By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
“Hiring the right people takes time, the right questions and a healthy dose of curiosity.” ~ Sir Richard Branson
I worked in performing search for many years before I switched to career coaching globally. I work with people and organizations to help them hire better, perform successful job searches faster, and manage and lead better. It is a common belief that employment is a flawed process. As I wrote to Forbes.com, “is one of the most quoted statistics I see in talent recording that about 46% of the new hires fail within 18 months. According to a study reported by Harvard Business Review, almost half of the leaders who are employed outside an organization are unsuccessful within the first 18 months. Gallup’s “State for the Global Workplace” much before 18 months.
It is far from me to criticize Sir Richard, he missed a thing in the quote – most companies’ employment process could at best be described as unclear because few hiring managers take the time to clarify what they want in the new rent, so much less communicating it to the people on their team that will interview someone.
But there is a job description!
Usually, no time takes to update previously approved job descriptions when a position opens up. Instead, a manager will contact their HR business partner and ask, “Do you have the job description we used to hire Jeff? Laughs when I say job descriptions are 80% accurate.
“If we are lucky,” many answer.
Here are a few things to do differently.
1. Formulating an accurate job description instead of recycling a previously used. Use the old one as a baseline to ask yourself:
How has the position changed since we last hired someone for this job? What did they do extremely well? Where could they have done better? When we interviewed them what could we have done a better job of evaluating them to avert some of the shortcomings we identified after the rent? How did we disappoint them and made them decide to leave?
Without asking yourself, the soon-to-be-earlier employee and a trusted staff, these questions, you risk making the same or similar error with the next person you hire.
2. Determine who you want to participate in the interview process, as well as what and how you want them to screen for specific knowledge.
Too often, the hiring of managers involves people with interviews who have no idea what to screen for, so much less how to do it. Instead, they are told, “I want you to talk to someone in 10 minutes and interview them to Jeff’s old job.” It is not enough time or direction to prepare to evaluate someone.
Guide them by providing specific directions about the most important skills you want them to evaluate as well as the specific features to be shown. It is not enough to tell them to evaluate for their treasure knowledge or their compliance knowledge or their Java development skills or knowledge of plumbing. Be specific with the basics and ask them what else they think someone should be screened for.
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3. Stop asking “Tell me about yourself” or “Go me through your background.” It’s a lazy question to ask. Each career coach (myself included) on YouTube or personally, people learn how to answer that question. At best, you get someone who has studied for the test.
Instead of each interview with telling the person you are interviewing about the job you are hiring. After all, if most job descriptions are 80% accurate, they don’t know what you really want to know about in the way of skills or experience. Even if you have done the work with the job description I mentioned in the first point, you have taken about a minute to confirm it with them.
4. Ask questions that get them away from giving you scripted predictable answers to your scripted predictable question. Instead of asking “Tell me about yourself,” ask, “What is most important to you in the next job or organization?” If you can’t give it to them, you can tell them what you can offer them or it’s not something you can give and finish the interview there. Why would you hire someone who will be miserable with what you have to offer them
5. Ask “Why do you do what you do?” It is a question that induces whether they love what they do or do this to the check. You can build a team around people who love their careers not those who have no soul to work.
6. Ask “What would you be when you grew up?” This question helps them connect with an inner charm and innocence that many lose after joining the workforce. Don’t judge their answers> what you want to see is their humanity. Smile while they answer. It’s encouraging. Then share your childhood dream (I’d be a jug for New York Yankees. I grew up a short walk from the old Yankee Stadium and played Little League Baseball where the current stadium was built). \
7. Ask “What did you get from there for here?” Sometimes you will hear a failure of a failure. Sometimes you will hear a story about how an act of GD led them to this work line. There are many types of stories you want to hear that allow you to hear something unique about them.
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8. Tell them about what their predecessor did well and how they could have done better. Spend more time on their positive properties. You don’t like to hear a candidate complaint about their current manager. They won’t hear you make a deep dive into any little disappointment you had. Remember, they will find out from your staff after they attend anyway.
9. If your team has not evaluated their skills and knowledge yet, you need to ask screening questions to evaluate their knowledge and experience. Do not limit questions to questions about memorization and behavioral interview questions (tell me about a time when you …). Create hypothetical questions too (how would you … or imagine that you …) that reflect real scenarios they may need to answer. As important as their answer are the questions they ask to clarify the scenario and the assumptions they tell you about when they formulate their answers).
10. Ask follow -up questions to your hypothetical situations asking if they are considering certain options (have you considered … or what other options did you consider). Remember that you will see Learn how they think.
Many leaders are dissatisfied with the results they get from interviews. The old ways do not work. Experiments with these questions and others that you think would allow you to get into the mind of the people you interview differently than you have until this time.
Remember that different answers are not bad answers to most of these questions. They are a way of getting into the life experiences and thought processes that have brought these people to you.
You have to decide for yourself if you want to hire human robots, were people who have to quote Steve Jobs Stanford commencing speech, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
Be amazing!
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2022
5 Fast Brainters
About Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
People hire Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter to give no BS Job Search -Coaching and Career Counseling globally because he is doing job search
How to get more interviews: Look for the third way
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Career Coach Office Time: June 18, 2024
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