Behavioral interviews: It’s all in the follow-up questions
April 15, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Assessing the right candidate, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Interviewing, Latest News & Views
When candidates talk about great accomplishments, how can you tell who has personal initiative and who just happened to be on a successful team or followed smart orders? Answer: digging deep with follow-up questions.
For example, if you’re looking to see if your candidate is an innovator, you say something like, “Tell me about a time you developed a value-added project.” Anyone will be able to talk about a project they were involved in, but you want to know if you’re talking to the brains behind the operation.
Someone who’s learned how to present themselves in an interview will probably give good answers to behavior-based questions. But the deeper into the details you go, the harder it will be for them to keep that up. But if candidates are talking about big accomplishments that they’re proud of, they’ll continue giving thoughtful answers and they’ll stay confident no matter how many details you ask for.
A good rule of thumb is to hit all of the who, what, when, where and how questions. For example, “What did you do?” “What did you say?” “Why did you say it?” “How did you do it?” Soon you’ll start to see how well the answers hold up.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
From my experience, the reason HR interviewers ask behavioral questions is because they know nothing about the true requirements of the positions they interview for.
I have yet to find an HR person that knows anything beyond the adjectives and adverbial bantor about sales, programming, logistics, ora a great many other occupations. Yet, they are given the responsibility to interview, discuss and then decipher and determine a great candidate from a lousy one. They can’t do it. They don’t understand the skills, the talents, or the value of proven experience. Instead they opt for younger college grads in place of quality, skills, experienced, proven professionals because they ‘like them more’. (Could it be the compensation they are offering also???)
I know this because I have been on both sides of the table, a potential employee and a hiring manager. In that latter position, I couldn’t believe the quality candidates that were being disposed of by HR prior to sending me resumes and/or second-round interviewees. This has happened at three different employers. It’s ridiculous.
My opinion is that HR people should not be allowed to interview. They are not qualified. They are rarely trained or certified in the evaluation of candidates by behavioral interview methods; and they certainly don’t know an advantageous answer from a less-advantageous answer to an abstract question, beyond how it ‘subjectively strikes them’ (i.e., if they personally ‘like’ the answer, which has absolutely nothing to do with a quantifiable selection process). It seems that many times the employer assumes that the HR interviewer is capable of knowing a better answer to an abstract question they have no background or understanding of. As an example, I just read on one site how an interviewee was asked, “How would you weigh a Boeing 747 without the use of a scale?” How absolutely absurd. If five different interviewees came back with five different unique answers, how would an HR interviewer know which was a better answer; or even a more creative answer? I’ve yet to meet an HR interviewer with an advanced degree in physics or mechanical engineering…… Yet, they are presupposed to have some osmonic ability to proclaim one answer ‘creative’. Because an answer such as, “I’d go ask the pilot” is not ‘creative, it probably wouldn’t fare well in the interview. Yet, it is the answer the industry and the government have declared the correct answer. Fore you see, the pilot is the one who has the final say as to whether a plane is air worthy, which includes it’s take-off weight; which, would include the current real empty-weight, plus the weight of the load. But given that most HR interviewers are probably not educated in aeronautics, I doubt the use of such a question is valid, if even relevent. Somehow however, their industry has declared behavioral interviewing to be acceptable and a basis upon which to weed out the best sales, programming, logistical and other candidates from the rest.
And they wonder why they end up with litigation invitations on their desks, ….. ‘go figure”. (They deserve it!)
May 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I disagree with the comment that HR folks should not conduct interviews. I think HR personnel should conduct interviews to ascertain the social, mental, emotional, and psychological qualities of the candidate. I also think interviews should be conducted by technical staff, and management staff. I believe all candidates should be interviewed – at least- three times: one by HR, one by technical staff, and one by management. After all the interviews, all interviewers would meet and pick the most qualified candidate that would fit best within the organization. Thank you for the opportunity to reply.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Since when does any HR degree include the professional certifications required by state licensure to be able to render any social, mental, emotional, and psychological evaluations. HR people are not trained to be able to render such evaluations. At best, they can render an opinion; which carries absolutely no weight beyond water cooler chit chat. We are a short distance away from attorneys subpoena’ing these pretend analysts and asking them to provide legal basis for stating they are qualified to draw such conclusions. They would have to be certified AND LICENSED in each state by licenssing boards in social work, psychology, and psychiatry to be able to render the evaluations you believe they are capable of. Most of the HR people who have interviewed me have no idea what they are doing.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Reply to Ricky O – If HR is not allowed to interview – then who? You write of a concern that interviewers know the true requirements of the job. What about the true requirements of legal and business appropriate interview questions. You mention litigation. Who in an organization knows better about this area than HR?
Certainly, the better interviewers are trained in interviewing techniques and skills, the better the screening process will go. HR should focus on pre-screening, which includes work history, skills match (from a job description), and some behavioral assessment. Candidates that make the cut will have a chance to discuss the technical and performance match with subsequent interviewers.
The successful candidate must not just fit the job, but the organization as well. HR must be there as a partner in the selection process.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
This is a typical response that I would expect from an HR Person.
You ask, “Who would interview?” How about the hiring manager, after he/she was trained by the legal department.
You ask, “Who is knows better than HR about the legal and business appropriate interview questions?” It’s simple, the same people the HR people get their advice from: the Legal department.
Again, the interviewing process is not meant to be choices on a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ basis; and, it’s certainly not in the organization’s best interest to leave it to those untrained specifically in the occupation being interviewed for. In many cases, it is literally the blind leading the deaf.
Allowing a candidate to move further in the process should not be contingent on a question such as, “How would you measure the weight of a Boeing 747 without a scale?”, when interviewing a computer programmer. How could such a question have anything to do with determining if a candidate is a ‘good fit for the organization’? Are you serious? You probably are; and that would be exemplary of the HR mindset.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:35 am
As a simple reply to your post, your clairvoyant powers are substandard and I wouldn’t rely on them. In addition to that NOT being my mindset, I would venture to guess that no one responding to anything posted here has that mindset either.
What comes across to me in your posts is anger. Perhaps you should harness your talent in a more positive direction. I fear the anger that I perceive (and others may also) may be what is standing between you and the continued success you crave.
Good luck in your job search.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am
At the risk of continuing a debate between Ricky O. and everyone else, let me offer this. The assumption people have made here is that you are in job transition (HR speak for out of work and looking). Ricky, if your take on HR and the selection process is dead on, consider adapting your interviewing style to it, however wrong you feel it may be . Find out what HR and the hiring manager wants and give it to him/her. In the end, that is what most of business is about.
Good luck, and if you are still in a job search, I advise you to pick up the book “Knock’Em Dead”, by Martin Yate. Maybe , as a first step, visit his website http://www.knockemdead.com/ I too, have been on both sides of the hiring desk, and I believe it’s the best tool for a job search.