Employees are Everything: Interviewing (Part 1)
We have talked about how you recruit and find the right candidates, now that you have them, how can you determine they will be the right fit for the role? Interviews of course! In this episode, Rob and Traci discuss making sure the interview is a great process for both the interviewees and the interviewers and explore how to keep interviews free of bias while staying informative.
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Traci:
Okay, so we have recruited and hopefully have done a great job. And now we have candidates. We have people who actually want to come interview for our open seat at our wonderful company. So what do we do? How do we handle this process?
And I think that today, the best thing for us to do is look at it in kind of three areas:
What's the interviewee's experience? And are we making sure that we are attentive to that, we understand what their experience is and we are catering to that experience?
And then what's the interviewer's experience? So us as a team, do we understand what we're looking for? Do we know what we're crafting as an experience for ourselves to get the intel we need about this person in a very short amount of time?
And then what's the process we're using? This whole series, we've been talking about strategy. And do we have a strategic process for interviewing that's efficient and effective? Because as we've been saying, we're all under a lot of pressure, we've got to get these positions filled, And we want to make sure that the interviewee is feeling like this is an effective and efficient process and that the interviewer is feeling that. And that we can walk away and make really wise decisions because this is a costly and risky endeavor.
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Traci:
So, Rob, how are you doing?
Rob:
I'm good. This is a hard topic because I think one of the riskiest things we can do is add new people to our team.
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
It's one of the most expensive things that we do. And it just has the potential to either be something that works out really well or disastrous in some cases. So getting this right is really important.
Traci:
Yeah. And what's funny—in a not funny way—is that so many teams kind of just jump into it, either robotically, haphazardly, frantically, and don't take a breath and have just a few conversations to make sure we're maximizing our potential in this area, that we're really thinking about the questions we're asking, the way we're assessing the candidates. How are we really understanding their skills? How are we getting behind their past experience? And are we making the right decision instead of a kind of panicked, hasty, we just need to get a warm body in this spot because we're dying on the vine kind of decision?
So like we talked about before with recruitment, it takes the conversation, it takes the team getting together, it takes a little bit of strategy. And we don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time, but we have to invent the wheel the first time.
Rob:
Yeah, we've got to have a wheel.
Traci:
We have to have a wheel.
Rob:
This thing ain't moving itself, so we've got to have a wheel.
Traci:
Exactly. So tell me what your wheel looks like. I'm really curious to know, how do you guys go about this process?
Rob:
Yeah. I think it starts with, and this probably isn't a big surprise, but for us, it starts with the humans, right? We very much wanted to take and make sure that the people we're interviewing and their experience matches our values. And we wanted them to feel valued by us and that their time was not being wasted. And that we were asking them to do things that were indicative of what they will be doing and give them a chance to interview us.
So that human element and that human connection piece is very much at the center of our process or at the center of our goal and is represented through our values, right? Because we talk a lot about those and we actually bring those up in interviews.
Traci:
So that's the interviewee experience. So you guys are actually putting yourself in their shoes, sitting on that side of the table, and really asking yourself, "What's their experience going to be like? How can we make sure they walk away understanding very clearly who we are?"
Rob:
Yeah, and what we value because it's my firm belief that their whole perception and their experience of working for us starts at their first human interaction, actually starts before that, during recruitment, but it's continued and enforced during our interview process. If they do get hired, which is the whole reason we would pre-qualify somebody and put them into the interview process, is because we think there's a chance that they could be a really good addition at Sparkbox. So we want to treat that experience like an extension of their employment, because it will color and shape and set expectations for what it's like on their first day, through their last day.
Traci:
Yeah. And so we don't want anybody walking in blind, right? We want them to really understand who we are. In a sense, we're selling ourselves to this interviewee and we know we're in competition with other companies and businesses and teams and that's happening all over the place. And so we want to make sure we are authentically and intentionally giving them the right experience and the right information about who we are, because we want them to feel like that this is as much their decision in deciding if they fit with our team as it is vice versa. So I think that is really a great place to start.
