Interviewing techniques

Dear Bob …

What do you think about behavioral interviewing? That’s where they ask you to tell a story about the time you led development of a new marketing strategy, instead of asking how you might do it in the future.

I’ve always though behavioral interviewing rewards people who are good story tellers. Whether the stories are true, or not.

– Recruiting

Dear Recruiting …

I’ve used behavioral interviewing. It seems to work pretty well, so long as the interviewer probes a bit. But maybe I’m peculiar. I figure that if an interviewee can make it up well enough, he/she knows how to handle the situation. Besides, there aren’t that many people whose story-telling can survive a probe into the details.

I do, however, generally prefer to ask people to “do the job in the interview” (to use Nick Corcodilos’ phrase). It isn’t all that different when it comes to the actual conversation, except that the situations you ask about are neither hypothetical nor historical – they’re what you’re actually facing. Either way you have to probe to the details to make sure you aren’t getting a story that only looks good in the PowerPoint, as it were.

In fact, it occurs to me that no matter what your interviewing technique, success depends more on your ability to drill into the details. Usually that means you shouldn’t be the only interviewer – especially if you’re hiring a position where you aren’t the expert.

It’s a simple principle: If you don’t know enough about a subject to know what success looks like firsthand, you’re unlikely to be able to recognize which candidate will be most likely to succeed.

– Bob

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