So you’ve developed a phone screen of 10-12 questions, with your elimination factor questions at the top. You’ve hit a snag with a candidate and you’re sure the candidate will not fit your position. What do you do?Stop the phone screen. Right now. Say, “You’re not a good fit for this position. Thank you for your time.”If you’re at the beginning of the phone screen, you’ve only spent 5 minutes, and you’re ready for the next phone screen. If you’re in the middle of the phone screen and you know someone who would want this candidate, you can offer to forward the resume or offer the hiring contact to the candidate. If you’re at the end of the phone screen and everything seems perfect with the exception of salary expectations, say that. If you have salary leeway, you may also want to add, “If we can work out the salary issues, we’ll call you for an interview.”When you stop the phone screen when you recognize you can’t go forward with a candidate, you’re saying to the candidate: I respect your time and my time. I won’t waste it for either of us.I’ve met some hiring managers who didn’t want to make people feel bad, so they continued with the entire phone screen. What a waste — for everyone. If you don’t want to make the candidate feel badly, then practice saying something like “You’re not a good fit for this position,” or whatever it is you want to say. The more you practice, the more likely you can say it when you need to stop the screen.
If you need a chuckle, read John Kador’s parody of a rejection letter. I laughed out loud.John is writing a book about the brainteaser interview, available in 2004. Since I’m sure not all hiring managers will heed my advice about not using puzzles in an interview, you candidates may want to read John’s book.
Since there’s a (temporary in my mind) glut of candidates, some hiring managers are asking for specific industry expertise, such as: consumer product, enterprise-wide application, or web-content expertise. Unfortunately, that’s shorthand for what I believe people are really looking for: a specific mindset that meets the cultural requirements of the product development process.Here’s an example. My colleague Chad has over 8 years managing enterprise server & application test teams. He’s a great test manager. In my opinion, he’s adaptable, having practiced several kinds of methodologies and test approaches. But he’s having trouble getting interviews with non-enterprise product organizations, because those folks don’t know how to translate their needs (for example, for consumer product experience) against his background.If you’re a hiring manager try this. Instead of shorthand for industry expertise, decide what’s important about your industry expertise. Is the ability to cycle through a project quickly? Is it adaptability to a variety of projects? Is it understanding what your customers value and when they want the product? Is it how a candidate works on small products vs. large products in terms of process and procedures? Is it knowledge of real-time applications or transaction processing? The more you define what industry expertise means to your open position, the more successful your resume screening, interviewing, and hiring will be.If you’re a candidate, first make sure you research the company so you can be ready for the phone screen and interview. That way you can anticipate potential industry expertise questions. Assuming you actually land a phone screen, if the problem of industry expertise arises, ask the interviewer what problem(s) they’re trying to avoid. Then if the interviewer says something like this, “Well, we want someone who’s flexible with the testing process for our small products,” you can say, “When I started with so-and-so, the product was small. Here’s what I did to organize the testing (and tell your behavior-description story). As the product evolved, here’s how I responded (and explain when you took steps to do what).”It is useful to check for industry expertise, but functional skills and domain expertise (or the ability to quickly learn the domain) outweighs any tools/technology or industry expertise. In fact, I’ve found that when I’ve hired people from outside the industry, they come with new and novel ideas that are often useful. When I’ve had an option, I’ve selected people with superior problem-solving skills, adaptability, high functional expertise, and the ability to quickly acquire domain expertise. It’s worked for me.
I spoke at a graduate class last week, presenting my “Interview with Ease” (candidate version, not the hiring version) workshop to the class. One of the questions that arose was: What do I do when I’m faced with a puzzle?In Down with Games and Puzzles, I suggested using an audition instead of a game or puzzle. But what do you do if you’re a candidate, and the interviewer wants you to solve a puzzle or riddle or game?Offer to solve a problem or perform an audition. You can say something like this to the interviewer, “Oh, this looks pretty interesting. But I bet it’s nowhere near as hard or as challenging as work you do here every day. Instead of this (game/puzzle/riddle), why don’t I show you my problem solving abilities at work? If you like, I can sign a non-disclosure agreement, and you can try me out on your code” (or whatever).There’s no guarantee this will work, but if it does, you’ll be interviewing in a way that helps the interviewer see how good you are in the context of the work instead of in an irrelevant context.
