CatalystPodcast_Carol_Quinn Catalyst Sale interview with Carol Quinn

Carol Quinn, CEO of Hire Authority and the Founder & Creator of Motivation-Based Interviewing

Hiring is one of the most important decisions you will make as a CEO, Founder, Leader, or Manager.  Carol Quinn joins us this week to discuss Motivation-Based Interviewing (MBI), the importance of hiring, common mistakes, and important considerations when working through the interview process.

Carol Quinn is CEO of Hire Authority and a national speaker with more than 30 years’ experience in interviewing and hiring. She has taught thousands how to hire High Performers using motivation-based interviewing.

Questions Addressed

  • What are the differences between motivation-based interviewing & behavior-based interviewing?
  • How do you identify/reveal passion?
  • What is the difference between an internal & an external locus of control?
  • What’s wrong with “one-upmanship” in the interviewing process
  • What are companies doing when it comes to keeping track of data in their hiring process?
  • How do you bring passion, attitude, and skills into the interview process?

Key Takeaways

  • Hypothetical questions create hypothetical answers
  • With Behavior-Based Interviewing, the expectation is that past behavior will be indicative of future behavior.
  • If you can hire somebody great one time, why can’t you when using the same process, create consistency in hiring success? This question and the hit/miss hiring results led to the creation of MBI.
  • MBI – designed to identify high performers – someone who will go above and beyond to get the best results
  • High performers have great skills, passion, and attitude.
  • You can hire someone with great skills, and they could be a poor, average, or high performer – It’s not just about skills.
  • The interview process has evolved.  MBI looks at what all high performers have in common.
    • They have the Skill
    • They have the Passion
    • They have the Attitude (how a person responds to on the job challenges)
  • Passion
    • You cannot assess passion directly
    • Interviewers have to get wiser about the questions they ask, they need to understand how to assess attitude & passion.
    • Passion is usually tied to self-motivation
    • Find out what the candidate likes doing the most – ideally, match this to the role.
    • MBI includes a series of 5 questions that focus in on what the person likes doing the most, the least, etc.
    • Weaknesses tell you about skill deficits and tell you about passion.
    • Passion is not something you can teach.
    • Passion helps you get through the adversity.
  • Attitude
    • The high performer’s attitude reflects an internal locus of control, their attitude may be “I don’t know how to do it, but, we can figure it out” – This is solution focused & empowering
    • The high performer goes into a problem-solving mode
    • They have an optimistic perspective that keeps them in the game
    • This is a split second decision “I can’t” or “I can”
    • The “I can’t” is representative of an external locus of control
    • The “I can’t” person begins a to build a case for why they cannot be successful.
    • No one is pure “I can” or “I can’t”
  • Skill, Knowledge, IQ combined predict the successful hire approximately 7% of the time, while Attitude accounts for the remaining 93%.
  • A hiring mistake can set you back, not only due to the cost of the hire, but the time that is lost.
  • As interviewers, we want to be able to identify the high-performer despite their interviewing skills.
  • CareerBuilder – 68% of employers surveyed struggle with interviewing.
  • Interviewing for a sales role is one of the most interesting of all interviews because you have candidates who are prepared to interview & want the job as a sales professional, while at the same time, the interviewer wants to put someone in the role.  This can create significant risk.
  • Many companies look at the cost per hire and average days to fill a role.  These metrics can lead to fast/cheap hires.  As a result, we miss on the quality of the hire.
  • Quality of hire is the most important factor.
  • It does not take any longer to evaluate the quality of a hire. (See link below)
  • Short-term turnover is tied to the hiring process – MBI reduces short-term turnover by ~50%
  • If you have a “quality of hire” problem, and you end up retaining low performers, you will create a culture problem.
  • Attitude is 80% formed by age 5.  The person who has the attitude has to change it, not the employer.
  • The #1 reason for the metrics – to motivate positive change in the hiring process.
  • “Training is not going to fix what the interviewer missed” – Carol Quinn
  • The average interviewer either (A) asks questions off the cuff, or (B) asks canned questions that are ineffective.