Interviewing: A Rational Way to Make a Gut Decision

Hiring is too important to leave to chance.

Over the past few months I’ve written about the Most Important Interview Question of All Time and The Complete Two-Question Interview. These were developed as countermeasures for managers who quickly dismissed strong candidates using flawed or biased information. As you’ll discover, facts can often pierce the veneer of superficiality and fiction. Some examples:
I remember the CFO of a Southern California public company telling me that my candidate for a cost manager’s position had less cost accounting background than his 16 year-old son. This was after a 15-minute interview. I then asked if he was aware that the candidate was selected to lead the implementation of an international state-of-the art cost system at one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies. He re-interviewed the candidate, hired him the next day, and personally apologized. Over the next two years the CFO assigned us eight critical senior positions to fill.
I remember the VP Finance of a major business unit at one of the largest entertainment companies in the world telling me my candidate for a Director of Accounting wasn’t aggressive enough. The candidate wasn’t hired, but went on to become the #2 financial executive of a major competitor in the entertainment industry. He’s still soft-spoken, but has a backbone of steel. I met the candidate when he was a young manager at one of the major accounting firms. I presented him to my client since he was given the most challenging assignments every year in public accounting, far above what would be expected for someone at that level.
I remember a senior recruiter questioning my judgment about presenting a young woman for a director-level HR position when the person was only a manager who didn’t have the requisite 10 years experience. When I mentioned that the person was leading a companywide initiative reporting directly to the CEO of a Fortune 150 company she reconsidered. I also mentioned that prior to this project she successfully handled a struggling union negotiation without any experience, and earlier, was assigned to take a lead role in an international compensation project as a learning opportunity.
When reviewing a candidate’s resume it’s important to read between the lines for facts and evidence of exceptional performance. Here are some ideas on how to improve your own powers of observation:
1) Being assigned the toughest projects in the candidate’s peer group. The best people are always assigned the most difficult technical projects, the hardest customers to sell to, and the most important business problems to handle. When interviewing candidates find out if they’re doing work above their expected experience level. They ask how they got assigned the project. Find out what happened next to validate the initial success or failure.
2) Being assigned to important teams. To assess team skills, ask the person to put together a 360° team chart for each position held, then track the growth and make-up of these teams over time. A 360° team chart includes everyone the candidate works with or is exposed to on typical projects. Consider bosses, subordinates, peers, external vendors and customers, executives and those in other functions. The best team-oriented people are typically assigned by their managers to participate in these types of projects early in their careers. If they’re successful the assignments continue and the scope and size of these teams expand.
3) Continuous exposure to senior management. During the interview ask candidates if they were ever involved in important business matters with top company executives. Strong managers want to give their most promising staff members this type of exposure. Ask about the focus of the interactions, the frequency of any contact, and if any advice was sought and if it was acted upon. It’s great when this type of exposure is typical rather than the exception. Find out the topics of discussion and you’ll typically uncover the candidate’s critical strengths.
4) Being promoted faster than normal. The common theme of the above, and my favorite overall assessment technique, is figuring out the candidate’s current level of responsibility vs. total years of experience. Part of this is getting promoted into bigger jobs or taking on bigger projects faster than normal. It’s even better if this growth occurred at different companies, in different industries, and with different leaders.
5) Receiving important recognition. There are a host of ways companies recognize their best employees. Seek this out during the interview. It’s not hard to spot. For sales it’s getting into Club or taking the annual trip. For everyone else there are fellowships, unusual training opportunities, honors, awards, special bonuses, prizes and letters of commendation. Some companies give these away too liberally, diminishing the value for those who are truly exceptional, so it’s important to benchmark whatever recognition is received.
There is more science to interviewing than most managers imagine. Part of this is understanding how other leaders who worked with the candidate rewarded or recognized the person for doing outstanding work. Since we reward and promote people internally based on their performance, we should look for these same signs when interviewing candidates from the outside. This is a rational way to make a gut decision.
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Article by (Brought by a Rss feed from Linkedin.com) Lou Adler (@LouA) is the Amazon best-selling author of Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007) and the award-winning Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! His latest book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, is now available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.