For more than 35 years I have been studying the subject and teaching companies how to hire top employees.  I try to read most everything that is being written.  Some from experts.  Some from amateurs.  Some from practitioners.

Some of what I have read adds real value.  Some is interesting but not actually effective.  And some is just plain wrong.

This past weekend I was reading the Inc 500 report and in the middle of the report was a page titled, “Words of Wisdom”.  It had 10 ideas put forth by CEO’s from the list.  And at number 4 was the phrase I have railed against for years.

“Hire Slow, Fire Fast”

Just so we can limit the conversation, I have no problem with the second half of the phrase.  Fire fast is good advice.  However, the better job you do of hiring the less likely you will face the problem of firing.

It is the first half of the phrase I have the problem with.

On the surface, this seems like such good advice.  Take your time, be considerate, don’t rush into a decision.  It just sounds right.  And as a result, the uninformed and the mis-informed have been repeating it like it was the gospel for years.

To understand why this phrase makes no sense we have to go back to the beginning.  Why do you hire employees?

This is not a rhetorical question!

The answer to this question is at the heart of my argument.  Many people think you hire to fill a position.  How often do you rush to fill a position when someone leaves your organization?  How often do you let your organization be driven by “headcount” or some other measure of how many employees you have?

There is only one reason to hire employees.  That reason is to satisfy a business need.  That’s it.

Now you might be thinking that this is not a very profound revelation.  But let’s look a little closer.  Think about the last person you hired.  How well did you frame the business problem the new person was going to address?  And I am not talking about a generic job description.

Did you have very specific, time-bound and measurable results the person needed to deliver to satisfy your business need?  Whether you wrote these down or not, I can guarantee in your conscious our unconscious mind you had very specific results you wanted from this new employee.

If your new employee delivered these results, you were probably quite happy and had a successful, prosperous business.  If the new person did not deliver the results, you were most likely unhappy, your business suffered and you were forced to employ the second half of the phrase.

Employees prime purpose is to satisfy business needs.  And that is the only reason you should hire an employee.

Now let’s go back and explore the first half of the phrase, “Hire slowly”.

If I was to profess that your best course of action was to satisfy your business needs slowly, how much credibility would you assign to the advice?  Anyone who tells you to hire slowly does not understand why you are hiring.  They don’t realize that every day you have a business need not being addressed you are either losing money or wasting money.

You have to hire as fast as possible once you have identified a business need and then determined to satisfy that need with a new employee.

One of my long-time clients has monetized the process.  They hire many direct sales reps.  They calculated exactly what it costs on daily basis to NOT have a salesperson in the field selling.  Armed with that number, they can make very informed decisions about what strategy to use and how much to spend in their recruiting activities.

Before you get the wrong idea, I am NOT advocating rushing into decisions.

What I am advocating is to move through your recruiting and hiring process as swiftly as possible … without violating your due diligence process.  You need a proven and thorough selection process but that doesn’t mean it needs to take a long time.

One other myth while we are on the subject.  Market conditions have no effect on this argument.  Many people are taking much longer in the selection process due to the fact that there happen to be so many candidates currently available.  Market conditions do not change the fact you have a business need.

Everyday you have that position open you are losing or wasting money.

From now on -

Hire Fast and Fire Fast

I welcome your comments!

(B) Tell me about overcoming objections.

(G) How did you overcome the biggest objection in the ABC sale?

(B) Have you ever created a budget?

(G) Step me through the last budget you created.

(B) Do you use a system to manage your time?

(G) How did you plan your schedule today?

(B) What was the last book you read?

(G) What have you read in the last year to keep your skills current?

(B) How will you manage projects if we hire you?

(G) How did you put together the project plan for ABC?

(B) When is the best time to close in a sales cycle?

(G) At what point in the call did you start closing?

The best solution is to adopt a hiring model (like my Selecting Winners program), and have it proliferate throughout your organization. Without a model you are flying blind.

A consistent methodology and language when hiring is absolutely essential if you are going to get it right.  If everyone in your organization is “doing there own thing” your probability of making hiring mistakes goes up astronomically.

Here’s an example.  Two people interview the same person and agree the person has good presentation skills.  Do they really agree?  The answer lies in how each person defines presentation skills and how they apply that evaluation to the person.  One person thinks if the person can just get the point across, that is good presentation skills (the easy grader).  The other person wants someone who can create and deliver persuasive presentations to customers (the hard grader).

