By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
“Hiring the right person takes time, the right questions and a healthy dose of curiosity.” ~Sir Richard Branson
I worked in executive search for many years before turning to global career coaching. I work with individuals and organizations to help them recruit better, find job success more quickly, and manage and lead better. There is a common perception that recruitment is a flawed process. As I wrote on Forbes.com, “One of the most frequently cited statistics I see in talent acquisition is that approximately 46% of new hires fail within 18 months. According to a survey reported in the Harvard Business Review, nearly half of leaders hired from outside the organization fail within the first 18 months. Global employee engagement is at 15%, according to findings from Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace” report. For job seekers, the incidence of failure is high. Earlier than 18 months. One survey showed that 23% of people regret leaving their old job and want to return to it. Most people realize they made a mistake joining your company within the first 6 months.
I don’t mean to criticize Sir Richard, he did miss one thing in his introduction – the recruitment process in most companies can be described as vague at best, as few hiring managers take the time to clarify what they are looking for in new hires, let alone communicate this to anyone on the team who will be interviewing anyone.
But there is a job description!
Often, when a position opens, no one takes the time to update the previously approved job description. Instead, managers would contact their HR business partner and ask, “Do you have a job description that we used to hire Jeff? He just put out a notice. Can you use that job description to post something on our website, or on LinkedIn, or wherever, and then send it to our recruiting vendor and see who you can find on my calendar on Tuesday? Very few managers update them. That’s why many HR managers laugh when I say job descriptions are 80% accurate.”
“If we’re lucky,” many responded.
Here are some different things that need to be done.
1. Develop accurate job descriptions rather than reusing job descriptions that have been used before. Use the old one as a baseline and ask yourself:
How has this position changed since we last hired someone for this job? What do they do very well? What could they do better? What do we get when we interview them? Were they better evaluated to eliminate some of the deficiencies we found after hiring? How do we disappoint them and make them decide to leave?
If you don’t ask yourself, your outgoing employee, and your trusted employees these questions, you risk making the same or similar mistakes with the next person you hire.
2. Decide who you want to be involved in the interview process and what and how you want them to screen for specific knowledge.
Too often, hiring managers leave interviewees with no idea what they should be screening for, let alone how they should screen for it. Instead, they were told, “I want you to talk to someone in 10 minutes and interview them for Jeff’s old job.” There wasn’t enough time or direction to prepare to evaluate someone.
Coach them by providing specific guidance on the key skills you want them to assess and the specific features to screen for. It’s not enough to tell them to evaluate their tax knowledge, compliance knowledge, Java development skills, or plumbing knowledge. Get specific about the basics and ask what else they think someone should be screened for.
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3. Stop asking, “Tell me about yourself” or “Tell me about your background.” This is a lazy question. Every career coach on YouTube or live (myself included) teaches people how to answer this question. Best case scenario, you get someone who has studied for the exam.
Instead, start every interview by telling the interviewer about the job you’re hiring for. After all, if most job descriptions are 80% accurate, they don’t know what skills or experience you’re really looking for. Even though you’ve done the job according to the job description I mentioned in point one, you spent about a minute checking in with them.
4. Ask questions so they can’t give you scripted, predictable answers to scripted, predictable questions. Instead of asking “Tell me about yourself,” ask “What will be most important to you in your next job or organization?” If you can’t offer it to them, you can tell them what you can offer them, or what you can’t offer them, and end the interview. Why would you hire someone who feels miserable about what you have to offer?
5. Ask “Why do you do what you do?” This question will elicit whether they enjoy what they do or do it to make money. You build a team around people who love what they do, not around people who have no soul for their work.
6. Asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?” This question helps them recognize the inherent charm and innocence that many people lose when they join the workforce. Don’t judge their answers > what you want to see is their humanity. They smiled when they answered. This is encouraging. Then, share your childhood dream (I wanted to be a pitcher for the New York Yankees. I grew up just steps away from the old Yankee Stadium and played Little League baseball where the stadium is now).
7. Ask “What got you from there to here?” Sometimes you’ll hear a failure story. Sometimes you hear a story about how an act of God led them to this line of work. You’ll hear many types of stories that make you hear something unique about them.
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8. Tell them what their ex did well and how they could have done it better. Spend more time focusing on their positive qualities. You don’t like to hear candidates complain about their current manager. They don’t want to hear you dig into every little disappointment you’ve experienced. Remember, no matter what, they will find out from your staff once they join.
9. If your team hasn’t already assessed their skills and knowledge, ask screening questions to assess their knowledge and experience. Don’t limit your questions to memory questions and behavioral interview questions (tell me about a time when you…). Also create hypothetical questions (how would you…or imagine you…) to reflect real-life scenarios they might need to respond to. Just as important as their answers are the questions they ask to clarify the scenario and the assumptions they tell you when formulating their answers).
10. Ask follow-up questions about your hypothetical situation, asking if they would consider a specific option (have you considered it… or what other options have you considered). Remember, you want to know what they think.
Many managers are dissatisfied with the outcome of their interviews. The old ways no longer work. Try these questions and others that you think will allow you to understand the interviewer’s mind in a different way than you currently do.
Remember, for most questions, different answers are not bad answers. They are a way to gain insight into the life experiences and thought processes of these people.
You need to decide for yourself whether you want to hire human robots that, as Steve Jobs said in his Stanford commencement speech, “Stay hungry. Stay dumb.”
Awesome!
Ⓒ Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC, 2022
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About Big Game Hunter Jeff Altman
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