Hiring People_ Recruit and Keep the Brightest Stars - Kathy Shwiff [21]
If setting high personal standards is a quality that you desire in a candidate, ask her to describe those she currently holds for herself and to rate the job she’s doing in living up to them.
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Outside the Box
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TALENT AND VALUES
When hiring new staff members, former Dial Corporation CEO Herb Baum wanted candidates with strong values and character as well as good credentials. Some of the things he looked for were:
A caring spirit
Creativity
Pride in achievement
Competent performers without good characters will eventually fail, according to Baum. “Substance and a strong character determine sustainability,” he writes.
SOURCE: The Transparent Leader by Herb Baum and Tammy Kling (Collins, 2004).
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One final note: Be careful of trying to find—or of favoring—candidates whose attitudes and personality match your own. You’re not looking for a clone, but rather for someone who will complement you and your workforce.
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Outside the Box
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PROBING QUESTIONS
Experienced interviewers quickly develop a list of favorite questions, ones they feel yield strong, revealing answers. Mark Jaffe, president of Wyatt & Jaffe in Minneapolis, has a particularly shrewd question he likes to ask job candidates, “What are people’s greatest misperceptions about you?” Jaffe finds the answers very enlightening because, as he explains, “What you view as misperceptions are other people’s truths.”
Dennis Spring, president of Spring Associates in New York, asks, “If I were to call your manager, what would he or she say is the one thing that you’re relied on for the most?” Spring recommends the question, since “the answer tells me how she perceives herself in the organization, but not through her own eyes.”
Jim McSherry, managing partner of McSherry & Associates 2 in Westchester, Illinois, asks job candidates, “If I were to talk with the people who know you best, how would they describe you?” McSherry says applicants almost always offer him an honest self-appraisal, which, coincidentally, “summarizes and confirms what I’ve learned about them during the time we’ve been talking.”
SOURCE: “Don’t Be Blindsided by Recruiters’ Questions” by Perri Capell, CareerJournal.com (March 29, 2004).
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Interviewing Entry-Level Candidates
The basic techniques of interviewing are the same no matter what the position. It’s likely, however, that you will spend less time with applicants who are new to the job market—perhaps just half an hour—and that you will spend more time finding out about their personal qualities and character rather than skills and experience. When interviewing college graduates, ask them to tell you about something they’ve done that they’re proud of—such as completing a biking race for charity—or about a recent accomplishment that exceeded their expectations. You will quickly determine whether the applicant is the kind of person who gives 110 percent or the type who merely gets by. In addition, ask about any tasks or projects they’ve completed that required skills comparable to those that they would need on the job.
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CASE FILE
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POSITIVE FOCUS
How do you build a capable army when most of your officers have no actual experience leading troops? World War II Army chief of staff George C. Marshall, who was famous for his ability to get the right people into the right job, found a way. When his aides would challenge him, pointing out a weakness in a candidate, Marshall would always ask, “What is the assignment? To train a division? If he is first-rate as a trainer, put him in. The rest is my job.” Using this tactic—focusing on what a candidate could do rather than on what he couldn’t—Marshall built an army of 13 million men.
SOURCE: The Daily Drucker by Peter Drucker (HarperBusiness, 2004).
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Questions You Can’t Ask
Certain questions are legally off limits during a job interview, and it’s critical to know which ones to stay away from. In general, if a question does not relate directly to the individual’s job history or his or her performance