CareerBuilder.com has put out another link-bait article titled Top Interview Questions.  I wonder if they send this version out to their employer customers and a modified version out to the jobseekers in a separate email?  Anyway, here is the list:

What circumstance brings you here today?

This is one of the best opening questions ever. This open ended question surprises many candidates. If they do not respond quickly, just sit quietly and wait for the response. Some candidates reveal problems with their current employer, potential insubordination, and both positive or negative character traits.

How would your best friend describe you?

What would you say are your 2 greatest weaknesses?

How do you alleviate stress?

What are your short and long term goals?

What type of work environment do you prefer?

When choosing potential employees, it is helpful to know what type of environment in which they prefer to work. If the company is very professional and usually quiet, someone who likes a loud, casual environment might not be the best fit. It is sometimes good to hire someone who does not fit the mold, but it is usually best to hire people who fit your work environment.

What is your typical way of dealing with conflict?

What tools or habits do you use to keep organized?

Instead of asking are you an organized person, this makes the interviewee prove and describe their organizational skills. Most hiring managers expect that their employees have some type of system to stay organized. Whether it is using a planner, or electronic calendar, these tools confirm that the potential employee is reliable and responsible.

Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond to get a job done.

What was a major obstacle you were able to overcome in the past year?

In what ways do you raise the bar for yourself and others around you?

This question gives the interviewer an idea of who is and is not an above average performer. It also demonstrates leadership potential and the willingness to be a team player.

Tell me about two memorable projects, one success and one failure. To what do you attribute the success and failure?

What unique experience or qualifications separate you from other candidates?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Ok, I took the liberty of removing the explanation that accompanied most of these questions since I thought they were, well, common.  We use our assessments before the interview which provides a roadmap for questions.  The assessments are like an x-ray view of the salesperson’s ability which means we don’t have to do exploratory surgery in the initial interview.

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From CollegeRecruiter.com’s Sample Interview Questions for Those Hiring Millennials:

William recommends that interviewers “incorporate more personal questions that expose a candidate’s personality, work ethic, and personal motivations” because “how a person approaches life is often indicative of how they’d approach work.” He therefore recommends rephrasing typical interview questions in a way that they better apply to the personal lives of your candidates. Sample interview questions in this area include:

• How do you primarily communicate with friends? How often?
• When you have a dilemma to solve, how do you approach it?
• How do you spend your free time? (Do you prefer doing activities solo, with friends, or in groups?)

Excellent advice for interviewing a Gen Y candidate.  The questions will lead to revealing insight into the candidate.  The secondary benefit that now you appear to be speaking their language which is valuable in itself.

If you were to tie these questions to an assessment, you would have an in-depth view of this candidate like you have never seen.

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I’ve read many sales technique articles recently that discuss how to approach a prospect.  Salespeople are expected to have a cursory knowledge of the company itself, it’s market and, to some extent, whether or not they have a solution that may be a fit for this prospective customer.  Gone are the days of cold calling a prospect and asking what it is their company does.

I think everyone can agree with that paragraph.  So why do companies still expect hiring managers to go through the added discovery of sorting out communication styles, motivations and skill sets?  Granted, most managers want to verify these items, but assessments provide a starting point that not only speeds up the process, they enhance it.

We assess candidates before the initial interview.  The first benefit here is that we actually screen out candidates that are not a strong fit for the position.  There is no need to interview them if they are completely misaligned to the position’s requirements.

Second, the assessment results provide a foundation to start the interview process.  Now that the hiring manager has some measurement of the unknown candidate to provide context immediately in the interview.  The discovery phase is shortened drastically and a focused interview can occur.

If we measure a candidate’s sales skills and find an underdeveloped area, we provide the hiring manager with specific questions to drill down during the interview.  These areas can be explored in the initial interview which allows the hiring manager to reach their decision faster with more objective data to support the decision.

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This post from Steven Rothberg over at CollegeRecruiter.com had me laughing.  Isn’t it amazing how out-of-touch some candidates can be during a phone screen or interview?

From Steven’s post:

• Candidate asked the interviewer for a ride home after the interview.
• Candidate smelled his armpits on the way to the interview room.
• Candidate said she could not provide a writing sample because all of her writing had been for the CIA and it was “classified.”

You have to read the other 7 mistakes in the list.  Unbelievable…and entertaining.

