Tag Archives: interview questions

Isn’t That Too Many Questions?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
You suggest ten questions regarding each Key Result Area with 2 drill down questions. As an example, you suggest 150 questions would be reasonable.

How do you handle that practically. If you ask a candidate 150 questions and give two minutes per question for response, you are looking at 300 minutes for an interview (5 hours, not counting breaks).

Maybe for an executive position such a marathon interview process could be done but it seems difficult with several candidates to have interviews of such length. Is this practical or am I missing something?

Response:
You are not missing anything, you are just used to giving candidates two minutes to make up stuff, inflate their experience, exaggerate about skills and generally waste your time.

In preparation for the interview, I identify a number of Key Result Areas (KRAs).  In each KRA, I have identify tasks, activities, accountabilities and the level of work.  I need to know some very specific information about the candidate.

For example.

I am interviewing for a dispatcher role for a fleet based service company, with thirty trucks on the road.  Each afternoon, my dispatcher reviews all the leftover work and makes sure it gets on the following morning schedule.  In spite of the schedule, fifty percent of those service calls will get re-scheduled during the day.  During the day, an additional 90 service calls will get added to the mix.  Our target turnaround time for all service calls to be completed is 24 hours.

Here is a partial list of questions I might ask.

  • In your former position, as a dispatcher, how many service vehicles in your fleet?
  • What was the geographic range for your entire fleet?
  • What was the geographic range for a single vehicle?
  • How many service calls did each vehicle take per day?
  • What was the target turnaround time from the time of the customer call to the customer’s home?
  • What was the length of each service call?
  • How many service calls each day had to be re-scheduled?
  • What were the primary reasons for service calls to be rescheduled?
  • At the end of the day, how many service calls would be left over?
  • How were those left-over service calls scheduled for the following day?
  • What dispatch software did you use?
  • Step me through a customer call, how was it scheduled in the software?
  • How did you know when a call was completed?
  • Were customer satisfaction calls made after the service call?
  • Who made the customer satisfaction calls?
  • Step me through how the customer satisfaction data was recorded?
  • Step me through how the customer satisfaction data was used?
  • What changes were made to the dispatch system based on the customer satisfaction data?

Does it take two minutes to answer each question?  Do these questions give you insight into the exact experience level of the candidate?  Can you think of additional drill-down questions you might ask during the course of this small sample?

And I am only getting warmed up.

Looking for Evidence of Potential in a Candidate

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“So, it’s important not to HOPE someone has potential to step into a new role. You insist, that if a person has potential, there should be evidence of potential,” Monica refocused our conversation on her own role, as a manager, in the hiring process.

“If you know what to look for,” I replied.

“What do you look for? If someone has potential to move up to the next level of work, what evidence would I look for?”

“Look for behaviors. How would a team member, who has potential, behave?”

Monica stared in the space of the room. She looked up, then nodded. “Okay, if a person has potential to move up to the next level of work, their current work must be under control. Their current work must be complete, on time and meet the quality standard for that task.”

“And?”

“And they must be curious. If a person has potential, they will ask questions about the next level of work. They will want to know not just how things are done, but why they get done, how tasks fit together, how work is handed off. If a person has potential, when they are confronted with a problem, they will be able to clearly state the problem, the cause of the problem and provide more than one alternate solution.”

“What else?” I prompted.

“A person, who has potential, will try something new, and if they fail, they will make an adjustment and try again, and if they fail again, they will adjust and try again. And they will get faster at failing and better at adjusting until they successfully complete the project.”

“Okay, stop. You have identified several behaviors that you would look for. Now, think. In what situations might we see those behaviors? What questions can we ask to find out if those behaviors exist? Here is a hint. Tell me about a time when…”
___
I just checked Amazon. Reduced price on Hiring Talent. Get the whole story about levels of work and how to interview for them.

How to Interpret Responses in a Job Interview

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
Here we are again. I thought this was the best candidate, but, now only three weeks into the job, I think I made a mistake. Turns out, I misinterpreted things that were discussed in the interview.

