Articles - Interviewing
RSS FeedThe One-Question Performance-based Interview Redux
Topics: Interviewing
When you become a really good interviewer, you realize the interview is the best sourcing, recruiting, and closing tool ever invented.
Back in the early ‘80s when I launched my recruiter career, I was filling senior staff positions (engineers, accountants) and mid-level managers, and quickly realized these few common truths about human nature:
- Most hiring managers make selection decisions based on limited information and their need to fill the job.
- More candidates - even the best ones - make superficial guesses about the job based on limited information and their need to change positions.
- Managers don't trust recruiters.
- Candidates don't trust recruiters.
- Knowing the job can help create trust.
» Continue reading "The One-Question Performance-based Interview Redux"
Lose Your Personality and Become a Better Person and Better Interviewer
Topics: Interviewing, Newsletter
When I started out in the search business, it became quickly apparent that most managers weren't great at interviewing. For one thing, I always thought my candidates were great, and they didn't.
Part of this difference of opinion was due to a lack of understanding of what the real job entailed, lack of any rigorous assessment process, and a desire for many to take short cuts, waiting for the "perfect" candidate to arrive. In this case, unanimity of perceptions substituted for evidence and logic. In the bargain, many great candidates were excluded for bad reasons.
» Continue reading "Lose Your Personality and Become a Better Person and Better Interviewer"
The Secrets of Hiring Great Sales People Finally Revealed
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles
Over the years, I've been involved in developing hiring tools for sales representatives in a variety of industries including high technology, financial services, industrial products, consumer products, auto sales, woman's cosmetics, business services, medical products, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare.
» Continue reading "The Secrets of Hiring Great Sales People Finally Revealed"
10 Great Ways to Make Bad Hiring Decisions
Topics: Interviewing
I wrote a rather controversial article last week comparing Obama vs. McCain using our 10-factor evidence-based assessment system. The stated purpose of the article was to propose that Presidential candidates should be vetted just as rigorously as any candidate for any job.
» Continue reading "10 Great Ways to Make Bad Hiring Decisions"
Random Chance and How Managers Make Faulty Hiring Decisions
Topics: Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Hiring is too important to leave to chance, but that's exactly what hiring managers do when hiring experienced outside people.
Consider this: managers typically make three different types of hiring decisions – an internal move (either a promotion or lateral transfer), hiring a rookie right out of college, and hiring an experienced outside person for an open position.
What's surprising is that a different set of rules applies for how each decision is made. More surprising is that the success rate for recent college grads and internal moves is far more predictable than for an outside, experienced hire. This suggests that it might make sense to change the outside hiring decision to more closely mimic the process used for college grads and internal promotions.
» Continue reading "Random Chance and How Managers Make Faulty Hiring Decisions"
Use the One-Question Interview to Make More Placements with Fewer Candidates
Topics: Interviewing
You need to become a better interviewer than your clients if they're excluding good candidates even before they meet them, or if they're not too good at assessing competency.
» Continue reading "Use the One-Question Interview to Make More Placements with Fewer Candidates"
6 Steps for Hiring the Best Every Time
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Sourcing
Over the past 30-plus years, I've been involved in thousands of searches, worked with hundreds of hiring managers, trained 3,000 to 4,000 recruiters, and worked closely with dozens of major companies. Following are some of the common threads among the best techniques, processes, and tools that I have seen and used.
» Continue reading "6 Steps for Hiring the Best Every Time"
Recruiting Darwin Awards – Not Everybody Evolves
Topics: Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiting
Several years ago my children introduced me to the Darwin Awards. We've had a lot of fun reading some of the stories of the winners (or should I say "losers"?). These awards go to members of the human race who do something so dumb that they end up removing themselves from the gene pool – hence the name. For instance, take the guy who had a fuse in his car blow out on a long trip. He had the bright idea to use a bullet to replace the fuse. The logic was sound – it's made of metal and conducts electricity, doesn't it? Everything was going fine until the bullet heated up and exploded, leaving a big hole in his chest. As we travel the world talking to recruiters and recruiting organizations, I've become aware of some practices that, while not quite as deadly as the above example, do cause one to wonder what people are thinking. In the interest of brevity, I'm going to list just a few of the more egregious examples. I'll stop short of naming names, but know that every example is real.
