The Magnifying Glass Approach to Interviewing

Most hiring managers and executives are frustrated by the level of exaggeration and embellishment candidates spout in the interview. How can you get honest, detailed, specific, quantifiable anwers to your questions? The technique to eliminate exaggeration and embellishment is called the Magnifying Glass Approach to Interviewing, which is a component of our Success Factor Methodology. In this audio program, Barry and Brad discuss the structure and technique of posing Magnifying Glass Questions to get to the truth every single time. You’ll find the simple structure of the Magnifying Glass Questions to be one of the most powerful useful and powerful techniques you’ll use in your future interviews.

To listen or download CLICK HERE then scroll down the list.

Jobless recovery – been there, done that.

There is a lot of talk about the “jobless recovery.” Well, I’ve been there, done that – back in the 70’s. Seems like the glass half-empty versus the glass half-full syndrome to me. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re in transition or out on your own trying to “drum up business,” this is a very tough economy. Bear with me on this though; even if the real unemployment rate is close to 20% rather than the 9.8% number being bandied about, that means 80% of the people are still employed. And if 3 million people were let go last month, but the unemployment number stayed the same, then that means that 3 million people were hired. Okay, you get where I’m going with this.

If you’re in transition and looking for your next great position in the corporate world, what are you to do to make yourself the next person hired? To begin with, if you’re reading this post then you’re off to a good start because you’ve found the best blog for researching what you need to do. Between Brad, Barry and their team, the information they post here about how to go about finding your next position will be invaluable. And since I am not an HR, recruiter or retained search person, I will leave all of that to them. However, I can give you a bit of perspective of the hiring manager.

I am very lucky to be able to work with a great set of business owners, company presidents, CEOs and senior executives in a wide variety of businesses. I can tell you what I am observing in the small business world. You can take that information, marry it to what you learn on this blog from the search/recruiting professionals and come up with a plan. Here is what I’m seeing.

Money is tight. Hiring at this point is going to be done at a very slow and deliberate pace. Part time employment or outsourcing work to 1099 independent consultants is what is happening now. Are you able to take advantage of that trend? Can you do some outstanding work as a part time employee or consultant that will make you the lead candidate when full time employment is justified?

My advice to business owners in this economy is to be ruthless in “husbanding your cash.” Do not waste money on bad hires or employee turnover. I advise them to make sure they do hire when the time is right, but to make sure they take their time, define their success factors and are deliberate in finding the right candidate. If you, as a candidate know that many employers are taking that point of view, what can you do to help them reach that goal while at the same time helping yourself? When you are presenting yourself to a prospective employer or on-line or to a search firm are you focused on yourself or on their challenges? Are you appearing confident and results oriented or self-interested and perhaps “desperate for employment”? Clawing our way back to profitability is going to be a very long process for all of us. Employers can’t afford to make mistakes. You have to convince yourself and them that you are the right person, understand their challenges and can be successful in resolving those challenges.

On the employer side, have you ever assessed the full and true costs of a bad hire? Few companies take the time to conduct this assessment. I think if could be they are afraid of the results. If you can handle it download our Cost Of A Bad Hire Worksheet. CLICK HERE and be sitting down when you complete the worksheet. A respirator near you is recommended.

LinkedIN is a powerful tool for hiring top talent. Join our Hire and Retain Top Talent Group. There is a wealth of articles and discussions for you there. CLICK HERE to join.

About the author

Dave Kinnear is a sought after Business Advisor and Mentor. He works with highly successful executives through one-to-one mentoring and coaching meetings. Individuals who are presently running successful businesses and executives in transition work with Dave to ensure meeting corporate and/or career goals. Through his affiliation with Vistage International, Dave convenes and facilitates Advisory Boards comprising Business Owners, Company Presidents and Chief Executives dedicated to becoming better leaders who make better decisions and achieve better results.

