“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

Since Marcy was still listening, I continued to talk about the specific things that need to be done to source more candidates in the recruiting effort. “You started by creating the Wanted Poster, like in the old West. Paint a picture of the person you want and get it on paper.

“This does two things for you. First, it creates a picture in your own mind. Many candidates may slip through your fingers because you don’t know who you are looking for. Did you ever decide to buy a car, a specific car, and once you knew what you wanted, you suddenly noticed how many other people were driving that car. You were able to distinguish this year’s model from last year’s model. And they were everywhere.

“Second, you now have something to talk to other people about. You can firmly place the image of this person in the minds of other people, business associates, friends and family. You need to get a posse together to go find these candidates.

“Marcy, you will never get what you want, you will only get what you focus on.” -TF

“I am just not getting quality candidates from the referral agency,” complained Marcy. We were talking about two positions she needed to fill. “I call them and explain what kind of person we need, but they take two weeks to get back to me. And the people they send are just not qualified.”

“Marcy, how do you source other candidates besides the referral agency?” I asked.

“Well, we really don’t have time. We’re just so busy around here. It’s really hard to get good people these days.”

“Marcy, here is my observation. You are not seeing quality candidates because you are not focusing your efforts. If your referral agency is not doing the job, then your company has to take responsibility and source your own candidates. You need to be actively recruiting and networking all the time. You are in the business. You should have a better rolodex than the referral agency. You don’t, because you see recruiting as a distraction. Your expense last year for head hunters was $45,000. And what do you have to show for it. Three positions filled, but two didn’t work out, so you are waiting for the replacement guarantee.”

Marcy didn’t like what she heard, but she was still listening. Is your company having difficulty sourcing candidates? What are you doing about it? What ideas have you used to get more and better people into the interview room? -TF

Julia hesitated before she asked the obvious question. “So, you think I should become involved in the hiring process earlier?”

Julia, a division manager, had described how job openings were listed on the internet, with resumes sent to the receptionist. The receptionist followed some basic criteria to sort the resumes into two piles, in and out. Two supervisors, then, picked through the in pile. They would make a few phone calls and get some candidates to the office for interviews. If they liked them, they would kick the candidates upstairs for another round of interviews with the department managers. Only then, would Julia see the successful candidates.

Julia’s description was predictable, “I can’t believe these candidates made it this far in the process. They were awful, totally unqualified, but the best that’s out there. It’s really difficult to find good people these days.”

Julia’s process is upside down. The front end is handled by the wrong people moving candidates up the food chain. Here’s why this happens. For managers like Julia, hiring is a distraction, an annoyance to be handled quickly so she can get back to important adult stuff.

There is no higher calling for a manager than to recruit and build a strong team. If a manager did nothing else, that would be enough. -TF

“Can we try another value? We had a problem with our last supervisor. He would never follow the guidelines on expenses for his work area. If he needed something, he would always buy the most expensive item available. Is that a value? I would like to interview for that.” Patricia sat down, satisfied that we would now work on her hiring issue.

“If I were a Boy Scout,” I said, “and I was, I would call that the value of thrift. So, here is how we create the interview question. How does a thrifty person behave?”

Patricia was back in the limelight. “A thrifty person would evaluate whether we truly needed something or not, then look at the alternatives, along with our budget and make a responsible decision within the guidelines.”

“So, frame a question from that,” I pushed.

Patricia thought. “Tell about a time when you had to buy a piece of equipment for your work area. Step me through, how you determined the need, and how you bought the equipment.”

“Perfect, in the hiring interview, just collect STARs. Situation, task, action and result. You will make a better hiring decision.” -TF

The room got noisy, a little commotion at each table with a question from the corner. “But what about values. Isn’t it important to interview for values?”

“So, how do you interview for values? Can you see a value?” I asked. The room was still noisy, but there was no response to the question. “Perhaps, if we narrowed the question to something more specific. Which value did you have in mind?” Several hands went up.

“Loyalty,” someone shouted, “I want my team members to be loyal, loyal to me, loyal to the team, loyal to the company.”

“Okay, let’s take loyalty,” I replied amidst the clamor. “Remember, I don’t want you to play amateur psychologist, I want you to play to your strength as a manager. Ask yourself this one simple question. How does a person, who is loyal, behave?”

“They will put the team ahead of themselves. They will carry out a team decision even if they don’t necessarily agree with it.”

“Good. That is what you interview for. Find out a situation where their team made a decision they did not agree with. Ask them what the task was, the action they took and the result. If they tell you how wrong the team was and how they complained to upper management, it is likely they will fault your team decisions and complain to your management.”

It’s a simple question, how does a person, who is loyal, behave? -TF

“I still think it is a valid question,” Raymond remained adamant. “I want to know where they think they will be in five years. I think I can interpret a lot from that.”

“Raymond, I don’t want you to interpret anything in the interview process. The likelihood that you will misinterpret the response is too high for that to be a valuable question. It will give you minimal insight and introduce confusion into the interview process. You will make a hiring decision based on something you are trying to interpret. Your interpretation is likely to be wrong and it will tend to color the rest of the interview.”

Raymond’s face betrayed his stomach. He remained defensive. He had hung so many interviews on that one famous question.

“Raymond, you end up relying on your gut feeling, because you have not established anything else in the interview process on which to base your decision. It is no wonder you are not satisfied with the candidates you have hired in the past.” -TF

Raymond still looked puzzled. I think I had him talked out of playing amateur psychologist when interviewing candidates, but asking him to play to his strength as a manager was still fuzzy.

“Look, Raymond. As a manager, you can spot positive behavior and negative behavior on the shop floor. As a manager, you are an expert in positive and negative behavior. That’s the key. All you have to do is ask questions about situations in their prior work experience. Find out what the task was, their actions (behavior) and the final result. All I want you to do is collect STARs. Situation, Task, Action, Result. The actions they took will tell you how they will behave when they come to work for you.”

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. All you have to do is find out what it was. -TF