» Continue reading "Recruiting Darwin Awards – Not Everybody Evolves"
The Antidote for Bad Interviewers
Topics: Interviewing, Newsletter
You've been working hard to put together a strong slate of candidates for a hard-to-fill position, and through networking and sheer force of personality have assembled three qualified individuals. They each have strengths and weaknesses, but they all have been successful in the past achieving the types of goals and completing the types of tasks that need to be done in this job. Your biggest concern: an unpredictable hiring manager. You're never sure just who is going to hit the mark with this manager because it doesn't follow any pattern that you can see. The manager tends to take immediate likes and dislikes to certain candidates for reasons not based on their backgrounds.
» Continue reading "The Antidote for Bad Interviewers"
How to Interview Top Performers
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing
Top people cannot be interviewed the same way as everyone else. Although most recruiters and hiring managers know this, few know how to do it. It's not about selling the job, charming the person, and over-talking. It's about using the interview to get the candidate to sell you.
» Continue reading "How to Interview Top Performers"
The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Everybody - from the Board and CEO down to every manager and supervisor - talks about the importance of hiring top talent. But only a rare few have converted the concept into reality. A number of companies have actually succeeded in embedding the idea into their corporate cultures, but in most cases, even these leave the "how" up to the recruiting department and each individual manager. Creating a road map on the "how to" of hiring top talent is the purpose of this book. It's now more important than ever. The worldwide demand for talent has increased as the supply of trained, talented, and available labor has declined. Even a temporary economic slowdown will not alter demographic trends and the long term need for talent.
» Continue reading "The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent"
Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Superficial Assessments
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
I wrote a version of this article for ERE in April 2007. It seemed worthy of repeating as a year-end reminder of the critical role that recruiters need to play to ensure that bad decisions don't preclude the best person from getting hired. As you'll find out, the key point of the article is that good candidates, who we spent a great deal of time developing, can often be lost for easily preventable reasons. Setting up some process or check-point can prevent the problem from arising in the first place. If this isn't possible, you need to have some counter-measures ready to employ to mitigate any problems that do arise.
» Continue reading "Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Superficial Assessments"
12 Great Sourcing Gifts for the Holiday Season
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Networking, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
If you want to generate one great candidate day after day after day, follow my 12 golden rules for sourcing the best. These are this year's stocking stuffers whether you're hiring active or passive candidates.
» Continue reading "12 Great Sourcing Gifts for the Holiday Season"
10 Steps to Increase Interviewing Accuracy into the 90% Range
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Networking, Recruiting
There are two huge problems when hiring is viewed as an end-to-end process. The first one involves sourcing. Most companies are terrible when it comes to advertising, recruiting, and attracting the best. Of course, as a recruiter, how I make my money is by finding top people that others can't. And, in today's Internet age, this is actually quite easy. However, this is a big waste of time if you or your hiring managers don't know how to accurately assess candidate competency.
» Continue reading "10 Steps to Increase Interviewing Accuracy into the 90% Range"
Hiring and Recruiting Challenges Survey 2008 Preliminary Results
Topics: Interviewing, Managing, Recruiting, Sourcing
We are currently in the midst of our somewhat annual Hiring and Recruiting Challenges 2008 Survey. You should take the survey. Just the questions will get you jazzed. The answers, on the other hand, will make you shudder.
