“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

“How many of you took a psychology course in high school or college?” I asked. A few hands went up. “And how many of you have a degree in psychology?” Most of the hands go down, still leaving one in the air. “And are you certified by the state to practice either as a psychologist or a psychiatrist?” The single hand dropped.

We were talking about hiring and the tendency of the manager to try to climb inside the head of the candidate to discover motivations and intentions. “Stop trying to play psychologist! You are not qualified to do it,” I said, looking straight at Raymond.

“But, I think it is a valid question,” snapped Raymond. “I just want to see where their head is at.”

“That’s the problem. You are not trained to make that kind of psychological evaluation. Listen,” I continued, with another question, “How many of you, as a manager, can spot positive behavior out on the floor?” The hands were tentative, but every hand in the room went up. “And how many of you can spot negative behavior out on the floor?” All the hands rose higher. “And how long does it take for you to spot it?”

“Immediately, on the spot, right away,” came the replies.

“Here it is, then. Stop trying to play amateur psychologist, you are not qualified. Play to your strength. You can spot positive and negative behavior in an instant because you are a manager. Play to your strength as a manager. Especially during the hiring interview.” -TF

Marcus flipped the report across the desk so I could see it. Turnover had crept up significantly over last year and HR was on the rampage. “I think we have to raise our base pay, though we are already over market, we just can’t seem to keep people.”

“Tell, me, why do they leave?”

“Oh, they don’t leave, we usually fire them.”

“Are you keeping track of this? How many of these turnovers were voluntary and how many were terminations?” I asked.

Marcus thought for a minute, “I’m not sure. We haven’t been keeping the numbers that way.”

Turnover can be deceiving. Tracking turnover statistics needs a breakdown, at least to voluntary vs. terminations. Voluntary departures are likely a retention issue. Terminations are likely a recruiting issue. Solving retention issues are completely different than solving recruiting issues. As your team sits down to review your turnover statistics, you might consider more detail in your breakdown. -TF

Question:
Is there one biggest hiring mistake that we all seem to make?

Response:
Actually, there’s more than one, but let’s start with the creation of a job profile. It is not so much that companies make a mistake with the job profile, they just never put one together.

Think about the last time you were in a meeting when someone leaned across and said, “Oh, by the way, we have two candidates coming in to talk to us about the opening down in manufacturing. Can you squeeze some time to talk to them?”

And you want to be helpful, so you say, “yes,” when you should say, “I would love to help. First let me see the job profile so I can get a clear idea of the person we are looking for.”

My guess, you would get a blank stare or an evasive glance, because most companies don’t stop long enough to prepare the profile.

Hiring without a job profile is not the biggest mistake, just the first one. -TF

When we ask more than 100 questions in an interview, are we creating undue pressure that comes off as “grilling?”

The answer is no. In our workshops, interviewers are not used to the pace of questions and so it seems like fast paced, break-neck speed. To the candidate, however, they are simply responding to things they have experienced in the past. Candidates report the experience as enjoyable. They get to talk about themselves and things they have done. It’s everyone’s favorite subject. -TF

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