Stop “Telling” in an interview instead ask “How”

If you are in HR or executive search, how many times have you heard a hiring manager say when referring to a hire that is under performing and about to be let go, “I don’t know why they aren’t performing, I told them during the interview exactly what that job is. I can’t figure it out.”

Most of you just thought to yourself, “Too many. More times than I can count.” or “Just about every time we had to let a person go before their probation period was over.”

Why? What went wrong? It should be obvious from the hiring manager’s comment, “I told them exactly what the job is.” The key word is “told.” My guess is that the candidate probably even replied, “No problem, I’ve done that before and can do it for you.”  Well, with that level of assurance from the candidate, who wouldn’t hire them? After all, if the candidate couldn’t  do it they would tell you, “Sorry, I haven’t a clue how to do any of those things, but I’m a fast learner.” and you still would have hired them. Right?

The reply to the hiring manager should be, “Stop telling the candidate all about the position and having them respond, ‘Yes, I can do that.’ instead start asking, ‘How would you do this?’”  If they say they can do it, shouldn’t they  be able to tell  you how? If they can’t tell you how they would do it,  then how do they know they can do it?  Seems to me if someone tells me they can do something, they should be able to at least explain a little bit about how they will do it.

In our training workshop, Advanced Interviewing – Eliminating Embellishment and Exaggeration, this is one of the biggest issues hiring managers do that creates all the problems. They assume that because they told the candidate the job and the candidate responded affirmatively, all is fine. WRONG.

Train your hiring managers to stop telling and to start asking “how” questions. For example:

1) How have you reduced turnover in your last company?

2) How have you improved customer service?

3) How would you improve customer service in our organization?

4) How would you use your experience in sales to improve our sales process?

5) This position requires managing and improving our accounts payable department, have you done this before? When the candidate replies, “Yes” follow-up with, “How have you done this? and “How you would do it here?”

6) Can you give me an example of how you did X?

How questions engage the candidate, start a dialog, opens the interview up, and allows for the candidate to tell you rather than you telling the candidate.

Get your hiring managers or anyone in  your company that interviews to start asking “How” questions and interviewing accuracy will increase dramatically overnight.

Need help sourcing top talent? Download for FREE the chapter from our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, on sourcing top talent. CLICK HERE to download this Free chapter.

Join our Linkedin group, Hiring and Retaining Top Talent, it is one of the most active groups on Linkedin on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and feedback.

Brad Remillard

When an “A” Candidate Isn’t an “A” Employee

Has this ever happened? You screened hundreds of resumes, conducted extensive interviews, and found what you believed from the resume and interviews, the candidate that is perfect for the job. Exactly what you are looking for, maybe even better. You have high expectations for this new hire.

Then they come on board and fall flat on their face. Within 3 – 6 months you are saying to  yourself, “You’re NOT the person I hired” (a great title for a book).

You step back and start asking  yourself, “What went wrong? How could this have happened?”

Here is what went wrong – just because a person was a great CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR, doesn’t mean they are the right CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR.  This is the main premise of our Success Factor Methodology hiring process.

Hiring managers too often assume that because a person excelled at their last company, they did all these great things, they told you they could do your job, that this means the person will excel in your company. We believe this is where the concept, “past performance is a good indicator of future performance,” falls short. First off, it is only an indicator, nothing more. An indicator is not the right criteria for a good hire. Secondly, it also depends on how qualified the person interpreting the indicator is at interpreting the indicator. It has been our experience that most hiring managers are not competently trained in hiring or interviewing to do this. The few that are generally do hiring so rarely that they need a refresher course before starting the hiring process again.

There is a better way.

The Success Factor Methodology overcomes the biggest hiring mistakes that cause the problem.

Start by properly defining the job. This is the number one biggest hiring mistake companies make. They don’t properly define the job, so the whole hiring process is in jeopardy from the beginning. Since the job isn’t properly defined, then exactly what is the hiring manager screening and interviewing on or for? Generally background, experiences and skills.

