Earlier, I wrote how twenty-four words scrawled on small piece of paper in 1986 changed the direction of my professional life.
Three little sentences that you can read here.
Such simple principles were about to launch a company, a company that would grow very quickly.
“Past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior” was the first principle.
It would become a foundation of our business for two reasons:
1) To be successful, we were going to need a lot of impact players, and
2) Things are not always what they seem.
Over the years, I’ve been asked hundreds of times how to conduct the perfect interview; how to ask the perfect questions. Of course, what they’re really asking is how to avoid the type of issues they’ve been experiencing… interviews and more interviews, an offer extended and accepted, a brief period of kumbaya, and… oh shoot… it’s not working out the way everyone thought it would.
Here’s the problem.
The interview process is a kind of dance, with everybody on their best behavior. And after the dance, everyone may feel very good… but neither side really knows one another. You see, the interviewee has done their homework. They’ve been on your website and soaked up every detail about your company. They’ve searched the internet for all the most common interview questions, and constructed compelling answers to every one.
Type “best interview questions” into Google and you get 19,000,000 results. The really secret, probing questions aren’t so secret anymore.
On the business side, the interviewer(s) are often untrained and under pressure to fill a vacated position. So, what do they do? Well of course; they search the internet for the most common interview questions; the same ones the interviewee has just relentlessly prepared for.
And in the process, interviewers often say too much, listen too little, and over-sell the company…
all the while sailing past red flags that will bite them in the rear-end just down the road.
This sobering thought has been brought to you by…
Sorry, I digress.
Let me suggest that we allow that to sink in overnight, and tomorrow I’ll come back and give you some how-to’s that will bring your hiring success rate to 80 or 85%. Until then, please consider the questions below.
How do you think the rise in jobless numbers will affect the interview “dance”?
Take a snapshot of your current hiring process; what one word describes it best?
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