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.

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.

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.

Ray runs a one man shop southeast of Seattle with his wife running the office.  During the 70′s and most of the 80′s, Ray was the head mechanic at the largest Fiat dealership in the northwest.  When the dealership folded, Ray started his own repair shop working strictly on Fiats.  Lots of service bays, lots of employees, you get the picture.

Now, for the story.

Ray was telling me why he shut down the repair shop and opened his one-man facility.  It was because his employees drove him crazy.  Imagine my surprise.

You see, Ray could not understand why his employees would not take the time to do the job right (Ray is a perfectionist which is a nice quality in a mechanic).  He could not understand why his employees would not take the time to learn a new skill or technique rather than just give up.  Ray could not understand why his employees would walk out the door at five o’clock even if the car they were working on was not finished.

His solution was to hire and fire, hire and fire and then repeat.  This went on until he could take it no more and he just closed up the shop.  This is not all that unusual for most businesses.

Let’s look at how you can avoid this situation.  First, LEARN HOW TO HIRE THE RIGHT PEOPLE!  I know I sound like a broken record but hiring the right people fixes so many of your problems.  And part of hiring the right people is to use the performance-based success profile from my Selecting Winners System.  With this document you will set expectations for your people up-front.  And, managing to stated, agreed upon expectations makes life much easier.

The key principle of the Selecting Winners System is to identify the behavior necessary for success on your job and find people who behave that way.  Ray was looking for people who behaved similar to himself.  The problem was he was not interviewing for that behavior.  Work ethic, attention to detail and the ability to learn would have been far more important than the ability to rebuild a carburetor.

This is a lesson that all of you can put into practice.  I hear people ask about fit and culture all the time.  They ask me how to interview for these difficult concepts.  My answer is to identify how the person has to act and react (behavior) to the situations to be successful.  Once you have identified that behavior, you can start to interview for it in the interview.

I am not trying to convince you that hiring and managing employees is easy.  But, you can do things to make it a much more pleasant and successful endeavor.

For more information please visit us at www.SelectingWinners.com

You have an interview scheduled for this afternoon.  You prepare by scanning the resume for two or three minutes before the person comes into your office.  You’re not worried because you will know if this is the right person.

The candidate walks into your office, strides across the room, looks you in the eye, and with a firm handshake introduces herself.  Nice start you’re thinking.  She is upbeat, outgoing and can obviously create an impression with a prospect.  You start thinking; I wonder what it is going to take to get this gal.

But let’s not jump to a conclusion too quickly, so you pull out your pen and say, “So sell me this pen.”  Reject the first statement out of her mouth, and see how she handles objections.  And most important, see if she knows how to ask for the order.

This, all too familiar scenario, plays out daily when sales managers are making critical sales rep hiring decisions.  And many of the mistakes made are caused by one of the greatest myths associated with choosing people, the belief that interview behavior is a good predictor of job performance.  This is just one of the many interviewing myths that lower your probability of making good hiring decisions.

Interviewing myths have been perpetuated through the years for a number of reasons.  The first, and I believe the scariest, is that most interviewers are driven by ego.  There is a certain rush you get when you know you get to control the fate of the person sitting across the table.  Not always a conscious thought, it does sneak into your subconscious during the process.  This leads to interviewers playing games with candidates.

The second reason these myths continue to haunt is simply ignorance.  So few people have been taught how to interview and choose people that the default is to do what was done to you or what you have always done.

As I was typing this article on a flight, the gentleman in the next seat leaned over and started asking me questions.  He is the President of a medical imaging equipment company that is expanding rapidly.  He told me he had built his company from scratch and was very proud of the people he had hired.  He went on to tell me how he has been right about 80% of the time.  I asked him how much more money he would have in his pocket right now if his percentage was even higher?

You see, although he was naturally quite good at choosing people, no one had ever taught him a specific process that would help him get even better.  And, think about the people who are NOT naturally good at it (most of your management team).  How much would a proven process help them?

Let’s look at four very common interviewing myths and see how they might be sabotaging your ability to choose great people.

MYTH #1 INTERVIEW BEHAVIOR EQUALS JOB PERFORMANCE

How often do you walk into an interview thinking, “I’ll know it when I see it!”?   Down deep, don’t you believe you’re good at reading people?  Tell the truth.  Because if you do, your walking into a mine field.  Believing how a person acts in an interview predicts how they will act on the job is a recipe for disaster.  Interview behavior is as contrived as can be.

Let me show you how this works.  Energy level is an example of a requirement important for good sales reps.  Everyone wants to hire sales reps who are upbeat and outgoing.  So, energy level gets special emphasis during the interview.  But, don’t you think every candidate today is coached to be upbeat, to try to take control of the interview, to look you in the eye and so forth. Will that energy in the interview translate to energy and more importantly success on the job?  A question I like to ask my clients is, “Are you hiring talent or are you hiring interview behavior?”

