During training, they clearly define what makes a solid resume, ergo a solid candidate. Evaluating a candidate becomes a quantitative process of checking the boxes; the more boxes checked, the better the candidate.  While this dedication to an efficient and accurate recruiting strategy is important, it neglects a fair representation of the candidate’s capability.  When the focus is entirely metric-based, you miss fantastic potential employees because a box wasn’t checked on their profile.  My most favorite example of this mistake is the scrutinizing attention to job history.

As a recruiter, how often have you asked a candidate about their job history in one form of question or another?  Why?  My guess is because you assume past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.  Am I right?

• Short job history? –– “Job-hopper; they won’t stay committed.”

• Relocated often? –– “They get bored easily; difficult to manage their insatiable appetite for change.”

• Quit, laid-off, fired? –– “Forget about it, the best always stay employed.”

As a hiring manager, you have to make educated assumptions on a candidate based on the information you have available to you; resumes, interviews, references, social networks, etc.  But our REAL job is determining the compatibility of the candidate to our company.  Let me give you a couple examples to illustrate the danger of judging someone based on job history.

How many people did you date before finding your wife/husband/partner?  Now imagine if during the dating process, you were out to dinner, and your date said, “Tell me about all the people you’ve dated in your past.  Why didn’t it work out?”  See what I did there?  It’s ridiculous!  As I mentioned in my previous post, finding a job is like dating; sometimes it takes several of the wrong type to find the right one.  Smart people use life and career experiences to learn and grow, becoming better prepared and more qualified for future opportunities.  Just because someone’s past job history isn’t stellar, doesn’t mean they won’t be stellar for your future.
Here’s one for you sports buffs.  Michael Jordan tried out for his high school varsity basketball team during his sophomore year.  He didn’t make it.  At 5’11”, he was considered “too short” to play at the varsity level.  Over the course of the following year, he trained hard, grew four inches, and the rest is history.  Imagine if his high school coach judged and dismissed him based on his performance as a sophomore.  We could have been robbed of the best basketball player to ever grace a jersey!  The game as we know it wouldn’t exist.  I’m using Jordan’s story as a metaphor in this instance.  Like Jordan, all people have the unlimited potential to grow and be great at something.  We just need the right opportunities, the right mentorship, and the right environment to develop.

Agree, disagree?  Let me know your thoughts!

Read More about how to value capabilities and cultural fit over experience in “4 Conversation Starters for the Interview Room.”

With an educational background in entrepreneurship, Travis Baker’s views tend to build from a broader business perspective.  Born in 1985, he’s a true millennial.  He believes we’re all citizens of a global community, and we have a shared responsibility to society.  His experience as both an agency and corporate talent acquisition professional has taught him that people are the real drivers of business. 

• 1. What contributions or projects are you most proud of?  What role did you play within these?  Find out what successes they had and why.  What obstacles did they encounter, and how they got around them.  Where did they fail, and what did they learn?  When you focus on someone’s past contributions, you’re discussing what value they’ve added.  You’re giving the person the opportunity to showcase their greatest accomplishments.  Interviews are nerve-wracking.  A candidate knows they are being judged and evaluated, which can lead to defensive behaviors and answers tailored to what they think we want to hear.  The focus on positive contributions keeps the conversation lively and helps to alleviate the candidate’s nerves.  In an open and safe environment, you get answers and behaviors that better represent a candidate’s capabilities

• 2. What type of culture and environment did your former employers have?  When you ask a candidate why they left a former employer, automatically the person feels judged and defenses are raised.  Instead, when you focus on previous company cultures, you’re encouraging the candidate to paint a picture for you.  You’re inviting them to share a story.  It shows the candidate that you’re willing to listen without judgment and work together to identify a better opportunity.  You’re no longer a gate-keeper to the next round of interviews, but a trusted partner willing to help.  This relationship is also useful when providing feedback to a candidate.

• 3. What type of environment have you been most successful in?  What are you hoping to find here?  If you’ve created a safe and open interviewing environment, this question is fantastic because it reveals what the candidate expects of a company.  All that’s left to do is connect the dots.  Does what the candidate want and need match what the company can offer?

• 4. What are you passionate about?  Why are you passionate about your career?  These questions are a window into a candidate’s career soul.   What we do is a reflection of who we are; what personal mission and values we hold dear.  Asking about passion gives you an indication of what motivates the candidate and how they define personal and professional success.

The incredible irony of the company I used to work for and their training process is that they make internal hires based on the exact opposite of how they train recruiters to screen candidates.  They look for intangibles in a person that will make them successful in the environment they’ve created; competitive, goal-driven, success-hungry, and aggressive.  They’re brilliant at understanding their internal culture, and uncompromisingly focused on preserving it.  They also happen to be one of the most successful and profitable staffing and recruiting companies in the world.  Coincidence? The trick to ignoring job history is having a clear understanding of what your company stands for; what values, morals, ethics, and characteristics are celebrated.  Then, simply play match-maker.

Don’t let job history stop you from hiring your requisition sole-mate.  Your company will thank you for it.

With an educational background in entrepreneurship, Travis Baker’s views tend to build from a broader business perspective.  Born in 1985, he’s a true millennial.  He believes we’re all citizens of a global community, and we have a shared responsibility to society.  His experience as both an agency and corporate talent acquisition professional has taught him that people are the real drivers of business. 

Interviewing is a philosophy not a science; theory, not fact. Like philosophy, there is a fine line between the very good, and the utterly awful. Unfortunately, we all tend to develop interviewing ego.

