Here is a list that no manager or recruiter wants to see themselves on. As you boldly read forward, you're hoping nothing you do, as an interviewer, is considered bad. But what if that's not the case? What if...what bad interviewers do and what you do are one and the same? Well...there is an upside. When it comes to hiring, ignorance is not bliss and awareness is the key to avoiding needless hiring mistakes and improving quality-of-hire.
SIGN #1:
You ask behavior-based interview questions like this one and see nothing wrong with it:
Tell me about a time you went above and beyond to satisfy a customer.
You fail to realize this question, and many others like it, favor the applicant at your expense. Questions like this enable applicants to share examples that always have a happy ending often causing you, the interviewer, to overrate them. Overrated applicants perform below expectation once hired. Many poor performers slipped through the hiring process simply because their interviewer(s) asked ineffective questions. The questions you ask matter!
SIGN #2
You think "motivation" can be assessed this way...
Share an example of a time you took initiative. -or- On a scale of 1-10, how motivated are you?
If an interviewer really thinks this will collect information that will be an accurate representation of the applicant's motivation...then they deserve to be fooled. Motivation is not something that is either 100% "on" or non-existent. Everyone has some motivation and every job applicant can talk about one time they took the initiative without being prodded. But that tells us nothing about how self-motivated that person is to achieve tough goals. Accurate motivation assessment is possible and it's not difficult or time consuming. However, interviewers must learn how to do it right.
SIGN #3
You think unmotivated employees were perfectly good hires but changed after you hired them.
Let's face it...no interviewer asks ineffective questions on purpose. I'm sure you think your questions are fine and are no better, or worse, than any other interviewer's questions. However, if your questions, or at least some of them, are ineffective, they will elicit applicant information that is unreliable for accurately predicting future job performance. That's Big! That's because you're going to base your hiring decision on this information and sound decisions require quality information. The problem doesn't end here. When a seemingly good hire turns out to be not-so-good, most managers tend to think a regimen of motivational tactics will resolve the problem and return that employee back to their original "good hire" state. Time, energy and money are expended, in essence, to turn a bad hire into a good one...except it doesn't work. If it did, we could hire anyone and simply transform them. Managers who place their focus on motivating the unmotivated often fail to make the connection between their interviewer skill, or lack of, and the job performance of those they hired. As a result of this 'good hire gone bad' mentality, the real problem...bad interviewers...never gets addressed.
SIGN #4
On a scale of 1-5, you easily hand out fives.
I can't tell you how many times I have done one-on-one interviewer training and I gave the applicant a '3' rating for their answer and the manager I was interviewing with gave them a '5' for the exact same answer. A three rating is considered 'average'. A five rating isn't above-average, but rather, it's better than above-average. It's exceptional. I have come across many interviewers who believe if an answer is okay, it's worthy of a '4' or '5' rating. Using customer service as an example, if most employees provided a '4' or '5' level of customer service, there would be no problem. The problem lies with the fact that, as customers, we're lucky if we get average service and too often we are on the receiving end of bad customer service. This means the '4' and '5' ratings that are readily handed out don't represent reality. Interviewers need to set higher standards, have in mind exactly what a '5' answer sounds like for a particular skill and rate applicant responses more appropriately.
SIGN #5
You've never received formal training on how to correctly identify High Performers.
Few times have I seen people who are naturally-gifted interviewers who can interview applicants well enough to consistently select High Performers (and be right) and have had no formal interviewer training. Same goes with an interviewer's gut instinct about who to hire. My gut instinct is highly honed, but even mine isn't 100% accurate. I know better than to base my hiring decisions on nothing more than a feeling. However, interviewers who have not been properly trained on what information to gather, and how to gather and assess it, have nothing else to rely on except their gut instinct.
Just the other day, I met a man who is about to begin hiring for a small retail dessert shop he is opening. Despite having no formal training, he insisted he knew everything he needed to know about how to select the best. He stated he had years of hiring experience and seemed closed-minded to learning anything new. I wished him good luck. Another businessman I know, the CEO of a struggling multi-million dollar company, shared with me that he liked to participate in the hiring process by giving his approval before anyone was hired. Again no formal training and he insisted he could spot a good hire instantly. He went on to say the real problem is today's workforce. He complained about how hard it is to find quality employees, how the young generation has no work ethic...doesn't care...are unmotivated...how they just want a paycheck but don't want to do the work...and how he has to micro-manage everyone just to get them to do their job. What I didn't hear from this self-proclaimed stellar interviewer was why he extends job offers to people who will do a less-then-stellar job? Just maybe he isn't as good at interviewing and hiring as he thinks he is.
The point I am trying to make is bad hiring is an epidemic problem. According to a CareerBuilder survey, nearly seven in ten employers have a problem with it negatively affecting their business. They experienced low productivity, poor quality of work, negative attitudes, customer complaints, missed deadlines, and more, from the employees they have hired. When you think about the mentality that exists that anyone can interview and make hiring decisions without being properly trained first...it's no wonder. No interviewer has to be a bad interviewer. Perhaps now is a good time to start the conversation in your organization about getting the interviewers trained.
This article was written by Carol Quinn.
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