You can see from this example how ambiguity and a lack of process leads to mistakes.  Common methodology and language are necessary to keep hiring mistakes to a minimum.

So my answer to the sales executive was to “get everyone on the same page”.  He needs to implement a process that includes a common language and methodology and make certain all of his managers are using the process.  Then he can have intelligent conversations about candidates.

I have always said that any process is better than no process when it comes to hiring.  There are 3 things that you need to verify before you adopt any new process.

1. Is it effective?  Does the methodology have a track record?  Are there people similar to you that have succeeded with the process?

2. Is it easy to implement?  Let’s face facts, your managers are not going to use any process that requires too much work.  That is just the nature of the beast.

3. Be certain the process does not put your managers in a position they are not qualified to be in.  Too many models out there advise you to ask questions that require interpretation and force you to get into the candidate’s head.  That is not a place you want to be.

The process and model you choose should pass your common-sense test.  Do the tools and techniques make sense?

Of course I would like you to try y Selecting Winners tools.  Please click here to learn more about our process.

As always, I welcome your comments.

There are eight questions on the tool designed to give you better insight into the “hidden signals” a candidate can give you in the interview.  First, what are you doing looking for signals when you should be gathering specific behavioral data.

For those of you that are new to this blog, let me repeat something I have said many times.

DON’T TRY TO FIGURE A PERSON OUT IN AN INTERVIEW!

You are not a trained behavioral psychologist so don’t put yourself in a position where you need to be one.  During an interview you should gather information and try not to evaluate.  Save the evaluation for after the interview when you have as much information as possible.

Forget the signals and stick to business.

Next, the 8 questions are all yes-no questions.  Another sure-fire recipe to be mislead and get as little information as possible.  Yes-no questions don’t provide you with very much information.  Instead of asking, “Do you pay attention to how you plan your schedule?”  (I know this is absurd but I just read a suggestion that you should ask this question in an interview from a so-called reputable source)  You should ask, “How did you put your schedule together this week?”  You can follow up with, “What changes did you make?  How did evaluate whether or not to make the change?”

The bottom line here is to be very careful what advice you follow when it comes to interviewing.  Along this line, I want to tell you a quick story.  I was teaching a class this past week and a participant took exception to my rather forceful stance on the merits of the Selecting Winners model.  I used the opportunity to share with the person (and I will share with you) my take on the situation.

We live in a world of ideas.  There is certainly more than one way to do anything.  My suggestion is that you try the Selecting Winners way and see if works.  If it doesn’t you have my permission to throw it away (and call me any name you choose).  You should also try some of the other stuff you hear about to see if it works.  I have always been willing to put Selecting Winners up against anything you want to bring to the table.  There is a reason I stand behind all my products with iron-clad money back guarantees.

If you disagree, I would love to hear from you.  Please leave your comments.

Let’s start with the single biggest offender when it comes to creating ambiguity .. general questions.  How many times have you read or heard about the 10 or 12 magic questions that you should ask every candidate.  By definition, if you ask everyone the same questions they must be general generic questions (Tell me about you most recent job).  You are only going to get general generic answers to these questions.  This creates uncertainty and ambiguity.

The next big offender is not defining your requirements.  Try interviewing for attitude.  I can promise that 5 different people are going to interview for 5 different things and come up with 5 different conclusions.  Requirements need to be clearly defined describing the behavior necessary for success in the position.

Another ambiguity creator is the term “competencies”.  I conduct an interesting experiment in my live classes.  Each participant is given a 3×5 card and told to define the term competency.  No two answers are ever the same.  What effect do you think it has to tell people to interview for a whole list of competencies?

Finally, not interviewing in correct chronological order is a huge mistake.  The candidate is constantly confused when you skip all around their background.  And you get lost as well.  It is impossible to to detect trends and patterns (order and consistency) when you bounce all over the place.

Your goal in the interview is to predict whether or not the person will be successful on your job.  To do that you need to know what knowledge, skills and behaviors are necessary for success.  And you have to determine if the person exhibits those requirements.  Any action, process, question or task that introduces ambiguity into the process only makes your job that much harder.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Please visit our main page to learn more about the variety of solutions we offer for your hiring issues.

Unfortunately, the mob mentality is not good when it comes to choosing employees.

Many of you will defend the practice of group interviews (although I hope no one will defend 25 people at once) insisting on the real benefits.  Let’s look at your arguments.

