I spent more than 20 years interviewing and hiring people for just about every discipline and management level you can think of. These days, with so many people out of work, you’ve got a lot to talent to choose from. So do it right and you won’t get screwed.
Peter Bergman at Harvard Business says the interview question you should always ask is “What do you do in your spare time?” He believes that’s the key to unlocking a candidate’s obsession, which, according to him, is actually a good thing:
“… people are often successful not despite their dysfunctions but because of them. Obsessions are one of the greatest telltale signs of success. Understand a person’s obsessions and you will understand her natural motivation. The thing for which she would walk to the end of the earth.”
For example, if you were hiring an IT person, and one candidate spends much of his free time playing with high-tech gadgets, while another collects baseball cards and rare coins, everything else being equal, you should go for the gadget guy.
Makes sense to me. But personally, I don’t think the specific questions you ask are as important as the methodology. Here are my top five tips for interviewing and hiring the right person for the job. They apply to any position at any level:
- Trust your instincts and pay attention to red flags. You have a red flag alert system - the sense that something isn’t quite right. Listen to it. Every time I’ve ignored red flags, I’ve gotten burned.
- Beware of unnatural acts. For example, if a candidate is interviewing for a position that pays significantly less or is levels beneath their prior positions, don’t do it. The same goes for major career changes. Let somebody else hire an experiment.
- Never rush the process because you’re under pressure to get somebody on board ASAP. It will be far more painful and expensive to get rid of the wrong person than if you’d taken the time to do it right.
- Have the same group of people interview each candidate. In addition to the hiring manager, use peer-level and subordinate-level interviewers for different perspectives.
- Get feedback by email immediately following the interview. That way you get unfiltered, unbiased feedback, while it’s still fresh in interviewer’s minds, and avoid “group think” and peer pressure.
For critical or senior level hires, I would also conduct a final one-on-one interview with your top candidate. Review high and low points of the feedback you received from interviewers and references. It’s a good idea to be open about your concerns and expectations up front. And that should work both ways.
