#MondayMusing and the Mick Jagger Quotient

Have you ever actually listened or read the Lyrics of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones? It reads like a person who needs more information and is loaded with unconscious bias. These conditions mean that the real issue is not uncovered, just the feelings that surround the situation with a ton of assumptions. Conditions that are often met in an interview but never actually explored. Mick Jagger said the song had a lot to do with the frustration of the constant barrage in the States. What kind of barrage? Listen to the lyrics and draw your own assumptions; this is exactly where we get into trouble in interviews.

Candidates are supplied a barrage of information to help them get through the interview. The only barrage we don’t have is how the interviewer can increase their skill in interviewing, other than to not ask stupid questions. This leaves the interviewer making a decision based on assumptions and projections; not based on facts. That begets the question, "What does a smart interview look like?"

"Curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought it back."

How many times have we said this nursery rhyme? We all know it. But what is the implications in business, especially when you have to build a team, and build it effectively.

I'll dive into curiosity in a moment, but first my thoughts…

When it comes to interviewing to build out your team, larger companies are known for relying on the all so popular "Behavior Based Interview." Behavior based interviews aren't a bad interview type when put in the right hands, but they are extremely limiting. My issue with this type of interview is that it sections the job into specific skills and fails to look at the job holistically. Also, if there aren't adequate follow-up questions, it fails to look at the depth of how a person dealt with a situation, and the cross-functional implications, how they were trained, why they were trained that way, or who else played a part in the success of whatever they talked about. 

Behavior based interviews, like most other interviews, rely on the interviewer to be trained in interviewing. 

Typically the only person trained in a behavior-based interview is the person who wrote it, the Recruiter. The person who wrote it, often has no clue what is done in the department at a detail level. They simply read the job description and pull questions that relate back to the skills. Then the Recruiter gets frustrated when the Manager doesn't use the questions. (I'm totally guilty of feeling that anger.) The Manager gets frustrated that they aren't getting the right talent, and add sorting through 500 applicants, vs. 25 due to how people now apply for jobs… and it's another reason applicants and hiring managers alike hate this process. So, the hiring Manager blames the Recruiter. In reality, the system is broken in several places. The standardized behavior-based interview is merely one part.

There is a distinct difference between being curious and asking a script of questions. For example, which question do you think is most effective if you were hiring a Buyer in your Purchasing Department? (Both these questions I would file under the competency of Tenacity.)

Curiosity Question: Have you ever left the office, and came back to a mystery item on your desk?

Behavior-Based Question: Tell me about a situation in which you had a strange part left on your desk. What was it, and what did you do?

On the surface these are basically the same question. The difference is slight. The first question is conversational, and it allows the interviewer to imply an issue that happens at the interviewing company. Asking the Curiosity Question opens the door to talk about multiple skills, processes and competencies. The BehaviorBased Question limits you to a specific subject matter. It implies that once the question is answered, the question closes, and the next question starts. Unless you have a highly trained interviewer, or a genuinely curious hiring manager, there is no line of follow up questions. 

The Curiosity Question allows for the interviewer to start with genuine curiosity, allowing the candidate to let their guard down a little. When candidates lets their guard down, you will quickly identify a culture fit. Like, what annoys the candidate. Being annoyed isn't bad, as that allows the hiring manager to see if the candidate can problem solve through annoyance. Personally, my professional accomplishments usually start with me being annoyed about something, so I set out to fix it. But I digress.

The Curiosity Question conversation might have questions like this sprinkled throughout.

"Wow, that really annoyed you. What did you do to make sure it didn't happen again?" (Culture and Problem Solving and Ingenuity)

Once that question is answered, continue the cat like curiosity; bat at it a little, throw it up in the air, bite it. Basically, keep it alive and moving, until you've exhausted (killed) and fully understand the situation. 

"Who did you work with to make that happen?" (Teamwork)

"What kind of resistance did you deal with?" (Listening and Negotiation)

"How many departments were impacted through this change in process?" (Process Improvement)

From there it might spin out into finance or metrics-based discussion, and you only had to ask one root question to get there. The best part is, in the spin-off, you’ll get a repeat performance of Listening and Negotiation, or Process Improvement. So you know they aren’t one-trick-ponies.

My challenge for you. Next time your HR department hands you a behavior-based line of questioning, red-line it. Make it conversational, and practice curiosity. 

And a challenge for me… I think I'll call Behavior-Based Interviews the Mick Jagger Interview from now on.