Interviewing Simplified
I’ve attended dozens of interviews on both sides of the table and have used various methods of interviewing candidates, with varying success. Here are a few of the methods I’ve tried as an interviewer:
- Behavioral interviewing
- Asking open-ended questions like, “How would your coworkers and bosses describe you?”
- Asking technical questions
- Asking candidates to describe their “favorite work projects”
- Explaining a current challenge I was experiencing and asking how they would handle it
Silly Methods
People who practice behavioral interviewing take themselves super-seriously as if they’re solving a complicated Sudoku while walking on a tight rope. The behavioral method I studied in a formal seminar required you to actually write down all four parts of the “stars” (situation, task, action, result) on a special form and then compare notes with the other interviewers later. The trainers admonished us not to get “incomplete stars” or we’d have to go back to the candidates for clarification.
The behavioral method encourages candidates to exaggerate past instances which of course the interviewers can’t corroborate. Astute candidates will recognize this as an opportunity to describe themselves as terrifically heroic and the results they produced as overly rosy. “…and the company bought me a new bicycle and threw me a parade where I sat in a special red velvet chair and ate my favorite ice cream with my new $750 Amazon gift card in my pocket.” Either that or candidates can’t think of a good answer and end up looking unprepared.
Many people are understandably nervous during interviews. They’re being put on the spot with strange questions from unfamiliar people with a potential job offer at stake. Personally, I love being interviewed! The more awkward the questions, the better. I love nothing more than the sound of my own voice and I’m tickled whenever someone asks my opinion about something. I see weird interview questions as an opportunity to practice thinking on my feet and maybe putting a silly twist in the answer.
My answer can’t be patently silly though; it has to be at least existentially plausible. An interviewer once asked me, “Why should we hire you given that your salary requirements are above the range we’re offering?”. In the spirit of this Star Wars scene, I replied, “Because my skills are above those of the other candidates”. I ended up getting the job. It’s either that or a chance for me to reveal my cavernous supply of pertinent movie quotes for every occasion. It’s invariably the case that I’m enjoying the interview more than the interviewers are and as long as I’m talking about myself or my favorite things, I’m unlikely to tire.
Quadrant Strategy
Interviewing is largely situational in nature and there is no “best” method. So, I invented a new way to think about it with a very impressive and empathic-sounding name, “Skills & Heart Quadrant Interview Strategy”. This post isn’t meant to be a parody; this strategy might actually work in some cases.
The brand new (and fully untested) “Skills & Heart Quadrant Interview Strategy” requires interviewers to answer two primary questions: “Can the candidate do the job?” and “Does the candidate want to do the job?”. Because each question can be answered with a yes or no, the answers can be placed onto axes with four quadrants representing the answer pairs. Interviewers must elicit enough feedback from candidates in order to place them into one of the four quadrants.
This approach avoids wonky, borderline inappropriate questions such as, “Describe a situation when you had to resolve a conflict between you and someone whose personality or background was very different from yours.” or “Give an example of when you had to work closely with someone with whom you had a strong disagreement.”
This model directs you towards straightforward questions germane to the job and the candidates’ interests. You assess the candidates’ technical skills and then ask them specific questions about whether they gravitate towards or away from the job duties. A sample question might be, “What aspects of (accounting/sales/teaching/counselling) most interest you or give you the most job satisfaction?” Someone who authentically enjoys that line of work will give you very specific examples and stories. Someone who’s just looking for a job will give you halfhearted vague responses that sound made up. What you’re looking for are specific, detailed, realistic-sounding examples explained with enthusiasm and maybe even a hint of nostalgia.
Before interviewing candidates, you should pre-screen them on the phone to validate their technical skills, learn more about their experience, and get a feel for their attitude and personality. You’ll want to confirm their employment history and request they send you samples of previous work product. Depending on how technical the job is, you may also want to administer some kind of technical quiz which they complete and you evaluate before the interview. At this point, you already know whether the candidates are in the left two quadrants above or the right two. In other words, you’ve already determined whether the skills match the job.
The in-person interview will then give you the opportunity to determine if the candidates’ hearts are in the job. This may not be apparent until after you’ve fully explained the specific job duties, given them a tour of the office or facilities, introduced them to some people they’d be working with, and made sure they fully understand the prospective job. As you explain the job and show the candidates around, pay close attention to whether they begin to feel more and more excited, like someone might feel walking around the GooglePlex or Apple Park, or whether they react with slight twinges of revulsion, as if walking through some Dunder Mifflin cube farm.
