In Hiring Tip #5: Ask Behavior-description Interview Questions, I suggested that hiring managers learn how to ask behavioral interviewing questions. Behavioral questions assume that people’s behaviors don’t change; that people reapply those behaviors to new situations. If you’re looking for a job, learn how to answer these questions.Behavioral interviewing questions ask you questions about how you’ve worked in the past:
“Tell me about a problem you solved.”
“Tell me about a project where the people worked in different locations.”
“Tell me about a time you didn’t have all the requirements.”
These are all behavioral interviewing questions, and they’re also very open-ended. If you hear questions like these, try this when you formulate your answer:
Describe the context: “On such-and-so project, at Company X, I had these problems.”
Describe the situation without blame, and without discussing the solution (yet): “We had problems in defect tracking, in scheduling, in architecture. On the other hand, we didn’t have any problems in teamwork, configuration management, or testing.”
Describe your role and what you did: “When I realized our defect tracking system couldn’t take attachments, I created a directory on our intranet. I sent out email pointing to a readme. In the readme, I suggested a technique for naming the files so if you knew about the problem number, you could find the attachments.”
If your interviewer is highly skilled at asking behavior description questions, they’re easier to answer:
Question: “Did you ever want more time in the schedule?”
Answer: “Oh yes.”
Question: “Oh, did that happen any time [at your last company]?”
Answer: “Yes.”
Question: “Tell me, what happened. What did you do?”
Here the interviewer has helped you set the context. Your job is to describe the problem without blaming anyone and to explain your role in the solution: “Originally, the project manager planned the project using 2 senior engineers. That worked for the overall schedule, but wasn’t as successful for the details of each step in the schedule. We got to design freeze and realized we didn’t have design freeze. I suggested to the PM that we break into smaller groups and replan the whole rest of the project. The PM suggested instead of the entire project, we just plan this phase, and plan to replan again. That worked really well.”When you answer behavior description questions, your job is to tell the story of your role in that situation. Make sure you describe the whole picture (project context, problem situation) before you discuss your role. That way you look as if you understood the big picture and your specific actions. Even if you didn’t understand the big picture and your specific actions when you were in the situation, understanding the big picture at the end is helpful. We all tend to repeat behaviors we think are successful, whether those behaviors actually were successful. You’ll learn about your behaviors, as well as your potential employer.
If you’re interviewing for a position, you’ve heard the old adage: “Research the company.” Yes, that’s true, and it’s not enough. It’s time to research the hiring manager also. Here’s how you research the company and the hiring manager:
Research the company by reading the web site. Read the annual and quarterly reports. Read the management team bios. Look at the different product lines. What kind of work would you do to influence those product lines? This is especially important if you’re applying for an IT or IS position, not a product-generator position.
If the job is local, attend some local professional meetings (see the Networking post), and talk to hiring managers. It’s easier to build rapport with people when you meet them in a non-threatening environment (even hiring managers can be uneasy in interviews).
Search the names of the hiring manager and the hiring manager’s manager (through the management team), if you know their names. Has the hiring manager been active in a local professional group, written an article, participated in an on-line discussion group? If the hiring manager has a common name, look for the manager’s email address instead of the name.
You don’t need to research the manager’s life (in fact, please don’t!), but look for their participation on forums where they would be likely to post something. What does the manager say? How does the manager say it? Take a look at Stickyminds for test and QA managers, Software Development forums, at the various Yahoo groups for agile development and testing, the appropriate comp.software newsgroups and any other forums you think the manager may know about and participate in.You can ask the hiring manager if s/he participates in online forums. Here’s what I asked a hiring manager, “Do you participate in an online forums? Which ones?” When the manager replied, I asked, “Good, I’ll take a look at the things you’ve said. Is there a post you’re particularly proud of? One that explains your management style or vision?” The manager sent me the URL.This doesn’t work with everyone, but it works with some people, and is worth adding as a tool to your investigative toolkit. The more you can discover about a job, a company, a hiring manager, the better your interviewing and job decision will be.
