Does anyone feel good at interviewing job candidates?

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I also think sometimes people who come from privileged groups (white men, of course, but even persons with specific university backgrounds) may feel more comfortable citing mentoring experiences and operating well on a team (and been given the opportunity to mentor earlier on), since they feel they are already assumed to be qualified, while someone from a less privileged background may feel even unconsciously a desire to demonstrate their worth by citing their personal accomplishments, versus citing how they worked well with others.

I think that is very true about the onboarding and supervisory process–many organizations are so convinced that “if you hire the right people, everything will go well,” which is only true to a point–they focus a great deal on the hiring process with HR, but on retention and training, not so much. This also circles back to using more contract workers nowadays. I see more and more companies just wanting to hire a contractor temporarily who knows X, versus hiring an individual as a permanent employee.

[DawgLady]

I don’t know if this appeals to you, but I work for a boutique consulting company that offers data- and behavior assessment driven interviews. They can really help you see if the candidate is the right fit for your organization and the role. Shoot me a DM if you have any interest in learning more. It’s extremely slick.

[atlatl]

That’s why you ask the references for other references

[S1969]

Why would they actually give you more people to talk to ? Many of the reference calls we make go to HR office where they will only verify their dates of employment and whether they left on good terms. No way would they give you anyone else to talk to about a former employee.

We are not actually allowed to give references - only HR can do this. Which is kind of hypocritical since we want other employees to give us them.

I think we would also get in trouble if we dug for references for one candidate and not another.

[NaturallyHappy]

I never check references….I check w former supervisors. I ask, again in a conversational way, what the person did well and what the former supervisor wished the employee could have done better. Of course, I don’t check w someone’s current supervisor without permission.

[S1969]

In theory it’s a good idea, but I don’t know that it really replaces a solid selection process. The former supervisor might be an idiot or an a$$hole. It also makes it hard to evaluate young candidates or those who have worked in one position for a long period of time. Is something reported from 10 years ago still relevant? Would you even know the phone number of a former supervisor from a job that far back?

I have yet to hear anything from a reference that made us second guess a candidate. But, I think we run a really solid recruitment process so that we have a lot of touch points with the candidate before we make a decision. That might not work in different industries, though.

[NaturallyHappy]

@S1969, I don’t disagree at all. It’s just another piece of the process/puzzle.

[HungarianHippo1]

@atlatl

That’s why you ask the references for other references

You can ask, but i would never, ever volunteer other references, even if I was a champion of the candidate and I thought the additional references would be equally glowing. In the first place, if the employer’s not happy with the quantity or quality of the references they sh should the candidate for more, not me. And I kinda can’t believe there are professionals out there who would give out someone’s information to a 3rd party without clearing it with them first. Someone does that to me and they’d be cut out of my network, that’s for sure.

[atlatl]

@S1969

Why would they actually give you more people to talk to ? Many of the reference calls we make go to HR office where they will only verify their dates of employment and whether they left on good terms. No way would they give you anyone else to talk to about a former employee.

We are not actually allowed to give references - only HR can do this. Which is kind of hypocritical since we want other employees to give us them.

I think we would also get in trouble if we dug for references for one candidate and not another.

I can only speak from my own experience and when asking references “is there anyone else I can talk to about X?” has probably resulted in getting at least one more person to call for that applicant. That was actually a tactic taught in my company’s management training program.

That said, it was awhile ago and since that time the company has also gone to the position where the technical staff is prohibited from giving references and only HR can verify employment periods.

I’m with you 100% that it’s hypocritical. Interestingly enough, it only held for outside candidates. If it were an internal candidate we still talked to each other and even got access to the employee’s complete performance review history.

[atlatl]

@NaturallyHappy

I never check references….I check w former supervisors. I ask, again in a conversational way, what the person did well and what the former supervisor wished the employee could have done better. Of course, I don’t check w someone’s current supervisor without permission.

Smells like a reference check to me.

ETA: we actually had a place on the application for someone to indicate whether it was OK to contact current supervisors and did respect that for both internal and external candidates. I know I was pretty happy when someone hired away one of my problem children and didn’t call me for a reference.

[atlatl]

@Impractical_Horsewoman

I also think sometimes people who come from privileged groups (white men, of course, but even persons with specific university backgrounds) may feel more comfortable citing mentoring experiences and operating well on a team (and been given the opportunity to mentor earlier on), since they feel they are already assumed to be qualified, while someone from a less privileged background may feel even unconsciously a desire to demonstrate their worth by citing their personal accomplishments, versus citing how they worked well with others.

…

This is a great point. One was to mitigate this situation is to make it clear to the applicant that their non-work life experiences count too. For example, I would ask a question like:

This position requires that you be very flexible and comfortable dealing with ambiguity, can you tell me about a time when you’ve been in that type of situation and how you handled it. It doesn’t have to be in a work situation.