Response:
Why do interviewers constantly misinterpret candidate responses? Simple reason. Interviewers misinterpret because they ask questions that require interpretation. Any question that requires interpretation is a poor question. Worse yet, now the interviewer has to do something with that interpretation.

“Tell me, how important was planning in your last company?”

Terrible question. Any response to this question requires the interviewer to make an interpretation, an assumption or a leap of faith. Do we depend on the person to be telling the truth, or do we take it with a grain of salt? None of this is helpful.

Here is a better set of questions.

  • Tell me about a time when it was important for you to create a plan for a project you were working on?
  • What was the project?
  • What was the purpose of the project?
  • How long was the project?
  • What was your role on the project team?
  • Step me through the planning process on that project?

____
Amazon is currently running a great promotion on my new book Hiring Talent. Get it now, before they change their mind. No coupon required.

Hiring Talent – Registration Open

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We are gathering the next group for our online program Hiring Talent, which kicks off January 25, 2013. As this economy (slowly) recovers, your next hires are critical. This is not a time to be casual about the hiring process. Mistakes are too expensive and margins are too thin.

This is the only program that combines an understanding of Levels of Work with Behavioral Interviewing. The research on Levels of Work is powerful science. The discipline of behavioral interviewing is the methodology for its application. This is the only program that puts these two ideas together in a practical framework for managers faced with Hiring Talent.

Purpose of this program – to train managers and HR specialists in the discipline of conducting more effective interviews in the context of a managed recruiting process.

Candidate Interview

How long is the program? We have streamlined the program so that it can be completed in six weeks. We have also added a self-paced feature so participants can work through the program even faster.

How do people participate in the program? This is an online program conducted by Tom Foster. Participants will be responsible for online assignments and participate in online facilitated discussion groups with other participants. This online platform is highly interactive. Participants will interact with Tom Foster and other participants as they work through the program.

Who should participate? This program is designed for Stratum III and Stratum IV managers and HR managers who play active roles in the recruiting process for their organizations.

What is the cost? The program investment is $499 per participant.

When is the program scheduled? Pre-registration is now open. The program is scheduled to kick-off February 1, 2013.

How much time is required to participate in this program? Participants should reserve approximately 2 hours per week. This program is designed so participants can complete their assignments on their own schedule anytime during each week’s assignment period.

Pre-register now. No payment due at this time.

January 25, 2013

  • Registration Opens

February 1, 2013

  • Orientation

Week One – Role Descriptions – It’s All About the Work

  • What we are up against
  • Specific challenges in the process
  • Problems in the process
  • Defining the overall process
  • Introduction to the Role Description
  • Organizing the Role Description
  • Defining Tasks
  • Defining Goals
  • Identifying the Level of Work

Week Two

  • Publish and discuss Role Descriptions

Week Three – Interviewing for Future Behavior

  • Creating effective interview questions
  • General characteristics of effective questions
  • How to develop effective questions
  • How to interview for attitudes and non-behavioral elements
  • How to interview for Time Span
  • Assignment – Create a bank of interview questions for the specific role description

Week Four

  • Publish and discuss bank of interview questions

Week Five – Conducting the Interview

  • Organizing the interview process
  • Taking Notes during the process
  • Telephone Screening
  • Conducting the telephone interview
  • Conducting the face-to-face interview
  • Working with an interview team
  • Compiling the interview data into a Decision Matrix
  • Background Checks, Reference Checks
  • Behavioral Assessments
  • Drug Testing
  • Assignment – Conduct a face-to-face interview

Week Six

  • Publish and discuss results of interview process

Pre-registration is now open for this program. No payment is due at this time.

Potential is There, If You Know How to Look For It

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
Really enjoyed your last post on Discovering Potential in an Interview – I find this quote particularly interesting: “Potential does not live in the land of hypothetical. Potential lives in the land of discretion”. Might you be able to elaborate? My take on is that in order to assess that someone has potential you a) need fairly concrete evidence of some kind rather than “what if’s” and b) you need to locate subtleties in their interview to demonstrate evidence of this – this could be completely wrong though?! I work with a number of project managers and assessing and approximating someone’s potential is fascinating to me.

