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

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.

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

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 download your Culture Assessment.

We welcome your comments and thoughts.

Brad Remillard

5 Questions That Identify Top Talent

As a way of helping our clients, we often participate with them in interviews. It is not uncommon for clients to ask us to interview candidates they have surfaced on their own. Over my 20+ years as a recruiter, I have participated in hundreds and maybe thousands of interviews. The one thing they all have in common is many of the same questions are asked over and over again. When I ask the client why they asked that question the answers vary from “couldn’t think of anything else and I need to fill time’ to “ that question was asked of me when I interviewed.” The interesting thing about these questions is they rarely have anything to do with the candidate’s ability to perform in the job or how they would perform in my client’s company culture. They are of throw away questions.

Companies want to hire the best and the brightest, however, the interviewing process and questions rarely identify the characteristics of a top performer. The interviewer assumes that if they did it before and were successful they will be successful in our company. The interviewer misses the point that the candidate needs to be able to adapt those past accomplishments to their company’s culture and their company’s resources. Just because someone was a great performer in their last company, doesn’t mean they are the right person for your company.

We have identified 5 characteristics that all top performers possess and 5 questions you can ask in an interview to determine if these characteristics are present and if they can adapt them to your company( see our book You’re NOT The Person I Hired). These 5 are: top performers have high initiative, they execute, they have the ability to motivate others; they have a track record of delivering comparable results and they can adapt that performance to your environment.

The question to ask are:

1) Give me an example of where you have demonstrated initiative? Top performers take initiative, they don’t wait for it to come to them. Top performers will step up to the plate and be ready to perform. Taking initiative is second nature to them.

2) Give me an example of when you executed a project flawlessly? Failure to execute is one of the top reasons people fail. The ability to get the job done regardless of obstacles that come up along the way is a key trait of top performers. This doesn’t mean perfect results, just that hey didn’t get distracted and lose sight of deadlines, budget, conflicts, etc.

The third question deals with leadership.

3) Tell me about your biggest team accomplishment in a difficult time or situation? Top performers get the job done by utilizing the talents of others. No one can do it all. Top performers know this and leading a team is something they are good at. We are all good leaders in good times. The best leaders are able to motivate people even when circumstances aren’t good. Also, ask for an example of leading cross functional teams.

The last two questions begin to test the candidate’s ability to get the job done. Comparable accomplishments are important to the candidate’s success in your company. These accomplishments must be similar in scope and size.

4) One of our critical objectives is (explain a critical problem they will address in this position.) Can you describe your most comparable accomplishment? A track record of delivering similar accomplishments over an extended period of time is a critical component of a top performer. Top performance is not a one time event. You want to insure the person you hire has a track record of accomplishments similar in scope to what defines success in your position.

The final question deals with the candidate’s ability to adapt these experiences to your environment and culture.

5) How would you go about implementing (pick a project important to this position) in our company? Things rarely go as planned. Top performers must be able to adapt to different circumstances. Change is a given. What counts is – can they change – with the change. They must be able to adapt their past accomplishments to your environment, culture management style and to your company’s resources. If they can’t then regardless of everything else they won’t be successful in your company.

Then probe deeply to ensure they actually did what they claim. These 5 questions alone will tell you if you have top talent

For help with interviewing or any hiring assistance visit our website at WWW.IMPACTHIRINGSOLUTIONS.COM

Overcoming the Second Biggest Hiring Mistake

The sole purpose of an employment interview is to investigate whether the candidate can succeed in the open position. Uncovering that information requires a rigorous, disciplined interview process that leaves no question unasked and no stone unturned.

Yet, according to a research study we conducted the second most common hiring mistake at the executive level involves just the opposite.

In too many cases, executive hires involve a sloppy, undisciplined process that fails to put candidates under the magnifying glass, verify claims or check facts. And when hiring managers accept at face value everything candidates say during job interviews, a bad hiring decision almost always follows.

“In our workshops and training sessions, we routinely ask executives what percentage of job applicants embellish or exaggerate their accomplishments during the interview?” In most cases, we hear a number from 100 to 125 percent, because many candidates embellish more than once.

Granted, not every job candidate is guilty of what we call “interview puffery,” but it does happen on a regular basis. And unless you take adequate steps to guard against it, you can easily end up with a hiring decision that ends in failure.

So what is the solution to eliminating candidate puffery and avoiding hiring mistake #2?

Become a great interview detective and that requires a rigorous probing process.

Put The Candidate Under the Magnifying Glass

To validate the candidate’s answers to the five key questions, we recommend the “Magnifying Glass” approach, a technique that involves asking for multiple examples of each answer to make sure the behavior isn’t the exception to the rule.

Put on your reporter’s hat and ask ‘who, what, when, where and why and how’ questions. In other words, ask candidates to describe, in specific terms, who did what, where and when they did it, how they did it and why they did it that way. Then ask for the outcome/results to determine if their approach succeeded.

Examples of generic magnifying glass questions include:

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?
Tell me about another time when you faced a similar situation.

The idea is to gather as many specific details as possible about each key question. To drill down further, ask questions more focused questions, such as:

What was your role in the project?
How did you define and measure success?
Can you give me a few examples of your personal initiative on the project?
When have you faced a comparable challenge?
How did you and the team make mid-course corrections?
What did you learn from this project?
With the benefit of hindsight, what would you do differently next time?

Be prepared to spend 15 to 30 minutes exploring the details of each example the candidate gives you. Keep going until you uncover what you need to know or it become apparent the candidate is being elusive or outright lying, at which point you might as well cut your losses and end the interview.

Your goal is to assess their analytical, problem solving and presentation skills in your work environment.

Successful interviewing is all about drilling down and getting to the facts. By asking for example after example, you will discover a critical truth about the interviewing process — that candidates can’t make up false answers quickly enough. They have either done what they say they have done and can describe it in infinite detail, or they will implode in front of you.

To ensure that your interviewing process uncovers the information you need to know, ask the five key questions (see our book You’re NOT The Person I Hired) probe for relevant details and give a meaningful homework assignment. You will get a very accurate picture of the candidate’s ability to perform on the job and, more important, you’ll make better hiring decisions.