In Laurent’s Hiring and Testing post, he wondered why we spend so much time in the up-front stages of hiring. Why not use the probation period that seems to be the law in France, and is part of many companies’ stated HR procedures?A bunch of reasons: as managers, we need to give substantive and useful feedback during probation; many professional people are uncomfortable with the notion of being on probation, and you still have to invest the time and money on interviews and reference checks (although you might be able to spend a little less). I’ll address each of these issues briefly.
How many of you are comfortable with giving substantive and useful feedback? I suspect that you haven’t been trained on how to provide feedback, and if you haven’t, it’s dang hard. Esther and I have developed our Five Steps to Effective Feedback, see Collaboration and Teamwork for some of the content.
Probation means testing of a person’s fitness for work, but too often we think of it as something we do after we’ve made a mistake.
It’s hard to take an agile approach to hiring if firing is time-consuming and difficult. If firing is difficult, then you still have to define the job and interview carefully, audition, and check references. If you don’t, you could be stuck with someone who’s not working well for an extremely long time.
Probation is a good idea, and has only been pro forma for many companies. The necessary preconditions are the hiring manager’s ability to give useful feedback and the ability to fire easily.
“Why Should I Hire You” means “How is hiring you going to help me?” You can prepare for this question before, during, and after the interview. Here’s how:
Before the interview, review the job description. What specifics can you show the hiring manager about your experience that parallels the job description? Tell behavioral-description stories that explain why you would be good for this job.
If you don’t have a job description, you can ask some questions. “Tell me a little about what problems you need solved.” Then, relate your experience to those problems.
Why Should I Hire You isn’t a tremendous question. It requires a sophisticated candidate, someone who’s extremely comfortable in the interview. Many technical people aren’t that comfortable. If you’re a hiring manager, consider a question like this, “Tell me about work you’ve done that I can relate to the work I’m considering you for.”However, if you’re looking for job in this down economy, think about this question in advance, and develop some stories of work you’ve done that will help the interviewer understand why you are perfect for the job.
Most people don’t lie on their resumes or in interviews. However, if you’re not sure about a candidate, here’s a checklist to help you detect the truth about a candidate:
Always check references. I ask for a minimum of three references from a candidate, at least one of which is a manager. Develop a reference checklist or script, so you ask the questions for which you need answers.
Always check the current manager or the employee’s HR department as a reference. If a candidate is currently employed, the candidate may be reluctant to provide his/her current supervisor as a reference. You can always make the offer contingent on an accurate reference of just title, salary, and length of employment. The candidate’s HR rep can supply that information.
If you suspect the candidate is stretching the truth, ask open-ended pointed questions of the reference, “Can you tell me about the candidate’s contribution to that project?”
If a candidate’s background matters enough to you, perform a check on the candidate’s schooling. (If your company is a services firm, the kinds of degrees and schools may matter.)
Verify the candidate held each job listed on the resume for the amount of time on the resume. You can call the HR departments of each company listed on the resume.
Even people who don’t consider themselves out-and-out liars sometimes stretch the truth. If someone claims some number of years of tool, technology, or industry experience, ask pointed questions or use an audition that they should be able to answer
Joyce Crane’s article, Crossing honesty line in job search can have dire consequences talks about the consequences of lying on a resume — and getting caught.It’s not worth it. Don’t lie on your resume or in an interview.So how do you best position yourself? By practicing your stories of what you’ve actually done at work. Uh-oh. She said “stories.” Yup, I did. And here’s why.When you’re interviewing, you can think of yourself as giving a presentation (a speech) to an audience of one. Professional speakers practice their signature stories. These signature stories are things that actually happened to them. Some speakers embellish their stories, but the best stories are the ones that are stripped down to their truths, with nothing extra added.Here’s a story in unrehearsed mode: “Uh, yeah, I worked on a team with a bad - well, make that a difficult - no he was really bad - project manager. We’d have these long-long-long team meetings. We didn’t get anything done in the team meetings, so I met with people separately to get something done on the project.”Ok, so we have a candidate who’s showing some initiative, working around an inappropriate project manager. If this is your story, you could tell it this way: “I once worked with a project manager who wasn’t so hot at facilitating meetings. Our team meetings were interminable, with no resulting action items. I lived through two of those meetings and realized if I wanted to accomplish my work, I’d better use another vehicle to solve my problems. I emailed people directly when it was a one-on-one problem. I had off-line meetings with two or three people. And when I needed the whole team, I suggested an agenda to the project manager.”In the first case, the candidate comes across as someone close to whining. In the second case, the candidate shows initiative and problem-solving ability. Same candidate, same situation, different articulation.You don’t have to lie on a resume or in an interview. Think about your accomplishments. Develop your stories. Practice them, if you’re not comfortable speaking to strangers. Your true stories will help you get the job.