workplace. Observing and evaluating behavior is what managers do. Play to your strength. Interview for behaviors.

Fit. How does a person who “fits” our organization behave?

Values. How does a person with our values behave?

Attitude. How does a person with a positive attitude behave?

Now, interview for those behaviors. Yes, the fuzzy stuff is important and it can be a valuable part of the interview and the criteria for hiring. -TF