The 6 Crappiest Interview Questions
cartoon and content credit: theoatmeal.com
Sometimes you just have to laugh at how any of us ever manage to hire great people. Other times you just have to laugh at another’s spin on some pretty standard interview questions.
The Oatmeal recently posted a comic strip of the “Six Crappiest Interview Questions” (our favorite is above). Worth a few minutes when you have time.
Not much more to say other than we think it’s time we all stop asking these questions and instead focus on adding more rigor to the hiring process.
Note: if your manager routinely reads your screen over your shoulder some of the items are NSFW.
Arranged Marriages and Hiring
On the night-stand this week is Sheena Iyengar’s recent book called The Art of Choosing. Like many books in the pop-science vein, there are plenty of studies that are interestingly counter-intuitive.
One study in particular jumped out. Drs. Gupta and Singh of the University of Rajasthan studied the consequences of arranged marriages and marriages by choice. The results?
Couples who had been together for less than one year and had ‘married for love’ (i.e. chosen their partners) scored a 70 of 91 on the Rubin Love Scale. After ten years, they totaled 40 of 91.
The arranged marriages, as you can imagine, didn’t start so hot and heavy. First year couples tallied 58 points, but that grew to 68 after ten years.
The conclusion Iyengar (and the study’s authors) draws is that, “In an arranged marriage, two people are brought together based on shared values and goals, with the assumption that they will grow to like each other over time, much in the same way that a bond develops between roommates, business partners or close friends.”
The marriage metaphor is often used to describe hiring or accepting a job in the professional ranks. Both sides spend a little time doing a mating dance, putting their best foot forward and trying to hide their craziness and then make a decision that will – they hope – last a long time.
The process itself is a bit of a hybrid between choice and being arranged, particularly if an outside recruiter is used (though their incentives for a happy match aren’t anywhere near as strong as two parents’). But far too often we are making hiring decisions “for love” (i.e. we fall in love with the resume and the skills and accomplishments the candidate brings). Ultimately, we are so overwhelmed by their stunning ‘good looks’ on paper that we overlook the fact that our values and goals are not well aligned. As is typical the relationship starts well. But over time, their differences are exposed which is why nearly half of all hires ‘fail’ within the first 18-months.
While everyone tries to get to the heart of a candidate’s values and personality, it ultimately devolves into a like-ability screen. Can you imagine eating lunch or going for drinks after work with the candidate? If so that’s great, but it makes for a good friend, not necessarily a great employee.
At RoundPegg, we encourage you to look beyond that attractive resume. Just as the parents who select their children’s mate won’t pick someone repulsively unattractive, you’re not going to hire an idiot. Odds are good that the person who has adequate skills but embodies the best of your culture will ultimately prove to be the far more successful partner. Sometimes it just takes a little objectivity to see that.
Relying on Resumes: Sucker’s Play
photo by skipgo shannon
An amazing article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription req.) today profiled a Frenchman who’d managed to con his way into a tryout for an elite European ‘football’ club.
The brief summary is that he doctored his resume to show the he’d…”been climbing the ranks of European soccer, signing with a top-flight Paris club and training with a team in Argentina. He had an agent and a Web site that showed him scoring a goal for the English club Swindon Town. He’d even been chosen as an ambassador for Lance Armstrong’s charity.”
The problem was that none of it was true.
His reaction? “If I lied a little bit on my CV, I am sorry…I am just like 99% of my friends in France, who say on their résumé they can speak fluent English.”
It’s amazing that we’re surprised when this happens. We put a lot of stock into the resume and the supposed skills and accomplishments one brings.
The stats say that almost half the resumes floating around out there contain false information (actually 42.7% via ResumeDoctor, March 2006).
So why do we keep putting so much faith in resumes?
Because it’s easy.
Resumes are shortcuts to get us what we’re looking for. It’s safe to hire the person with fantastic accomplishments. It’s safe to find the person who talks a great game and has the self-proclaimed history to back it up. Pedigrees, experiences and stated feats are cues to us for an individual’s ability to perform in our work environments.
Granted, the resume is likely still the best thing we have going for us. But it’s outdated.
Like stocks, past performance is no indicator of future performance. Especially if that past performance is falsified.