And it is the first kind of leg of this stool that we're talking about, is really what is their experience and are we properly representing ourselves to them?
Rob:
Yeah. I think it's absolutely one of the most critical things. We'll talk about what our process is here in a little bit, but one of the things that I very much ask at the end of the final interview, which I still get a chance to do at Sparkbox is, "How was the interview process?"
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
And granted, I know that it's a little bit biased because I'm only talking to people who get to the end, but overwhelmingly, the people that get there say it's a great experience and that it's one of the better ones they've ever been through. And that's a huge thing for me. And like I said, I fully recognize the fact that there are people along the way in the interview process that fall out before they get to me. But the fact that people who are getting to the end, who have a chance to get hired, say that it's been a great process, I take as a huge compliment. And it's a validation of the work that the team at Sparkbox who has designed that and been very intentional about it has put into it.
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Traci:
So let's talk about the interviewer's experience. Let's talk about how do we as interviewers and as a team of interviewers, right? Because most processes have multiple people involved interviewing the candidate. How do we make sure we really understand who this person is? Because a lot of times, when you're outside the 90-day window with a candidate or within that 90-day window of when they first start, I'll hear so many people on team say, "Oh, they didn't turn out the way we thought they would. We didn't realize they couldn't do this. We didn't realize that their personality was like this. It didn't really fit with the team."
And that usually has to do with the fact that they were asking very standard, over-used questions or they didn't assess them the right way as far as their skillset. Or we, again, were too rushed, too eager. We just kind of liked the way they looked and talked and thought they said the right things and we hired them. We didn't do the due diligence in the right way.
And so maybe we should talk about what that looks like. What type of questions should we be asking? How should we be assessing these people? What can we do to kind of foolproof? Nothing is completely 100% foolproof. We don't know until they are sitting in the chair and doing the job, but what can we do to at least decrease our risk as we hire people and bring them onto our team?
Rob:
Yeah. I think it comes down to two key things for me. And I'm sure there's more, but the two big things that I want people who are interviewing to understand are:
One, this is not a foolproof process. You do this long enough and you will make mistakes, you will get things wrong, and that's okay. I have made them too and everyone I've ever known who's hired enough people has hired the wrong person at some point. Don't beat yourself up over it. And don't hold yourself to the standard that you're never going to get this wrong. And I know that is we want to get this right, there's a cost to getting it wrong, but I think that it's really important to give people who are interviewing the permission and the realistic expectation that it doesn't always work.
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
Right? We want to learn from our mistakes. We want to make sure we're retroing those things if we can add things to be better. But no matter what you do, you'll never get this right all the time.
Traci:
Right.
Rob:
So that's the first thing I want to make sure people who are interviewing understand.
The second thing, when it comes down to designing the process, is I want the people involved with that step to understand their role in that step and what they're trying to assess from the person. Is it they're a fit with our values? Is it that their skillset is at the level we need? Or how to assess what skill level that person is? Because we hire people of various skill sets for different roles. Sometimes we know what it is up front, sometimes we have multiple opens we're looking for, so how do we assess that? But I think the second most important thing is, is that what is your role here? What do we expect from you, from the interviewer, and how are you going to give feedback, and how it's going to be collected? Do you understand that process and how you fit into it?
Traci:
Right. And I think having a team of interviewers, and I know that most companies—at least I hope so—have multiple people in the process. You mentioned that you're usually last in the row of people—which it makes complete sense. And I think to your point, that everybody understands what their role is, everybody's on the same page as far as what type of questions and what they're trying to assess and that level of skillset. And I think that conversation beforehand is so valuable.
If you just sit down and say, "Okay, maybe we need to kind of divide and conquer on who leans into what area the most." So maybe one person's going to lean into exact skillset evaluation, another person's going to lean into cultural fit. Another person's going to lean into day-to-day responsibilities and what Sparkbox as a whole looks like. You're going to lean into kind of being sort of the owner and overseer and kind of that ultimate selling the mission, vision of Sparkbox and making sure their experience was good. And so everybody knows the role they're going to play.
