Joann’s agitation turned into confusion, predictably. “But, every interview I have ever been in, that question was asked.” We had been talking about my reasons for not asking the question -Where do you see yourself in 5 years-.

“Joann, what is the purpose of the interview process?”

“It’s to find out if this is the right person for the job,” she replied.

“Good answer. The purpose of the interview is for you to predict the future behavior of the candidate when they come to work for you. Tell me, what is the best predictor of future behavior?”

Joann thought for a long minute. “Well, we sometimes use a personality assessment.”

“Those are okay, but the best predictor of future behavior, statistically, is past behavior. If you want to know how someone is going to behave when they come to work for you, all you have to do is find out how they have behaved in similar situations in the past. The purpose of the interview is to collect facts about the person’s past behavior.

“The problem with your question about 5 years from now, is that it calls for speculation on the part of the candidate, has nothing to do with facts and is not verifiable. But here is the biggest problem. If you ask that question, you will get a response that you can do nothing with. All it can do is confuse you as an interviewer. In the midst of your fact based data collection, you get this speculative response that has nothing to do past behavior and it actually confuses the interviewer.” -TF

I quietly sat through the interview as an observer. During the debrief after, I fielded the following question, “Well, what did you think?”

I did have a number of thoughts. “At what point did you think you lost control of the interview?”

Joann looked puzzled, “Lost control?” I was silent. “What do you mean, lost control?”

“I was just curious if you noticed. At what point did the candidate begin to ramble and make stuff up?”

“Do you think he was making things up?” Joann asked.

“Oh, without a doubt I said. About two minutes into the interview, you asked him a question, and that is when it started. In fact, the manufactured stories continued through most of the interview.” I could see that Joann was beginning to fume, thinking the candidate had put one over on her. But I continued. “And all this fabrication was at your invitation. Do you remember the question you asked?”

“No.” Joann was definitely agitated.

“You asked him where he thought he would be, professionally, in five years. Anytime you ask a question about the future, you invite the candidate to speculate, fabricate and invent stories that you have no way to verify. It provides you with no useful information.”

I sat quietly. I knew this would take some time to sink in. -TF

“What is the purpose of this interview,” I asked. Morgan struggled for a moment, but some clarity managed to pierce the fog.

“The purpose of the interview is to help me make the right hiring decision.”

“Good,” I continued. “In a sense, you are in the role of the fortune teller. It is your job as a Manager to predict the future. How will this candidate behave when they come to work in your company? So, Morgan, the best predictor of future behavior is what?”

“Past behavior,” blurted Morgan.

“Exactly, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. All you have to do in the interview is find out about their past job behaviors. If they have a pattern of a behavior in the past, there is a high likelihood they will repeat that behavior when they come to work for you.

“First, determine what behaviors will be necessary for the position you are hiring. Then find out, if that is what they have done before. Once they report for work, you will NOT be able to change their behavior; it already has to be a part of them, their patterns. You are not in the behavior modification business. You are in the behavior selection business.” -TF

Jean was upset. After two weeks of interviewing, the committee had finally made an offer to a candidate for an open position. “I called her up and she laughed, said she took another position last week. So, we went to our second candidate, same thing. Our third candidate was missing two essential qualifications, but the committee didn’t want to start the process over. I just made the offer, but I am skeptical. I just hope it works out.”

“Well, hope is a strategy,” I replied. “Why did it take so long to make a decision on your first two candidates? You interviewed them almost two weeks ago.”

“Well, whenever the committee got together, we would argue about what was important for the position. Our meetings were more confusing than helpful.”

“The job description, wasn’t that helpful?”

“It’s funny, we didn’t actually write one until over this past weekend. It was only when we did, that the committee was able to agree on the qualifications and make a decision. It was just too late.”

Jean stared at the table, shook his head and smiled. “That’s where we should have started.” -TF

Russell remained silent, then spoke. “So, I have been ignoring the most important skills during the interview?”

“Perhaps.” I said.

“But it almost seems silly. Am I supposed to ask if they can count?”

“Russell, you said that a critical break-down is in material counts for each day’s production. It is more than just counting. Try these questions.

“Tell me how you handled the materials staging for each day’s production. How many finished units did you produce in a typical day? What were the raw materials that went into each of the finished units? Where did you warehouse the materials? How did you move materials from the warehouse to the staging area? How long did that take in advance of production? When did you check on material availability for each day’s production? How did you handle a stock out?

“Russell, in response to these questions, what are you listening for?”

He smiled, “I’m listening for organizing behavior, working into the future, anticipating problems. It is more than just counting.” -TF

Russell was hanging with me. Turnover at the supervisor level was killing his floor crew. I spoke with some of the team members. They were capable at the production level, but none was up to the role of supervisor. We really did have to go outside. Russell had burned through two supervisors in the past nine months.

“Tell me what you are looking for in this supervisor role.” I asked.

“That’s the problem,” replied Russell. “It’s so hard to find someone with the proper experience. The best guys turn out to be great equipment operators, but they cannot handle the scheduling, cycle counts or material flow.”

“Do you interview them for that?”

Russell looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Russell, here is what I see. You interview for technical skills, which are important. But the role of the supervisor is a completely different role than that of the technician. Your breakdowns are where the skills of the supervisor are needed most, scheduling, cycle counts and material flow. That’s a critical area to interview for.”