The reason the past doesn’t work is because new variables are added to the mix. Your business is a new environment. There are new politics at play. The dynamics between teams is different. And the way things get done is vastly different.
So what to do?
Look for themes in the resume instead.
Does the individual create new products or modify existing ones? Are they focused on working with teams or working in a silo? Are the accomplishments they focus on team accomplishments or individual? Answers either way are fine, it’s all a matter of what your own culture is. What’s makes your successful people tick? What does the role require?
Hiring is Hard. Here’s Proof.
photo by dbking
Hiring is a headache.
Dr. John Sullivan’s latest post at ERE pulls together a ton of shocking numbers that should convince you we need to find a better way.
50% new executive turnover — nearly half of new executive hires quit or are fired within the first 18 months at a new employer (Source: Corporate Leadership Council).
50% of the processes users (both managers and new hires) later regret their “buying” decision (Source: The Recruiting Roundtable). In addition, 25% of new hires later regret taking their new job within one year (Source: Challenger, Gray)
66% regret hiring decisions — Nearly two-thirds of hiring managers come to regret their interview-based hiring decisions (Source: DDI)
Hiring and retaining below or even average performers have real opportunity costs because top performers can increase productivity, revenue, and profit by between 40% and 67% over average performers (Source: McKinsey & Co.)
Only a 19% success rate — only one out of five of the process output can be classified as unequivocal successes (Source: Leadership IQ).
Basically, we’re not good at hiring, we regret most of the decisions we make, there’s a big difference in contribution between average and good people and the people we hire are often unhappy we choose them. That’s pretty damning.
A good hire requires finding someone with the skills to do the job AND the right person who can thrive in your company’s work environment. Our guts don’t adequately assess the latter because inevitably we revert to deciding whether the candidate is one we can imagine having a beer with after work.
Again, why we created RoundPegg. RoundPegg will objectively and rigorously identify which candidates will function best with your company’s culture, with the work team and the hiring manager. We just released the first version of the application. If you’d like to learn more please drop us a line at employers [at] roundpegg [dot] com.
Re-Interviewing
photo by phineas h
Interviewing is hard enough.
But, last week I had a great meeting with a forward-thinking, culturally aware Corporate Development officer. He was touting the benefits of re-interviewing.
Put simply, it’s the company taking an active interest in the employee’s career development.
It’s something he does every 4-6 months. And its purpose is to probe into whether people are getting what they need out of their job. Whether they are heading in the right direction. Whether there is anything that is preventing them from fully engaging in their job.
The cynic will say that it’s the company trying to extract more blood from the turnip. And there is some of that. But ultimately, the employment relationship is just that…a relationship. You have to give in order to get.
By inserting himself into the individual’s career management process, he learns what they want out of the job and can help deliver upon that. How else does the company know what buttons to push in order to properly motivate? (Hint: money isn’t usually it.)
To illustrate he told me the story of someone in the Corporate Development realm (aka HR) who really wanted to be an accountant. She had been taking classes at night and had recently completed her certification. While there wasn’t a position open, he was able to get her involved in projects with the AP/AR groups.
She was still expected to fulfill her duties in the HR space, but she eagerly took on the additional work because it was what she really wanted to do and because the company (and one individual in particular) was willing to take the time to understand what she needed to get.
A role may not open up and she may have to leave in six-months in order to find full-time accounting work. But the alternative was losing her outright now and getting less out of her while she ‘secretly’ sought a new job.
It was an important arrow in his quiver to be able to better understand his team. And a practice that motivates and engages his team. If people are a good fit with your company’s values then moving them to a different seat on the bus is a no-brainer. It builds goodwill and the sense of reciprocity fiercely kicks in. These people become far more likely to go the extra mile that will make a difference to your business.
He made a few additional points that are worth sharing:
- Don’t expect miracles the first time out. You need to build trust with the employees that enables them to be candid. Because without candor it’s a wasted exercise
- Set the expectation that both sides come fully prepared. Give the questions/topics you want to cover and expect them to have thought deeply about them
- Honor these as you would executive meetings. Don’t move them, don’t miss them and don’t show up expecting not to be an active participant
- Be honest about what the company’s needs too. If you foresee needing to do things differently bring them up now. Better to understand if doing things differently is going to motivate the person who has to do the things differently
Do you do something similar? What works/doesn’t?
