The greatest ways to get to the heart of a candidate’s character and ability to collaborate with a team. Learn how to hire more innovative and productive team members by going beyond polished resumes, pre-screened references, and prepared answers.
These tactics have been created via trial and error. Additionally, if you’re on the other side of the hiring process, you can learn more about the qualities your interviewer is actually searching for in a candidate.
Skip the typical job interview
Utilize these fundamental guidelines to steer clear of the interview’s common problems.
A typical job interview is little more than a social visit. Standard questions during a job interview are: Where do you see yourself in five years? What is your biggest failure, in your opinion? Add a little small talk — perhaps the interviewee and the candidate have something in common — and that’s pretty much it. The references are fine, and the candidate looks qualified. So, a proposal is made, and hopes are raised for a successful outcome.
After some time the new employee either misses a crucial deadline or begins to whine about the job. You start to feel guilty about hiring this individual, and that sinking sensation sets in.
Obviously, there is a better approach. The following three guidelines will assist you in selecting the best candidate:
Be innovative
Every applicant will be ready to answer standard interview questions. Try innovative approaches to fully comprehend someone’s thought process.
Be Demanding
Put the candidate in circumstances where their genuine selves are more likely to come through.
Allow your staff to assist
You won’t be the only one who has to cooperate with this applicant. There is probably already a group of workers you trust who will deal with him or her on a daily basis. Their judgment ought to count.
Break free of your desk
Have your candidate out from behind a desk and observe their behavior, and you’ll have a lot greater idea of them.
Two essential traits to look for while evaluating job seekers are:
- Is the applicant sincerely enthusiastic about the company’s mission?
- Do they accord everyone the same respect, no matter what their position?
You can learn more about a person’s personality if you take them out of the office or conference room and see how they interact with other people.
Show them around
Continue to be present in the building while you tour the prospects around your business and perhaps introduce them to several employees. Things to consider are:
- Are they requesting information about what people do and how things operate?
- Are they inquiring?
- Do they respect others and show an interest in what they do when they interact with others?
When you show someone around the space, you can definitely tell if you want to be working with them. Introduce them to a dozen individuals and observe whether they receive more than a handshake or whether there is some curiosity.
The idea is to keep an eye out for consideration for others, which is a crucial trait of successful team players.
Things to consider are:
- Do they treat each person who serves them with respect?
- Do they respect others by giving them eye contact?
- Are they agitated or overwhelmed by issues?
- Can they maintain a discussion by asking insightful questions?
- They either rush through the restaurant or they wait for others to arrive.
- Do you intend to contact people?
- Are you going to be a team player or Are you the one who wants to own the game?
- Do you work well with assistants?
Drop a few surprises
Candidates will open up and share insights into what makes them tick when asked unusual questions.
Desired outcome
Knowing that any admission of weakness or vulnerability would be used against them, smart applicants will be ready for all common interview questions and will work to discover creative methods to turn any negatives into positives.
Chief executives typically find this tactic to be ineffective since it casts a candidate as being less sincere and reliable. Many executives have created their own interview questions to delve deeper than the scripted responses and uncover a candidate’s true character.
The following uncommon inquiries will provide a wealth of information about a candidate:
Asking interview questions
What strength do you naturally have?
What a person studied in college or their current position are not indicators of their innate strength. They have a certain skill or aptitude that others might find challenging but which, for them, comes as effortlessly as breathing.
Other ways to phrase this inquiry:
- What expertise do you possess that is among the top 5% in the world?
- How good of a ninja are you?
Which animal would you prefer to be? And why?
You might think this is stupid, but the response can reveal a lot, especially if the candidate justifies their choice of the particular animal. Try it out if you want to test it out before using it in a job interview.
If you ask enough individuals this question, you might get some unexpected replies as well as insightful information that will help you determine whether they are the proper fit for the position.
The top executive who frequently asks this question, for instance, claims that she prefers to hear a predatory response, such as a lion when hiring someone for sales.
A social animal may be the best choice if someone will constantly work in teams. The “why?” portion of the response will also reveal a lot about how self-aware they are.
Which of your parents’ qualities do you like the most?