Response:
Looking for potential, you are quite right. I don’t hope on a wing and a prayer, I look for concrete evidence of potential. And I don’t think it’s subtle. If it was a snake, it would bite you.

Ask this simple question. “How does a person with potential, behave?” Now, interview for that behavior. And listen.

Potential lives in the land of discretion. It’s all about decisions. How does a person, with potential beyond their current role, make decisions?

A person with potential beyond their current role, when faced with a decision, –

  • Will ask questions about the context of the decision, assembling surrounding factors
  • Will generate alternate paths to the goals, contingency plans in case something unexpected happens
  • Will take responsibility for the decision, NOT give the decision to someone else, or ask the decision be made for them
  • Will be able to talk about (articulate) their internal process for making one decision over another
  • Will create visual representations of their decision making process, either checklists or flow charts identifying elements of the decision

In the interview, ask questions about specific projects where decisions were made and interview for these behaviors.

Tell me about a project where things did NOT go as planned, where you had to make a decision that changed the direction of the project?

  • What was the project?
  • What was the length of the project?
  • What was the purpose of the project?
  • What happened, that required you to make a decision?
  • How did you identify that things were going wrong?
  • What decision was made?
  • When was the decision made?
  • Who made the decision?
  • Who was accountable, if the decision turned out to be wrong?
  • What factors did you consider when making the decision?
  • How did you communicate the decision to others involved in the project?
  • What was the impact of the decision?
  • What was the result of the decision?

You will either get answers from the candidate or you will get blank stares. Ask about more than one project. Every project has decision points. There is concrete evidence of potential, one way or the other, if you, as the interviewer, will look for it.

We kick off Hiring Talent – 2013 in January. Watch for details.

Six Sins in the Hiring Interview

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Over the next few days, we will cover the following Six Sins in the Hiring Interview.

  • Missing important (and obvious) clues during the interview
  • Head trash, the distraction of the stereotype in the back of your head
  • The fatal decision in the first three minutes of the interview
  • Losing control, losing your head, losing your wallet
  • Asking the wrong (stupid) interview questions
  • Getting beat in the paint

This series is a prelude to our Hiring Talent Summer Camp.

Missing Important and Obvious Clues
If we could follow a candidate around for a week, we would learn all kinds of things. We would learn about their habits, interests, routines, the way they solve problems and make decisions. Unfortunately, we can’t play Undercover Boss, we only have one tool in our arsenal, the Hiring Interview.

When the candidate sits down across the interview table, they are prepared. They scrub under their fingernails, iron their shirt and wear matching socks. They are ready. Ready to cover mis-steps and blemishes, ready with explanations of their highest achievements. And, as the interviewer, we miss important details. We miss obvious clues. All we have to do is ask.

So, why don’t we ask? Why do we miss fundamental pieces of data that are laying there for the asking?

It’s simple. The candidate is prepared, but we’re not. The reason we miss important details is that we don’t know what details we are looking for. We never sat down and figured out precisely what qualities we are looking for in the candidate. We have a lame job description (usually a derivative version of the classified ad) and a handful of questions that we hope (HOPE) will unlock the key to the candidates psyche.

And we wonder why we make so many hiring mistakes?

Hiring is not rocket science, but there is a method to the madness. And there are no magic tests.

It starts with the work. It’s all about the work. What’s the Level of Work? How is the work organized? What problems have to be solved? What decisions have to be made? What sixty prepared (written) questions should we ask?

If we are prepared, as interviewers, we will know what we are looking for and we will ask the right questions to capture the data. We won’t miss important (and obvious) clues.

Our Hiring Talent Summer Camp begins next Monday, June 18. It’s online, so, no, we don’t serve snacks and we don’t have a swimming pool.