First, interviews are very much like blind dates. Both sides get a lot of hype upfront, and most of it is inaccurate or misleading. Think back to the last time you bought-in to: "and he's so good to his mother" or "but she has a wonderful personality." Is that any different from "he's an undervalued property" or "you'll really grow with this company"? The bottom line is that interviews are a form of assessment, and no matter how structured or 'fair' you think you are being, they are neither standardized nor objective. Even if you are using 'behavioral interviewing' techniques, the information you retain about each candidate will still have been filtered through your personal frame of reference and unconscious biases. And just like the date who seemed like a perfect 'fit' - until their quirks, or their temper, or some other 'undocumented features' began to show up - there are people who have become experts at getting hired by NOT being themselves during the interview process. (Did you know there are dating coaches and interview coaches that drill people in how to 'get lucky'?)
Second, for various reasons, the scales tend to tilt in favor of people who are least likely to be great team players. Poorly defined job scope Insufficient resources? Unrealistic performance expectations? A great team player will raise relevant issues for discussion. A bad team player will tell you just what you want to hear. To make matters worse, all parties to the interview process have the same desired outcome, which no one will openly admit: they just want to get it over with!
- For HR or a staff recruiter, the harder the hiring manager is to deal with, the stronger this desire becomes.
- For an external recruiter, the desire to close and move on is variable: retained search, "No problem"; contingency, "Excellent choice! When will my check be mailed?"
- The interviewer(s) will push for rapid progress to the 'right' decision, despite the fact that the same process has proven faulty in the past.
- And lastly, the candidates (depending on their employment status, how shaky they think their present situation is, and any number of other factors) want a job, a great job, the perfect job, or at least one that they can survive until they land somewhere else. All this pressure favors candidates who are easy to 'fall in love with' instead of the people who are the most capable of adding value to the team.
Third, the very best person for the job rarely gets picked. Why? Let's go back to dating for a moment. Did you know that the surest way to hook up with the wrong person is to look for someone who matches your personal 'want list'? (This is a fact based on research, not folklore.) Think about it: can a list of experiences, skills, and physical attributes predict the quality of interpersonal behavior? Certainly not! In order to get a positive I.D. on a 'good team-player', you need to know something about how the person will behave when working with others to overcome obstacles and achieve common goals. Unfortunately, that's not what we get from interviewing.
We begin with the interminable screenings to match candidates to a 'job req', i.e., the 'want list'. And since screening is rarely done by the person doing the hiring, persons with slightly different - yet truly unique and excellent - qualifications usually get kicked to the curb. The longer and more complex the interview process, and the more people involved, the more likely the process will produce a lowest-common-denominator selection. Example: I know of a senior level executive who worked for well over a year to convince a competitor's top salesman to 'jump ship', only to lose this guaranteed star player in an off-target and humiliating (for the candidate) intra-departmental 'stress interview'.
Bottom line: interview survivors may be the ones who best tolerate non-productivity, who thrive on petty corporate politics, and/or who blow the biggest smokescreen.
Some aspects of interviewing may always suck, but the outcomes will be a lot better if you limit it to the candidates who really know how to 'team'.
Thanks Ellen!
It's amazing how when the right teaming characteristics come together, we can be motivated to set aside our natural fears and competitiveness in the service of collaboration and consensus.
What RBA does is identify those 'magical' qualities that encourage trust, respect, and faith that the team will come through for everyone.
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No doubt about it. The word sucks. It is like giving the Doctor his coat or the policeman his uniform: they cease to be human. Perhaps if the process is reversed it may become more productive:
Step 1: Get candidates with the most favourable background together, perhaps over snacks and light drinks.
Step 2: Let the senior management mingle and interact with them. If they are mistaken for one of the crowd so much the better.
Step 3: Let the senior managers subsequently create a short-list based on their impressions and perhaps even a free exchange of views. According to me the unconscious filters applied by the senior management will be far more powerful than the conscious filters they apply in an interview. The exchange of views will help them crystallize their evaluation.
Step 4: Let the HRD and external interviewers, etc., work on the short-list created to determine the candidates best qualified in terms of experience, role based assessment, etc..
Step 5: If there is still a tie let the President decide. Presidents are usually good at piercing the facade with their developed gut feel.
My work is in harnessing IT for Dialogue to create Trust & Teamwork. I deliver results by taking the rigour away from the situation and giving volition a chance. Have tried the same principle here. Hope it makes sense. This is how we as a family selected a bride for my son. So far so good. One thing is definite: they enjoy talking and that is a good begining!
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There's no solution specified, which makes this article extremely weak in my opinion. Many (most?) of us know that the interviewing process is deeply flawed; some of us may know the underlying causes. Few of us know the solution(s) and that, presumably, is why we spent time reading the article.
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We have used TGI Role-Based Assessment in hiring, and also for selecting interns. After several successes, we took on two interns without even interviewing them. The alignment between the RBA reports and the job performance (outstanding!) of the individuals has been nothing less than amazing.
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Janice -
Thank you for the post. You are right! Interviews suck! I've been looking for an alternative for a while.
Do you have any examples of your TGI Role-Based Assessment in use in the real world other than in your own firm? Would it be possible for me to look at it to see if I can use it?
Thanks
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Hi Matt -
Thanks for your comment! After 25 years of R&D, RBA was made generally available online in June of 2009. Already we have customers ranging from the Hewlett Packard, the DEA, and the State of Montana, to health-care, education, nonprofit and corporate clients on five continents.
Happy to talk with you and provide you (and other MIX members) with a 'no-cost solution' - the opportunity to get reports on five job candidates, or perhaps to use on a consulting project.
Best,
Janice
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Thanks Janice, you build a great case here for both the problem of interviews and the possibility of team building growth. Would you agree that to work in teams is also to have ongoing support to ensure their effectiveness?
For instance, nothing’s more important for revolutionary change than ethical consensus building, yet your brain’s basal ganglia works against collaboration. Worse, it locks you into comfort zones.
In that small way alone - good support will help people to understand how to gain the most from and offer more to team ventures. What do you think?
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