And I think in that team meeting, you can also take it a step further and say, "Let's talk." And this is where training comes in, right? We need to actually train the people that are interviewing. We can't just send them in cold and think they know how to do this. This is a skillset. Interviewing somebody, talking to somebody, is different than their day-to-day job. And so if we just think, "Oh, well, they're outgoing, they'll do a great job interviewing. And so you're going to take this responsibility and interview the next three candidates," is not really fair to your team member. We want to make sure they are well trained and they have all the right tools before they go in and start interviewing people. What are we looking for exactly? What's the seat that we're filling? If there was somebody in that seat before, what were the great things that that person did, or what were the gaps that were there that we really are looking to fill? So what are we looking for?
Okay, well, if we're looking for these things, how do we know that this person interviewing, how do we ascertain if they have those qualities? We talk about values and we talk about cultural fit, but what are the types of questions we need to ask to figure that out? We can't just tell people, "Make sure they're a culture fit," but not train them on how to make sure they're a culture fit, right? And a lot of that starts with questions, right?
And too often, we go in with these kind of yes or no interview questions. And that's rarely going to give us a clear picture of somebody's actual behavior, how they're going to show up at work. And so we always say the best questions to ask is to try to get people to tell stories.
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
Getting people to tell their story, talk about stories, is going to give us a much more complete picture of our candidate. So you're going to start questions with, "Give me an example," or, "Tell me about a time." Or if they start to talk about something, to just say, "Tell me more," or really, really listening well. And so when you pick up on something in their story, you can say, "Ooh, you talked about this, and I'm so curious. Tell me what that felt like." Or, "How was that experience for you? Was there ever any conflict? How did you handle that?"
And those types of questions, when you ask, "Who was involved? Why was it motivating? Why was that satisfying? What did you find fulfilling about it?" Those types of questions really open us up to their world, how they handle difficult challenges, what made it hard, and asking them even what they want out of a teammate. "What are the types of people you work really well with? What are the leaders that you've had or you've worked with, what did you feel like made them a good leader?"
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
"How did they best mentor you?" These types of questions really open up. "How do you like to grow in a job? How do you challenge yourself? How do you increase your knowledge? How do you grow in your skills?" These sort of open-ended questions are just amazing in getting candidates to really open up and for us to see. And if they struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle to answer these questions, that's a red flag.
Rob:
Yeah. And I think that the way people tell stories, communicate what their values are, what they're highlighting, what they're saying, what they're not saying is hints. People leave breadcrumb clues about how they experience life and how they recall those experiences. And also what they think you want to hear a little bit. So you have to listen for all those things in between the words and what they're highlighting and what they're not highlighting as sometimes the rest of the story. Right?
Traci:
Yeah. And I think one of the best skills of an interviewer, and I think it's important to tell our teammates this, is that they ask a great question and they listen. They stop talking. And if the candidate needs to think for a second, if they're thinking and there's a little bit of silence, be okay with that.
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
You don't need to make up for them. You don't need to be scared they're having an uncomfortable moment. Just give them space. Be patient, have a pleasant look on your face while they're thinking of their answer, and just let the space be there in the interview.
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
Don't be too eager to fill that space. And listen really, really well, even if you have to jot down on a piece of paper a couple of words so that you remember to go back to, but listening. Your interviewers, the people that you have chosen, shouldn't be chosen because they're great talkers. They should be chosen because they're great listeners.
Rob:
Yeah. We talk about that, doing all kinds of different things in our work, as letting your question breathe.
Traci:
Yes.
Rob:
Giving you that space to breathe and open up.
Traci:
Yes.
Rob:
It's hard. It is a leadership skill set to be really comfortable with uncomfortable silence.
Traci:
Yeah. Nowadays there is a little fear. People are scared they're going to say something, bring up a taboo subject or offend somebody or say something in a wrong way. And that's another reason why I think having these conversations beforehand and sort of training people in the interview process and understanding stay away from asking, "Are you married? Are you going to start a family?" All these questions we really should avoid, but that's what people talk about in normal day-to-day conversation at parties and whatnot.
