It's an Interview, Not
an Interrogation!
Years ago I went on a
job interview where the interviewer had her questions for me typed on a sheet
attached to a clipboard. The lady didn't look up at me once during our
half-hour talk. She kept her eyes glued to the clipboard in front of her.
As I answered her
questions, she took notes on her clipboard, and she also wrinkled her nose to
show her disapproval with the words coming out of my mouth.
"Have you ever
worked with event registrants on the telephone before, answering their
questions about refunds and so on?" she asked.
"Not that,
exactly," I said, earning a massive nose-wrinkle for my trouble.
"I've certainly helped people on the phone before, just not on the topic
of events --"
"What is your greatest
weakness?" the lady barged ahead, not waiting for me to finish.
Back then I didn't
realize that I didn't have to stay in that room to be ignored and insulted. I
could have gotten up and left. I should have. I didn't know I had permission to
do that. I was too young.
I thought that the
big, scary world of jobs and employment had a kind of governmental aspect to it
-- I thought that you had to do whatever an employer representative told you to
do. Hah! Now I know better.
There's a shift
happening in the talent market, and you have to know about it. You have to be
aware of it whether you're a job-seeker looking for work, or an HR person or
hiring manager looking for talent.
For seven or eight
years it's been a buyer's market. People were taking jobs below their
capabilities and the pay scale they were used to.
Not now! Employers
are going to have to work harder to get good people in the door and keep them.
They're going to have to market and sell to their job candidates the way
job-seekers have been marketing and selling to employers.
I want every
organization in the world to become a Human Workplace and get the benefits that
Human Workplaces get, but I know that won't happen overnight. A great way to
start making your organization more warm and more human is to change your
interview process.
A job interview is
not an interrogation -- it's a conversation. The point of a job interview is to
talk about the job opening, not to quiz the job-seeker about his or her
failings and put him or her on edge. A job interview should be a pleasant,
friendly conversation just like the conversations you have with new people you
meet at work or at the gym, or anywhere.
Our interview
protocol is called Interviewing with a Human Voice. When you interview a
job candidate using the Interviewing with a Human Voice approach, your first question is "So, what
are your questions for me?"
You won't spring that
question on them, because a lot of job candidates won't be expecting it. You'll
tell them in the email message that you send to confirm the interview,
"Please bring your questions for me to the interview. We'll start our
conversation with your questions!"
My genius professor
in grad school, Thomas Goodnight, taught my fellow students and I the basics of
rhetorical analysis. When I saw that class title on my schedule I thought
"That sounds like the most boring class ever." It wasn't!
Rhetorical analysis
turned out to be fascinating. Mr. Goodnight taught us that people have
questions rumbling around in their minds. They don't walk around with empty
heads. You can't start throwing information at people before they understand
where they are and other essential pieces of information that will get them
oriented.
While I was in Mr.
Goodnight's class, I completely revamped the new employee orientation at U.S.
Robotics, where I was running HR at the time. "Tell them where the
bathrooms are, first!" said Mr. Goodnight.
"Next,
tell them where the emergency exits are. Then, tell them where the coffee
station is and when they can get coffee and snacks. Tell them when the
orientation will be over, and what will happen then."
A
job interview works the same way. People come with questions in their heads.
That's good! Let your job candidate get his or her questions answered, first --
not last, if at all! Their questions are much more significant to you than your
questions are, for three reasons:
·
Just
like the newbies in orientation, your job applicants won't be able to relax
into the interview conversation until they understand certain things that they
are curious about. Your answer to a question might make them
more interested in the job, or make it clear that it's not a good fit. Get
your applicants' questions answered first so that the two of you can focus on
talking about the job and your candidate's background.
·
When
people ask questions that they've constructed themselves, you see their brains
working. That's what you want to do in a job interview! You will never learn as
much about a person from his or her answers to your questions as you will from
his or her questions.
·
Your
job applicant has gone to some trouble to be with you today. You are the host .
The person in front of you is your guest. Guests get to ask their questions
first!
Your
candidate's questions may take a few minutes to answer, or they may use up the
whole hour you've allocated for the interview conversation. Either way is fine.
You can use the entire interview answering your job-seeker's questions. That
might be the best interview you've ever conducted.
·
If your job applicant runs out of questions, no problem!
You've got questions of your own. That being said, you're not going to think about
interviews ever again, I hope, as question-and-answer sessions primarily. They
are friendly human conversations, no different from networking meetings that
happen between new acquaintances over coffee.
·
When I have coffee with someone I'm meeting for the first
time, I don't pay attention to who's asking questions and who's answering them.
The conversation moves ahead organically. We talk the way people do when they
are curious about one another.
·
That's your job on a job interview, whichever side of the
desk you are on: to be curious, to stay attentive and to acknowledge and
appreciate the person you're talking with -- not as a means to an end (to fill
the job opening, or to get the job) but because people are magnificent and
special in their own right.
If
you feel nervous going into a job interview as the hiring manager or HR
screener without a list of questions to ask, here are a few you can jot down
and bring with you:
·
What
appeals to you about this job, from what you know of it so far? How would this
job, as you understand it, grow your flame?
·
What
have you done elsewhere, either at work or at school, that seems most relevant
to this position? I'd love to hear that story.
·
As
you look at our company and in the research you may have done already, where do
you think we could improve? What is something we could be doing differently
than what we're doing now?
You
are looking for good judgment. You are looking for maturity, even in a very
young person, and for common sense. Not every candidate will display these
qualities.
·
You won't bring a clipboard into the meeting and take so
many notes that you never make eye contact with the job-seeker in front of you.
You are chatting with a living, breathing person. Save the clipboard for a time
when you're assigned to go out in the stock room and count widgets. The widgets
won't care whether you make eye contact with them or not.
·
It is a new day in the talent market. Whether your
organization is feeling the pinch in the talent-acquisition arena yet or not, Interviewing with a Human Voicemuscles
are very good muscles to grow. People are not bushels of corn to be graded by
size.
·
They walk into job interviews with amazing life
histories, stories, ideas, perspectives and thought processes that no
traditional interview script will ever touch. Celebrate them!
·
Your interview with a job-seeker or a company
representative is a moment in both your lives. Its ripples could change the
world, whether you two decide to work together, or not. A job interview is not
a clerical task. It's an opportunity to generate sparks that can light up our
planet. Can you turn the dial to see the possibilities, and then step into
them?
LIZ RYAN
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-interview-interrogation-liz-ryan?midToken=AQGIPog6-r4O6Q&trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-recommended_articles-256-null&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=0fXYP9wpAuPCA1
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