“”We get more information” is one argument I hear all the time.  My response is that you still only have one questions being asked at a time.  There is only one answer being given at a time.  If anything, you have opened the door for multiple interpretations of the same information.  It really is an opportunity to create ambiguity instead of clarity.  You are NOT getting more information by having multiple people in the room.

“The more opinions we have, the better our decisions” is another argument.  The problem once again is “more opinions”.  You really don’t want opinions.  You want informed judgments based on data.  But, you are not getting more data by having multiple people in the room.  It is much better to have a few informed judgments from individuals who have had the opportunity to go “deep” in their questioning to get real data.  This is accomplished with a series of one-on-one interviews.

“Others can observe body language and reactions while someone else is questioning” is still another argument.  There is certainly merit to the fact that you are so busy figuring out what you are going to ask next that you do miss some reactions.  This problem goes away, if you are prepared with your questions and trained to ask them in a way that allows you to listen.  And, how many of us are trained to effectively interpret body language?  It is way too easy to get off track and make a mistake with this approach.

Now let’s look at a few of my “downside” arguments for not conducting group interviews.  First, you put the candidate under extreme pressure.  How many of you would like to be grilled by 25 people at the same time?  Increasing a candidate’s anxiety level never improves the quality of data you get.

Trying to control multiple people’s input is very difficult.  Who takes the lead?  Who follows up?  When is it OK to interrupt with a follow-up questions?  Who decides when a subject has been exhausted an it is time to move on?  What are the politics between the people in the room?  Should you interrupt the boss?  I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

Finally. what happens if 24 people vote yest and 1 person votes no?  How do you resolve this situation.  Hiring is not a democracy.

It makes so much more sense to have 2-3-4 well-trained interviewers with over-lapping focus conduct a series of one-on-one interviews.  Afterward, they can compare notes about the data each uncovered helping to make an informed decision.

Although group interview might seem like a good idea on the surface, once you understand the dynamics of an effective hiring process it is simple to see they are not very effective.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Please visit our main page to learn about the variety of custom solution we have for your hiring issues.

Just yesterday I read the feature article in a major business publication titled, “The Hiring Game, New Times, New Rules.”  (The fact that they use “game” in the title should be your first clue that they don’t get it.)  The article outlined that, due to the current economic conditions, the power in the has shifted from candidates to the hiring managers.  Idiots!!!

There is no power in this relationship.  A good hire has to be win-win.  It cannot be anything but and expect to survive.  If either side loses, everyone loses.  For years there have been dozens of books written about how to win the employment game (either hire better employees or outsmart the employer).  When you stop and think about this, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s assume a person applies for your job and is sparkling in the interview.  You are overwhelmed by the person’s personality, energy and enthusiasm.  And, you hire them on the spot.  But, what you are unaware of is that the person just finished reading a book on how to ace the interview and what you witnessed was a great act and not reality.  This happens all too often.

Now the person reports for work and the real story is told.  It doesn’t take long for you to be disappointed.  Now you are faced with the unpleasant task of firing the person and having to repeat the process.  Not a lot of fun in anyone’s book.  This represents the classic case of a candidate playing a game and winning the interview.  Unfortunately, you both lose in the long run.  You can NOT have a winner and a loser when it comes to hiring employees.

The article went on to talk about  how employers are really putting candidates through their paces now that they were in charge.  Let’s assume that “putting them through their paces” means they are now doing a thorough job of selection.  My question is, “What were they doing before?”  Doing a thorough job of selection should never be an option?

On the other hand, if putting them through their paces means playing games and trying to gain advantage then this is just as unproductive as the candidate playing games.  An interview needs to be an opportunity for both sides to gain enough information to determine if there is a good match.  Think of it as a sales call.  The sales person needs to find out if the prospect needs and wants their product and the prospect needs to determine if the salesperson has a product or service that satisfies their need.  If either side fools the other, both will ultimately be unhappy.

Let me put this employment relationship in a different light that will hopefully simplify everyone’s thinking.  A job is simply a “Behavior Rental Agreement”.  That’s it.  Nothing more.  We enter into a contract with a person and both parties have to hold up their end of the agreement.

You don’t hire a person because you like them or they look good in a suit.  You hire someone because you want something in return.  You have a job that needs to be done.  You need a business need satisfied.  You hire someone to accomplish these tasks.  And in return, you will offer compensation.  It’s really a simple contract.