So that's why I talk about training your interviewers because sometimes they'll go in thinking, "Oh, I'm just supposed to get to know them. And I have to see if they like the same things I like and if they fit our core values. So I guess I should just talk about social stuff."
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
And if we don't train them and give them sample questions and teach them the art of telling stories and getting interview candidates to tell stories, we're just kind of sending our team in blindly and that's not fair.
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
I can't stress enough how important it is to have these kind of training sessions for the people who are going to be doing the interviewing.
Rob:
Yeah. And one of the things that I like about our process a lot is nobody interviews somebody for the first time alone. There's always somebody. So there's group interviews process parts of it, but there's also pair interviews where you're always with somebody who's done it before.
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
But you still have that meeting. You still have that conversation. You still know what you can ask and what you can't ask and what the goals are. It's a feel and a good one to know that you're not the lead. It's not your meeting. Right?
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
That's one of the things that I think is so important when we set any kind of meeting, but especially interviews, is whose job is it to have the room? Whose room is it? Right? Because sometimes, and you and I both have probably been in these, that you get in there and you're talking to somebody, you're interviewing somebody who is owning the room, is comfortable helping drive and the conversations flowing easily and it feels effortless. And you and I have probably both been interviews where it feels the exact opposite of that.
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
And that usually isn't indicative necessarily of the person's skillset or their ability to do the job. It takes different personalities. But having somebody defined, where, "Hey, if this starts to get flat," or whose job is it to make sure we get through the agenda? Who owns the room?
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
I think is a really key part. And that takes a lot of the stress away from somebody doing that for the first time.
Traci:
Yeah. That's great. That is the perfect kind of on-the-job training to have a wingman with you the first time you're going through it.
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Traci:
I think the last thing I'll say about training our interviewers is really talking about bias and unconscious bias. And just bringing that into the open and letting them understand. Unconscious biases are these hidden preferences and prejudices that operate in the subconscious. And so the best thing we can do is to bring that out into the light when we're talking about the interview process. And helping people understand we all have it. None of us are immune to this and we unconsciously process 11 million pieces of information, right? So our brain can really only process 40 pieces of information per second, so scientists say, right? So in order to keep up with that, our brain has mental shortcuts.
Rob:
Yep.
Traci:
And that's how our brain operates and that's how we're able to make decisions quickly and on the fly as we sort of take the information we need, we have those shortcuts. And part of those mental shortcuts can end up being biased. This is how stereotypes come to be, right? Is that we look at a person and our unconscious bias, our mental shortcut says, "Oh, they look like this so they must be this."
Rob:
Yep.
Traci:
And we don't even realize we're doing it.
And one of the things I see more often than sort of this kind of upfront prejudice is that it's sort of the flip where people connect well with people that are like them. And so it could be that they look like them, but it could also be they're from the same area of the country. They went to the same type of school. They studied the same type of thing. They played the same sport.
And so I can't even tell you how many times we'd come out of an interview process and somebody would say, "Oh, I like them so much. They remind me of me." And we would crack up laughing and think that was a joke, but that's true. We gravitate naturally towards people we have a lot in common with.
And that's fine, but we just have to be aware that maybe we really like this candidate because they remind themselves so much of us and it's easy, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the best candidate.
And it also may mean we're overlooking people that don't look like us, that don't come from the same place or the same type of family we do, that don't have the same experience, didn't go to the same type of college or play sports at all. So we just have to be aware that we have to find ways to connect with people that are different from us in the interview process so that we can also really get to know them well too. Even if it feels awkward, even if we feel like, "Geez, this person is so different than I am." Get curious about that.
Rob:
Yep.
Traci:
Go after that, think, "I want to know about this person more because they're so different," because diversity is going to make our team better. It's going to make our business better. It's going to help us connect to our clients better. So talking about this as a team, when we do this with teams, you see people's face light up because they're like, "Oh my gosh, I never thought about that. I never realized I could be doing this."