Selling to committees is another skill required of many sales reps.  So, many interviewers have the candidate interview in front of three or four people at the same time to see how they handle themselves.  Heck, if they can’t sell to a committee in an interview, how are they going to sell to a committee in the field?  The problem here and the reason this is not an effective technique, is you can’t be certain how they handle the interview committee is how they will handle the prospect committee.  You are just guessing.

A sales rep who has sold to committees is familiar with the process and knows the rules of the game. But, an interview is a situation they don’t face very often and has rules that are far less clear than a sales situation.  The interview situation doesn’t translate well to the real world.

Here’s another example.  You want closers, so how better to determine if they can close than to see if they close you in the interview.  Throw a couple of objections at them, “I like your background Mary but frankly I don’t think you know enough about our marketplace.”  Does she ask for the order at the end of the interview?  The candidate is going to try to figure which game you are playing and since they don’t play this game often they may guess wrong.  Then what?

The interview is not familiar ground, for you or the candidate.  You are both guessing at what the rules are.  And neither of you have prepared as you normally would for a sales call.  It is a terrible assumption to think the person handles sales calls the way they are handling the interview.

Many people are nervous in an interview, mostly because they don’t know what to expect.   This differs from a sales call, where most sales people are not nervous because they know what to expect.  You can prepare for a sales call but how do you prepare for an interview?  It’s much too difficult to determine during an interview if what you are seeing is natural behavior or just an act.  Think of an interview as “prom night”, everyone is going to be on their best behavior.  When you ask the candidate if they know how to close, do you really expect them to say, “No? But if you hire me I will try real hard.”

The best way to determine if the person has sufficient energy, can sell to a committee or close, is to find out how they have done it in past situations that most closely resemble your environment.  Then explore as many examples as possible and look for patterns.  Their past behavior is proof of how they handle these situations and is definitely the best predictor of what they will do when they come to work for you.

MYTH # 2 OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS ARE BEST

Most of what you read or hear about interviewing tells you to ask open-ended questions.  The reason given is open-ended questions gets the person talking.  But, what good does it do you to get them talking if what they are talking about doesn’t give you information that helps you predict whether or not they will be successful on your job?  Having a candidate talk for the sake of talking is a waste of your time.

Here are three reasons open-ended questions are not your best option:

First: You lose control of the interview.  Controlling an interview simply means controlling the agenda.  If you ask, “So tell me about using technology to sell” the candidate now chooses the direction and composition of the conversation.  The candidate should only have the option of telling you exactly what they did and how they did it.  An open-ended question gives them the option to tell just about anything they want.

Second: Answers to open-ended questions may not give you quality information.  If the person answers the previous question with an in-depth discussion of how a company can implement a sales-force automation system, although it will sound impressive, they really haven’t given you information about their sales practices.  You need specific answers about what the person actually did.  Are they giving you theory, opinion or conjecture?

Third: Open-ended questions put the candidate under tremendous pressure.  When you ask about using technology to sell, the person’s thought process includes a quick and concentrated scan of the options they think will sound good to you.  This just puts the person under undue stress and, gives them the opportunity to give you the “book” answer.  Are you getting real information or just what they think you want to hear?

How do you fix open-ended questions, ask closed-ended questions.  This means questions that have only one answer.  Instead of, “Tell me about using technology to sell.” instead ask “How did you use your SFA system to shorten your sales cycle?”  By focusing your questions, you will get the information you need, better information and also make it easier for the person to answer by eliminating the guesswork.

MYTH # 3 GUT-FEEL MAKES GREAT DECISIONS

You certainly wouldn’t ignore your gut-feel.  When you don’t feel right about a person, you pass.  And, if you hit it off with someone quickly, you start formulating the offer in your head.  The longer you spend in the business world and the more successful you are, the better your instincts and feelings get.  Your instincts are certainly valuable and never to be ignored but if you supplement them with proven process and objective data, your decisions will improve.

When your gut-feel radar goes off, either positive or negative, ask yourself, “What did the person do or say to make me feel this way?”  Then probe the event that triggered the feeling.  When the person makes a strong, positive first impression, rather than assuming they know how to establish rapport with a prospect, ask for examples of how they have established rapport with prospects in the past.  This approach gives you the information to confirm or reject your feeling.  Try to always have objective data available to support your decisions.

MYTH #4 YOU SHOULD EVALUATE CANDIDATES AGAINST EACH OTHER

A candidate comes in to see you and you really like him but, you think you should see some other candidates first.  A typical thought is, “I wonder if there is another person out there who might be better?”  There is!  But, how long will it take you to find that person?  And, once you find them, don’t you have to repeat the same question?  How much longer will that take?  Where does the game end?