» Continue reading "Hiring and Recruiting Challenges Survey 2008 Preliminary Results"
The One Question Interview Challenge
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles
Two months ago I gave a presentation to a room full of HR managers and executives from an engineering company in Omaha, Nebraska. After the presentation I had several conversations about their hiring challenges with individual managers. I ended up giving three people copies of the audio CD, "The One Question Interview," with the challenge that they use this approach on their next big hire and report back on their results. Last Thursday I received the following voice message from John Martin of Cascade Engineering. Here's what he had to say:
» Continue reading "The One Question Interview Challenge"
The Secrets of Top Recruiters Finally Revealed
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
I'm very proud of the fact that I've helped hundreds (maybe thousands) of recruiters in the U.S. and around the world increase their monthly placement rate by 50-100% and in some cases much more. As part of our planning for our 2008 "The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent" tour, I've put together my list of "recruiter essentials" we'll cover during the workshop. These are the secrets that every top recruiter follows in order to maximize their placement rate. [FYI: We've incorporated these same points into our final Recruiter Boot Camp Online program for this year (the four-part course starts Nov. 2, 2007) and our San Jose LIVE: Performance-based Hiring Tour 2007 event on December 5, 2007.] While there are about 20 key techniques we teach during the workshop, in my opinion the following 10 techniques represent the difference between average and great recruiter performance:
» Continue reading "The Secrets of Top Recruiters Finally Revealed"
How to Control Your Hiring Manager Clients and Make More Placements
Topics: Interviewing, Managing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Working With Hiring Managers
Our clients do a lot of dumb thing that cause us recruiters to work too hard. These all seem to fall into big buckets of lost opportunities. Here are the ones that head the list:
» Continue reading "How to Control Your Hiring Manager Clients and Make More Placements"
The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
Every sport has rules, even pickup games. We even have rules for our kids - when they can watch TV, play video games, go to bed, etc. Business has rules for just about everything - important things like capital expenditures, accounting, SEC reporting, and product design and testing; or less important things like how to dress, when to come to work, how to earn vacation, and how to fill in expense reports. What's surprising is there aren't any rules for what's supposedly the most important thing a company needs to do - hire and retain top talent.
» Continue reading "The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent"
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Topics: Interviewing, Negotiating, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
I'm in Australia this week working with a number of different recruiting organizations. In Australia the talent supply is far short of demand, so getting assignments is relatively easy, while finding and closing strong candidates takes exceptional sourcing and recruiting skills. Candidates always have multiple offers and counter-offers are standard. To meet this challenge head on, the recruiting teams I'm working with wanted to figure out how to double their monthly production within six months.
» Continue reading "Work Smarter, Not Harder"
Compared to What?
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
I spent the first half of the '90s working at GE. This was in Jack Welch's heyday: best practices, work-out, and management course from Harvard professors at the training center at Croton-on-Hudson (affectionately referred to as Camp GE.) It was a great experience, but there were a few things about GE's personnel policies that didn't really make sense. One of these was what we called the 10-80-10 policy.
» Continue reading "Compared to What?"
Hot Tip #27 - Double Your Placement Rate in Half the Time
Topics: Interviewing, Networking, Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing
Let's start by identifying some of the biggest yield losses in the recruiting process and begin improving these. Starting with the worst, here are just basic metrics you might want to consider to achieve our goal:
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #27 - Double Your Placement Rate in Half the Time"
Are You Masking Your Hiring Process Problems with the Wrong Solutions?
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Just about every corporate recruiter has too many requisitions to handle as effectively as possible. The problem is magnified when good candidates get excluded for dumb and preventable reasons, generally weak interviewing skills on the part of the hiring manager or a candidate who wasn't at his or her best. Sometimes good candidates are excluded before they're even seen because they don't have exactly the right background. Sometimes good candidates pull themselves out to of the process because the job doesn't seem interesting or the candidate didn't like the hiring manager. Few companies address these problems directly--instead they avoid them, focusing most of their energy and resources on hiring more recruiters or developing new sourcing ideas. This is comparable to buying more raw materials than necessary for a factory that has an excessive scrap rate rather than fixing the scrap problem.
» Continue reading "Are You Masking Your Hiring Process Problems with the Wrong Solutions?"
