What We're Reading Now
Tips for Better Interviewing and Reference Checking
16 February 2016
Allison read 7 Rules for Job Interview Questions That Result in Great Hires and The Right Way to Check a Reference on HBR.org and thought both articles would be useful to employers and interviewees.
Tags: allison read, careers
Achieving my Tuesday noon blogging deadline is a bit tricky when the ice has led to a power outage in Earlysville, VA. Fortunately, I had already picked this week's topic so if I keep this post short, uploading from my phone should work.
I have several clients who are currently interviewing for new hires as well as clients who are in the midst of looking for new jobs. Therefore, I was particularly pleased when the Harvard Business Review posted 7 Rules for Job Interview Questions That Result in Great Hires and The Right Way to Check a Reference last week. Both articles are primarily geared toward the employer, however I think a potential employee would be well served to read these, too.
While, I still think there's a place for good behavioral interview questions and will continue to encourage my clients to ask them, I agree with the author in 7 Rules for Job Interview Questions That Result in Great Hires that these tips should improve your interview process:
- Avoid easy-to-practice questions
- Be wary of historical questions
- Assess their ability to solve a problem
- Evaluate whether they’re forward-looking
- Assess a candidate’s ability to learn, adapt, and innovate
- Avoid duplication
- Allocate time for selling
I think the promise of a near-zero firing rate based on his reference checking process might be a bit unrealistic, but I applaud the effort and agree that if you can get a reference to participate in this kind of conversation, that you'll get some valuable information about the candidate. Claudio Fernández-Aráoz reminds us, "We tend to hire people on the 'hard' (IQ and experience) but fire them for their failure to master the 'soft.' References are one of the best ways to assess the latter." A good interview will measure for those soft skills, too.
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