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Del J. Still, of the Coeur d' Alene, Idaho-based Management Development Systems, has a background in engineering and manufacturing management, as well as in education, training, and organization development. His book High Impact Hiring: How to Interview and Select Outstanding Employees, is based on 20-plus years of research and practical experience in interviewing hundreds of job candidates and training more than 50,000 interviewers. He recently conducted a Kiplinger audio conference on How to Spot Poor Performers Before You Hire Them.
Taking the time to make sure job screening and interviews are done right may be the best investment of time a company can make. Misreading a candidate and making the hire can mean years of managerial headaches, poor morale and low productivity. But even if you know bad hires are bad news, what's your best bet for avoiding them?
Use Behavior-based Interviewing, says Del Still, author of High Impact Hiring: How to Interview and Select Outstanding Employees. Still explains how to determine both the technical and personal skills a given job will require and how to ask a candidate to describe on-the-job experiences he or she has had that tested those skills. Ultimately, understanding how candidates behaved in handling key duties will offer the best glimpse of how they might operate in your firm.
Once these new interview skills are honed, Still says, "You will be better equipped to make your hiring decision with confidence, having a surer sense that the person you select will be able to hit the ground running and will become a valued contributor within a short period of time."
POSTED BY: DEL J STILL (April 02, 2007 11:57 AM)
It sounds like Steve is referencing the "Assessment Center" system of employee selection. This methodology was popular about 25 years ago.
The center is set up either off-site in a special facility run by a consulting firm or within your company. The assessment resembles a simulation except that it has a more complex structure and the evaluation is completed by a team of trained evaluators.
For example:
A candidate might spend a full day in an office with a telephone, computer, fax machine, desk, etc. Periodically, the phone rings, people come into the office with various requests, papers and reports are dropped into an in-basket, etc. The candidate must respond to all of these situations, make decisions and take appropriate action. They can be required to prepare and give a presentation to a simulated board of directors or to a hostile customer. All the while, the person is being observed and evaluated.
A special feature of assessment centers is their capability to evaluate a number of candidates simultaneously. They are able to set up leadership and teamwork situations and observe the interaction among job candidates.
The biggest drawback is cost. For some senior positions the investment is justified, but for most jobs the assessment center method is too complex and too time consuming.
Steve also correctly points out that people do change over time. That's why it's important to get the most recent examples of how candidates have handled job-related situations that provide data about their skills and abilities.
From reader comments, it seems that Behavior-Based Interviewing is receiving a bad rap either because the process is being used in an incomplete fashion or by untrained interviewers. On the surface BBI seems simple enough, but, in truth, it is a difficult process to administer and requires special techniques to be used successfully.
One last comment: The best predictor of future behavior is still past behavior and Steve's comment about "change" requires that we carefully examine and verify the data we gather during selection interviews.
POSTED BY: Orlando (April 02, 2007 12:04 PM)
Hiring the right person assumes that the hiring authority has the firm's best interest at heart (ie., that hiring the "best" person for the job = (1) the most competent (2) is affordable (3) best cultural fit...this is not always the interviewer's desire- given the popularity of the Peter Principle, etc.. Most of us know from experience of working for jerks, and interviewing with jerks, and seeing what gets left in a firm after layoffs that most hiring authorities have little interest in objective hiring approaches. If more firms were honest and transparent about the positions description, the pay, the boss, the culture, the resources, working hours, job security, etc...maybe more interviewees might reciprocate the honesty for a better match.
POSTED BY: Sean (April 03, 2007 10:32 AM)
Steve, you don't have a clue. Orlando, I would agree with you that that is true within large companies, but in small companies when people don't work out it's easy to determine who screwed up. If it happens repeatedly, that mgr. of hiring is history in a good company.
I would add to this article, that you need to ask questions which make the interviewee recall good and bad situations. It's not so much the answer you're looking for it's also to see what emotions are demostrated by their eyes if not their voices.
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