Now, if you entered into a contract with someone and they did not hold up their end, you would take action.  The exact same principle holds true in the behavior rental agreement.  The contract has been violated if the person does not deliver the behavior necessary to satisfy your needs.  The contract has been violated if you do not deliver an environment where the person can be successful and the compensation agreed upon.

This really is a simple situation.  Going back to the selection process, it is not an opportunity for either party to exert their will on the other, it is a simple data gathering process to determine if the parties can satisfy each other’s needs.

How many of you have ever bought a tool or piece of equipment because it was pretty or you liked it?  Then why would you hire someone for similar reasons?  The same logic and evaluation has to take place when you go through the selection process.  Hire someone because you are absolutely convinced they will deliver on their end of the agreement and satisfy your business need.  Apply the same evaluation to the person that you would to a piece of equipment.

One more quick rant.  A person recently told me she could tell quickly if someone will fit in her company because she looks for midwestern values.  I am from the Midwest (born and raised in Cleveland … Go Browns!) and I will bet you this person would not hire me!  Please do not put yourself in the foolish position of believing you can figure out other people.

You are much better off using a proven selection system (like my Selecting Winners System) designed to get you the information you need to make an informed decision.  The bottom line is that you are much better off using a proven structured process rather than relying on gut-feel and other less effective techniques.

When you read or hear about one of these latest and greatest hiring methods, my advice is to always run it by your common sense test.  Does this seem too good to be true? (I once read about the 3 questions interview)  Does the techniques describes seem like it would get you information that will help you predict success on the job?  Are you going to be comfortable using the technique?  You will be amazed how far a little common sense will take you.

I fielded a call this morning from a prospect who is interested in our Selecting Winners program.  He runs a large insurance agency and needs to hire more than 100 salespeople this year.  He asked me what I could guarantee.  This is certainly a reasonable question.  So, I gave him my standard answer: “By using the Selecting Winners system you will have the highest probability of hiring successful employees!”

Too often, people are looking for the “magic bullet” or some other secret when it comes to hiring.  The simple truth is that there is no magic bullet or secret when it comes to choosing great employees.  The answer lies in applying a proven system and using it religiously.

I will spend lots of time in future articles sharing how you can be successful in your hiring.  But, you need to start by avoiding what I call the five deadly sins.  So, I will spend the rest of this article reminding you of the things you should NOT do this year.

First Deadly Sin:  Hiring out of desperation

None of us want to admit we hire out of desperation but, we all do it.  Decisions made out of desperation are never made through a clear, well thought-out process.

Try this on for size.  You have not hired for a while and now an urgent business need pops up(spelled desperation).  You recruit like crazy and find a few people to talk with.  The candidate is now sitting in front of you and you are thinking to yourself “if only this person is the right person then all my problems will go away”.  Sound familiar?

This is very dangerous thinking and leads to huge problems.

The best analogy I can give you is a story from a recent flight.  It was at the end of a long business trip and of course, the plane was delayed.  We were sitting on the plane on the ground waiting for some mechanical problem to be fixed.  The pilot came on the PS system and said: ” I know it is frustrating waiting to take off.  But, it is a whole lot better being on the ground wishing you were flying than being up in the air wishing you were on the ground.”  Boy did that hit home.

Let’s apply that to your hiring situation.  It is always much better to be wishing you had the right employee on board than it is having the wrong person and wishing you hadn’t.

Don’t let your desperation drive you to a hasty, poorly planned hiring decision.  Take a breath and remember the impact of your decision if you feel you are going to make a desperate decision.

Second Deadly Sin:  Being Unprepared

Picking up the resume as the candidate walks into your office is not preparation.  “I’ll know it when I see it” does not work.  Hiring without a completed success profile is not preparation.

Preparation is treating hiring as the most important activity necessary to grow your business.  Preparation is learning to hire the right way by applying a proven process … every time.

Start by knowing what you are looking for when you hire.  Identify the business problem the person is going to solve.  Determine what the person has to do to satisfy that business problem. Define the knowledge, skills and behaviors the person must apply to be successful.  And, prepare good solid interview questions before you walk into the interview.

Sloppy hiring decisions can be the most expensive mistakes you make in your business so take the time to do it right.

Third Deadly Sin: Missing Information

Here’s a question I love to ask my clients, “Are you getting the information you need or are you getting what the candidate chooses to share with you?”  As you might have guessed, these may not be the same two sets of information.  You need to know, in great detail, what is important if you are going to get the right information in an interview.