Unmasking the Well-Prepared Candidate
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
It's back-to-school week here in Colorado, so my eight children are beginning yet another year of school. It's always interesting to me to gauge their reactions to their new teachers. They form their impressions very early, and some of those impressions are negative. Last night my son told me about his new sixth grade math teacher from you-know-where. "Oh dad, she is absolutely awful! She's extremely strict, she doesn't allow talking in class, and home work has to be in on time. If it's a minute late you get zero credit. She's way too serious, no fun, and she's the hardest, worst teacher in the school. Can you help me transfer out of her class?" We've all had teachers like this one, but what's interesting to me is that as you go through this process over and over with so many kids, you realize that the first day of school is very much contrived. It's a huge multi-act play. Every teacher has on his/her game face. Some try to scare the kids into submission while others try to win the students over by being open and friendly. Each has their own strategy and it's all carefully orchestrated to set the stage for the coming year. In two or three weeks once the impact of the teachers' "first day of school" speeches wear off, I'll start to get the "real" scoop. Sometimes the toughest teacher becomes my child's favorite. What I really care about is simply their ability to teach my children their subjects well.
» Continue reading "Unmasking the Well-Prepared Candidate"
Hot Tip #24 - These Six Techniques Can Improve Your Productivity by 100%!
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing
Most recruiters waste too much time doing unnecessary work. The solution is not reducing your req load, it's cutting your sendouts/hire in half. This will increase your productivity by 100%. In the process you'll start hiring more people who are top performers, but not great interviewers, and you'll stop hiring people who are great interviewers, but not top performers. Here's how to pull off this amazing feat:
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #24 - These Six Techniques Can Improve Your Productivity by 100%!"
Using the Panel Interview to Save Time and Increase Accuracy
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training
If you want to increase assessment accuracy and save time, conduct more panel interviews. These are much better than an all-day series of one-on-one 45-60-minute interviews. When organized properly, panel interviews help everybody involved learn more about the candidate, even weaker interviewers, if they just observe. Panel interviews also provide a great means for subordinates to get involved in the hiring process. Subordinates should never conduct one-on-one interviews, since they usually are trying to work for someone they like, so they focus on the wrong issues. For another, they're rarely objective, and worse, many of them are weak interviewers. A panel interview overcomes all of these problems. However, I didn't always believe this strongly that panel interviews were that good of an idea.
» Continue reading "Using the Panel Interview to Save Time and Increase Accuracy"
Hot Tip #16 - Six Simple Ways to Increase Interviewing Accuracy
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
- Make sure everyone who has a vote knows the job. If an interviewer isn't sure of the real job, he'll overvalue his intuition, his perception of the job, and the candidate's first impression and communication skills to make the assessment. As a result the assessment will be about 50% accurate for a yes vote, and a bit worse on the no vote side. Interviewers need to know real job needs in order to have a chance of making the right hiring decision. I won't take an assignment unless everyone on the hiring team knows what the person taking the job needs to do to be successful. Neither should you. Preparing a performance profile with the hiring team will help.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #16 - Six Simple Ways to Increase Interviewing Accuracy"
Being a Good Interviewer is More About Recruiting than Selection
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
I learned to become a better interviewer than my clients for only one reason: to prevent good candidates from being excluded for bad reasons. Too many of my clients were assessing candidates improperly, either overvaluing first impressions or using some narrow range of skills to determine competency.
» Continue reading "Being a Good Interviewer is More About Recruiting than Selection"
Hot Tip #15 - The Second Part of the Two-Question Interview
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
If you want to better understand a candidate's thinking, planning, and job-specific problem-solving skills, just ask this question: If you were to get this job, how would you go about solving this typical problem (describe the problem)?
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #15 - The Second Part of the Two-Question Interview"
Hot Tip #14 - Why You Should Hire People Who Are Weak Interviewers
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
There is good news and some bad news on the hiring front. First, I'll give the bad news. There are three big hiring mistakes many people are now making in greater numbers than ever before:
- Hiring someone you shouldn't have. The person interviewed well, but underperformed once on the job.