This makes sense because that is exactly what most job descriptions are, simply a list of candidate attributes. Not a job description,  but rather a candidate description. This leads directly back to the problem. Hiring managers assume that  if they have this background they are an “A” candidate, and they may well be an “A” candidate. However, since the job isn’t properly defined, the real question “Will they be an “A” employee?” isn’t known.  This is the only thing you care about.

To properly define the actual job, start by defining outcomes. Ask yourself, “A year from now what will this person have done/accomplished in order to be considered a great hire?” or “What defines success in this role?” This is how we came up with the name, Success Factor Methodology. We simply started asking our search clients the questions, “What are the factors you will use to define success in this role?”  Once we had 4 or 5 of these we combined them into a Success Factor Snapshot. Now the Success Factor Snapshot becomes the job description. After all, this really is the actual job.

Once this is done, then go out and find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver this success.

When you find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver the 4 or 5 Success Factors, you have found both an “A” candidate and an “A” employee.

You can download some examples of Success Factor Snapshots for free to help you by CLICKING HERE.

Our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, with over 10,000 copies in circulation, describes how you can implement the Success Factor Methodology. CLICK HERE for more details.

Join our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. It is free to join just CLICK HERE.

2 Questions to Ask Sales People

One of the most frequent questions we get on hiring is, “What do I ask sales people to get past the BS?”

For many, hiring sales people is difficult. The fact is most sales people think they can sell anything, when in fact the sales processes are so different, many don’t actually sell as much as take orders.

Here are two screening questions I use to at least eliminate sales people that embellish and claim to be hard charging.

1) “Give me an example of where you demonstrated high initiative?”  Seems to me like a simple question, yet most sales people can’t answer it because most sales people don’t take high initiative. So often I get one of two answers. One is that they tell me about a sale they made where they had to call on the customer  5 or 6 times to get the deal. WOW. Doesn’t every salesperson have to do this? Isn’t that just part of the job? I don’t consider this high initiative and if they do I’m not impressed. The second common answer is that they go back three or four jobs for the example. So what have you done for me lately? They don’t consistently demonstrate high initiative.

2) Every sales person has on their resume a bullet that reads in one way or another, “Increased sales by X%.” Usually some figure between 30 and 60 percent. The obvious question to me is, “What two numbers did you divide to get that percentage?”  I find 1 in 10 can answer this question. Not because they made it up (although I don’t rule that out), but because they take the position the company grew by X% and I’m in sales, so I did it.

For me, these are phone screening questions I like to ask. It does eliminate a lot of candidates, that in the past, I might have presented to one of my clients and for hiring managers desperate to hire a sales person. It is tough to eliminate candidates, but I have found the ones that can answer these two question have been successful.

Just released our 2010 Complete  Success Factor Hiring Methodology System. This is the most comprehensive hiring methodology on the market. If you want to build a hiring system based on successful people and a system that puts candidates in the job BEFORE you hire them, then this system will show you how. CLICK HERE to learn more.

Our, “Cost Of A Bad Hire” calculator is available to help you get a handle on your total cost of hiring. Download our free worksheet at http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/index.php/cost-of-hire

We welcome your comments and thoughts.

Brad Remillard

Why Passive Candidates Require Special Handling. A True Story.

I asked a candidate after an interview, “How did the meeting go with the CEO?”

The candidate sarcastically replied, “Remind me again, why would I want to leave my current position and go to work there?”

Not exactly the sort of answer I was searching for.

He was what we refer to as a, “passive candidate.”  Meaning, he wasn’t actively on the job market. He wasn’t in any hurry to make a job change. He was open to exploring opportunities and seriously evaluating them, but would only make a change if all aspects of the position were beneficial to him and his career. He had to have good chemistry with the CEO, understand the company’s vision, and his role in helping achieve the vision. Basically, he wasn’t going to just make a move.

In the same way, the stars have to align for the company to want him. They also had to align for him to want them. A new concept for many companies to really comprehend at a deep level.

Yes, the hiring process is a two way street.