[S1969]

@atlatl

If it were an internal candidate we still talked to each other and even got access to the employee’s complete performance review history.

That’s totally improper.

[atlatl]

@S1969

@atlatl

If it were an internal candidate we still talked to each other and even got access to the employee’s complete performance review history.

That’s totally improper.

Company policy on the performance review history bit. I don’t think you’d like working there.

[HungarianHippo1]

i actually love interviewing. I think it’s best to have 2 conversations – too hard to get a full picture in just one 30-60min session.
Lots of good suggestions above, especially the performance-based questions (Tell me about a time when you…) rather than hypotheticals (what would you do IF). Make it conversational so it’s not just a lockstep Question-Answer rhythm).

For any team project, be sure to probe what was their role on the team. Exactly what parts of the project did they originate? who ultimately approved the key project decisions? What kinds of challenges did they encounter in terms of team relationships?

[floatl]-Tell me about a time when you were responsible for a task or objective to meet but had significant uncertainty on how to get it done. How did you move forward?

• I know that most interviews are usually about our fantastic achievements. But we’ve all had disappointing outcomes and setbacks that we have to recover from. In my experience, the most profound learning and progress comes from these setbacks. Tell me about a time where a project or outcome didn’t turn out the way you hoped-- what did you learn from it? With the benefit of hindsight, what would you do differently? (I use this question towards the end, after we’ve established some rapport and trust, so they know it’s not a Gotcha! It tends to bring out really thoughtful responses. Or if not–if they’re totally guarded and defensive and limit their response to something trivial–that tells me even more about them

• If you think about the various supervisors and managers you’ve had, what are some of the qualities in a manager that worked best for you? Have you ever had a manager that made your job more difficult? How did you handle it? (this leaves open the possibility that some managers truly suck. But I want to see a candidate who can navigate this. And also reveals candidates who need lots of handholding, something our organization may not be equipped to provide)

• in your most recent role, how did you personally contribute to the company’s overall performance? In this role, what are some ways you’ll contribute to our success? [/floatl]

[RMJacobs]

@S1969

I feel the total opposite about references. Everyone can find someone to say they are fabulous. Unless I know that reference personally and worked with them, it doesn’t really make any difference.

I agree that references are meaningless unless you personally know the person acting as the reference. I found out one time that a bad hire I’d made had used his wife as one of his references. She never said a word about being married to the guy when I talked to her. It turned out a lot of his background was fictional. He lied to both me and the other person who I had interview him, and we both had documented his answers.

When I was ready to leave the large satellite TV company I mentioned upthread, the Ukrainian man I mentioned had already left. He had moved to one of the large 401(k) recordkeepers. He sold the manager of system support on hiring me. Another person with whom I’d worked at the large cable company also gave a reference. Since both people were well known to the hiring manager at the recordkeeper, and were well respected, I got the job.

It also didn’t hurt that I aced the interview. I was asked what was the largest number of joins I’d ever done in a SQL query. I was able to answer honestly that it was ten, which is unusually high for the kind of work that team did. Later, I found out that answer plus the two references from internal people got me the job.

Come to think of it, I got the job with the satellite TV company by a reference personally known to the hiring manager as well. I was working for the large cable company, which was eliminating the entire corporate headquarters workforce due to being aquired by another large cable company that had its own corporate headquarters. So I was being laid off along with 1700 of my best friends. My boss at the cable company had a good friend at the satellite company who needed business analysts ASAP. Cable guy recommended me to satellite gal, and I got the job easily.

Rebecca

[NaturallyHappy]

@atlatl, you are 100% correct. It IS a reference check. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant I rarely checked references listed unless they were actually worked related.

[atlatl]

@RMJacobs

I agree that references are meaningless unless you personally know the person acting as the reference. …

Sometimes that doesn’t help either. I hired an admin who’s previous supervisor was someone I knew very well. During the reference check, the supervisor didn’t bother to tell me that the princess had an attendance problem. We talked about it a year later when put the person in formal corrective action (the 3rd step after counseling and informal corrective action) and she (the previous supervisor) indicated that yes, it had been a problem. I suspect they just wanted to get rid of her.

The bummer was that this person could have been really good, but just could not work with other people.

[RMJacobs]

@atlatl

Sometimes that doesn’t help either. I hired an admin who’s previous supervisor was someone I knew very well. During the reference check, the supervisor didn’t bother to tell me that the princess had an attendance problem.

I would have been pretty angry at the previous supervisor.

I must say, I did get an honest reference once from someone I didn’t know. I was hiring an office manager for a real estate office (to replace myself). I had a candidate who looked good on paper and interviewed well. I called one of the references she had listed, and the previous manager told me the candidate had embezzled money from them. I was so happy this person was honest, as the person I hired would have been in a position to embezzle from us, too.

Rebecca

[PDDT]

Excellent post!