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
Because they all have good hearts and they don't mean to be, but when we teach them this and we talk about this with teams, it's amazing, the light bulbs that go off. And that's really what it takes is just awareness. And then the next time they go into an interview, they're almost excited to shut off the bias lever and really get curious about these people and connect with them. And that's exciting for teams.
Rob:
Yeah, it absolutely is. And that whole eliminating bias, especially unconscious bias, right? Is work that we should all be doing all the time, not just connected with interviewing, right?
Traci:
Right.
Rob:
It is constant work to be able to do that and to be good at that and to recognize that. I absolutely agree. The best way to remove unconscious bias is to bring it into the light and make it conscious bias.
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
So at least then you have some chance to correct for it.
Traci:
Yeah. And I know next time we meet, we'll talk about onboarding, which I think if you do hire somebody that is diverse and different from several people on your team, how do we onboard properly I think is going to be a really cool conversation to have too.
Should we talk about assessments?
Rob:
Yeah. Let's talk about assessments real quick.
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
Which ones do you like? Which ones do you use? This gets into the process part of the conversation, right?
Traci:
Right. Yeah. I think if you have the funds, and I do feel like if you are interviewing for a leadership position, that assessments are a must. They really have such great predictive measures, behavioral fit, emotional intelligence, which is important in every single person that works on the team, but it is doubly important in a leader.
And there's two assessments you can use in interviews. And I think that's important for people to know, that legally you can not use certain assessments when you are interviewing. So do not use the Enneagram. Do not be saying to people, "What's your Enneagram number?" And all of that. We don't use DiSC. We don't use Myers-Briggs. Those are all great for team building, for bonding, for after they're on your team.
But when you're interviewing, you have to understand that there's a legality to what you're doing, right? So you can use Kolbe and you can use EQ-i, emotional intelligence. Those are both legally assessments that you can use to assess people and base your hiring on. So you can legally say, "Your EQ score didn't meet our requirements," or, "Your Kolbe score doesn't fit the role that we're looking for."
So just keep that in mind, because I do believe that there's probably, and people have probably all sorts of assessments that they're using that they pulled off the internet that they shouldn't be using, but Kolbe and EQ-i are great assessments, great fit. I'm sure there's some other ones out there as well that may fit the legal parameters. But I just encourage people to really think about that if you're making a big decision.
Again, we talked about the costliness of these decisions, what it costs, not just financially for a team to hire the wrong person, but for morale, what it does to a team when you hire and you bring on the wrong person. And we know that everybody makes mistakes—or not even mistakes—we just take a gamble and a guess, and it just doesn't work out.
And that's fine, but we can raise our chances significantly of it working out by doing assessments. And they're just great tools. I love them. And we do them often at Navigate The Journey. And we've found that most candidates, I haven't gotten any negative feedback up to this point, think they're fun. They're self-assessments. These people are assessing themselves. And so we're getting to see a window into how they think about themselves. And when we do debriefs, they learn so much about themselves. And that's another extra added plus is if you hire them, they come in with this heightened awareness of their emotional intelligence and really wanting to work on what they learned in the debrief.
Rob:
Yeah, no, that's great.
Let's talk a little bit about skill tests then.
Traci:
Yes.
Rob:
Because I think that's another kind of assessment, and that's been a long debate, especially in our industry, of do you do a coding test, a design test, a UX assessment?
I know that for years when I first started my career, that was always part of every interview, is you were asked to whiteboard out solutions or do live coding exercises. And for a long time, that fell out of Vogue again, because that's not the way the real world works. You don't solve problems on a whiteboard. That's not the way things should go, right?
I'll never forget, I was once asked in an interview about a problem, right? They were like, "Okay, there is two houses that are 12 feet apart and there's a giant oak tree in between them. Your job is to cut down the oak tree. Talk about what you would do." And I remember sitting there thinking, I'm like, "What is this going to accomplish for you? Are you trying to figure out how I'm thinking or what?" And I remember I looked at the interviewer and said, "You give me a chainsaw and a helicopter and I'll show you something amazing." And he looked and smiled and just moved on with the interview. And I don't think that's what he was looking for, but I can think of other story problems that I've been asked over the years.