- Not hiring a great person because the person didn't interview well. Many top performers are not great interviewers. In fact, this might be the easiest person to hire since no one wants them.
- Not attracting a great person who did interview well. Talented people who interview well are the hardest to recruit since everyone wants to hire them.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #14 - Why You Should Hire People Who Are Weak Interviewers"
The Elements of Applicant Control
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing
On January 3, 1978, I became a contingency recruiter working for a small, highly regarded, two-person search firm (I was number three). This was a pretty odd job to take at the time, since I voluntarily left my spot as VP and GM for a 300-person automotive parts manufacturing company. Somehow, working 80 hours per week didn't seem worth it.
» Continue reading "The Elements of Applicant Control"
Speed Kills
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiting
There is no longer a hidden job market. The line between active and passive candidates is blurring. Turnover is on the rise. Workforce mobility is increasing. It's easy to look for a new job, apply, and be interviewed from your desktop. The barriers to entry and exit are falling.
» Continue reading "Speed Kills"
Hot Tip #8 - Don't Get Snowed by Generalities
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
I advocate the use of a one-question performance-based interview. The essence of this is to ask candidates to describe significant projects followed-up by detailed fact-finding. If you do this type of questioning for 3-4 projects over 3-10 years you'll obtain a trend line of performance. Then compare these accomplishments to the performance profile you prepared when you took the assignment to assess job fit. The key to success here is to get details about each accomplishment, not accepting the candidate's initial responses at face value. An example best illustrates this point.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #8 - Don't Get Snowed by Generalities"
Hot Tip #7 - Problem of the Week: Hiring Managers Making Superficial Judgments.
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
Last week I saw the play 12 Angry Men starring Richard Thomas and George Wendt. This is a great play to see if you want to become a better recruiter and be entertained at the same time. From a recruiting perspective, you'll quickly learn what it takes to defend your candidate from dumb decisions. This is very important if your clients or those on the interviewing team have ever made incorrect assessments using superficial information, wrong information, or on the quality of the candidate's interviewing skills.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #7 - Problem of the Week: Hiring Managers Making Superficial Judgments."
Recruiting Circa 2010: Critical Hiring Trends You Must Watch
Topics: Interviewing, Managing, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Web 2.0 has resulted in a rapid change in how hiring top talent could be conducted. But from what I can tell, very few companies are moving rapidly enough to take full advantage of this great opportunity.
» Continue reading "Recruiting Circa 2010: Critical Hiring Trends You Must Watch"
Why You Must Eliminate Job Descriptions
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Taking the Assignment
As far as I'm concerned, the use of traditional qualifications-based job descriptions are the primary reason companies are not finding enough top people.
In this article, I'm going to prove that they are unnecessary, counter-productive, reduce the size of the applicant pool, encourage sloppy management, and are the cause of most hiring mistakes. Of course, your comments are welcome.
» Continue reading "Why You Must Eliminate Job Descriptions"
The Anatomy of Success
Topics: Interviewing
As many of you know, I'm in the research phase of my second book, Talent Rules! – Playing the Hiring Game to Win. The theme of the book is an examination of the global, economic, and cultural forces shaping the workforce of tomorrow, and what must be done today to address the massive changes ahead.
» Continue reading "The Anatomy of Success"
How to Hire Better Salespeople
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing
Let's start this article with two BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals). The first one: reduce turnover of all newly hired sales people by 50%. The second one: reduce the time to their achieving quota by half. These goals are in the bag if you do these three things before you hire another salesperson:
» Continue reading "How to Hire Better Salespeople"
How to Hire Better Sales People
It Only Takes Two Questions If You Know What You're Looking For
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Newsletter
Let's start this article with two BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals). The first one - reduce turnover of all newly hired sales people by 50%. The second one - reduce by half the time for all newly hired sales reps to achieve quota. Imagine the impact that would have on your company's performance. If you do these three things before you hire another sales person, these BHAGs are in the bag:
How to Improve Interviewing Accuracy by 50 to 100 Percent
Topics: Interviewing
No matter how good a recruiter you are, your personal success rests on the ability of your hiring manager clients to accurately assess your candidates. How many of us have lost good candidates because somebody on the interviewing team made an incorrect assessment? In this article, I'd like to introduce you to a new way of looking at the interview assessment process.