Needless to say, I wanted to understand what happened. As the candidate explained it, “I have now been out to the company three times and spent approximately 4 to 5 hours interviewing. I first met for an hour and  a half with HR going over my background. I then met with the person leaving the position. Once again we spent roughly an hour plus going over my background. Both gave me an overview of the position and about 10 minutes to ask questions. Then comes the CEO. Both previous interviewers spent time explaining how the company was reinventing itself and how this role was critical to helping in that process. I expected when I met with the CEO that we would discuss some of those issues, his plan for the reinventing, how my background would add value, and that I would finally have time to ask some of my questions.”

Sounded right and reasonable so far. As he continued to explain the problem, “After taking the morning off work for the 9 AM interview, I waited in the lobby for 25 minutes for the CEO. I was ready to leave when the assistant came to get me. The CEO explained he has to leave for a plane by 10:30, so I’m thinking why are doing this? There isn’t enough time to discuss any of the issues in any depth. Instead of discussing any of the issues, he proceeded to go through my background now for the third time. Don’t these people communicate? By the time he finished it was about 10:20 and he asked if I had any questions. I indicated that I did, but there wasn’t enough time to discuss them, and would it be possible to schedule another meeting, which we did.”

My conversation ended with the candidate asking me to cancel the meeting they scheduled, as he wasn’t really that interested, so why waste the time.  Is it any wonder?

The company was surprised the candidate wasn’t interested. Even after I relayed the above story to them. This had never happened before.

• A candidate turning them down?
• A candidate canceling a meeting with the CEO?
• A candidate that doesn’t want our job?
• A candidate that doesn’t understand waiting 25 minutes in the lobby for an interview?
• A candidate that isn’t desperate for our position?

They didn’t respect the candidate, his time, his position, and didn’t take any time to build rapport. They didn’t give him any time to address what was on his mind.

Why would a passive candidate be interested?

So I recommended the following changes:

1. All candidates must be met in the lobby at the designated time, the same way a customer would be met.
2. Spend some time marketing the position.
3. Learn about the candidate’s motivations and interests.
4. The candidates meet the CEO on the first interview. This demonstrates the importance of the position to the candidate and starts the rapport building process which is critical to passive candidates.
5. It is an interview, not an interrogation. Make it a discussion.
6. Every candidate is given ample time to ask questions and interact. The interviewer will learn more from the candidate’s questions than from the answers they give.
7. More time to explain the position, the importance this role will play, the impact on the organization and time to build rapport with the candidate.

These simple changes would have made all the difference with the candidate. Instead, they lost a great candidate for not treating the person as an executive and a person.

Every interview is a PR event. It is doubtful this candidate will have much good to say about the company should he encounter another candidate considering employment at the company.

Which is a shame as it really is a good company with good people.

Our “Cost Of A Bad Hire” calculator is available to help you get a handle on your total cost of hiring. Download for free worksheet. http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/index.php/cost-of-hire

Culture is one of the biggest reasons a good hire goes bad. Find out what your culture is, and how people in your organization define it.  Click here to downloand your Culture Assessment.

Who Embellishes More During An Interview?

Candidates or hiring managers?

If you get 10 or more CEOs and key executives in a room and ask, “What percentage of candidates embellish in the hiring process?” you will hear anything from the conservative 80% to the more skeptical 100%. I don’t know if there have been any studies on this topic, but most would agree the number is over 50%. Whatever the percentage is, it doesn’t matter, when you consider the following.

Hiring managers generally wait until they need a person to begin the hiring process. It can take 2 or 3 months to hire a person. By this time most hiring managers are desperate to hire a person. So then, with a hiring manager desperate to hire someone, some hiring managers start to sell more than interview. The results are often “embellishing” by the hiring manager. OK, “What percentage of hiring managers embellish during the hiring process?” Even if it is 50% what impact does this have on the interview?

