Spotting your next Star: 3 tips to better hiring
When I recall my initial days of conducting job interviews, I was perhaps as nervous as the candidates! More so because I begun my journey with interviewing for positions that were atleast a couple of levels above mine. My initial exasperation was on how one can do justice to the challenge of understanding a candidate in 60 minutes well enough, and be able to take a call on skills depth, role suitability and culture fitment.
From screening candidates for various skills, domains, roles and seniority over the years, I share 3 useful tips here. This could help you do a thorough assessment in 60 minutes, by getting to know candidates better and help get a sneak-peak deeper, beyond the prepared and polished surface.
1. Check ‘application of skills’, not just the skillset
A lot of interview time is usually spent in checking the core skills, often through text book questions and asking to elaborate on key concepts. What I’ve found lacking with most candidates is the ability to apply skills, and that is usually a serious handicap on-the-job. Even if a person doesn’t know a definition or two, as long as he/she shows ability to pick up and apply learnings, that is usually sufficient.
For example, if you’re screening an analyst for machine learning skills, ask for interpretation of the modeling techniques, as opposed to just the model internals. You could provide a business scenario with a listing of the data available and ask for how the person would approach the problem given these constraints, explain the techniques that are relevant here and how they would apply them to solve the stated problem. This usually doubles up as a check on core skills, and is a surer way to check whether the person is upto the skillset for the job, and can scale as the role expands.
2. Validate ‘experiences’, not just the years of experience
Given even a few years of a candidate’s working experience, it is time-consuming to go through the key stints and roles, let alone cross-question contributions in each. I’ve realised that there is little value in just elaborating on the CV, since it minimizes your chances of discovering something new to make a judgement. Instead, understanding experiences that a person has gone through and asking for their take in a few scenarios can bring forth their perspective to working in and responding to a situation, which is the most important aspect to understand.
For example, ask them for experiences where they had to face a major client escalation; understand which stint and what moment gave them the most satisfaction. I’ve found it useful to talk about their earlier projects, hypothetically change some of the goals/constraints/influencers and understand how they would approach it now. This combines their familiarity of the project, with your scenario of interest and brings forth an unprepared answer.
3. Listen to ‘unsaid preferences’, not just the prepared verbal summary
There are enough experts with millions of books sold on Amazon who have established that 2/3rds of any communication is non-verbal. That, is the power of the unspoken word, and this is like a continuous stream of information broadcasted by the candidate right through the interview; you just have to tune into the frequency and read the signals.
Any candidate starts with a prepared script and politically correct answers which doesn’t reveal much. One must start peeling this surface layer through probing questions like the above. From the candidate’s answers, look beyond the intended meaning and pay attention to words used to describe an experience, the emotions displayed while explaining and the change in body language with topics of conversation. This is where one starts getting useful information, beyond the window-dressed packaging that a candidate (rightfully) puts together.
Summary
In summary, asking the standard questions and looking for information in routine ways will return just that — prepared answers and information already available in the CV. The endeavor must be to get to know the ‘real’ candidate, check if they will be upto the job, and whether they will fit into the organization culture, and for that you must go beyond the usual.
However, the intent is NOT to put the candidates in a spot or make them uncomfortable. In fact, all of the above tips will be effective only when the candidate is at ease and their candid best. After all, its human nature to try and present a nicely packaged view of the self, isn’t that what all of us try doing on Facebook and in other social interactions?
One must give benefit of doubt and avoid assuming that a person is wilfully withholding or distorting information. A negative approach only makes the candidates go deeper into their shell. A successful interviewer reassures the candidate, shows genuineness in asking questions to understand what the candidate would have done in a situation, and how he/she would have responded to an eventuality.
One closing advice is to always ‘trust your gut’ — if something doesn’t seem right at the end of an interview, it probably isn’t. This is something I’ve learnt by successfully dropping ‘less-aligned’ candidates at the last minute, and also a few times hiring inspite of the gut-feel, and realising later.
Finally, this isn’t a tell-all about how I interview, for this is not a standard set of questions nor a secret recipe, but a means to reveal one’s work philosophy. To make the cut, a transformational journey is needed to pick up practical skills, gain relevant exposure and experientially learn how to respond to situations. A person who goes through this journey and amends their approach is actually worthy of being hired.