» Continue reading "How to Improve Interviewing Accuracy by 50 to 100 Percent"
In Search of the Perfect Candidate - Part 1
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting, Sourcing
Everybody wants to hire the perfect candidate. And why not? These are the people who have great track records, great academic backgrounds, great personalities, great experience, and have worked at companies doing just what you want done. Even better, these great people are just like you - smart, savvy, and ready to move ahead.
» Continue reading "In Search of the Perfect Candidate - Part 1"
How to Stop Making Dumb Hiring Mistakes
Topics: Interviewing, Sourcing
Over the past years, I've made the case that there are two pervasive problems preventing companies from hiring enough top people.
» Continue reading "How to Stop Making Dumb Hiring Mistakes"
How to Use the Interview to Recruit Top People and Prevent Dumb Hiring Mistakes
Topics: Interviewing
The interview is a bridge. It's how the hiring team determines whether a candidate is qualified for the job. Less obvious, the interview is how top candidates determine whether they want the job. So if you're only using the interview for assessing candidate quality, you're missing a tremendous recruiting opportunity. Of course, if the hiring team isn't collectively very good at interviewing, you're wasting a lot time doing searches over again and you won't be able to hire too many top people anyway.
» Continue reading "How to Use the Interview to Recruit Top People and Prevent Dumb Hiring Mistakes"
The #1 Secret of Hiring Success
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Sourcing
If your hiring manager clients are not doing a good job of assessing your candidates, you should review this article with them. No matter how good a recruiter you are, if your clients pass on your good candidates, you're working too hard doing searches over again. The key is just to assess a candidate's motivation to do the work.
» Continue reading "The #1 Secret of Hiring Success"
The 10 Commandments of Recruiting
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting, Sourcing
Recruiting is like sales and marketing rolled into one. If a company has a great brand, a great job, and a great hiring manager, not too much marketing or recruiting is required. But if your company lacks one or more of these factors - or if you're targeting hard-to-fill positions - then stronger recruiters are required.
» Continue reading "The 10 Commandments of Recruiting"
The Single Most Important Trait of Success
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing
Probably everyone knows this already, but it's worth a reminder. There is one competency that overrides all others combined. I call it the master competency. In fact, during an interview you only need to assess a person for this one single competency to determine if the person is a good fit for the job. To make it even easier, you only need to ask one question to determine if the candidate possesses this trait or not.
» Continue reading "The Single Most Important Trait of Success"
Good Interviewing Starts With Knowing the Answers, Not With Asking Questions
Topics: Interviewing
It hit me like a snowstorm this week: The problem with interview training is that too much time is spent on learning to ask questions, rather than knowing the answers. Interestingly, if you already know the correct answers, asking the questions requires no training whatsoever. So in this article I'm going to give you the answers to determine if a candidate possesses the universal core traits of success.
But before I tackle this important issue, let's make this article interactive.
» Continue reading "Good Interviewing Starts With Knowing the Answers, Not With Asking Questions"
How to Eliminate the Three Biggest Hiring Errors
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Performance Profiles
Consider this: Based on hundreds of observations, about two-thirds of the time hiring errors can be attributed to one of three major interviewing mistakes. They're all easy to correct. It only takes a few simple steps which anyone can learn and use.
» Continue reading "How to Eliminate the Three Biggest Hiring Errors"
Shootout at the Not-OK Corral: Comparing Various Interviewing Techniques
Topics: Interviewing
Let's have a no-holds-barred interview shootout. Winner takes all. But first, the fine print. Let's establish the selection criteria.