Simply put, if in an interview candidates embellish 50% of the time and hiring managers embellish 50% of the time, too often everyone is lying to each other about the position or their ability to do the job. Is it any wonder why most interviews are a waste of time? Is it a surprise that so often when the candidate shows up for work, hiring managers say, “You’re not the person I hired.”

There are a number of things hiring managers can do to reduce embellishment. Two simple things are:

1. Become proactive in your hiring. 80% of the time most hiring managers know in advance a position may need to be filled. Instead of waiting until the need is critical, start the process sooner. When there is a potential need begin the process at least passively. Start developing a queue of candidates, ask others if they know of anyone, review some of the free internet networking sites such as Linkedin, attend networking meetings that potential candidates attend, and when appropriate tap into current employee’s networks. You don’t have to be reactive which causes “desperation” hiring.
2. Prepare a structured interview that probes deeply. This will help to avoid the selling rather than interviewing syndrome. When hiring managers have a structured set of questions specifically designed to test the candidate’s ability to deliver a standard of performance, the probability of candidate embellishment will be much more difficult.

Eliminating embellishment on both sides will dramatically change both the quality of interviews and the results.

We offer a number of free resources to help you and your hiring team eliminate embellishment. Consider joining our Linkedin leadership and best practices group where these issues are extensively discussed. CLICK HERE

Our audio library contains all of our radio show recordings from our Monday morning talk radio program, heard on www.latalkradio.com at 11 AM PDT.

Finally our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired,” with sales over 10,000 copies, outlines a structured hiring process with extensive chapters on advanced interviewing techniques. CLICK HERE

You Can Reduce Turnover With These 4 Simple Steps

1) Turnover often starts with a bad hire. Often a bad hire results from a poor hiring process. In many companies the hiring process is random, unstructured and riddled with incompetent people. Hiring managers usually wait until they need someone before starting the hiring process. After two or three months of interviewing they have one or two good solid below average candidates, but won’t make a decision until they at least three good solid below candidates. By this time they are desperate and we all know what kind of decisions we make when desperate.

Couple that with most hiring managers are not really competent or comfortable with interviewing and is it any wonder why hiring often fails? A few hiring managers are really good at hiring, but most simply ask the same questions they were asked when they interviewed. Few probe deeply into the candidate’s ability to deliver the performance the hiring manager expects. So the candidate’s expectations once on board do not align with the hiring manager’s. Leaving the hiring manager to think, “You’re NOT the person I hired.” (A great name for a book).

There are many more reasons for the hiring process to fail but these are two big contributors.

If your company wants to reduce turnover the first step is developing a structured, repeatable process with trained competent people. To see a list of steps in an effective hiring process CLICK HERE.

2) Lack of effectively training new employees. This is not an orientation program. It is formal training program to ensure the person is well trained in the tools, resources, industry jargon, processes or regulations, and systems necessary to deliver the performance standards the hiring manager expects.

Too often hiring managers can’t find the right person so they hire a lighter person and “will train them once on board.” YEA RIGHT. Even entry level employees need some structured training program to come up to speed. If the company doesn’t provide effective training the highest potential employee will become frustrated and eventually quit. Nobody wants to come to work every day frustrated because they were not properly trained.

3) A boss they can respect. We often hear how candidates put on their best face during the interview. Candidates are on their best behavior so it is hard to get to the real person. This is also true of hiring managers. Once on board candidates often think, “You’re NOT the person that hired me?”

If the hiring manager is not respected by the employee turnover is only a matter of time.

If you have a hiring manager with constant turnover it may be time to focus on the hiring manager. Are they possibly the problem. Training them to be an effective hiring manager maybe necessary. We recommend that all companies should require all their managers and any future manager to read the book, “First Break All The Rules.” The subtitle tells the real reason, “What the world’s greatest managers do different.” If you want to know what the world’s greatest do to become a world’s greatest managers this is the book to read.

Most studies show this is the biggest reason people leave. There is a saying, “People don’t leave the company, they leave their boss.”