But I think there is a place for doing some of this skill assessment. And I think there's some key things that we can do to make this more equitable, more fair. And one of those things is having it be an assignment they do on their own time. We do this with coding design and our UX assessments where we actually give them an assignment. And in that assignment, we give them parameters. We tell them how long it should take and, "Please don't spend longer than this." And I think that number right now is six or eight hours, depending on what the assessment is. And then we do a blind review of that. And then after the blind review and a team reviews that, we actually have them pair with one of our directors in that area to walk them through and let them answer questions about it.
And we're really trying to see, "Do you have the skills that your resume says you do? Can you come in and contribute to the team at the level that we've assessed you at?"
Traci:
Yeah. Skill assessment, I think, is highly necessary. I've worked with so many teams who haven't done that for all sorts of different reasons. And then they end up hiring a candidate who just over-promised and under-delivered. And that's really hard.
Some things are trainable and that's fine if we know up front and we're willing to make concessions for that, but we're talking about a lot of skill-based, every company has skills that are needed. And even when we were at HG, if we were hiring somebody in sales, the final candidates gave a full-fledged presentation, sales pitch. And sometimes it was eyeopening because through the interview process, one-on-one, you're thinking, "Oh, this seems great." And then you get them in front of the room, to present in front of 10 people, and it's disastrous. And you think, "I can't believe we missed this," but there's a huge skill level gap and that's serious.
And that means typically that they need more time before they're ready for that position and that's fine. You can say, "We can give you a more junior position," or, "Come back in a year, grow in this skill set, learn these things. We love who you are. We think you'd be a great fit. We just need you to ramp up in your skill set. So we'd love for you to reapply."
And when you say those types of things, if you honestly mean it and you honestly engage with them, you do see people come back six months, a year from then, who have grown their skill sets, who have gone off and done what they need to do to get better, because they really want to work for you because they had a great interviewing experience. And if you're authentic with them and you tell them, "Look, I'm not kidding. We like who you are. We think you're going to be a great fit. Go off and spend the next six months to a year growing in your skill level and I think there's going to be a place for you here." Those people will come back and it's going to be a good fit then.
Rob:
Yeah. And I think it's the most important thing. One of the most important things when we talk about skill tests or assessments is have a documented process that you follow every single time. You get in trouble or you open yourself up to trouble is when you use these things and some people have to do them and some people don't.
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
So if you're going to require an assessment, the Kolbe or EQ-i, or a skills test for coding, design, UX, whatever the sales presentation, whatever the example is, then everybody does them because that is the most fair, equitable way to make sure that you are comparing everybody on equal footing and asking the same thing from everybody. Otherwise, you end up building a system that probably has a lot of bias that you weren't thinking about, and that you're not intending to, but I guarantee is going to be there.
Traci:
Wow, this is good.
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
And hopefully it's given people a lot to think about and really to go back and look at this area of your hiring and onboarding strategy, assess how that interviewee feels, assess how that interviewer is doing. And what's your process?
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
Shore it up. Make sure that it's complete and absent of bias, but efficient and effective.
Rob:
Yeah, because you are absolutely setting expectations for what that person will believe it's like to work there. This is the beginning of your hopefully long mutually beneficial employment-employee relationship. Right? You want this to go well so that they're excited to come in and that their expectations are met.
Traci:
Yeah. And like we said, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time, you just have to invent that wheel the first time and keep it rolling.
Rob:
And then iterate, because you're going to learn stuff.
Traci:
Yeah, and then iterate.
Rob:
And then iterate.
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
Always iterate. Always retro. Take feedback. Make this better. This works every time.
Traci:
Yep.
Rob:
All right.
Traci:
Awesome.
Rob:
Thanks, Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
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The Overly Human Podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. If you like what you've heard, subscribe and tell your friends to listen. Thanks.
