DO YOU AGREE WITH @SIMON SINEK?
Although we admire @simon sinek, we beg to disagree with him on this one.
You should definitely hire for both attitude and skills.
Although skills can be taught, some, particularly human skills (also known as “soft skills”) such as effective communication, emotional intelligence, and servant leadership, can take a long time to develop. When hiring for a role, we strive to onboard new hires within a reasonable timeframe and maximize ROI on the hire.
That doesn't mean we only need to hire “perfect” candidates (do they even exist?). On the contrary, the skills-based approach to hiring encourages leaving our preconceived notions on what is the relevant experience and education at the door and to assess candidates on obtaining the relevant skills for the position.
A growth mindset and positive attitude can certainly aid in skill acquisition through curiosity, self-learning, openness to feedback, and introspection. However, if the required skills are too far from the candidate's current abilities, these qualities can only go so far.
4 WAYS TO CREATE A POSITIVE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE AFTER THE INTERVIEW
1. Don’t ghost - sounds intuitive, right? yet, so many companies don’t get back to candidates after they invested time and effort in the hiring process.
2. Don’t stall - waiting for an interview answer can be a nerve-wracking experience. If the time to make a decision is prolonged, keep the candidate informed and notify them when they can expect an answer, even if it’s a general range.
3. Provide feedback - in case you reject a candidate, don’t just respond generically with the “we decided to move forward with more suitable candidates” line. They invested their time and hopes in the process and what you can give back to them is extremely valuable — feedback. For example, “we feel your storytelling and data/python capabilities need to improve.” For even better feedback, be as specific as possible and, if possible, share examples from the interview. Some candidates might push back on the feedback, but most will appreciate the opportunity you gave them to improve for their next opportunity.
4. Collect feedback - both from candidates that were rejected and hired. Besides the fact that it will help you learn and improve your hiring practices, you are giving candidates a voice, which is a way to show respect and appreciation.
3 WAYS TO CREATE A POSITIVE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE BEFORE AN INTERVIEW
Before an interview, transparency and communication are the main contributors to a positive candidate experience: 1. Set expectations - regarding interview date and time, number of interviewers and their role, interview duration, interview medium (F2F, Zoom, Teams etc.) 2. Share information - what will be the focus of the interview? what types of questions will be asked? will the interview include some kind of a professional task? simulation? challenge? If you have sample questions that you can share with candidates in advance that will minimize uncertainty and allow the candidates to be at their best. If you are using an interview or video platform to conduct the interviews, make sure you share instructions on how to connect to the platform and check for audio and video. 3. Make candidates feel welcomed - send an email or a text a day before reminding the candidate about the interview and convey the feeling of anticipation from the organization’s side to meet and get to know the candidate better. Use phrases like: “We are excited/looking forward/anticipating to get to know you better.” You can also create anticipation from the candidate’s side by writing: “During the interview, the interviewers will share more about the position and department and how do these connect to the organization’s mission,” “You will have a chance to learn about…,” or “You’re invited to ask questions regarding…”
UNECCESARY INTERVIEW QUESTION #3: WHY SHOULD WE HIRE YOU?
Here are 3 reasons not to ask “Why should we hire you?” in a job interview:
1. When you ask for slogans, don’t be surprised when slogans are what you get. You are basically giving candidates an opportunity to give you the speech they’ve rehearsed as to why they are the perfect match for the job. However, their speech is generally more about selling and pitching capabilities and less about their true, skills-based fit for the position.
2. Poor candidate experience - this question puts candidate under pressure to prove or sell themselves while, in fact, the interview should be a two-way process that allows both sides to assess each other.
3. Limited and biased information - this question only allows the interviewee to focus on their own qualifications, but does not allow them to discuss their fit for the company or how their skills and experiences align with the needs of the role.
What should you ask instead:
1. What is your key value proposition as a candidate for this job? what do you believe is your competitive advantage that will make you successful in this position?
2. What are the main areas of fit/alignment between you as a professional and a person and the company/position? What are the possible misalignments?
Score the following statements on a scale of 1-5 based on how profound each of them is (1-not at all, 5- very profound): Today, science tells us that the essence of nature is grace Life is the driver of potential. We live, we dream, we are reborn These statements were actually generated by an AI “New Age Bullshit Generator). The tendency to see these types of statements as profound is called “Bullshit Receptivity.” In their new book “Noise”, Daniel Kahaneman and colleagues present research showing some people are more bullshit receptive than others, and can be easily impressed by supposedly impressive statements which are in fact shallow or meaningless. If you fell for this, don’t feel bad, it actually might mean you are in a good mood! People in a good mood tend to be more receptive to bullshit and are less likely to notice fraud or misleading information. The bottom line here is not to come grumpy to an interview, but to be aware that there are candidates that know their storytelling and are great at talking in slogans. Our role as interviewers is to break down high level statements such as “my mission is to inspire and deliver” to concrete real-life examples.