Quadrant 1: Skills + Heart
These are people who are already experienced in the area of the job and currently still think of it as their career. Your job as the interviewer is to make sure you don’t mistakenly put a Quadrant 2 person in Quadrant 1. These folks should be able to give you specific and interesting examples proving they’re still engaged with the subject matter. You should ask them what specific new achievements they’d like to make in the career area and what related topics they have been studying lately. Their replies should focus on things both relevant and recent. They should be up to date on industry trends and have some sort of cogent thoughts about them. People in this group should make it to the end of the interview process and should be considered for offers.
Quadrant 2: Skills, No Heart
These folks are among the most experienced candidates but are starting to get burned out in their careers. They may lack the drive to prove themselves in the new job because they’ve already done so in this career multiple times over. Once hired, they may have a wandering eye for opportunities in other departments. Or, they may spend a lot of energy figuring out ways to delegate their duties to others, prematurely considering themselves leaders in the company based only on their past experience in the same career area.
Hiring someone like this is like getting married to someone who doesn’t really want to be with you because they have their eye (or hands) on someone else. If you’re truly desperate to get some tasks done and can’t find anyone else, these folks might work out well as outside consultants.
Quadrant 3: No Skills, No Heart
If these folks somehow make it through the pre-screening process, they should be weeded out during the interview. There are various types of Quadrant 3 folks. Some are obviously not “interview-ready” based on their behavior and appearance. I knew of a candidate once whose resume claimed fluent knowledge of Mandarin who was exposed when one of the interviewers attempted to converse in Mandarin. Mandarin wasn’t even one of the job requirements!
I once interviewed a candidate who kept looking up things on her iPad as we were talking. I said casually, “You can go ahead and put away the iPad, we won’t need it for our discussion.” But to my astonishment, she pretended like she didn’t hear me and kept looking things up on the iPad.
Some folks present well initially but are completely ignorant of basic tenets of the subject matter. In a case once where I was the interviewee, no one on the entire panel of interviewers had even the most basic understanding of the job. One interviewer argued with me that the common acronym “DBA” stood for “database analyst” rather than “database administrator”. The joke was on me though because I took the job against my better judgement and lived to regret it.
You’ll know someone belongs in Quadrant 3 because of their ignorance of basic concepts and their vague non-specific answers. Sometimes candidates give inappropriately short answers like Mallory’s boyfriend Nick does on Family Ties during a dinner scene:
Steven: “So, Nick, do you go to school?”
Nick: “No.”
Steven: “Could you be a little more specific?”
Nick: “Yeah, like, when school’s on, I’m not there.”
Quadrant 4: Heart, No Skills
Folks in the fourth quadrant come in two main sub-categories. “Career changers” include people who already have significant work experience in other career areas. “New entrants” are people fairly new to the workforce. People in both categories may indeed display genuine enthusiasm, be excellent candidates, and work out well in the job. However, special consideration needs to be given to each group to determine the right fit.
Career changers, for example, in an effort to prove themselves and get some quick wins, may focus too much on their strongest skills from previous jobs which are tangential to the current job. They may pigeonhole themselves in areas which are not the main focus of the job for which you hired them. Folks like this can end up never embracing the new job, resisting starting over again with a new difficult learning curve. Career changers may already be accustomed to being in positions of authority in their old jobs and may challenge their new bosses, especially if they’re older than the new bosses. Be extremely sensitive to how these folks conduct themselves and relate to you in the interview.
New entrants face the challenge of never having made significant progress in any career area so their confidence is grounded solely in their education and personality, not in achievements they can point to. As an interviewer, you have to determine quickly whether this person has good potential or is a nonstarter. You must judge how willing the person is to take direction, listen to advice, receive training, and embrace the job duties. Pay close attention to how new entrants react to you during the interview. Good new entrants should recognize that they’re in a learning mode and behave as if they value what you’re saying and are making an effort to remember it. People in both sub-categories in Quadrant 4 should be able to answer some academic questions about the subject and sound like they’ve been eagerly studying that subject for a while.
He has the deed half done who has made a beginning. ~ Horace
The primary benefit of this interview strategy is that, if you follow the steps above, half the job of interviewing is done before you meet in person. By the time you’re actually meeting the candidates in person, the only thing you really have to do is assess how much they want the job and enjoy actually performing the job duties. You can ask the questions I suggested or ask questions you feel are more appropriate. All that matters during the interview is that you get an accurate reading of where the candidate’s heart lies.