» Continue reading "Shootout at the Not-OK Corral: Comparing Various Interviewing Techniques"
Use the Two-Question Interview to Assess Executive Potential
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Interviewing
Whether you're a corporate or external recruiter, there are four things you must be able to do in order to increase your influence with your hiring manager clients:
» Continue reading "Use the Two-Question Interview to Assess Executive Potential"
Why Job Branding Is More Important Than Employer Branding
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Sourcing
What's all the fuss? Hiring top people isn't as tough as most recruiters and hiring managers make it out to be. Job branding is the key. But before you start job branding, you must first stop doing dumb things that prevent you from hiring top people. No hiring initiative will work effectively unless you stop doing these things first:
» Continue reading "Why Job Branding Is More Important Than Employer Branding"
Using the One-Question Interview to Recruit Top People, Assess Potential, and More
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiting
[Note: This is a rather technical article on how to improve your interviewing and recruiting skills. This information will be important to recruiters who want to find better people, learn how to recruit and negotiate offers, and increase their influence with their hiring manager clients. Do not read this article if none of these apply. - Lou Adler]
Using the One-Question Interview to Recruit Top People, Assess Potential, and More
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting
[Note: This is a rather technical article on how to improve your interviewing and recruiting skills. This information will be important to recruiters who want to find better people, learn how to recruit and negotiate offers, and increase their influence with their hiring manager clients. Do not read this article if none of these apply. -- Lou Adler]
Why You Must Hire Top Employees, Not Top Candidates
Topics: Interviewing
[Note: Someone sent me a note recently with the observation that there are frequently two themes in my articles -- one obvious and one hidden. This person also suggested that I should reveal the hidden theme, so people would get more out of the articles. As a test, I've decided to reveal the second idea in this article at the end. You might want to read this article with that in mind, and see if you can guess the second theme before completing the article. To make it even more interesting, I've added a third, less obvious theme in this article -- tied to a contest. If you'd like to win a free autographed copy of my book and two guest passes for any of our upcoming public workshops, just send in your ideas, with some justification, to info@adlerconcepts.com or post a review in the ER Forum. I hope this makes the article more interesting. -- Lou Adler]
» Continue reading "Why You Must Hire Top Employees, Not Top Candidates"
Use the PEI Process and Become a Better Recruiter in Four Hours
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
This is big. This is the first multi-multimedia article on the performance evaluation interview (PEI) process ever published on ERE, or maybe anywhere else for that matter. Even bigger is that I'm about to introduce the single best way for you to become a better recruiter before the day is over.
» Continue reading "Use the PEI Process and Become a Better Recruiter in Four Hours"
A Look Back at 2004 (Yes, 2004) From a CEO's Perspective
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
To: The Recruiting Department
From: The CEO
Date: 1/1/2005 I am immensely proud of the work done in 2004 by each and every member of our company's recruiting department. It has been one outstanding year, and you all are due enormous praise for doing a remarkable job this past year. And what a year it has been!
» Continue reading "A Look Back at 2004 (Yes, 2004) From a CEO's Perspective"
Magical Hiring Formula: Just Measure These Three Core Traits
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
Based on surveys and operational reviews we've conducted over these past 10 years, it appears that there is one common hiring mistake which just about everybody has encountered: hiring someone who is competent but unmotivated to do the required work.
» Continue reading "Magical Hiring Formula: Just Measure These Three Core Traits"
Job Matching and the Universal Core Trait of Success
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles
Here's an idea. Let's ask 25,000 people from all walks of life, in every profession, in every job, in every industry, in every country, what they think it takes to be successful in their field of expertise.
» Continue reading "Job Matching and the Universal Core Trait of Success"
The Secrets of Hiring Top People Finally Revealed!