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Are you aware of all of the interview questions being asked behind close doors at your company?  There are many hiring managers who are unaware of what constitutes a good interview questions.

Most managers know enough to avoid questions regarding marital status, religion and ethnicity, but how about the oddball questions?

Don’t ask, don’t tell from MarketWatch discusses some of the odd questions that occur during an interview.

“Why aren’t you married yet?” “Would you join a church to get a job?” Those are just two examples of questions job seekers said hiring managers asked them in a job interview, according to a new survey of more than 3,000 job seekers and 1,000 hiring managers worldwide by Development Dimensions International and Monster, the career-resource arm of Monster Worldwide.

Others included “Are you happy in your relationship?” “Who is your favorite Beatle?” and “What is your perception of the painting in our lobby?”

Who is your favorite Beatle?  Ouch, that is bad.  But wait, there is more:

“If you could be a dog, what kind of dog would you be?” and “What would you do if I gave you an elephant?” are two examples of the bizarre questions asked, according to survey respondents.

Bizarre.  This approach does create an image of your company that may not be accurate.

Forty-three percent of job seekers surveyed said “asking questions unrelated to job skills” is among the most annoying of managers’ interview habits. Thirty-eight percent said “asking personal questions” was annoying.

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Hiring salespeople is the difficult combination of science and art weighted perfectly to select the right person for the position’s requirements.  Obviously, knowing the position’s requirements is the preeminent step.  Many sales managers believe they know what it takes to be successful in the position and they do to a certain extent.  Yet, their knowledge often consists of themes as opposed to specifics.  This reason drives us to profile the sale as the very first step in our sales hiring process.

ManageSmarter.com’s Is Hiring Mediocre Good Enough? approaches a hiring process with some valuable insight and other items I wouldn’t recommend.  First, the reason astute hiring is mission-critical to corporate success (my emphasis):

According to a 2004 study by HR Hub.com, more than 1 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP) or $105 billion is lost every year to “poor hiring and management practices.” The Society for HR Management found the cost of a poor hire can range from $20,000 to more than $300,000—as much as 15 times the employee’s base salary.

Of course the hidden cost of a bad sales hire - the opportunity cost of losing good prospects to your competition - is immeasurable.

This approach from the article is one we don’t use:

“We evaluated each of the most successful ‘A’ performers in a particular position according to intellectual, behavioral and occupational interests,” says Vancini. “Using that as the standard, as candidates were interviewed, they were screened and matched against those known ‘A’ performers. It made the decision process easy and fact-based.”

Cloning may work for other positions, but I do not recommend it for sales positions.  The strongest sales teams have a variety of styles and abilities.  That variety is what gives the team strength.  There are core sales abilities that transcend positions and companies (e.g. handling rejection, qualifying skills, Utilitarian motivation, etc.), but most cloning involves behavioral styles which is not a predictor of success in a given sales position.  Don’t fall for this conventional wisdom.

Companies like to be inclusive, inviting as many peers and associates into the process as possible. Yet these interviews are not well thought through, and do not dig in and measure critical skills, which results in marginal feedback. This can stall the hiring process for weeks or months. Feedback from the myriad of interviews needs to be collected and easily available to provide detailed but focused feedback.

Drilling down on candidate responses; having clarity about their answers is the essence of good interviewing.  Yet, most prospects that we encounter over-rely upon the interview.  Using bad interview techniques as the backbone of your hiring process is the ultimate recipe for disaster.

If you are facing many challenges when it comes to hiring successful salespeople, we can help.

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The recruiters conference I attended last Friday started off on the right foot – we calculated the cost of a bad hire (even for a $6 an hour employee, it can run $2400 or more), interacted with the moderator about CEOs’ perception of candidates brought in by an outside agency (79% unfavorable) and even discussed the challenge of finding “A” players in a tight talent market. But when the speaker explained their approach of grilling a candidate on each and every job back to high school (Tell me your bosses name. Spell it. Tell me your closest peer’s name at that job. Spell it.) during a 3 to 4 hour long third interview, I began to lose faith in the chef.

This approach to candidate qualification suggests they have no idea which questions will reveal the undefined information their gut requires to make a subjective judgment about the candidate’s ability to fit in. (Italics are all mine and denote disbelief and a little sarcasm.)

This quantity vs. quality approach is certain to destroy any rapport built with the candidate during the qualification process, and simply feeds the interviewer with fodder for rationalization. As a candidate in that scenario, I would jump out of the frying pan fast and head for a more trust-oriented environment.