We become poisoned by the power of judgment. We’re twisted by the notion that every question asked is without fault.

Even worse, we’ve settled into the belief that our questions have only one “right” answer. We dupe ourselves into listening for it, shutting off to any ludicrous idiocy that falls outside the lines we’ve drawn. But like philosophy, the problem doesn’t often lie in the answers, but with the questions.

Common interview questions – What is the perfect job for you?

Honest answer: Ideally speaking, I don’t really care what the job is. But, I would love to make as much money as possible for doing the very least amount of work required.

Admit it, if you’ve ever been asked this interview question, you’ve chuckled to yourself and some variant of the answer above flashed through your mind.

It’s okay. Truthfully speaking, there is no perfect job, at least not in this world.  Every career requires hard-work, sacrifice, and continuous improvement. What we really want to know is whether the job on the table will provide a sense of satisfaction to the person interviewing.

A better approach:  Ask, ‘What are you passionate about?’

I’m a big fan of being politely direct. If you’re curious about a candidate’s interests and passions, ask them directly!  Encourage them to let down their guard and answer openly. Then, connect with the person. Discuss how the position may offer benefits that would allow the freedom to pursue their passions.  Provide the candidate the power to decide how the position fits into their desired lifestyle.

Can you walk me through your resume

Honest answer:  No. That’s why I created my resume, which you’ve had for a week. If you would have prepared for our meeting prior to sashaying in here like the second coming, you wouldn’t need to ask redundant, time-stalling questions, would you?

Remember, an interview is a two-way conversation.  Both parties, the company and the candidate, need to be represented well. Talented individuals have a lot of decision-making power, and as a company representative, you’re being sized-up. We expect the candidate to come prepared, they expect the same.

A better approach: Come prepared.

Do your homework.  Review their Linkedin profile. Research their former companies. Compile a group of questions relating specifically to the work they’ve performed. Discuss achievements, and goals met. Learn about what makes them better. The best want to work for the best, an interview is a first impression. Make the most of it.

Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?

Honest answer:  As your boss.  Pucker-up chief.

Who doesn’t want to advance their career, have more responsibility, and make more money? It doesn’t matter where someone sees themselves in the future. What matters is what they’re doing to ensure it happens.

A better approach:  Ask, ‘What are your long and short-term career goals?’ Then, as a follow-up: ‘What are you doing to ensure you’ll achieve those goals?’

By asking a more open-ended question, you’re revealing how the candidate defines long and short-term. You’re also discovering if they’re a proactive planner or someone who may need more guidance.

Why do you want to work for this company?

Honest answer:  If you say and live the things I want to hear, I don’t care what the name on the building reads.

As a company, you can’t be everything to everyone. But it’s important to truly understand your culture and be able to clearly articulate the costs and benefits of being an employee there. In order to attract the best talent, you need a defined and focused sense of being.  Then, build an employee base around people who share the same mission and values. As a candidate, we’re hoping to find a company we can believe in. We strongly desire being a part of something bigger than ourselves. We need to feel like the work we do matters. As we plunge ourselves into the job hunt, each interview is approached with hopeful optimism. Working is like dating, sometimes finding the right one, takes a lot of wrong ones. We’re searching for a mutually beneficial partnership that can grow with time.

A better approach:  Ask, ‘What type of culture and environment do you work best in?’

You’re trying to discover if you’re a match on a deeper level. Could you imagine if on a first date, someone asked you; why do you to want create a long-lasting relationship with me? I don’t know, because you’re hot?  We’re searching for genuine compatibility, not a one night stand.

This job requires overtime, are you willing to put in the extra effort?

Honest answer:  Sure.  Are you willing to make it worth my extra effort?

Okay, you require overtime. Why? Do you run super lean? Are you strategically misaligned and unable to operate efficiently? Or, do you simply accept burning people out as a cost of doing business?

Occasional overtime is understandable, but if you use this question to test commitment, you better be able to live with the consequences. The days of command and control, ignorant and blind obedience, are over. Gone are the pension plans and gold watches. In today’s marketplace, we all watch out for ourselves. If you’re going to require overtime, we expect to be provided with other benefits to balance the equation; paid time off, bonuses, etc.  Bottom line, if you won’t appreciate my hard work, I’ll find someone who will.

A better approach:  If you’re trying to test commitment, ask, ‘What would we need to commit to you in order to keep you committed to us?’

Where we work is a choice.  We make it based on what a company offers in return for our results.  Comparing a candidate’s candidate’s expectations to the company’s culture and historical performance is a solid indicator as to whether or not someone will stick around for the long haul.

Agree, disagree?  Leave me your comments.  Like any philosophy, interviewing is a journey to discovery, learned through shared experience.

Cheers!

Photo Credits: People-Results.com, Urbanette, Small Business Trends, The Clever Consultancy, Workmeter-en.blogspot.com

With an educational background in entrepreneurship, Travis Baker’s views tend to build from a broader business perspective.  Born in 1985, he’s a true millennial.  He believes we’re all citizens of a global community, and we have a shared responsibility to society.  His experience as both an agency and corporate talent acquisition professional has taught him that people are the real drivers of business.  Learning how to effectively communicate and collaborate is the key to success. Born in South Bend, IN, currently residing in Charlotte, NC, working hard to relocate to Austin, TX.

Do you want to share your expertise with how to interview for specific positions? Follow these guidelines to get published!