I am not advocating making rush decisions or making your decisions in a vacuum.  But, if you have a good profile, have asked good questions in the interview and evaluated properly, you only need to compare candidates against your standard, not against each other.  Too often, you interview three candidates and choose the best of the three.  But, what if the best of the three still doesn’t meet your requirements?  You end up hiring the best of the worst.

Deciding who you are going to put out on the street to represent your organization in a sales role is never an easy decision.  These decisions are going to affect your financial as well as your mental health and should never be taken lightly.  A solid structured process void of games, gimmicks and tricks will definitely improve your probability of making good decisions.

You can learn more about my Selecting Winners process at www.SelectingWinners.com

Ever wonder if the person you are interviewing is telling the truth?  Is the person feeding you a line or maybe just telling you what they think you want to hear?  Ever hired someone based on information you thought was true but really wasn’t?

Well, don’t feel bad because you are not alone.  Most business owners want to be sold in the interview and end up hearing only what they want to hear.  It is called selective perception.  (Remember the last new car you bought and all of the sudden there were hundreds of the same car on the road!)

Your ability to identify the truth can mean the difference between hiring a star and hiring a nightmare.  Let me show you how you can tell if a person is telling the truth in an interview.

I have spent the last 30+ years identifying a system that eliminates lying, misleading, exaggeration and confusion from an interview (sounds great doesn’t it?).  Here is a five step process that guarantees you are getting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

<strong>Step One – Ask closed ended questions.</strong> <p style=”display:none”>  </p>

Let me define closed-ended questions before you get up in arms.  A closed-ended question is a question that has only one answer.  Instead of, “How do you handle objections?” (open-ended), ask, “How did you overcome the price objection during the ABC sale?”

The person has less of a chance to make things up when you ask closed-ended questions.  Closed-ended questions not only to make sure the person is telling you the truth but also get the best information in the interview.

Sample closed-ended questions:

1. How did you greet your last prospect?
2. What did you say to get the person to purchase additional merchandise?
3. What did you ask to find out what specifically the person was looking for?

Step Two – Listen Actively

You have to probe throughout the interview to get the real story.  A big mistake I see people make all the time is to ask a question and then sit back and let the person talk uninterrupted.  The longer the person talks without you asking clarifying questions, the more likely it is you are only getting what the person wants to share with you.

It is critical to the success of hiring the right salesperson that you know exactly what you are looking for.  In the interview, you need to get the specific information that helps you predict success.  Don’t get into the trap of getting what the candidate wants to tell you versus what you need to know.

If the person says they were the top salesperson, ask, “How many sales people were there?  How were the rankings determined?  How long were you the number one sales person?”

Step Three – Get Multiple Examples

I have no doubt that you go into an interview and get an example of a situation or task the person has handled (like closing a deal or prospecting).  But to make certain the person is telling you the truth, you need to get lots of examples.  Get as many examples of sales closed or prospecting activities as possible.

People struggle to make up examples that did not happen.  Your goal in getting multiple examples is to solidify the person’s behavior.  The more often they behave a certain way, the more likely they will behave that way on your job.  The side benefit of getting multiple examples is it is very difficult to manufacturer examples on the fly.

The person telling the truth, with great experience has no problem giving you as many examples as you need.  The person not telling the truth will struggle after the first or second example because there is no substance.

Step Four – Get Lots of Detail

The devil is in the detail.  Make certain that you probe for lots of detail in your examples.  The person telling the truth has no problem sharing all the details of a situation with you.  The person not telling the truth will struggle trying to create details on the fly.

Here is an example.  Ask, “What was the largest sale you closed in the last three months?”  Follow this up with, “How long did you work on the deal?  Who else worked on the deal with you?  Who did you compete against?  How did you exploit your product position during the sales cycle?  What exactly did you sell?  What was the person looking for when you first met them?”

If you look back at this list of questions, you notice that the answer to every question gets you good information.  The side benefit is that a person who did not make the sale would have a very difficult time answering all those questions.

Step Five – Question “We”

People will sometimes try to mislead you by using the word “we”.  A simple solution is to always stop the candidate when they use the word “we” and ask, “Who is we and what specifically did you do?”  This always gets to the heart of the matter.  Don’t think that every time you hear “we” a person is lying because this isn’t the case.  But it is still a good idea to always clarify and get the details.

Make it clear in the interview that you want to know exactly what the person did.  You want to know what their personal contribution was to the success of the sale.

So there it is.

It has been my experience that in the last 15 years it has been almost impossible to lie to me in an interview and get away with it.  Try this simple, 5-step process and I am certain this will work for you as well.

For more information about my Selecting Winners programs and other tips on recruiting and hiring, visit us at www.SelectingWinners.com