Effective selection uses evidence-based techniques early in the process to ensure that the final interview is a confirmation of mutual interest, skill alignment and “fit.” Time is not wasted. Questions are revealing and insightful (not just plentiful) and rapport is maintained throughout the process. Assessment tools like the ones used by Select Metrix in their work for our company provide meaningful information and not only help find the right candidate, but help us adapt our new hire orientation and on-ramp activities for maximum traction.

I wonder what the real costs are for spending three interviews (the speaker’s approach included a 1 hour phone screen, 2+ hours at a lunch or dinner interview, and then that final 3-4 hour death march) only to find that the candidate is much further along on the trust meter …with someone else.

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This article on HR World - 30 Interview Questions You Can’t Ask and 30 Sneaky, Legal Alternatives to Get the Same Info - is making quite a splash on the web today.  I think it is an interesting read with some excellent suggestions regarding how to phrase interview questions.

To give you a sample:

12. What you can’t ask: Do you have kids?

This one is for positions in which the candidate may work with children. The added experience of children at home may be a bonus for you, but it’s not an employer’s place to ask about this. Rather, inquire about the candidate’s experience, and they may volunteer this information to you anyway.

What to ask instead: What is your experience with “x” age group?

19. What you can’t ask: Do you smoke or drink?

As an employer, you probably want to avoid someone who has a drinking problem or will take multiple smoke breaks throughout the day. It’s even a concern for insurance. Instead of asking about this directly, find out if they’ve had trouble with health policies in the past.

What to ask instead: In the past, have you been disciplined for violating company policies forbidding the use of alcohol or tobacco products?

28. What you can’t ask: Have you ever been arrested?

In sensitive positions, like those that deal with money, you may want to find out about your candidate’s legal fortitude. But ensure that you ask only directly about crimes that relate to your concern.

What to ask instead: Have you ever been convicted of “x” (fraud, theft and so on)?

As they say, read the whole thing.

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Interesting story today from the AP - Employers study applicants’ personalities - that discusses hiring processes designed to see if a candidate is the right fit.  These processes are a good start, but much of what they are trying to accomplish could be done through assessments.

Despite a labor shortage in many sectors, some employers are pickier than ever about whom they hire. Businesses in fields where jobs are highly coveted — or just sound like fun — are stepping up efforts to weed out people who might have the right credentials but the wrong personality.

But if you would rather take the longer route, there is this approach:

Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said, “We’d rather miss a good one than hire a bad one.”

The 1,900-person company is divided into 18- to 20-person teams. One team is so close, the whole group shows up to help when one member moves house, Napier said. Job interviews at the San Antonio-based company last all day, as interviewers try to rub away fake pleasantness.

“They’re here for nine or ten hours,” Napier said. “We’re very cordial about it. We’re not aggressive, but we haven’t met a human being yet who has the stamina to BS us all day.”

I suspect that the ideal process is somewhere in the middle.

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How about this thought - many bad salespeople are good interviews because they have much practice. We have seen many salespeople do well on the phone but once we dig into their history, we find a consistent pattern of 2 year stints.

But man do they say the right things on the phone.

For this reason, we tend to run a difficult phone screen to weed out the pretenders. In fact, just this week we received a resume from a candidate with whom we are familiar. He worked for one of our customers 3 years ago and displayed flamboyant incompetence. As they say in the Wall Street Journal, it wasn’t long before he was “free to pursue other opportunities.”

The interesting point here is that this guy’s recent approach to us was notably strong. We were impressed, but his name was naggingly familiar. We dug through our files and, sure enough, found his information from 3 years ago. Yet, one thing was very different.

His resume.

He had omitted some positions and glossed over his time at our customer. I should say he glossed it over by taking his previous job and doubling his tenure there to twice what it actually was. Instead of being at the previous employer for 2 years, he simply made it 4 years as to hide a large gap in his employment record.

Remember, this guy sounds quite impressive on his approach. According to our customer he interviewed well, too. They finally flushed him out when they ran a background check/employment verification. Yes, after he was on the payroll which is another post for another day. His employment history on his resume was a complete fabrication.

This candidate was basically a con man who used an elaborate scheme to secure a sales job and then hang on as long as he could. He was a bad salesperson who had mastered the art of interviewing well.

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