More often than we’d like to acknowledge, all of us are influenced by our parents. It follows that a lot about the candidate will be revealed by their responses to this question.
Inquire further about how these traits manifest in their day-to-day activities. One top executive goes a step further and inquires about respondents’ least favorite traits about their parents.
Which misconception about you do others hold the most?
The candidate’s level of self-awareness will be shown by their responses to this query. Do they understand how they appear to others, even though it may not be a real reflection of who they are? Because perception equals reality in this situation, there is no such thing as a mistaken perception; this makes the question rather misleading.
Get a Second, Third, and Fourth Opinion
Speaking with others about a candidate can either confirm your assumptions or disprove them.
We all have blind spots; therefore even if you believe you are the best character evaluator, always take the time to seek additional viewpoints.
Time for a practical
To acquire a range of opinions on each applicant, ask a couple of your coworkers to meet with them. They will pick up on details that others skip.
Job applicants interact with 10 to 15 individuals of the company, each of whom has the power to block the hiring of any applicant once we’ve established whether they have the qualifications and experience we’re seeking.
Everyone at your company has a stake in making sure the hire is a good one because the person you hire will ultimately interact with many people there.
Move Past References
You can probably discover a few people who you know or who your coworkers know who have worked with the candidate with a little internet research, though it might take some work.
Within your social network, LinkedIn can also be a useful tool for locating references for a candidate. Never rely just on the references a candidate offers; always run further checks. Ask these people for an honest assessment of the candidate’s strengths and flaws, their resilience to pressure, how they treat others, and any other factors important to your business.
Promote Diversity
Finding individuals with unique perspectives is the first step in hiring a creative team.
Numerous factors make diversity important. One of the most important is that it offers various viewpoints for creativity, problem-solving, and innovation.
Diversity is important because it actually benefits the firm, not just because it makes the organization appear good. You need as many different viewpoints as you can to find the best solutions because so many industries are experiencing disruption and businesses are developing new playbooks for strategy rather than sticking to the ones they have always used. “You’re more likely to succeed if you have more perspectives,”
How to overcome implicit bias
To select a diverse workforce, one must overcome the hidden prejudices that we all possess, biases that can cause people to hire “mini” versions of themselves. Starting early and addressing implicit prejudice at each stage can help you eliminate it from your hiring procedure.
Things to think about
- Is the scope of your employment restricting you?
- Are you casting a broad enough net?
- Before you meet with applicants in person, conduct an initial phone interview.
instead of speculating, why not find out?
In a perfect world, you would be able to hire them as a consultant or freelancer, but that is frequently not practical. To observe them in action, you could assign them some homework.
You’ll learn more about their work and their commitment to working for your firm rather than merely applying for employment, in addition to getting a sense of how they approach their work. Writing samples can also help you understand a person’s thinking process and communication style.
Give them a genuine problem to solve since you can discover a lot about them in that way. Will they be my partner and will they be able to see the strategic problem and how to solve it? Are they curious, engaged, and interested in it?
Write on paper
Several questions you might ask a candidate to respond to in writing are:
- How do you want to succeed in your first 100 days of employment?
- In 500 words, how would you sum up who you are?
- Create a suggestion for a specific plan of action to use in the new position.
When they write anything down, you can compare it to a pool of other applicants and get a much clearer idea of how they think and function.
Set no deadlines
Give your candidates the option to decide when the assigned assignment is due. You may assess their work ethic and time management skills in this way and then closely monitor how they fare in relation to that. One approach to gauge their attitude is to see if they do it on time or if they excuse their tardiness.
Trust Your Gut Feelings
Find out why you have reservations about a candidate
After going through the entire interviewing process and implementing the majority of the aforementioned advice, you must make a choice. Sometimes you could commit the error of ignoring your reservations regarding the interviewee.
It has been demonstrated that any nagging concerns you had about their behavior throughout the interview process will become ten times more evident once you hire them.
Hiring is always a delicate balance. You can feel under pressure to fill the position fast because it needs to be filled or because you fear someone else will take your place. Therefore, you might wish to hire the first person you meet.
On the other hand, you can’t wait interminably and conduct infinite interviews in search of the ideal applicant. Nobody has a flawless hiring history. However, using some of these top tactics should increase your odds.