UNECCESARY INTERVIEW QUESTION #2: WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS?
3 reasons NOT to ask “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” in an interview:
1. It’s a worn-out question the interviewee is expecting and most likely has a scripted answer to.
2. The interviewee knows what you want to hear and will tell you just that (”I see myself progressing professionally to managerial positions within your organization).
3. The world of work is rapidly changing and no one knows what will happen in five years — people change jobs and careers, adopt a side hustle, juggle multiple gigs, change priorities during life.
So what should you ask instead?
If your goal is to understand the candidate’s aspirations and motivations you can ask:
Where DON’T you want to be in five years?
This will bring up interesting answers about what the candidate is aiming to avoid: working in a big or small company, doing the same job they are doing today, etc.
Another possible question is:
What is your biggest career aspiration?
This might also change with time, but it can reveal how high the candidate is reaching and how they define their success (in terms of status, salary, knowledge, impact, etc.)
INTERVIEW RESEARCH SHOWS THAT…
A research conducted in 2020 by Yu and Kuncel compared the recommendations of expert PhD psychologists working for a global consulting firm against a weighted average of 7 scores given to the same candidates by those same psychologists (computed by a multiple regressions model) in predicting actual job performance of 847 managers.
The correlation found between expert psychologists’ judgments to actual job performance scores was 0.15, which is not far from the chances of predicting fit by a coin toss.
The correlation between the statistical model (the weighted average of 7 scores) and actual job performance was 0.32.
Apply statistical models to make better hiring decisions.
UNECCESARY INTERVIEW QUESTION #1: WHY DO YOU WANT TO WORK FOR US?
There is a good chance the candidate doesn't aspire to work specifically for you, rather you were one of the company’s they applied to in their search.
When you ask this question you are asking for a socially desirable answer or, in other words, you are waiting for the candidate to tell you what you want to hear. All you will learn from this question is if the candidate researched your company in advance — nothing about their motivation.
If you want to understand a candidate’s motivation you can ask questions like:
What other positions have you applied to?
Which components of your current or previous job did you like and dislike?
What are the job’s key components you are attracted to? which ones are you concerned about?
If you had a chance to earn more and do less of (liked job component) or earn less but do more of (liked job component) - what would you choose?
Image Source: Bored Panda
UNECCESARY INTERVIEW QUESTION #1: WHY DO YOU WANT TO WORK FOR US?
There is a good chance the candidate doesn't aspire to work specifically for you, rather you were one of the company’s they applied to in their search.
When you ask this question you are asking for a socially desirable answer or, in other words, you are waiting for the candidate to tell you what you want to hear. All you will learn from this question is if the candidate researched your company in advance — nothing about their motivation.
If you want to understand a candidate’s motivation you can ask questions like:
What other positions have you applied to?
Which components of your current or previous job did you like and dislike?
What are the job’s key components you are attracted to? which ones are you concerned about?
If you had a chance to earn more and do less of (liked job component) or earn less but do more of (liked job component) - what would you choose?
Image Source: Bored Panda
#informedecisions #hiring #interviews #recruitment #skillsbasedhiring #interviewbestpractices
THE TALE OF THE PREDECTIVE INTERVIEW
Danny was a 21 year old psychologist that was drafted to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) after his studies.
In 1951, after a short attempt as a combat soldier he was assigned to the IDF’s Psychology Unit. He quickly discovered that his commander, the chief of the psychology unit, was a chemist. That’s how he found himself, after two years of psychology studies, as the only psychology expert in the army.
Amongst the tasks he was assigned was to improve the initial interview with candidates for army service so it would better predict success in the service. By that time, the interviewers (diagnosticians) would ask whatever they want and their impression was open ended and with a “clinical” nature.
Danny took the questions and changed them to focus on candidates’ actual behaviors instead of self perceptions. For each question he attached a 1-5 scoring scale. Overall he created 4 structured scores + 1 additional score for the interviewer’s overall impression.
The interviewers hated it and told him “you are turning us into robots”
The aggregate of the 5 scores has a high predictive power - it predicts success in the army service, promotion up to lieutenant colonel level, and is being utilized up until this day.
The integration of the structured score with the more intuitive score provides enhanced prediction, especially in comparison to the intuitive score.
Our Danny is of course Daniel Kahaneman, the economist and Nobel Prize laureate for his work on judgment and decision making.
Be Danny, Go structured!
#informedecisions #assessment #bias #hiring #interviews #interviewbestpractices #skillsbasedhiring