In a comment on my last post, Roy asked if I could elaborate on what I mean when a candidate runs the interview. Here’s what happened to me at one interview years ago:
I arrive on time for the interview, wearing a suit (hey, it was the early 80’s, that’s what we wore). The interviewer greets me and ushers me into the room with the rest of the interviewers. It’s a large conference room, with the table pushed to one side. The interviewers are all lined up (6 of them) in a row in comfortable chairs. I have a lab stool to sit on (no back). I take one look at the stool and at my skirt and ask for a chair. They don’t have one. I stand. (Interviewer mistake #1. The person standing is in control of the meeting.)The first person asks a closed question. I respond with a one-syllable answer. The next person asks a closed question. Same type of answer. (Interviewer mistake #2. It’s ok to set context with a closed question, but don’t ask too many in a row — ask elimination questions in the phone screen. Asking closed questions in an in-person interview wastes everyone’s time.)Finally, someone asks a question that requires a real answer. I start talking, working the room as if I’m giving a presentation. I wax eloquent and take about 20 minutes to answer the one question. (Interviewer mistake #3. Don’t let the candidate drive the interview. When a candidate takes the floor, the candidate is turning the interview into a presentation audition. If you need the candidate to present as part of the job, this is great. But I didn’t need to showcase my presentation skills for that job; there was no presentation need. When a candidate turns an interview into a presentation audition, the candidate has taken over the interview. We’re too tuned to letting the person who’s standing into keeping the floor and speaking about whatever they want to speak about, rather than moving the interview towards the areas you want to discuss.)One more person asks a question, and I answer, taking about 10 minutes to answer. They thank me for my time — the interview is over. (Interviewer mistake #4. Only asking four questions (in about 30-5 minutes) isn’t enough to understand the depth and breadth of any candidate’s experience and how it relates to your opening. You need more questions than that.)I was completely surprised by their job offer the next day (they hadn’t checked references either). I assumed I’d blown the interview because I was only there for about 45 minutes total. Nope, they didn’t want to “waste” their time with interviewing.
I was completely in control of the interview. The interviewers heard only what I wanted them to hear. I was able to portray my strengths and weaknesses as strengths because they didn’t ask enough questions, nor ask different questions. In panel interviews, the interviewers have a difficult time seeing when to take the interview on a tangent to discover more about a candidate, or even just how to ask follow-up interview questions. Unless panelists have practiced how to interrupt or how to move the questions along to a more interesting place, the candidate is in control. In my experience, interviewers who don’t interview one-on-one (or possibly in pairs to reflect pair work), lose out on valuable information the candidate doesn’t attempt to disclose.I’ve worked with other panel-based hiring teams since then, and they all used panel interviews to save time. They may have saved time in the interview, but they hired too many people who weren’t quite right. Panel interviews save interviewer time, yes, but at the cost of a bad hire.If you want to save time, define the job carefully, develop a phone screen script with elimination questions at the top, create an interview team who knows how to interview for specific areas, and organize the interviewing so the interview team asks about those areas first. And if you must use panel interviews, give yourselves enough time, practice how to interrupt, and create a comfortable environment for the candidate as well as the interviewing panel.
I recommend against panel interviews. As a candidate in my session at the AYE conference said, “I love panel interviews. I get to run the interview. I only have to be “on” for a couple of hours, I get to decide what to say, and I can manipulate the interview so that it serves my purposes.”Hmm. If you’re currently using panel interviews (more than one person interviewing a candidate at one time), reconsider. I’ve had much better results with each interviewer staking out the one or two areas the interviewer will ask about, and then focusing the interview on those areas (areas such as design ability, problem solving, planning, ability to get along with others, and so on). At the end of the interview, each interviewer has seen a couple of facets of the candidate in depth. The interviewer may have described the same project to each interviewer or several projects — which is information about the depth and breadth of the candidate’s experience.If you don’t care if the candidates run your interviews, then by all means, continue using panels. But unless you have some sort of exceptional need for a panel that I can’t imagine right now, panel interviews won’t help you discover enough information about the candidate, so you’ll be making decisions blind. And since it’s so hard to fire people, the last thing you want is a blind decision about a candidate.
I was a reference for a senior manager the other day. A lovely HR person called and asked me a bunch of generic questions about the senior manager. Unfortunately, she didn’t ask me any of the important questions. It sounded as if her reference check was a standard set of questions, usable for anyone in the organization.If the hiring manager (yes, the CEO here) had called, I would have been able to supply him with necessary information about the senior manager. But because he wasn’t asking the questions, I’m not sure the HR rep heard my answers, and understood what those answers meant as a reference for a senior exec.For example, senior managers who don’t work well with others don’t succeed. This senior manager works very well with other people - she builds relationships even with jerks But when the HR rep asked me about the senior manager’s ability to get along with others, she was thinking about the manager-employee relationship, not the management peer relationship. One is as necessary as the other for senior managers. A missed opportunity on a reference check.If you’re thinking of hiring someone, check references yourself. Don’t delegate reference checks. You’ll be able to take advantage of serendipitous moments and learn more about the candidate — what you need to know.
I’m conferencing again this week (AYE conference, where I’m leading a session about interviewing), so don’t expect much blogging this week again.
But when the HR rep asked me about the senior manager’s ability to get along with others, she was thinking about the manager-employee relationship, not the management peer relationship. One is as necessary as the other for senior managers. A missed opportunity on a reference check.If you’re thinking of hiring someone, check references yourself. Don’t delegate reference checks. You’ll be able to take advantage of serendipitous moments and learn more about the candidate — what you need to know.