4) Culture of non-performance. Top talent want three things in a position to stay motivated. Since your top talent usually leave before the below performing person that has been on your staff for years, top talent should be the focus. The bottom 10 to 20% never leave (another blog article for later). To retain top talent your company must provide top talent; 1) an opportunity to learn, 2)the opportunity to make an impact, and 3) the opportunity for them to become something better or grow. When any one of these three is eliminated top talent starts the job search.

By having monthly or at least quarterly private and regularly scheduled one-to-one’s with your best people you will find out if any one of the three is diminishing or been eliminated. At least then you can address the issue. Without the one-to-one few managers ever realize their top talent is lacking one or all three of these.

Turnover is one of biggest hidden costs that most companies never address. It is one of those things that we know is costly, but so hard to measure, so let’s ignore it. You can download for free our, “Cost Of Turnover Worksheet.” It lists the categories of turnover, direct and indirect. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD. You can input the cost for your organization. CAUTION, don’t do this unless you are ready for really bad news about the cost of turnover.

Once most companies realize the real cost of turnover then these four won’t seem like such a burden.

We offer a wealth of free resources for companies to improve their hiring process. This include an audio library from our talk radio show, numerous templates, free services and our hiring managers blog. To view the resources that will best benefit your company CLICK HERE.

Your Reputation Impacts Hiring Top Talent

We were retained to conduct a search for a VP of Marketing . The position had been open for more than six months, during which time the company had interviewed ten people who showed little interest in the position or the company. In fact, one offer had been turned down. At first glance this seemed strange, since it was a good company offering reasonable compensation.

Shortly after contacting prospective candidates working for competitors and in related industries, the mystery became clear. The company had a reputation for high turnover, lack of innovative products, poor leadership and low pay. One candidate stated, “It’s known as a “burn ‘em and churn ‘em company.” Another candidate stated, “I’m interested in hearing about the position as long as it isn’t X company” of course it was X company. All of these issues had been true three years back, but new management had since come on and started changing things. The reputation, unfortunately, lagged behind.

In conjunction with the company we put together a marketing plan beginning with changing the Web site. We encouraged the company to address the baggage of the past while emphasizing the changes that had been made. The redesigned site also included testimonials from happy employees, information about the improved company benefits and management’s new commitment to employees. Another section discussed the company’s new products and how they were performing in the marketplace, as well as the company’s dedication to R&D. Finally, we changed how potential candidates were treated when they came in for interviews. All interviews were now viewed as a PR event.

As a result, even if a candidate didn’t end up getting the job, they still walked away with a completely different image of the company. Most walked away now wanting the job.

We ultimately filled the search with a candidate who originally told us she didn’t even want to interview. In fact, she told us the same thing three times before finally agreeing to an interview. She came away overwhelmed by the change and impressed with the new management. She was eager to go to work for the reborn organization.

Understanding your company’s reputation is an important issue when conducting a search. Regardless of your reputation, developing a compelling marketing plan is key to a successful search. Ensuring your company’s image is well received by candidates will help you attract more top candidates and reduce the cost per hire.

Start with your Web site, as this is the first place all candidates go once hearing the name of the company.

Remember all interviews are a PR event.

We offer a wealth of free resources and tools to help you attract, hire and retain top talent. To review these resources – Click here.

A sourcing check-up might just what your company needs. So click here to get one.

Interviewing Is A Quest For The Truth

Put Candidates Under “The Magnifying Glass”

While not every candidate is guilty of puffery, we know from experience that it happens. Candidates claim responsibility for accomplishments that really were not their accomplishments, but rather those of bosses, peers, or perhaps even subordinates.

There is a bulletproof solution to the problem of “accomplishment inflammation,” and that is to become a great detective. When you learn to probe every answer for relevant details, you’ll discover what we have: There hasn’t been a candidate born who can make up false answers quickly enough. They’ve either done what they say they’ve done and can describe it in infinite detail, or they will implode in the chair right in front of you (and it’s messy when it happens).