Hal recently said, “Listening is one of the foundational skills of project managers.” I agree, and would add writers, tech support reps, people managers to that list. What about developers and testers? I think they need to listen also. Anyone working in an agile project needs to listen (including customers or product managers). Is there anyone who doesn’t require listening skills?Knowledge-based projects require people who have listening skills. Period. I’m tempted to say all projects require people who can listen, but I may not have thought that all the way through.Interviews give you an opportunity to test listening skills (both ways):
Does the candidate hear the question? Does the candidate answer the question fully?
Does the interviewer echo back part of the answer? Does the interviewer summarize the answer?
If you’re not sure of your listening skills, practice on a friend or spouse. The friend or spouse will be thrilled you’re paying so much attention!
When we have recessions (or whatever this economic slowdown is), people lose their jobs. At first, the marginal people lose their jobs, along with people who made bad job choices. However, since the layoffs started in the high tech industry, more experienced people are losing their jobs and have stopped looking for technical jobs.One of my colleagues, someone who could be a developer, tester, technical lead, technical project manager, is going to start a home-repair business. He’s an experienced person, who can teach how to develop more effectively, how to test more effectively, how to do effective process improvement. He’s only in his mid-40’s. But, he can’t wait any longer for a job. It’s time to make some money.He’ll be ok. In a couple of years, he may even return to technical work, assuming the jobs are there (as I assume they will). But he’s just one of a dozen or so people I know who are transitioning in their careers. So, are we losing our best people, the people with the most experience, and the knowledge to take us out of bad projects?I don’t know, and I’m concerned.
In a previous post, Attracting Suitable Candidates, Laurent caught me being vague. In Screening Out, he points to a great skit, where the technical people are talking about people skills but the HR people are talking about tools and technology.Too many recruiters just don’t get it — that software is much more people and perseverance than technology or tool skills. Unfortunately, not all hiring managers understand how to tell the recruiters what kind of a person they want.If you’re not sure how to ask for the kind of person you want, describe your environment:
Do we have a collaborative environment?
Do we have project teams?
Do we have everyone focused on the same thing?
If you have a collaborative environment, you could write an ad like this:
“We have a collaborative development environment, where we work together. If you have the interest and problem solving skills to work with a group of stubborn persevering colleagues, we want to talk to you. Be ready to tell us about how you’ve solved problems with others.”
This ad would not attract the kind of person who wants to sit in a cube and write code all day (and not test it).If you have a focus-on-one-project group, you could write an ad like this:
“We work together on the next generate of [whatever-it-is]. We focus on one release at a time….”
If you have a many-projects-at-one-time group, you could write an ad like this:
“If you’re worried about being bored, don’t be. We have multiple projects and we need your help to make them succeed….”
These ads attract different kinds of people and help candidates screen themselves in and out, so you have fewer resumes to review. So first think about your environment. If you had to describe it in one or two sentences, how would you describe it?I just read Describe Opportunities, Not Requirements and Lou Adler explains even better what I was trying to say. If you describe requirements, you create a list that too many people (but not enough of the right people) can measure themselves against. If you describe opportunities, the people who want to do what you have will answer the ad.Describe opportunities in your ad, to attract more appropriate candidates and prevent the ones that don’t fit your environment from applying.
I had a heated discussion last week with a hiring manager. He was convinced games and puzzles helped him discriminate between suitable and unsuitable candidates. I told him I’d probably fail the games he had for project managers. “Uh, what do you mean the games for project managers?” “Don’t you have separate games or puzzles for PMs, separate from the ones you use for developers and testers?” “Uh, no.”Ok. At least two problems here:
Using a game or puzzle instead of an audition.
Making the game or puzzle unspecific for the job.
Games and puzzles discriminate against people who don’t have precisely the interest or background that the game or puzzle demands. I don’t play computer games. I only like crossword puzzles, not logic puzzles. Does that make me a good or bad PM, developer, or tester? You can’t tell. The game or puzzle doesn’t provide you, the hiring manager, enough information.If you want information on how a candidate works, create and use an audition. Don’t allow your games or puzzles to discriminate against people who don’t have the outside interests or background similar to yours.