In our Selecting Winners system, we use a performance-based success profile (a document that clearly describes the successful person).  This document then acts as a roadmap to the exact information we need.  Use this document and great interview questions and you will NOT miss important information during the interview.

Fourth Deadly Sin:  Open-Ended Questions

I am sure you thinking, “What the heck is this guy talking about?”  Most of the common literature on the subject of hiring recommends you should ask open-ended questions.  Open-ended questions do not work, They never have worked.  And, they never will work.

A quick explanation before you get too crazy.  Open-ended questions are those that have multiple answers.  “What is a good way to approach a sales campaign?”  See, lot’s of answers.  The problem is that the candidate will end up telling you what they think you want to hear.  This doesn’t help you predict success on the job.  There are so many problems with open-ended questions, I will dedicate an entire article (maybe two) to subject soon.

Instead, ask effective, behavioral questions.  Ask questions that have only one answer and can be easily answered by the candidate.  Ask questions that get information that will help you predict the person’s behavior on your job.  Ask question that don’t require you to interpret the answer.  “Step me through how you managed the ABC sales campaign”

The right questions are the key to an effective interview.  Leave the open-ended questions to the uninformed.

PS. If anyone would like to argue this point with me – DON’T – you will not win the argument!

Fifth Deadly Sin:  Jumping To Conclusions

You can’t make great hiring decision after two or five minutes in an interview.  Decisions made in two or five minutes are made based on impressions, not facts.  It takes time to gather enough information to make an informed decision.  You need to ask lots of questions.  You need to probe and get complete information. This can’t be done in minutes.

You can get impressions in the first few minutes but its important to train yourself not to make decisions based only on impressions.  Keep working at gathering data because the more data you have, the better your better your decisions.

Remember, the more you know about a person, the easier it is to predict success on your job.

Now I could go on and list another 20-25 sins but this should give you enough to get the year started.  Put the same effort into your hiring decisions that you do in all your other critical business decisions and you will be just fine.

The answer is extremely predictable.  The company that gets the business is the one with the best sales people.  Good sales people win more business regardless of the circumstances.  Are you going to win the next time you find yourself in this position?

The best opportunity you have to impact the productivity of your organization is every time you make a hiring decision.  Good hiring decisions propel you to success.  And, all the managing, coaching, systems, training and technology CANNOT help you recover from a hiring mistake.

Over and over again we see examples of companies with inferior products; over-priced products and poor reputations win the business.  Why?  Because they have the best people.  Today’s market is as competitive a market as you are going to find.  If you want the edge in this battle, upgrade your work force and you have the best chance of succeeding.

Most organizations suffer from the 80-20 rule.  You get 80% of your productivity from 20% of your people.  This applies to hiring as well. For years I have listened to Business Owners talk about hiring five and keeping one good person.  This is a terrifically costly way to do business.  Let’s translate some of the costs so you can see just how much this flawed strategy is costing you.  Here’s an example:

You hire John in your Seattle office.  After a month it doesn’t look good.  After 90 days it is really bad. At six months you give up and let John go.  This problem is even worse when John worked with some of your best clients.

This all too familiar scenario happens time and time again.  Unfortunately, you get lulled into believing that all you lost was six months of salary and benefits.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In addition to salary and benefits you have the following hidden costs; opportunity costs, administrative costs, training costs, vacancy costs and separation costs.  And for a small business, these costs could be fatal!

Let’s look at a CPA with a $75,000 base salary.  Salary and benefits for six months cost $48,750.  It cost you $10,000 to recruit the person.  You spent $5000 on training classes and materials.  And those are just the hard dollar costs.

Your soft costs begin with lost opportunity.  If John alienated you top client, what is the life-time value of that client? (Cost $200,000)

How about your time?  Would you have been more productive using your time working with someone who was more productive?  (Cost 15% of your annual compensation ($45,000) Make sure you add separation and administrative costs.  (Cost = $60,000)

Another intangible in this equation is employee morale.  Your good employees resent having a non-performer on the staff.  It makes them look bad and they have to work harder as a result.  (Cost: What is the cost of losing one top employee?)

Your cost of one hiring mistake is roughly $308,750 without counting the cost of losing one of your top employees.  And here is the really sad part, if you do make this hiring mistake; you have to do it all over again doubling all the numbers!  How does $617,500 sound for a $75K CPA?