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting
Consider this hiring puzzle: Some companies have created extensive competency models, but haven't seen much difference in the quality of their new hires. Other companies have started top-grading, but also haven't seen much difference in the quality of their new hires. Still other companies rely on the tried and true behavioral interview and -- not surprisingly -- haven't seen the quality of their new hires increase by much.
» Continue reading "The Secrets of Hiring Top People Finally Revealed!"
How To Use the Interview to Increase Your Influence with Hiring Managers
Topics: Interviewing, Working With Hiring Managers
One of the common concerns I hear from recruiters is that they want more influence with their hiring manager clients.
» Continue reading "How To Use the Interview to Increase Your Influence with Hiring Managers"
The Hiring 2.0 Revolution: Are You a Rebel or a Tory?
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
-- Yogi Berra
In the thoughts that follow, one fork in the road leads to some minor changes in the hiring process and lots of activity, but the status quo is preserved. The other leads to a more vibrant future, and hiring top people becomes a systematic, Six Sigma business process. This is the Hiring 2.0 revolution.
» Continue reading "The Hiring 2.0 Revolution: Are You a Rebel or a Tory?"
My Favorite Interview Question
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Interviewing
Let me describe the single best interview question of all time: "Can you please describe your most significant accomplishment?" It's a great way to start an interview. I spend about 10 minutes on this question, gaining insight in the results achieved, the environment, and the process used to achieve the results. I then repeat the question to gain broader insight into the trend of team and individual accomplishments and see how they relate to specific job needs.
» Continue reading "My Favorite Interview Question"
The Best Interview Question of All Time
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Interviewing
Over the course of the past 20 years, I've been searching for - among other things - the single best question to ask in an interview. What I wanted to create was a One-Question Interview, a stand-alone query that would pierce through the veneer of generalizations, overcome typical candidate nervousness, minimize the impact of the candidate's personality on the interviewer, eliminate the exaggeration which many candidates adopt as an interviewing ploy and actually determine if the candidate is competent and motivated to do the work required. I also wanted this question to begin the recruiting process, convincing the candidate by the question itself that the person asking it was sophisticated and professional, and that the company involved was a great place to grow a career.
» Continue reading "The Best Interview Question of All Time"
The Dufus Factor
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing
Interviewing for a job is a lot like a first date - neither party wants to look like a dufus. But it happens all too frequently, and I'd like to offer a few tips on how to avoid it.
Search by Keyword:
Recruiter Boot Camp
- Learn the latest sourcing and networking techniques
- Use new techniques to take an assignment
- Defend your candidates from dumb decisions
2009 Performance-based Hiring LIVE Tour
- Discover new sourcing techniques
- Learn what drives on-the-job success
- How to close on opportunity not compensation
- Find out how to use deep job-matching techniques
- Recruiter Diagnostic
Are You a Great Recruiter? Take the Recruiter Diagnostic to find out now. - Free Career Website 5-Point Evaluation
Is your career web site an asset or liability? Find out with our free 5-point evaluation. - The Recruiting and Hiring Process Audit
Click to download the slides from Adler Group & Hireability's discussion "Do You Have What it Takes to Hire Top Talent?" - Performance Profile Preparation Guide
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating performance profiles including some great sample. Use this when taking your next assignment and discover how to change the selection criteria from skills to performance - The Performance-based Interview Guide
A complete Benchmark Interview Kit, including a Technical Product Manager Performance Profile, Structured Behavioral Event Interview, and a 10-Factor Candidate Assessment. - 10-Factor Candidate Assessment
Download our classic 10-Factor Candidate Assessment for a quick, easy, and most importantly, accurate way to assess the quality of any candidate. - 10-Factor Assessment for Corporate Recruiters
Check the recruiters on your team (or yourself!) with this 10-Factor Assessment for Corporate Recruiters. - The Corporate Recruiting Department 10-Factor Assessment of Critical Deliverables
Check your recruiting team with this 10-Factor Assessment for a Corporate Recruiting Department. - Legal White Paper
Click to download this report on the legal foundation for Performance-based Hiringsm.