I got some decent pushback from my posting last Friday about the recommended number of questions for a hiring interview. Coincidentally, I was teaching a workshop (see HiringTalent.com) and fielded the same sentiment from two attendees as was posted by GBGames on Friday. I know I struck a chord when people disagree.

After observing a ton of hiring interviews, I have created a list of the top things that go wrong in the conversation. Here is a big one:

The interviewer fails to find out important information about the candidate’s experience, skills and behaviors relative to the job profile.

Interesting, since this is the primary purpose of the interview, what causes this failure? Most often, time and again, the interviewer is not prepared to ask the right questions and pursue the details of the candidate’s experience. Manager’s think they can wing it. “Just give me the guy’s resume. I’ll spend a few minutes with him and tell you what I think.”

Quite frankly, I am not interested in the opinion of the interviewer. I am interested in how much hard information was collected that has a direct bearing on the person’s probability for success.

Now, Friday’s pushback has to do with the state of mind of the candidate. When we ask more than 100 questions in an interview, are we creating undue pressure that comes off as “grilling?” More on that tomorrow. -TF

Rodney squirmed while I was quizzing Claire about hiring questions. “Seven, I had seven prepared,” he blurted out.

“That’s a good start,” I encouraged. “Seven. What about a list of fifty.” Rodney’s eyes got wide.

“I had trouble coming up with seven. I don’t know about fifty.”

It sounds like a lot of questions, but they are really easy to create. First, organize your job description into Key Result Areas (KRAs). Here is a quick list of typical KRAs.

• Production
• Forecasting
• Personnel
• Administrative (everyone has paperwork)
• Equipment Maintenance
• Inventory

That’s six areas, most managers have between five and eight KRAs. For each area, create ten questions relative to the required behaviors, skills, knowledge and responsibilities. For the six KRAs above, that’s sixty questions.

For each prepared question, it is likely that you will ask two follow-up questions, meaning that in a typical interview, you will ask 180 questions, 60 prepared and 120 follow-up. Each piece of information will be directly related to the role you want the candidate to play. Would that be valuable information to know? -TF

“Let me see your list of questions,” I asked. I could see by the furtive glance that Claire didn’t have a list.

“I didn’t have them written, just in my head, but I could probably write the questions down for you, if that would help,” she responded.

“How many questions did you have in your head?”

“Well, none really prepared, I had the resume, so I just asked questions from that.”

It’s not Claire’s fault. No company had ever trained her to conduct a job interview. No company had ever trained her to create interview questions that reveal valuable information to make a hiring decision. Hiring interviews are one of the most critical management skills for the successful manager.

I see many managers conduct the hiring interview solely from the candidate’s resume in their hand. Change this one thing to make your interviews better. Craft your interview questions from the job description rather than the person’s resume. Every question should have a specific purpose to give you data about the candidate relative to the role you want them to play in your company. It’s not what the candidate has done (though it may be fascinating), but what the candidate has done related to the role. -TF

Trevor was puzzled. On Monday, his new programmer, Dennis, arrived at work. Trevor had been waiting for HR to fill this position for three long weeks. The backlog on programming the CNC machine was building and Project Managers were getting testy with the delays.

But Dennis had been working all morning on a program that should have been completed in twenty minutes. It was becoming clear that something was wrong.

Mustering his courage, Trevor pulled him aside only to find out that, though Dennis had been trained at his previous job, he had only copied existing programs without generating any new code. As a manager, Trevor was now stuck in a situation that could have easily been prevented.

Skills testing should be an important element in any recruiting process. Testing does not have to be elaborate, nor take a great deal of time, but it is important to determine the reality of reported experience.

You see, Dennis had produced printouts of CNC routines that passed muster in the HR department. He just never revealed that those routines had been copied from existing programs. A simple 20 minute test to create some original code could have prevented this bad hire. -TF

You will never ever get what you want!!! You will only get what you focus on.

At first I am disappointed, because I really want what I want. It makes me feel bad to understand that I will never get what I want.

If I really want it, I have to focus on it.

A client lamented, “It is really hard to find good people these days. We just never seem to hire the kind of people we really want.” So, what did I feel like screaming? YOU WILL NEVER EVER GET WHAT YOU WANT! You will only get what you focus on.

It’s not that you can’t find good people out there. You just have not focused your concentration and energy to find good people. So, what does focus look like? Think about finding good people, talk about finding good people, have meetings about finding good people, plan a campaign to find good people. Roll out an action plan to find good people.

You will never get what you want. You will only get what you focus on. -TF

Question:
Our company could like to try a team approach to interviewing. Do you think this is a good idea?

Response:
There is great upside to team interviewing. I don’t advocate three-on-one or four-on-one because it generates too much pressure on the candidate. Rather, I prefer team interviews to be a series of independent interviews.

The muck of the team interview process is getting everyone trained on how to conduct an interview. On a hiring team of three, if even one manager makes inaccurate assumptions or a misinterpretation, 33% of your input could be flawed. The bad news is that most companies don’t have a clue on how to conduct an effective interview.

Interview training for each member of the hiring team is essential for their collective effort to be of benefit. With the right training, the use of a team enhances the quality of the hiring decision big time. -TF

“You don’t like the interview question?” asked Christopher, shifting in his chair. He had created a list of questions in preparation for a candidate interview later in the afternoon. At the top of the list, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

“Chris, every question you ask has to have a purpose in the interview,” I replied. “What specific piece of data are you trying to collect with that question?”

“I think it is important to find out where they are headed in life.”

“Chris, tell me again, what’s the job position?”

“Project Manager.”

“How long are your typical projects?”

“Four to six weeks.”

“Chris, tell me how someone’s fictitious image of a five-year-future snapshot will predict success as a Project Manager, working on projects that last four to six weeks?” The silence hung heavy. “Let’s change two things about your approach to questions. Instead of the future, ask about the past. Instead of a hypothetical, ask about a fact.” The quality of the responses to those questions will increase dramatically. -TF