Now you can see why the “hire a bunch and keep a few” staffing strategy is a mistake.  The good news is you are on your way to fixing the situation as we speak.  The first step in upgrading your work force is to recognize the problem.  Next, you have to put a great recruiting and hiring process in place that gives you the highest probability of hiring top talent.

A great way to get started is to invest in your education.  The more you know about recruiting and hiring good people, the better chance you have of building a winning team.  Reading books and attending workshops will help you expand your knowledge base. If you are not expanding your knowledge base, when you compete against someone who is, the outcome is fairly certain.

You have to start by knowing what you are looking for.  This sounds so simple but is at the heart of most hiring mistakes.  Begin by outlining your work process.  Understanding the mechanics of your business cycle is crucial to understanding the type of person who will be successful.  Just because a person was successful at another company (even a direct competitor) does not mean they will be successful on your job.

At each step of your business cycle, identify what behaviors are necessary for success?  How do your successful people behave?  The answer to this question is the key to building an effective performance-based success profile.  Build a list of all the behaviors necessary for success on your job.

Now the question that I am sure is swimming through your mind is, “How do I figure out if the person sitting across the desk from me behaves this way.  Let me start by saying if you rely on gut feel, interview behavior and the person’s track record you are doomed to fail.  That’s right; these typical measures are not the best way to predict success on your job.

You need a proven system of gathering and evaluating data if you are going to make good hiring decisions.  The more you know about a person, the easier it is to predict success on your job.

Once you realize the economic impact recruiting and hiring has on your business, you’re ready to take the steps necessary to get on track.  You just can’t leave your recruiting and hiring to chance.  Recruiting and hiring top talent has to be your top priority.

Typical Costs of a Bad Hire

Separation Costs:
$ Termination administrative costs
$ Costs for exit interview
$ Severance/separation pay
$ Unemployment compensation

Vacancy Costs
$ Additional overtime
$ Temporary help
$ Missed deadlines

Replacement Costs
$ Recruiting costs
$ Selection interviews
$ Testing
$ Travel/moving expenses
$ Pre-employment administrative expenses
$ Acquisition and dissemination of information

Training Costs

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$ Formal training
$ Informal/OTJ training

Opportunity Costs
$ Lost sales
$ Missed opportunities
$ Management time
$ Dissatisfied customers
$ Low employee morale
$ Cost of mistakes made by poor employee

But seriously, there are a number of important reasons supporting the ineffectiveness of “why” questions.  In this article, you will learn the pitfalls of “why” questions and how to ask much more effective alternates.

Let’s begin by looking at the reasoning people use to support “why” questions.  The typical justification is that the answers give you a view into the person’s head.  It shows you how they think.  You will learn what makes them tick.  You gain insight into their decision-making process.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all noble objectives and certainly good things to know before you hire a person.  But asking “why” in an interview is not the way to get there.  Starting your questions with “why” opens a can of worms and leads to a number of problems.  Let’s look at each problem individually.

You are not qualified

As soon as you ask “why”, you put yourself in a position you are not qualified to be in.  The answer to your “why” forces you to interpret the answer.  You have to figure what they meant.  The answer could be the person’s opinion or a theory.  You are not dealing with facts.  And since you are not a trained behavioral scientist, your conclusions may not be accurate.

Open the door for the “book” answer

The first thing a person does when you ask “why” is to try and figure out what they think you want to hear (the book answer).  Isn’t this what you would do?  They are not necessarily responding with facts.  Isn’t it possible their answer is the possible one they can imagine?  You really want to know what they did, not what they think you want to hear.

The answer is no prediction of future behavior

You have no guarantee the person will do the same thing or something different as a result of their answer to a “why” question.  You will never know if the answer represents true beliefs or just good sounding answer.

Your goal in the interview is to predict the person’s behavior on your job.  Asking “why” questions doesn’t get the hard behavioral data to predict future behavior.  The best strategy is to focus on past behavior.  Ask questions that require the person to describe what they have done.

Here is an example to show you how to avoid “why” questions:

Let’s say you wanted to know how a person goes about making important decisions.  You could just ask “Why did you make that decision?”  But now you fall into all the traps we discussed above.

Instead, try, “What research did you do before you made the decision?  What alternatives did you consider?  Who else did you consult with?  What contingencies did you build into your decision?  What impact did the decision have on you operation?”

Just imagine the quality information you get as result of this series of questions.  Each question is focused on getting specific, behavioral data.  The questions are not focused on why the did what they did.

A great piece of advice is to stay out of other people’s heads.