Every time you ask a candidate a question based on examples, expect to spend fifteen to thirty minutes exploring the details of each example. Put the candidate’s answer under a magnifying glass, and ask for multiple examples to make sure something wasn’t an anomaly.

Every interview will be different, but no matter what example is being discussed, your probes will generally follow the time-honored journalist’s “5 Ws”:

· Who?

· What?

· When?

· Where?

· Why?

· For good measure, throw in How? (Yes, even though it is not a W.)

Train yourself to have a knee-jerk reaction to high-level, nonspecific answers.  Usually, it’s not that the candidate is trying to deceive you; it’s that he or she simply hasn’t thought to give concrete, detailed answers. You can help the candidate along by following up assertions and blanket statements with one of the following Magnifying Glass questions:

· “Could you give me an example of that?”

· “Can you be more specific about that?”

· “Can you give me a bit more information about that?”

· “What were the most important details about that situation?”

· “What was your responsibility within the project team?’

· “What did you personally do to ensure that success?”

· “Who else was involved in that project?”

· “Why did you take that approach on the project?”

· “Why did you pick those individuals to be on the team?”

Get all the details. Dates, numbers, names of people, schedules. Both of you will be helping each other to get to the facts faster and with more relevance. For a complete interview with drill down questions our Desktop Hiring Guide is the quickest way to get started. CLICK HERE to view  our Desktop Hiring Guide.

Other good Magnifying Glass questions:

· What was your role in the project?

· What success was achieved?

· How did you decide what to do?

· Can you give me a few examples of your personal initiative on the project?

· When have you faced a comparable challenge?

· Where did the resources come from to get that accomplished?

· How were parameters for the project set?

· Would you consider that process a success? Why or why not? (Remember, even a failure has value)

· When have you failed to meet your boss’s expectations?

· How did the team make mid-course corrections?

· What did you learn specifically?

· With benefit of hindsight, what would you do differently next time?

Keep going until you know what you need to know (or until it becomes apparent the candidate is being elusive or downright lying. If this happens, it’s time to cut and run.) Whatever you do, don’t give in and assume it’ll work out. Some candidates are great about changing the subject and making you think you got enough information. Be sure to make a note of what happened and then move on.

When the pool of talent is narrowed down to the final two candidates, it’s time for the interview team to come up with homework assignments. An important predictor of how a candidate will adapt to your organization’s environment is to see an example of his or her thought processes, analytical skills, and problem-solving, up close and personal.

Effective homework assignments are projects of reasonable size and scope that involve one of the most critical Success Factors listed in your Success Factor Snapshot. The candidate should be given all the support he or she needs to adequately answer the question or complete the assignment. The candidate should then return to the interview panel and present results and conclusions, and lead a question and answer discussion based on the homework. No matter what functional area, homework should entail questioning, analysis, research, and a panel discussion with some form of presentation.

While homework assignments are “out there” in the hiring world, some candidates may object to doing what they perceive as unpaid work.

Most Top 5% Talent, because of their self-motivated nature, will be intrigued and embrace the challenge. But if they’ve had previous encounters with unscrupulous employers who actually do assign homework and go on to use candidate ideas (even though they did not hire the candidate) you’ll need to reassure them that you aren’t asking them to come up with the “right answer.” Instead, you are looking for a concrete example of their approach to problems, their analytical and presentation skills, and their ability to synthesize information.

The scope of homework should be appropriate; that is, you shouldn’t ask candidates to dedicate forty hours on nights and weekends to solving your most pressing problem as “homework.” Make it clear at the outset that the homework is not going to be as deep as the actual job, and that you aren’t looking so much for their answer as for deep insight into their thought and action processes.

For more in-depth understanding of the interviewing process consider our best selling book; “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” CLICK HERE to review the book.

If you are considering implementing this process in your company our Complete Success Factor Methodology Hiring System will give you a step-by-step process to help guide you. CLICK HERE to view the system.