“You want me to interview to see how a guy fills out a schedule?”

“Absolutely. Here is how it sounds. Tell me about your scheduling process. How many people on the crew? One shift or two? Full time or part time? How far into the future? Did you have team leaders? Newbies on the crew? How did you mix them on each shift? Did the production schedule ever change? How did production schedule changes impact the work schedule? How did you handle sick outs?

“Russell, it’s more than filling out a paper schedule, it is how the candidate thinks, then behaves.” -TF

“What about the dark side?” asked Russell. We had been talking about interviewing for attitude. “I understand about interviewing for positive behaviors.” He paused. “But what about the negative stuff. It always seems that the bad attitude stays covered up. A couple of months into the job is when things begin to surface. Can we interview for that?”

“You can interview for any behavior.” I replied. “You can call it attitude, but you cannot see an attitude, you can only see a behavior. Likewise, you cannot interview for an attitude, but you can interview for a behavior. All you have to do is connect behaviors to attitudes. What negative attitude are you thinking of?”

“Arrogance,” Russell said, shaking his head.

“What behavior might be connected to an attitude of arrogance?”

“Maybe, when a supervisor is teaching someone how to operate a machine, if he is arrogant, he will be impatient, talk down to the person and criticize.”

I nodded, “So, here are the questions. Tell me about a time when you had to train someone on a piece of equipment, and they really had some difficulty learning the skill. What piece of equipment was it? What was the person’s first name? Step me through your teaching process. Where did they have difficulty? How did you respond? How many times did you have to repeat the teaching process? Was the person successful in learning the skill?

“Tell me, Russell. If you ask these questions, what are you listening for, in the response?”

Russell thought for a minute. “I guess I would be listening for behaviors. I would be listening for patience. I would be listening for tone of voice. I would be listening for critical feedback, both positive and negative.”

“Exactly. You are now listening for behaviors. These behaviors may be connected to an attitude, but the key is to look for behaviors.” -TF

Russell was waiting for me in the conference room. Our discussion about interviewing had migrated to the soft stuff, the people side of things. “So, tell me,” he asked, “how can we interview for attitude?”

“Well, let’s think about attitude. How is an attitude related to a value?”

Russell thought for a minute. “Values have more staying power. Attitudes can shift sometimes, especially based on a person’s mood. You know, how some people can be fine, then all of a sudden cop an attitude over nothing?”

I nodded. “Even so, I use the same process for discovering attitudes that I do for discovering values. Remember, I cannot see a value nor can I see an attitude. I can only observe behavior. I only interview for behavior. Here is the process.

“How would a person with this attitude behave? If I can translate the attitude into a behavior, I can interview for it.

“For example, if I am looking for a person with a can-do attitude, I ask myself, how does a person with a can-do attitude behave?”

Russell piped up. “So, a person with a can-do attitude would go the extra mile.”

I smiled, “And my question will be, think of a time when you worked on a difficult project that required extra effort? Tell me about the project? What was it that required extra effort? When you discovered it would take extra effort, what did you do? Did you work alone or involve other people? What were the discussions like with others working on the project?”

When all is said and done, what I really care about is the behavior that springs from the attitude. -TF

“We always hire people for their technical skills, but we fire them for who they are.” Russell and I were having a conversation about how to create hiring questions.

“Tell me more. What do you mean you fire them for who they are?” I asked.

“Well, they may have the right experience, know how to handle the technical part of the job, but their attitude is a little out of whack. In the beginning, it doesn’t show up, but after a couple of months, little things appear. After six months, this strange behavior actually begins to flourish and it’s downhill from there.”

“What do mean, strange behavior?” I was getting curious.

“Sometimes, it’s just people skills. They are a little gruff at first, then a couple of people get on their bad side. Pretty soon, they become downright rude. They publicly dress people down in meetings. No one can disagree with them without a huge public confrontation.”

“Do you interview to discover this type of behavior?”

“No, usually the person is pretty well coached by a headhunter on how to handle the interview, so we don’t find out until later.” Russell stopped, his brow furrowed. “You mean you can interview for a bad attitude?”

“Yes, you can. Bring me your job description for that open position. Tomorrow, we will talk about interviewing for both the technical side of things and the soft “people side of things.” -TF

“It’s a matter of business intelligence. It’s a matter of thinking differently about recruiting.” Marcy and I had been talking about sourcing candidates to fill two open positions in her company. “Marcy, how do your salespeople keep up with all the customers and prospective customers in their world?”

“Well, the sales department uses a CRM program. You know, Customer Relationship Management. It’s a database that they can use to keep track of contact information, conversations, likes and dislikes, birthdays, all kinds of stuff.”

“Marcy, have you ever thought about using a low-end off-the-shelf CRM software to keep track of prospective job candidates? Listen, when your sales people go out to meetings, conferences, mixers, do they meet people, collect business cards and find out important information related to customer needs? I just want you to do the same thing. Always be recruiting, always be gathering information, always be collecting business intelligence. You should have the best rolodex in the business, only these days, your rolodex needs to be on steroids, using CRM software. Find out who the players are in your community. Always be sending them information, enticing them toward your company. Invite them to events, send them a card on their birthday. Get aggressive about recruiting.” -TF